Saint Who?
Saints Who Were Poets
Blessed Nicholas Postgate
Priest and martyr († 1679)Feast: August 7
Nicholas Postgate (sometimes Posket or Poskitt) was the child of staunch English Catholics during the English Reformation. He was born in Yorkshire, and in his mid-twenties went to the Catholic English College in Douai, France. Ordained a priest in 1628, he returned to England as a missionary two years later.
He settled on the Yorkshire Moors, where he lived simply, to all appearances a simple gardener who cultivated daffodils with special care. As the poet Thomas Ward described him: “Sweet his behavior, grave his speech,/ He did by good example teach/ His love right bent, his will resigned/ Serene his look and calm his mind;/ His sanctity to that degree/ As angels live, so lived he.”
Using a secret code—laundry spread in hedges to dry—Father Postgate brought the Mass and sacraments to the Catholics of his region for fifty years. Then someone betrayed the octogenarian priest for the sum of twenty pounds. Postgate maintained his serenity, only breaking down once, when one of his flock testified against him. Yet he forgave and blessed the woman, who almost immediately came to beg his pardon. It is said he sang hymns of his own composition while in prison. He was martyred in 1679. For two hundred years after his death, “Father Postgate’s Hymn” was sung at funerals in the Yorkshire moors.
Beloved Father, through the prayers of your servant Nicholas Postgate, grant that I may persevere
in forgiveness and simplicity of heart.
