St. Nicholas Owen

St. Nicholas Owen (d.1606) was born in England, the son of an Oxford carpenter. He became a carpenter himself, and joined the Jesuits as a lay brother during the era when Catholicism was outlawed in England. After serving jail time for defending the martyred St. Edmund Campion, Nicholas began working for and traveling with the Jesuits, staying in Catholic houses where he made repairs during the day and secretly constructed well-disguised 'priest-holes', or hiding places for hunted priests, during the night. He was so skilled at his craft that his priest holes saved hundreds of lives over his 20 years of work. While on a trip to London with a Jesuit priest they were betrayed by a household servant, captured, and tortured. After Nicholas' release he masterminded the priest's escape from the Tower of London. Years later, after the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, Nicholas was again a wanted man. He hid along with a priest in one of his priest holes, and although 100 men searched for them diligently, they were not discovered. After eight days of hiding without food, Nicholas left the hole disguised as a priest in order to protect the real priest who was still concealed. The ruse failed, and Nicholas was captured and tortured on the rack in the Tower of London. Day after day he refused to give up any information about the underground Catholic Church in England. He finally died a martyr after his entrails burst open. St. Nicholas Owen is one of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales. His feast day is March 22.