27 JANUARY

The Pauline rite on this day honours St. Angela Merici, the founder of the Ursuline nuns. In the traditional Roman rite last codified by the Bl. Pope John XXIII this is the feast day of St. John Chrysostom who formed the principal eucharistic liturgy used in the Byzantine rites of the Greek Catholic and Orthodox Churches.

On this day in 1680, the Welsh recusant priest fr. David Kemeys, O.P. died in prison where he had been held for his priesthood. Bowden’s “Mementoes” has this to say about him:

“David Kemeys, Joseph in religion, belonged to the family of Kemeys of Cefn Mabley in Glamorgan. He himself was born in Monmouth, in 1635, and in due course joined the Order of Preachers in Rome. He appears to have ministered in England for twenty years before being accused of treasonable conspiracy by Titus Oates. He was then brought up at the Old Bailey, indicted for that he, being a priest, made and ordained by authority derived from the see of Rome. . . didst traitorously remain and abide . . . at the parish of St Giles n the Moorfields in the county of Middlesex, against the statue . . .. When called to the bar, Father Kemeys was found too ill to plead. He was accordingly remanded to prison, where he died ten days later, on 27 January 1680.”