ST. NICHOLAS AND HIS COMPANIONS:

Martyrs at Gorcum, of the first Order

The glorious martyrs of Gorcum (Holland) shed their blood in the defense of the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist, and that of the primacy of the Roman Pontiff.  

These fearless defenders of the Catholic faith were nineteen in number, eleven Friars Minor, one Dominican, two 

Premonstratensians, the parish priest and curate of Gorcum, a parish priest from the neighborhood of Dordrecht, and a priest from Gorcum.  This was in the year 1572.

  The Calvinists were putting a part of the Low Countries to the sword.  After sacking Brielle, they came to besiege Gorcum, which soon surrendered.  Even the citadel fell into their hands.  Here, Fr. Nicholas and his companions had taken refuge.  They were imprisoned in a foul and gloomy prison, and thenceforth they were subjected to a long series of insults, bad treatment and extraordinary cruelty.

During the first night, the fury of the Calvinists was directed above all against Fr. Nicholas, Guardian of the Franciscans. He was hanged by the neck to a beam in the prison.  His ears, forehead, chin, palate, and tongue were burnt with torches.  His companions in captivity thought he was dead, but he had only fainted.  God kept him as a support for his brothers in their trial.  They were promised their liberty, if they would consent to renounce the "authority of the Pope in Rome."  The courageous confessors remained unshaken in their religious convictions.  They were therefore condemned to suffer martyrdom, after long and grievous tortures. 

There was a monastery of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine near Brielle, which the Calvinists had sacked.  Here the valiant disciples of Christ were hanged in succession, on two beams, on July 9, 1572.