Friday, May 16, 2014

The Feast of Saint John Nepomuk

May 16th is the feast of St. John Nepomuk, a priest of the Archdiocese of Prague who was martyred in the year 1393. His family name is variously written Wölflein or Welfin, but he is generally called “Nepomuk” or “Nepomucene” after the town where he was born between 1340-1350, about 65 miles to the southwest of Prague. As vicar general of the archdiocese, St. John fell afoul of the king of Bohemia, Wenceslaus IV, on various accounts. One was the appointment of an abbot to a monastery which the king wished to suppress and turn into a bishopric, so that he could appoint a favorite to it. But a much more famous story, though far less well attested, is told that John was the confessor of the queen, Sophia of Bavaria, of whom Wenceslaus, although continually unfaithful himself, was intensely jealous. In the midst of his other conflicts with St. John and with the archbishop of Prague, Wenceslaus demanded that St. John reveal to him the contents of the queen’s sacramental confessions; when John refused, he was tortured, and then killed by being trussed up and thrown off the famous Charles Bridge into the Vltava River. On the night of his death, seven stars were said to be seen hovering over the place where his body lay under the water, until it later washed up on the shore. He was buried in the Cathedral of St Vitus, and is today honored as the Patron Saint of Bohemia. Although his feast was never added to the general Calendar of the Roman Rite, it was kept in a great many places; statues of him may be seen on bridges all over Europe, especially within the lands of the former German and Austrian Empires. The first canonized bishop of a see in the United States, St John Neumann of Philadelphia, was named for him, his middle name being “Nepomucký” in Czech.
The spot on the Charles Bridge from which St. John was thrown; the image of the Saint is worn away from continual touching and kissing. 
The Charles Bridge is named for King Charles IV of Bohemia, who began its construction in 1357. It is justifiably one of the most famous sites in one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, not the least because of the 30 Baroque statues or statue groups on the parapets. Here is the statue of St. John with a halo of seven stars.
The inscription reads “To Saint John Nepomuk, cast off this bridge in the year 1383, Matthias Dewinschwitz raised (this statue) in the year 1683.” It must be granted that many of the details of Saint John’s life and death are debated by scholars, and at the time this statue was erected, the year of his death was noted incorrectly by a margin of 10 years.
The tomb of St John, inside the Cathedral of St Vitus, on the right side of the ambulatory of the main apse.
 


A monument to St. John on the outside of the cathedral.
A detail on the front, showing St. John being cast from the bridge.

More recent articles:


The Third Sunday of Lent 2025
At that time: Jesus was casting out a devil, and the same was dumb: and when he had cast out the devil, the dumb spoke: and the multitudes were in admiration at it: But some of them said: He casteth out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of devils. And others tempting, asked of him a sign from heaven. But he seeing their thoughts, said to them: Every ...

Pictures of Montecassino Abbey
Following up on yesterday’s post of pictures of the crypt of Montecassino Abbey, here are some of the main church and some of the things around it, starting with the most important part of it, the burial site of St Benedict and his sister St Scholastica, behind the high altar.As I am sure our readers know, Montecassino Abbey was heavily bombed duri...

The Prodigal Son in the Liturgy of Lent
In his commentary on the Gospel of St Matthew, St Jerome writes as follows about the parable of the two sons who are ordered by their father to go and work in the vineyard (21, 28-32). “These are the two sons who are described in Luke’s parable, the frugal (or ‘virtuous’) and the immoderate (or ‘wanton’).” He then connects these two sons with the f...

Another Chant for the Byzantine Liturgy of the Presanctified
Now the powers of heaven invisibly worship with us, for behold, the King of Glory entereth! Behold, the mystical sacrifice, being perfected, is carried forth in triumph. With faith and love, let us come forth, that we may become partakers of eternal life, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia! (Recording by the Lviv Archeparchial Clergy Choir.) Нині сили ...

The Crypt of Montecassino Abbey
For the feast of St Benedict, here are some pictures of the crypt of the abbey of Montecassino, the site where he ended his days. The crypt was built in the early 16th century, and originally decorated with frescoes, but by the end of the 19th century, these had deteriorated so badly from the humidity that they were deemed unsalvageable. The decisi...

An Interview with Fr Uwe Michael Lang on Liturgy
I am sure that our readers will enjoy this interview with the liturgical scholar Fr Uwe Michael Lang of the London Oratory, which was recently published on the YouTube channel of the Totus Tuus Apostolate. It covers a wide range of subjects: Pope Benedict’s teaching on the liturgy, the liturgical abuses in the post-Conciliar period and our own time...

Dives and Lazarus in the Liturgy of Lent
Before the early eighth century, the church of Rome kept the Thursdays of Lent (with the obvious exception of Holy Thursday) and the Saturdays after Ash Wednesday and Passion Sunday as “aliturgical” days. (The term aliturgical refers, of course, only to the Eucharistic liturgy, not to the Divine Office.) This is attested in the oldest liturgical bo...

The Feast of St Joseph 2025
Truly it is worthy and just... eternal God: Who didst exalt Thy most blessed Confessor Joseph with such great merits of his virtues, that by the wondrous gift of Thy grace, he merited to be made the Spouse of the most holy Virgin Mary, and be thought the father of Thy only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Wherefore, venerating the day of his b...

Why Should We Build Beautiful Confessionals?
Confession is a sacrament in which we confess dark deeds, shameful sins, cowardly compromises, repeated rifts. It is something we often wish more to be done with than to do; we know we must go, that it is “good for us” as a visit to the dentist’s or the doctor’s is good for us. It might seem as if the place where we fess up, red-handed, and receive...

Both the Chaos of Jackson Pollock and the Sterility of Photorealism are Incompatible with Christianity
Unveiling the middle ground where faith, philosophy, and beauty all meet in the person of Christ, image of the invisible God.Authentic Christian art strikes a balance between abstraction and realism, rejecting the extremes of Abstract Expressionism—where meaning dissolves into unrecognizable chaos—and Photorealism, which reduces reality to soulless...

For more articles, see the NLM archives: