Angelus a S. Francisco

Angelus a S. Francisco (secular name Richard Mason) (b. in Wiltshire, 1599; d. at Douai, 30 December 1678) was an English (or Irish^[1]) Franciscan writer.

Life

He was ordained priest at Douai four years after his profession in the Franciscan Order (1629). He rapidly became eminent in the order, being created a doctor of divinity and appointed successively to the high administrative offices of definitor, guardian, and visitor of the province of Brabant.

Elected provincial in 1659, he visited Paris in an unsuccessful attempt to obtain permission for the settlement there of a colony of Franciscan sisters from the convent at Nieuport, Flanders to which he had heen confessor. From 1662 to 1675 he lived in England, as domestic chaplain to Henry Arundell, 3rd Baron Arundell of Wardour, after which period he retired to the convent at Douai.

Works

He displayed industry in both original composition and the compilation of devotional manuals. The latter include his "Manuale Tertii Ordinis S. Francisci" with a commentary on the Rule, and meditations (Douai, 1643), "The Rule of Penance of the Seraphical Father St. Francis" (Douai, 1644); "Sacrarium privilegiorum quorundam Seraphico P. S. Francisco ... indultorum" (Douai, 1636).

Among his historical writings are "Certamen Seraphicum Provinciae Angliae pro Sancta Dei Ecclesia" (Douai, 1649), a review of distinguished English Franciscan martyrs and polemical writers, and "Apologia pro Scoto Anglo" (Douai, 1656). The last-named work has for its main scope the establishment, against Colgan, for the thesis that Duns Scotus, was not an Irishman, but an Englishman.

His "Liturgical Discourse of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass" (s. 1, 1670, dedicated to Henry, Lord Arundell of Wardour, "Master of the Horse to our late Queen Mother Henrietta Maria"), was abridged in the "Holy Altar and Sacrifice Explained" which Father Pacificus Baker, O. S. F., published at the request of Bishop James Talbot (London, 1768).

References

• Gillow, Joseph, Bibl. Dict. Eng. Cath.
• Harris, Walter, Ware's Writers of Ireland, 336
• Oliver, George, Collections (London, 1845), 193, 229, 541, 554, 568
• Wadding, Luke, Script. Ord. Minor.

Notes

1. ^ There is some dispute as to the nationality of his extraction: while it is agreed that he was a native of the English county of Wiltshire, a Franciscan MS. record, dated 1721, mentions his having been "for some time dean of a Catholick deanery in Ireland", conveying a suggestion that his family may have been Irish: Gillow (Bibl. Dict. of the English Catholics) thinks that if Mason ever held a deanery in Ireland, it must have been under the Protestant Establishment, in which case Father Angelus, as he was known among his contemporaries, would have to be reckoned among the seventeenth-century converts. The MS. mention his "Catholick deanery", however, was written forty-three years after Mason's death.

References

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed (1913). "Richard Angelus a S. Francisco Mason". Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company. 

Persondata
Name	Angelus a Sancto Francisco
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1599
Place of birth
Date of death	30 December 1678
Place of death