Book Review: "Flannery O'Connor's 'Why Do the Heathen Rage?'"

Last Friday I watched the repeat of The World Over on EWTN (the 1/26/2024 episode; about the 41:26 mark) and saw Raymond Arroyo interview Jessica Hooten Wilson discussing this book and her efforts to understand what Flannery O'Connor was trying to write about in what would have been her third novel, Why Do the Heathen Rage?

So after attending Adoration and Mass at the Newman Center (St. Paul's University Parish) at Wichita State University, I went to Eighth Day Books to purchase one of the copies stacked on the table on the first floor. The book is published by Brazos Press of the Baker Publishing Group and the full title is: Flannery O'Connor's Why Do the Heathen Rage? A Behind-the-Scenes Look at a Work in Progress. The publisher provides the Table of Contents on their website: 

Introduction

Why Do the Heathen Rage? The Porch Scene
Koinonia
Sequel to "The Enduring Chill"
Why Do the Heathen Rage? Walter's Last Will and Testament
Why Do the Heathen Rage? Baptism
Why Do the Heathen Rage? Walter/Asbury's Childhood
Why Do the Heathen Rage? Walter Recites the Ten Commandments
Epistolary Blackface
Why Do the Heathen Rage? The Black Double
Maryat Lee and Oona Gibbs
Documenting "Real" Life
Why Do the Heathen Rage? Photo Journal
The Revolting Conversion
Why Do the Heathen Rage? Do Not Come, Oona Gibbs!
Introducing the Girl
Why Do the Heathen Rage? The Girl
Who Is Oona Gibbs? Mother, Daughter, Aunt, Cousin, or Lover
Why Do the Heathen Rage? Walter's Aunt
Burning Crosses
The Violent Bear It Away: The Burnt Cross

Why Do the Heathen Rage? 
One Potential Ending

The Other Half of the Story
Afterword by Steve Prince

So when the content follows the bold type Why Do the Heathen Rage?, that's from the drafts of O'Connor's work, scenes and fragments of the novel she wanted to write. Then Jessica Hooten Wilson (JHW) provides background and offers analysis. In "Why Do the Heathen Rage? One Potential Ending", JHW provides her own version of the main character's conversion, based on a scene from O'Connor's The Violent Bear it Away.

Just a reminder that I have read another of JHW's books, Giving the Devil His Due: Demonic Authority in the Fiction of Flannery O’Connor and Fyodor Dostoevsky, which I reviewed here. She has visited Wichita twice to speak at Eighth Day Institute events, once at the Inklings Festival and once at a Symposium. She is now the Fletcher Jones Endowed Chair at Pepperdine University.

This is a very personal book: there's quite a bit of JHW in the book: her first interest in Flannery O'Connor because she was encouraged to take her as a model for writing fiction as a Christian; her participation in the 2009 International Flannery O'Connor Conference in Rome; her visits to Milledgeville and the Georgia College & State University Special Collections; her familiarity with O'Connor's short stories; her efforts to understand O'Connor's last years and struggle to create this third novel. This is what she works to communicate to the reader. This book might be read as a follow-up to her defense of Flannery O'Connor after Paul Elie not only accused O'Connor of Racism, but even asked “How Racist Was Flannery O’Connor?” in a 2020 New Yorker essay. JHW even repeats her analysis of the short story "Revelation" in that First Things article on pages 172 through 174 in this book. 

The book is sympathetic to O'Connor's struggles and takes care to place her in her historical and cultural context: the post-Gone With the Wind South at the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. I use that historical marker because Margaret Mitchell's sentimental novel and David O. Selznick's even more sentimental movie of the novel (JHW highlights the movie's opening titles: "land of Cavalier and Cotton Fields" . . . "pretty world [where] Gallantry took its last bow" . . . "a Civilization gone with the wind") repulsed O'Connor: she did not want to write another book like that! See pages 157 through 161. Her oeuvre, which I think we should always grant to the writer, is to explore the eternal spiritual truths that infuse temporal, human, and fallen issues and actions.

I think this book succeeds in its purpose: to explore an artist's efforts to try something new (JHW emphasizes that O'Connor wanted to depict a different kind of revelation, of conversion and the change that comes over a person's life because of that conversion, in Why Do the Heathen Rage?) and even the issues of her own milieu and life (including a fatal illness) that hampered those efforts. As I read the book I thought of Arthur Hugh Clough's poem, usually titled "The Struggle":

Say not the struggle nought availeth,

     The labour and the wounds are vain,

The enemy faints not, nor faileth,

     And as things have been they remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;

     It may be, in yon smoke concealed,

Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,

     And, but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking

     Seem here no painful inch to gain,

Far back through creeks and inlets making,

     Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

And not by eastern windows only,

     When daylight comes, comes in the light,

In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,

     But westward, look, the land is bright.

Preview: "Catholics are . . . not papists but Christians" (Cardinal Müller)

On the Crisis Magazine website, I had to stop and read an opinion piece with the word "Papist" in the title. Since the word "Papist" rang my English Reformation bells, I asked Anna Mitchell on the Son Rise Morning Show if she'd like to use our Monday morning segment on January 29 to discuss the Cardinal's use of that word. She said yes, so we'll do it at our usual time, about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Listen live here or catch the podcast later.

The headline for an exclusive Q&A interview with Cardinal Gerhard Müller begins with the quotation "The Catholic Church is not the Pope’s Church and Catholics are therefore not papists but Christians" as an edited pull quote from a longer sentence in the Cardinal's response to the second question ("What has the Church traditionally taught on the limits of papal authority? ")

 . . . The approach to a Catholic ecclesiology is important. In Lumen Gentium, Vatican II did not begin with the Pope because, contrary to what traditional Protestant polemics believed, the Catholic Church is not the Pope’s Church and Catholics are therefore not papists but Christians. Christ is the head of the Church and from Him all divine grace and truth passes to the members of His body, which is the Church. This is also what Vatican II says with the highest authority in the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei verbum (Art. 10). (emphasis added0

Papist is a pejorative term for Catholics: it was commonly used through the long English Reformation and even used when Parliament began passing Acts allowing Catholics more religious freedom (cf ,The Papists Act of 1788,  18 Geo. 3. c. 60). Therefore, I found it interesting that Cardinal Müller used a term so associated in my mind at least with the English Reformation and the long-lasting fear of and prejudice against Catholics in England and her Colonies.

Cardinal Müller is denying that Catholics have ever been Papists. This pejorative term, traditionally used by Protestants against Catholics does not reflect true Catholic identity, according to his answer. We are Christians, not Papists. We should not let others define our identity, based on sixteenth century Protestant tradition handed down through the centuries.

Its first use as a noun in England occurred in 1528 (as in, "He is a Papist") according to Merriam-Webster; as an adjective in 1562 (as in, "He has Papist loyalties"). 

In 1528, William Tyndale had written and published The Obedience of the Christian Man, which advocated Caesorapapism (the monarch's control of the church in his realm) and the Divine Right of Kings. Anne Boleyn persuaded Henry VIII to read the book and he was influenced by it. In 1532, the Convocation of Bishops agreed to the Submission of the Clergy, abdicating their rights to make ecclesiastical laws to the king and Sir Thomas More resigned as Lord Chancellor, because he would be responsible for enforcing the laws Henry VIII made.

The opposition cited by this term by English Protestants was between the English monarch (Henry VIII, Edward VI, Elizabeth I, James I, Charles I, etc., etc.) and the pope at the time (many popes, from Clement VII, to Pope St. Pius V, to Gregory VIII, to Leo XI, to Blessed Innocent XI, etc., etc.): the issue was: what divided loyalty between secular ruler cum supreme governor of the Church of England and the Pope, the Vicar of Christ, could be allowed on either side?

When Pope St. Pius V excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I and took the further step of declaring English Catholics not bound to loyalty to their monarch (in belated support of the Northern Rebellion) in 1570 (Regnans in Excelsis), he merely intensified the conflict. His successor, Pope Gregory XIII tried to dial it back by separating loyalty and obedience to the Papacy and the Catholic Church in religious matters from loyalty to the monarch and country in civil matters. Although Queen Elizabeth stated that she wanted no window into men's souls, she still wanted their total loyalty, body and soul.

The Appellants late in Elizabeth I's reign tried to reach an agreement with the queen on the grounds of those separate loyalties, and James I also tried to craft a compromise, but the conflict of loyalties remained. An emblem of these failures would be the martyrdom of Blessed Robert Drury: he was one of the signers of the loyal address of 31 January 1603 which acknowledged the queen as lawful sovereign on earth, but maintained their loyalty in religious matters to the Pope. After the Gunpowder Plot discovery, James I required the Appellants to sign a new oath which acknowledged his authority over spiritual matters. Robert refused, and was arrested in 1606 for the crime of being a priest. He was offered his freedom if he would sign the oath; he declined. Martyred by being hanged, drawn, and quartered on 26 February 1607 at Tyburn, London England. He--and Blessed Roger Cadwallador, another former Appellant signatory, martyred on  27 August 1610--is one of the Eighty-five Martyrs of England and Wales beatified by Saint Pope John Paul II in 1987.

And a survey of the many martyrs of the long English Reformation shows that it was issue of authority and loyalty between the monarch and the pope at the time that mattered, especially during the early part of Queen Elizabeth's reign, because of Regnans in Excelsis. Nevertheless, most of the missionary priests considered martyrs were found guilty under laws that made it illegal for them to even be present in England, and the laity considered martyrs were found guilty either of assisting the priests, attending Mass, obdurate recusancy (refusal to attend Church of England services), converting to Catholicism, etc. That's why many of the martyrs made statements on the scaffold saying they were loyal to the monarch in all civil martyrs, but followed their consciences to practice the Catholic Faith, especially by celebrating and attending Holy Mass. It is, however, also true that some of these Catholic martyrs upheld the Pope's authority to depose a monarch, although how that would be actionable in sixteenth or seventeenth century England is difficult to see.

We should also note that the Catholic Church would not and has not beatified or canonized any of those priests and laity who were involved in any plot to kidnap, depose, or assassinate a monarch--or blow up Parliament.

Skipping a few centuries, Cardinal Müller also alludes to the Kulturkampf of Chancellor Bismarck in Prussia after the First Vatican Council in 1870:

The German bishops, with the approval of Pope Pius IX, declared to the German Chancellor Bismarck, who wanted to misuse Vatican I to justify the destruction of the Catholic Church in the “Kulturkampf”: “…the infallible magisterium of the Church is bound to the content of Holy Scripture and Tradition as well as to the doctrinal decisions already given by the ecclesiastical magisterium” (Denzinger-Hünermann no. 3116).

And we know that Saint John Henry Newman responded to William E. Gladstone's over-reaction to the doctrine of Papal Infallibility in his Letter to the Duke of Norfolk.
 

The term travelled across the Atlantic Ocean to the British American Colonies, of course, thus a couple of recent books including the term, Papist Patriots: The Making of American Catholic Identity by Maura Jane Farrelly and Papist Devils: Catholics in British America, 1574-1783 by Robert Emmett Curran. The fear of Papal authority influenced politics throughout the 19th century: the Know-Nothing Party, the State-by-State Constitutional Blaine Amendments, etc. 

In 1928, when Al Smith ran for President, he was called a Papist! and we know that in 1960 candidate John F. Kennedy faced, and mollified, to some extent, fears that he would obey the Pope instead of the U.S. Constitution.

It's fascinating to consider how this term "Papist" either as a noun or adjective, has a divisive tradition from the sixteen to the twentieth centuries.

All images public domain:

Top image: William Tyndale

Bottom image: An anti-Catholic cartoon shows Cardinal Francesco Satolli, who was appointed in 1893 as the first Papal Delegate to the United States, casting a shadow (looking a like Pope Leo XIII) across the country.

Preview: "Mass Under Penal Laws" on the SRMS

Since in the USA we are still in the midst of the nationwide Eucharistic Revival, I've chosen the entry for January 27 in Father Henry Sebastian Bowden's Mementoes of the English Martyrs and Confessors for Every Day in the Year for our next segment on the Son Rise Morning Show on Monday, January 22. I'll be on the air at my usual time, about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central with either Matt Swaim or Anna Mitchell. Please listen live here or catch the podcast later here.

From a Letter of a Missionary Priest:

When a priest comes to their houses, they first salute him as a stranger unknown to them, and then they take him to an inner chamber where an oratory is set up, when all fall on their knees and beg his blessing.

Once the priest reminds them that he will have to leave in morning because of the danger of staying longer, the letter continues:

they all prepare for Confession that evening. The next morning, they hear Mass and receive Holy Communion; then after preaching and giving his blessing the second time, the priest departs, conducted by one of the young gentlemen (that is, of the Catholic Association).

Mention of the Catholic Association helps us date this letter (for which I have not found Father Bowden's source) because this group was established by George Gilbert in the early 1580's when the Jesuit mission to England had begun. That group of young Catholic gentleman, according to Father Bowden's entry for George Gilbert, "was solemnly blessed by Pope Gregory XIII, on April 14, 1580. The members promised to imitate the lives of the Apostles, and to devote themselves wholly to the salvation of souls and the conversion of heretics. They were to be content with the necessaries of their state, and to bestow all the rest for the good of the Catholic cause. They supplied the priests with altar requisites, with horses, and various changes of apparel, and disguised themselves as grooms or servants and escorted the priests through the country from house to house."

The letter goes on:

No one is to be found to complain of the length of the services. If the Mass does not last nearly an hour many are discontented.

The Catholic recusant laity were hungry for the Mass, wanting more and more:

If six, eight, or more Masses are said [Mass was not concelebrated; each priest said Mass separately] in the same place, in the same day (as often happens when when there is a meeting priests), the same congregation will assist at all.

Obviously, the members of the congregation would receive Holy Communion at only one of the Masses, but they wanted to participate in the Sacrifice of the Mass as often as they could when they could.

When they can get priests, they confess every week.

These Catholic communities had to work together for their access to the Sacraments and to assure their mutual safety, so

Quarrels are scarcely known amongst them. Disputes are almost always left to the arbitration of the priests.

And they had to be careful with whom they interacted outside of their communities:

They do not willingly intermarry with heretics [that could mean they wouldn't be able to practice their Catholic faith], not will they pray with them [they were Recusants, not attending Anglican services], nor do they like to have any dealings with them [they probably had to, but that could be dangerous because their recusancy was already known].

The letter does not mention it, but the missionary priests also probably baptized babies and officiated at marriages during these visits too. The recusant laity had to take advantage of these rare and dangerous visits.

Thinking of the first audience for Father Bowden's book in 1910, some of the English Catholics--and many of the Irish Catholics in England--had heard tales of their ancestors during the Penal times. This letter would have revived those shared memories and made them grateful for their greater access to the Sacraments. 

In a much milder way, post-COVID lock downs, many of us can appreciate some of that recusant fervor (and some whose TLM opportunities have been repressed can too; I have attended a TLM "house Mass" at least once so far).

Father Bowden selected this verse from Psalm 22 (5): 

Thou hast prepared a table before me against them that afflict me. Thou hast anointed my head with oil; and my chalice which inebreatheth me, how goodly is it.

Image Source (Public Domain): Mass in a Connemara Cabin by Aloysius O'Kelly, 1883 (in Ireland)

Preview: "Disestablishment" on the Son Rise Morning Show

UPDATED because I've lost my voice: On Monday, January 15, I'll use my first segment of the year of Our Lord 2024 on the Son Rise Morning Show to discuss the Disestablishment Bill introduced in the House of Lords late last year. Either Matt Swaim or Anna Mitchell and I will talk about what this Bill proposes and what it means for England at my usual Son Rise Morning Show time on Mondays, about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern. Please listen live here or catch the podcast later here: remember you can also watch the hosts on the Son Rise Morning Show as they interview guests, etc, on Facebook and YouTube…!

According to the website of National Secular Society (NSS) on December 6, 2023:

A bill backed by the National Secular Society to disestablish the Church of England has been introduced in parliament.

The private member's bill, proposed by Liberal Democrat peer Paul Scriven with assistance from the NSS, was presented in the House of Lords today.

The bill makes provision for the separation of church and state by removing the Church of England's established status, abolishing the automatic right of bishops to seats in the Lords and removing the monarch's title "Defender of the Faith and Supreme Governor of the Church of England".

It would also give the Church full independence over its doctrine, liturgy, and clergy, while ecclesiastical law and courts would cease to have any legal jurisdiction. The regulation of notaries would also be transferred from the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Lord Chancellor.

Under the bill, the government would set up a committee to oversee these legal changes.

Please note that notaries in England are lawyers; they are not the same as the kind of notaries we have in the USA.

When I first posted about this news, I looked for any reaction from either the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury or the Catholic Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, but found none--and still don't find any now. The Humanist UK website--announcing their organization's support for the Bill--does cite a 2018 comment by Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury:

In an interview with the Guardian, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has said that disestablishment of the Church of England would not be ‘a disaster’ for the Church, and is ‘a decision for parliament and the people’. He also said that ‘I don’t think [disestablishment] would make it easier [for the Church], and I don’t think it would make it more difficult’.

The bill has a long way to go through its stages of reading, revision, passing back and forth between the Houses of Parliament (Lords and Commons), so perhaps that explains the silence so far now. The last step is Royal Assent by King Charles III. If you wish, you may the read the Bill, as introduced, here and track its progress through Parliament here.

This Religion News Service story ties the timing of the Bill's introduction to the Church of England's recent adoption of "Prayers of Love and Faith" for blessings of "same sex couples", which has provoked division in the worldwide Anglican Communion. For Parliament and the Nation, it suggests, that is too little, too late. It also comments that since the Bill wasn't introduced by the Government it has little chance to pass because there won't much action taken.

Re: the division in the worldwide Anglican Communion: 

The Kigali Commitment of April 21, 2023, was a shot heard around the world. Thirteen hundred Anglican leaders, dominated by bishops and clergy from the Global South, gathered in Kigali, Rwanda, to declare that they no longer recognized the Archbishop of Canterbury as their leader. Representing 85 percent of the Anglican Communion, they pronounced their determination to “reset the Communion on its biblical foundations.”  

So one side, the Archbishop of Canterbury faces, however unlikely, disestablishment, which includes losing his seat in the House of Lords, and on the other, definitely, a vote of no confidence from 85% of the Anglican Communion! What would Henry VIII and Archbishop Cranmer think! (pictured above on the title page of Gilbert Burnet's History of the Reformation of the Church of England.)

The statistics cited by Humanists UK to back the Bill are that:

The recent British Social Attitudes survey demonstrated how unrepresentative our current system is. Only 12% of people consider themselves Anglican. What’s more, 68% of 18-24 years old say they belong to no religion versus 18% saying they are Christian – including only 0.7% saying they are Anglican.

The backers of the Bill claim that England has become a more secular society and having an Established Church doesn't make sense.

I must admit that I view such issues through the eyes of Saint John Henry Newman.  He opposed the re-election of Robert Peel, representative for Oxford in the House of Commons, and Speaker of the House, after the passage of the 1829 Act for Catholic Emancipation. As Wilfred Ward explains in his biography of Newman, Volume 1, Chapter 2:

The occasion for formulating and expressing these views [that "Truths divinely revealed, developed, and explained by men of genius in the past, were preserved by that Church Catholic which was represented in our own country by the Church of England."] was Catholic Emancipation in 1829. Newman had no decided views on the measure itself. But he considered that it was proposed on principles of indifferentism. The Papist was to be tolerated, just as the Socinian was to be tolerated. He regarded it as 'one of the signs of the times,' a sign of the encroachment of philosophism and indifferentism in the Church. When Peel offered himself for re-election, Newman vigorously opposed him, and the opposition was successful. 'We have achieved a glorious victory,' he wrote to his mother on March 1; 'it is the first public event I have been concerned in, and I thank God from my heart both for my cause and its success. We have proved the independence of the Church and of Oxford ... We had the influence of government in unrelenting activity against us and the talent so-called of the University.'

Newman's concern at that time was that the Truth of Revelation be defended in English society and culture and his letters to family, like this one in March of 1829, indicate his ambivalence to the legislation and how it would affect that defense:

I am continuing in fact my letter to my Mother. Well, then, taking the state of parties in the country as it is, I look upon the granting of the Catholic claims not so much in itself as in the principle and sentiments of which it is an indication. It is carried by indifference, and by hostility to the Church. {181} I do not see how this can be denied. Not that it is not a momentous measure in itself; it is certainly an alteration in our Constitution, and, though I am used to think the country has not much to dread from Romanistic opinions (the danger seeming to be on the side of infidelity), yet there is a general impression, which Blanco White's book confirms, that infidelity and Romanism are compatible, or rather connected with each other. Moreover, it is agreed on all hands that the Emancipation will endanger the Irish Protestant Church; some even say it must ultimately fall.

All these things being considered, I am clearly in principle an anti-Catholic; and, if I do not oppose the Emancipation, it is only because I do not think it expedient, perhaps possible, so to do. I do not look for the settlement of difficulties by the measure; they are rather begun by it, and will be settled with the downfall of the Established Church. If, then, I am for Emancipation, it is only that I may take my stand against the foes of the Church on better ground, instead of fighting at a disadvantage.

Newman was already seeing the dangers of the Erastian control of the Church of England in 1829 and of course that would be one of the main themes of the Oxford Movement beginning in 1833, that the Church of England's bishops should be leading, not the Government.

After he had become a [Roman] Catholic and he spoke to "the Religious Movement of 1833" in his 1850 lectures on Anglican Difficulties with Catholic Doctrine, I think Newman had recognized the even greater dangers of that Erastianism to those of his friends who had remained in the Church of England. It was no firm or trustworthy foundation for them to stand upon: In the first lecture "On the Relation of the National Church to the Nation" he warned them:

I have said all this, my brethren, not in declamation, but to bring out clearly to you, why I cannot feel interest of any kind in the National Church, nor put any trust in it at all from its past history, as if it were, in however narrow a sense, a guardian of orthodoxy. It is as little bound by what it said or did formerly, as this morning's newspaper by its former numbers, except as it is bound by the Law; and while it is upheld by the Law, it will not be weakened by the subtraction of individuals, nor fortified by their continuance. Its life is an Act of Parliament. It will not be able to resist the Arian, Sabellian, or Unitarian heresies now, because Bull or Waterland resisted them a century or two before; nor on the other hand would it be unable to resist them, though its more orthodox theologians were presently to leave it. It will be able to resist them while the State gives the word; it would be unable, when the State forbids it. Elizabeth boasted that she "tuned her pulpits;" Charles forbade discussions on predestination; George on the Holy Trinity; Victoria allows differences on Holy Baptism. While the nation wishes an Establishment, it will remain, whatever individuals are for it or against it; and that which determines its existence will determine its voice. Of course {9} the presence or departure of individuals will be one out of various disturbing causes, which may delay or accelerate by a certain number of years a change in its teaching: but, after all, the change itself depends on events broader and deeper than these; it depends on changes in the nation. As the nation changes its political, so may it change its religious views; the causes which carried the Reform Bill and Free Trade may make short work with orthodoxy.

He was warning them that the Erastian Church of England would follow the spirit of the age and the interests of the establishment and that "changes in the nation" would be the source of church teaching, not those "Truths divinely revealed, developed, and explained by men of genius in the past . . ." And he was proved right as we have seen the last century (women priests; women bishops; abortion; contraception, etc). There have been departures in the last century and in this as the Church of England adopted those changes in doctrine and practice, culminating in Pope Benedict XVI's establishment of the Anglican Ordinariate.

Would anything change in the Church of England if this Disestablish Bill became law?

Next week, we'll resume our regular Monday morning segments on Mementoes of the English Martyrs and Confessors by Father Henry Sebastian Bowden, formerly a member of the Church of England before he became a Catholic and an Oratorian priest!

Richelieu's "Treatise on Perfection"

As any reader knows, one book leads not only to another, but to a new appreciation of connections and insights. So when I received an email from TAN Books about a new translation of Cardinal Richelieu's Treatise on Perfection, I immediately thought of Marie de Vignerot, whose biography I'd just read.

Bronwen McShea mentions this book first on page 21, recounting how the then Bishop of Luçon, Armand du Plessis, "labored intensively over a Catholic catechism to ground and fortify the faith of the clergy of Luçon. It would be published in 1621 under the title Instruction du Chretien and reissued in various editions thereafter."

The book is mentioned again on page 175, when McShea (citing a different first date of publication, 1620), describes how "the duchesse secured authorization to republish the work under a new title, Traitte de la Perfection du Chretien par l'Eminentissime Cardinal Duc de Richelieu" in 1646. The gentlemen Vignerot selected updated the spelling and syntax of the original to the current fashion so that readers "encountered, therefore, a deceased Richelieu who was reverent, scholarly, pastoral, even saintly--but not old-fashioned."!

McShea also highlights the frontispiece that Vignerot commissioned by Claude Mellan, which is in the Public Domain.

The TAN Books description:

For many people, the name of Cardinal Richelieu will immediately call to mind the ambitious and cynical villain of Alexander Dumas’s The Three Musketeers and its many cinematic adaptations. But the real Cardinal Armand Jean du Plessis, Duke of Richelieu (1585–1642), was a very different person than this fictional portrayal. A prelate of great sanctity, learning and wisdom, and an ardent devotee of the Mother of God, he lived in a profoundly turbulent era, when all of Europe (including France) was shaken by religious and political unrest. This man of God and servant of the people labored tirelessly to ensure the flourishing of the Catholic Church and the Kingdom of France, both of which he loved dearly.

Cardinal Richelieu, who was a close friend of Pope Urban VIII and a key proponent of the reforms of the Council of Trent, was also an extremely popular spiritual author in his day. His timeless but long-forgotten masterpiece the Treatise on Perfection, presented here in English for the first time, overflows with wise insights and helpful guidance for nourishing a fruitful and sustainable spiritual life, particularly for those who are trying to balance prayer and devotion with complex and demanding secular responsibilities (as he himself did so successfully.) Cardinal Richelieu believed that the humble and diligent fulfillment of one’s proper and legitimate duties in society is the single most important moral responsibility of the Christian, and also often the most effective form of prayer.

This work also outlines the nine tortures of hell according to Saint Augustine, the joys of heaven, distractions at prayer, twenty spiritual counsels, and much more. Here is a book that will stir your heart to love God above everything by cultivating piety, virtue, and moderation in whatever state of life you are called to. Here is a book that pulls wisdom from some of the greatest saints to help you become a saint.

According to the Translator's Introduction, Father Robert Nixon, OSB used primarily the Latin edition, Tractatus de Perfectione Christiani, published in 1651, with occasional reference to the 1646 French edition for clarification and nuance, so Richelieu's niece's efforts to promote his memory endure.

I'm thinking of adding this to my wish-list for the New Year!

A "Merry Christmas" from Saint John Fisher to Thomas Cromwell

I saw this letter cited on a Facebook post and wanted to research it more: On December 22, 1534, the great, deposed bishop of Rochester, John Fisher, wrote to Thomas Cromwell, begging for some clothing, food, and a Confessor. 

He had been in the Tower of London since April that year; Fisher was used to poverty and fasting, but since his serious illness in December of 1533, he had been much weaker. Fisher was arrested on April 26 and would not leave the Tower until his trial on June 17, 1535 in Westminster Hall and again on the day of his execution, June 22 on Tower Hill.

Here is a transcript from the letter, cited on the Tudor Society website from the Letters and Papers, Volume 7, page 583 ('Henry VIII: December 1534, 21-25', in Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 7, 1534, ed. James Gairdner (London, 1883), pp. 582-585. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/letters-papers-hen8/vol7/pp582-585 [accessed 2 January 2024].):

“John [Fisher] Bishop of Rochester to [Cromwell].

Does not wish to displease the King. When last before him and the other commissioners he swore to the part concerning the succession for the reason he then gave, but refused to swear to some other parts, because his conscience would not allow him to do so. “I beseech you to be good master unto me in my necessity, for I have neither shirt nor sheet nor yet other clothes that are necessary for me to wear, but that be ragged and rent too shamefully. Notwithstanding, I might easily suffer that if they would keep my body warm. But my diet also God knows how slender it is at many times. And now in mine age [he was 65 years old] my stomach may not away but with a few kind of meats, which if I want I decay forthwith, and fall into coughs and diseases of my body, and cannot keep myself in health.” His brother provides for him out of his own purse, to his great hindrance. Beseeches him to pity him, and move the King to take him into favor and release him from this cold and painful imprisonment. Desires to have a priest within the Tower to hear his confession “against this holy time;” and some books to stir his devotion more effectually. Wishes him a merry Christmas. At the Tower, 22 Dec.”

The OED (consulting my two volume tiny type edition) lists various meanings of the word merry, often using the word pleasant:

Of things: pleasant, agreeable

Of a place or country: pleasant, delightful in aspect or conditions: Merry England!

Of sound or music: pleasant, sweet

Of weather: pleasant, fine

Of dress: handsome, gay (original meaning!)

Of herbs or medicines: pleasant to taste or smell

Of a saying: amusing, diverting

Of looks: pleasant, agreeable, bright

Of persons: joyous, mirthful: The Merry Monarch (Charles II)

Of times or seasons: characterized by festivity or rejoicing

And in that last use of merry as an adjective, the OED uses the term Merry Christmas! but does not cite Saint John Fisher's letter to Cromwell but a couple of 17th century literary uses. 

The OED does cite Shakespeare's Henry IV, part 2, Act V, scene 3 when Falstaff and company are ready to receive the benefits of Henry V's accession to the throne after Henry IV's death: "And welcome merry Shrovetide." (line 35)! Since in Shrovetide, the period before Lent, Catholics would be both eating up all the meat and fats they could before Lent and going to Confession for the forgiveness of sins, it would be a festive time to rejoice (and a time the Church knew could be abused as at Carnival--Carne, Vale: Meat, Farewell!--when the partying could get out of hand). 

Bishop John Fisher certainly did not have a festive Christmas in the Tower of London, but with his great devotion to Jesus Christ, he rejoiced withal at the Savior's birth.

One more comment on the word merry, because it calls to mind the other English martyr saint in the Tower of London that December, Saint Thomas More and his use of the word "merrily":

He wished the members of the Court and the jury that condemned him that they "may yet hereafter in heaven merrily all meet together to our everlasting salvation" and he wrote his daughter Margaret in his last letter to her: "Farewell my dear child and pray for me, and I shall for you and all your friends that we may merrily meet in heaven."

And so may we all!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!