"My Name is Lazarus": Chesterton's Converts

I haven't been blogging much this month, since late March and early to mid-April (and April is almost gone) was first taken up by Holy Week and Easter and the Octave, and then by two deaths in my circle of friends, one after hospitalization, surgery, another surgery and then hospice, and the other killed by a hit-and-run driver while walking, preparing for the Kansas Camino from Wichita to Pilsen, Kansas.

The latter death, of Laurie Robinson, the founder of our local "Greater Wichita" local Chesterton Society, led me back to this book, which I've dipped into before:

34 stories of converts whose path to Rome was paved by G.K. Chesterton. Edited with an introduction by Dale Ahlquist.

Jewish converts, Muslim converts, former atheists, agnostics, and Protestants of all stripes. Drawn to Chesterton for utterly different reasons. All arriving at the same destination.

A book of curiosity and confrontation and consolation.

Contributors include Bishop James Conley, Fr. Dwight Longenecker, Peter Kreeft, Joseph Pearce, Leah Libresco, Kevin O’Brien, Brandon Vogt, Emma Fox Wilson, Carl Olson, Victoria Darkey, Matt Swaim, David Fagerberg and others. An utterly engaging collection of conversion stories. Includes a fascinating “new” account of Chesterton’s own conversion in his own words.

The book features this poem by Chesterton, written after he had been received into the Catholic Church:

The Convert

After one moment when I bowed my head
And the whole world turned over and came upright,
And I came out where the old road shone white.
I walked the ways and heard what all men said,
Forests of tongues, like autumn leaves unshed,
Being not unlovable but strange and light;
Old riddles and new creeds, not in despite
But softly, as men smile about the dead.

The sages have a hundred maps to give
That trace their crawling cosmos like a tree,
They rattle reason out through many a sieve
That stores the sand and lets the gold go free:
And all these things are less than dust to me
Because my name is Lazarus and I live.

The painting from which the cover detail is taken (Public Domain): 

The Raising of Lazarus by Leon Bonnat (1857)

Many of the essays demonstrate how reading Orthodoxy, The Everlasting Man, The Catholic Church and Conversion, etc., influenced the writers' journeys into the Catholic Church. 

Laurie's essay is different, because she describes how re-reading Chesterton's The Everlasting Man, after she had been received into the Catholic Church after growing up and working for years in the Mennonite community--and particularly as a journalist for Mennonite publications--helped her resist some of the pressures she was facing. His words, read while recovering from the flu, were a weekend Mystagogy for her.

She organized our Chesterton group, which meets at Eighth Day Books the second Friday every month, nearly 12 years ago, composing this prayer for the beginning of our gatherings:

Heavenly Father,

We thank you for all your good gifts. We ask you to guide us in this conversation; illuminate our minds and hearts with eternal truth as it was expressed through the pen of G.K. Chesterton. 

Grant us the grace to bring glory and honor to you all that we say and do.

We ask this through Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

We are reading Chesterton's The Everlasting Man currently and our next meeting will be on Friday, May 10. When we met on the Friday after her death on the Solemnity of the Annunciation (transferred to April 8 because of Holy Week and the Easter Octave), we read her chapter from My Name is Lazarus, paid tribute to her influences on many of us, and prayed for the repose of her soul and her family's consolation, and our own.

Eternal rest grant unto to her, O Lord, and may Laurie's soul, and the souls of all the Faithful departed, rest in peace. May Laurie rest in peace. Amen.

Preview: Another Newman Easter Season Sermon, "The Eucharistic Presence"

On Monday, April 29, the penultimate day of the month, we'll continue our Newman Easter Sermon series on the Son Rise Morning Show with "The Eucharistic Presence" sermon 11 in volume 6 of the Parochial and Plain Sermons ("This is the Bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die." John 6:50.) 

So I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show at my usual time, about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern on Monday, April 29. Please listen live here and/or catch the podcast later (and sometimes the show does repeat these segments later in the week during the first national hour).

Saint John Henry Newman, then an Anglican minister, preached this sermon on May 13, 1838, according to the chronology "given at the end of Longmans' Sermons on Subjects of the Day (pp. 411-424)". It is definitely an Anglican sermon as Newman is careful to distinguish between the Eucharistic doctrines of the Church of England and what he calls "one very large portion of Christendom" (the Catholic Church)--but more about that later!

In this Season of Easter, when those who entered the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil, receiving the Sacraments of Initiation (Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Communion) and Second Graders have received their First Holy Communion, this seems an appropriate Newman Sermon to consider, even though he did not believe at that time what those new Catholics and Second Graders do about Holy Communion.

He begins with calling the Lenten and Easter Seasons the "Sacramental Season" and particularly the season in which Anglicans receive Holy Communion, according to the rites of the Book of Common Prayer:

THE quarter of the year from Ash-Wednesday to Trinity Sunday may fittingly be called the Sacramental Season, as the Season preceding it is the Season of grace; and as we are specially called in the Christmas Season to sincerity of purpose, so now we are called to faith. God does good to those who are good and true of heart; and He reveals His mysteries to the believing. The earnest heart is the good ground in which faith takes root, and the truths of the Gospel are like the dew, the sunshine, and the soft rain, which make that heavenly seed to grow.

And in this sermon Newman does refer to Holy Communion as an Anglican sacrament:

The text speaks of the greatest and highest of all the Sacramental mysteries, which faith has been vouchsafed, that of Holy Communion. Christ, who died and rose again for us, is in it spiritually present, in the fulness of His death and of His resurrection. We call His presence in this Holy Sacrament a {137} spiritual presence, not as if "spiritual" were but a name or mode of speech, and He were really absent, but by way of expressing that He who is present there can neither be seen nor heard; that He cannot be approached or ascertained by any of the senses; that He is not present in place, that He is not present carnally, though He is really present. And how this is, of course is a mystery. All that we know or need know is that He is given to us, and that in the Sacrament of Holy Communion.

Just a little background, via this article from Adoremus by Father Michael Ewe Lang:

The early Tractarians (the members of the Oxford Movement were known for the publication of their Tracts for the Times) advocated a full application of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, especially the daily services of Matins and Evensong, which had fallen out of use, and a more frequent celebration of Communion. . . . On June 30, 1834, Newman began with the daily service of Matins in St. Mary the Virgin, and from 1836 he ensured that Evensong was celebrated every day in his newly built church in Littlemore. After some consideration, Newman instituted an early Sunday morning Communion service in the University church at Easter 1837.[4]

Newman was careful to follow the rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer to the letter, since any alteration of the established customs would have added fuel to the controversy about the Oxford Movement, which was seen as “Romanizing.” . . .

Also, please note that according to the 1662 version of the Book of Common Prayer, those who wished to receive Holy Communion at the Sunday service notified the Curate of the parish in advance so that there was time to determine if there was any reason the communicant should NOT present herself to receive the Sacrament to avoid "grave and immediate scandal"!

After his introduction of the text for his sermon, Newman addresses how the Gospel of St. John, in chapter 6 and elsewhere, supplements the narratives of the Lord's Supper and other Sacraments in the Synoptic Gospels with a doctrinal explanation:

Now, with reference to the text and the chapter from which it is taken, I begin by observing, what at first sight one would think no one could doubt, that this chapter of St. John does treat of the Lord's Supper, and is, in fact, a comment upon the account of it, given by the other three Evangelists. We know it is St. John's way to supply what his brethren omit, and that especially in matters of doctrine; and in like manner to omit what they record. Hence, while all three give an account of the institution of Holy Communion at the last Supper, St. John omits it; and, because they omit to enlarge upon the great gift contained in it, he enters upon it. . . .

So in what we now usually call "the Bread of Life discourse", Newman tells his listeners/readers that

The bearing, then, of our Lord's sacred words would seem to be as follows, if one may venture to investigate it. At Capernaum, in the chapter now before us, He solemnly declares to His Apostles that none shall live for ever, but such as eat and drink His flesh and blood; and then afterwards. just before He was crucified, as related in the other three Gospels, He points out to them the way in which this mystery of grace was to be fulfilled in them. He assigns the consecrated Bread as that Body of which He had spoken, and the consecrated Wine as His Blood; and in partaking of the Bread and the Cup, they were partakers of His Body and Blood. . . .

When, then, Christ used the words of the text and of {140} other parts of the chapter containing it, He was describing prospectively that gift, which, in due season, the consecrated bread and wine were to convey to His Church for ever. Speaking with reference to what was to be, He says, "I am that Bread of Life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the Bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die. I am the Living Bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this Bread he shall live for ever: and the Bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."

And then Newman goes on to explicate the connections among the Manna of the Holy Testament, the miracle of loaves and fishes Jesus had just performed before the crowds followed Him to get more, the meaning of the words in the Discourse, the Institution of the Eucharist, and even the words and rubrics of the Anglican Prayer of Consecration. 

His effort throughout is to demonstrate that Jesus was not speaking figuratively or metaphorically about His Body and His Blood in chapter six of the Gospel of John but that the Institution of the Holy Eucharist the night before He died described in the Synoptic Gospels was the fulfillment of that earlier message: He gave the Church the means of consecrating and receiving His Body and His Blood.

There's just too much detail for us to consider in the time we have at the end of the hour to review it all! You may certainly read it all here.

Of course, Newman's conclusion is important, since it prescribes the congregation's response to these mysteries. Note especially the connection Newman makes between the doctrine of the Incarnation and the Sacrament of Holy Communion:

Such reflections as the foregoing lead us to this conclusion,—to understand that it is our duty to make much of Christ's miracles of love; and instead of denying or feeling cold towards them, to desire to possess our hearts with them. . . . Let us feel interest and awful expectation at the news of them; let us put ourselves in the way of them; let us wait upon God day by day for the treasures of grace, which are hid in Christ, which are great beyond words or thought.

Above all, let us pray Him to draw us to Him, and to give us faith. When we feel that His mysteries are too severe for us, and occasion us to doubt, let us earnestly wait on Him for the gift of humility and love. Those who love and who are humble will apprehend them;—carnal minds do not seek them, and proud minds are offended at them;—but while love desires them, humility sustains them. Let us pray Him then to give us such a real and living insight into the blessed doctrine of the Incarnation of the Son of God, of His birth of a Virgin, His atoning death, and resurrection, that we may desire that the Holy Communion may be the effectual type of that gracious Economy. No one realizes the Mystery of the Incarnation but must feel disposed towards that of Holy Communion. Let us pray Him to give us an earnest longing after Him—a thirst for His presence—an anxiety to find Him—a joy on hearing that He is to be found, even now, under the veil of sensible things,—and a good hope that we shall find Him there. Blessed indeed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed. They have their reward in believing; they enjoy the contemplation of a mysterious blessing, which does not even enter into the thoughts {152} of other men; and while they are more blessed than others, in the gift vouchsafed to them, they have the additional privilege of knowing that they are vouchsafed it.

Now, about his comments in this sermon re: the [Roman] Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation. This is what he says in 1838:

Nothing can show more clearly how high the blessing is, than to observe that the Church's tendency has been, not to detract from its marvellousness, but to increase it. The Church has never thought little of the gift; so far from it, we know that one very large portion of Christendom holds more than we hold. That belief, which goes beyond ours, shows how great the gift is really. I allude to the doctrine of what is called Transubstantiation, which we do not admit; or that the bread and wine cease to be, and that Christ's sacred Body and Blood are directly seen, touched, and handled, under the appearances of Bread and Wine. This our Church considers there is no ground for saying, and our Lord's own words contain marvel enough, even without adding any thing to them by way of explanation. Let us, then, now consider them in themselves, apart from additions which came afterwards.

But if you turn to his Apologia pro Vita Sua from 1864, you'll read in the last chapter, "The Position of my Mind since 1845", Newman writes of the doctrine of Transubstantiation:

People say that the doctrine of Transubstantiation is difficult to believe; I did not believe the doctrine till I was a Catholic. I had no difficulty in believing it, as soon as I believed that the Catholic Roman Church was the oracle of God, and that she had declared this doctrine to be part of the original revelation. It is difficult, impossible, to imagine, I grant;—but how is it difficult to believe? Yet Macaulay thought it so difficult to believe, that he had need of a believer in it of talents as eminent as Sir Thomas More, before he could bring himself to conceive that the Catholics of an enlightened age could resist "the overwhelming force of the argument against it." "Sir Thomas More," he says, "is one of the choice specimens of wisdom and virtue; and the doctrine of transubstantiation is a kind of proof charge. A faith which stands that test, will stand any test." But for myself, I cannot indeed prove it, I cannot tell how it is; but I say, "Why should it not be? What's to hinder it? 

He compares faithful acceptance of the doctrine of Transubstantiation to faithful acceptance of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, One God in Three Persons:

 And, in like manner, of that majestic Article of the Anglican as well as of the Catholic Creed,—the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity. What do I know of the Essence of the Divine Being? I know that my abstract idea of three is simply incompatible with my idea of one; but when I come to the question of concrete fact, I have no means of proving that there is not a sense in which one and three can equally be predicated of the Incommunicable God.

Please note that the date at the bottom of this chapter is on the Feast of Corpus Christi, May 26, 1864.

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Image Source (Public Domain): 16th-century painting of the Lord's/Last Supper by Juan de Juanes

Image Source (Public Domain): The Disputation of the Holy Sacrament (Raphael 1509–1510) depicts theologians debating Transubstantiation, including four Doctors of the Church, with Pope Gregory I and Jerome seated to the left of the altar and Augustine and Ambrose to the right, Pope Julius II, Pope Sixtus IV, Savonarola and Dante Alighieri.

Preview: "Witnesses of the Resurrection" on the Son Rise Morning Show

Continuing our Easter Season series on the Son Rise Morning Show, we'll discuss another Parochial and Plain Sermon by Saint John Henry Newman in which he answers the same question we looked at last week ("WHY did Christ show Himself to so few witnesses after He rose from the dead?") or a variation thereof: "Why did not our Saviour show Himself after His resurrection to all the people? why only to witnesses chosen before of God?" and provides another answer.

So I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show at my usual time, about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern on Monday, April 22. 

Please listen live here and/or catch the podcast later, as we highlight some insights from "Witnesses of the Resurrection" ("Him God raised up the third day, and showed Him openly; not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us who did eat and drink with Him after He rose from the dead." Acts 10:40-41)

To outline the highlights of Newman's argument in this sermon:

1. Jesus knew what He was doing after the Resurrection when He limited His Resurrection appearances to His followers, not appearing in Glory to the crowds or the Pharisees and those who had orchestrated His Crucifixion. They might have been amazed by His re-appearance, but it would not have persuaded them to believe and follow.

2. Jesus prepared those whom He had chosen to witness to His Passion and Resurrection so they'd be ready to spread the Gospel. Their witness, even to martyrdom, "spread the knowledge of Christ's resurrection over the idolatrous world" in a way that no "public exhibition of His resurrection" would have achieved, deeply and lastingly.

3. We need to recognize the wisdom of these events and apply them to our own response to His Resurrection: like the few He instructed before His Ascension, we need to hand on the Faith by our witness and example. We should never grow despondent if we perceive "the prevalence of error" around us, as the history of the Church demonstrates: "It is the consolation of the despised Truth, that its works endure. Its words {292} are few, but they live."

There's good reasons for Newman to explore this topic further, because this a mystery: not one to be solved but one to meditate upon. Before he poses the question, Newman suggests that we might have some mistaken ideas about the Resurrection of Our Lord:

IT might have been expected, that, on our Saviour's rising again from the dead, He would have shown Himself to very great numbers of people, and especially to those who crucified Him; whereas we know from the history, that, far from this being the case, He showed Himself only to chosen witnesses, chiefly His immediate followers; and St. Peter avows this in the text. This seems at first sight strange. We are apt to fancy the resurrection of Christ as some striking visible display of His glory, such as God vouchsafed from time to time to the Israelites in Moses' day; and considering it in the light of a public triumph, we are led to imagine the confusion and terror which would have overwhelmed His murderers, had He presented Himself alive before them. Now, thus to reason, is to conceive Christ's kingdom of this world, which it is not; and to suppose that then Christ came to judge the world, whereas that judgment will not be till the last day, when in very deed those wicked men shall "look on Him whom they have pierced."

But even without insisting upon the spiritual nature of Christ's kingdom, which seems to be the direct reason why Christ did not show Himself to all the Jews after His resurrection, other distinct reasons may be given, instructive too. And one of these I will now set before you.

As St. Thomas Aquinas states in the Third Part of the Summa Theologicae, (paraphrasing of course): if God did it this way, it must be the way it should have been done! Newman concurs: 

After His resurrection, He said to His disciples, "Go, convert all nations:" [Matthew 28:19] this was His especial charge. If, then, there are grounds for thinking that, by showing Himself to a few rather than to many, He was more surely advancing this great object, the propagation of the Gospel, this is a sufficient reason for our Lord's having so ordained; and let us thankfully receive His dispensation, as He has given it.

Newman supports this argument by saying that if we think Jesus appearing to the crowds, to the Sanhedrin, and the Pharisees would have persuaded them He was the Savior promised by God and predicted by the prophets, we've forgotten their reactions to the miracles and signs He worked during His public ministry:

His former miracles had not effectually moved the body of the people; and, doubtless, this miracle too would have left them as it found them, or worse than before. They might have been more startled at the time; but why should this amazement last? . . . In truth, this is the way of the mass of mankind in all ages, to be influenced by sudden fears, sudden contrition, sudden earnestness, sudden resolves, which disappear as suddenly. Nothing is done effectually through untrained human nature; and such is ever the condition of the multitude. Unstable as water, it cannot excel. One day it cried Hosanna; the next, Crucify Him. And, had our Lord appeared to them after they had crucified Him, of course they would have shouted Hosanna once more; and when He had ascended out of sight, then again they would have persecuted His followers. . . .

Surely so it would have been; the chief priests would not have been moved at all; and the populace, however they had been moved at the time, would not have been lastingly moved, not practically moved, not so moved as to proclaim to the world what they had heard and seen, as to preach the Gospel. This is the point to be kept in view: and consider that the very reason why Christ showed Himself at all was in order to raise up witnesses {286} to His resurrection, ministers of His word, founders of His Church; and how in the nature of things could a populace ever become such?

Newman then concentrates our attention on what Jesus did after His Resurrection and its effects on the world:

It would seem, then, that our Lord gave His attention to a few, because, if the few be gained, the many will follow. To these few He showed Himself again and again. These He restored, comforted, warned, inspired. He formed them unto Himself, that they might show forth His praise. This His gracious procedure is opened to us in the first words of the Book of the Acts. "To the Apostles whom He had chosen He showed Himself alive after His passion by many infallible proofs; being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God." . . .

I have already suggested, what is too obvious almost to insist upon, that in making a select few the ministers of His mercy to mankind at large, our Lord was but acting according to the general course of His providence. It is plain every great change is effected by the few, not by the many; by the resolute, undaunted, {288} zealous few. . . . One or two men, of small outward pretensions, but with their hearts in their work, these do great things. These are prepared, not by sudden excitement, or by vague general belief in the truth of their cause, but by deeply impressed, often repeated instruction; and since it stands to reason that it is easier to teach a few than a great number, it is plain such men always will be few. Such as these spread the knowledge of Christ's resurrection over the idolatrous world. Well they answered the teaching of their Lord and Master. Their success sufficiently approves to us His wisdom in showing Himself to them, not to all the people.

Then, as ever, Newman applies these lessons to us, emphasizing the tradition of the few handing on to the few, who become many:

Now, let us observe how much matter, both for warning and comfort, is supplied by this view. We learn from the picture of the infant Church what that Church has been ever since, that is, as far as man can understand it. Many are called, few are chosen. . . .

We, too, though we are not witnesses of Christ's actual resurrection, are so spiritually. By a heart awake from the dead, and by affections set on heaven, we can as truly and without figure witness that Christ liveth, as they did. He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself. Truth bears witness by itself to its Divine Author. He who obeys God conscientiously, and lives holily, forces all about him to {293} believe and tremble before the unseen power of Christ. To the world indeed at large he witnesses not; for few can see him near enough to be moved by his manner of living. But to his neighbours he manifests the Truth in proportion to their knowledge of him; and some of them, through God's blessing, catch the holy flame, cherish it, and in their turn transmit it. And thus in a dark world Truth still makes way in spite of the darkness, passing from hand to hand.

And he concludes with the witness of the martyrs, citing Saint Ignatius of Antioch:

Let these be our thoughts whenever the prevalence of error leads us to despond. When St. Peter's disciple, Ignatius, was brought before the Roman emperor, he called himself Theophorus; and when the emperor asked the feeble old man why he so called himself, Ignatius said it was because he carried Christ in his breast. He witnessed there was but One God, who made heaven, earth, and sea, and all that is in them, and One Lord Jesus Christ, His Only-begotten Son, "whose kingdom {294} (he added) be my portion!" The emperor asked, "His kingdom, say you, who was crucified under Pilate?" "His (answered the Saint) who crucified my sin in me, and who has put all the fraud and malice of Satan under the feet of those who carry Him in their hearts: as it is written, 'I dwell in them and walk in them.'"

Ignatius was one against many, as St. Peter had been before him; and was put to death as the Apostle had been;—but he handed on the Truth, in his day. At length we have received it. Weak though we be, and solitary, God forbid we should not in our turn hand it on; glorifying Him by our lives, and in all our words and works witnessing Christ's passion, death, and resurrection!

As usual, Newman has designed an argument that leads his audience into thoughtful consideration of the Scriptures and, indeed, Church Tradition, as Jesus taught the Apostles more about all He had taught them before His Passion and Resurrection and prepared them for spreading the Gospel. Newman involves us in his exploration of God's Providence in not appearing to the many but to the few, so he may convince us to be among those few today who hand on and witness to the faith of the Early Church, the Church of the Apostles and their successors!

Saint Peter the Apostle, pray for us!

Saint Ignatius of Antioch, pray for us!

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Image Credit: (Public Domain) James Tissot: Meal of Our Lord and the Apostles

Image Credit: (Public Domain) James Tissot: Feed My Lambs

Image Credit: (Public Domain) An icon of Ignatius of Antioch from the Menologion of Basil II (c. 1000 AD)

Preview: "Christian Reverence" on the Son Rise Morning Show

I'll start a new series with the Son Rise Morning Show Monday, April 15 (Tax Day!) with one of Saint John Henry Newman's Parochial and Plain Sermons, "Christian Reverence" ("Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling." Psalm 2:11.)

I'll be on at my usual time, about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Listen live here or catch the podcast later.

Newman begins this sermon with a question:

WHY did Christ show Himself to so few witnesses after He rose from the dead? 

And then provides the answer:

Because He was a King . . . Kings do not court the multitude, or show themselves as a spectacle at the will of others. They are the rulers of their people, and have their state as such, and are reverently waited on by their great men: and when they show themselves, they do so out of their condescension. They act by means of their servants, and must be sought by those who would gain favours from them.

Newman then continues to show that Jesus conducted Himself in the same way before His Passion and Resurrection: 

. . . even before He entered into His glory, Christ spoke and acted as a King. . . . When He taught, warned, pitied, prayed for, His ignorant hearers, He never allowed them to relax their reverence or to overlook His condescension. Nay, He did not allow them to praise Him aloud, and publish His acts of grace; as if what is called popularity would be a dishonour to His holy name, and the applause of men would imply their right to censure. The world's praise is akin to contempt. Our Lord delights in the tribute of the secret heart. Such was His conduct in the days of His flesh. Does it not interpret His dealings with us after His resurrection? He who was so reserved in His communications of Himself, even when He came to minister, much more would withdraw Himself from the eyes of men when He was exalted over all things.

As he notes, no humans saw Jesus rise from the tomb: the Angels did, but not even the soldiers set to guard the tomb, who were asleep. The Risen Christ chooses to whom and when He will appear, and Newman catalogs those appearances:

First of all, He appeared to Mary Magdalene in the garden itself where He had been buried; then to the other women who ministered unto Him; then to the two disciples travelling to Emmaus; then to all the Apostles separately; besides, to Peter and to James; and to Thomas in the presence of them all. Yet not even these, His friends, had free access to Him. He said to Mary, "Touch Me not." He came and left them according to His own pleasure. When they saw Him, they felt an awe which they had not felt during His ministry. While they doubted if it were He, "None of them," St. John says, "durst ask Him, Who art Thou? believing that it was the Lord." [John xxi. 12.] However, as kings have their days of state, on which they show themselves publicly to their subjects, so our Lord appointed a meeting of His disciples, when they might see Him. He had determined this even before His crucifixion; and the Angels reminded them of it. "He goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see Him, as He said unto you." [Mark xvi. 7.] The place of meeting was a mountain; the same (it is supposed) as that on which He had been transfigured; and the number who saw Him there was five hundred at once, if we join St. Paul's account to that in the Gospels. At length, after forty days, He was taken from them; He ascended up, "and a cloud received Him out of their sight."

Then Newman turns to his congregation and applies these reactions of the Apostles to them (us):

Are we to feel less humble veneration for Him now, than His Apostles then? Though He is our Savior, and has removed all slavish fear of death and judgment, are we, therefore, to make light of the prospect before us, as if we were sure of that reward which He bids us struggle for? Assuredly, we are still to "serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with reverence,"—to "kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and so we perish from the right way, if His wrath be kindled, yea but a little." In a Christian's course, fear and love must go together. And this is the lesson to be deduced from our Saviour's withdrawing from the world after His resurrection. He showed His love for men by dying for them, and rising again. He maintained His honour and great glory by retiring from them when His merciful purpose was attained, that they might seek Him if they would find Him. He ascended to His Father out of our sight. Sinners would be ill company for the exalted King of Saints. When we have been duly prepared to see Him, we shall be given to approach Him.

In heaven, love will absorb fear; but in this world, fear and love must go together. No one can love God aright without fearing Him; though many fear Him, and yet do not love Him. . . .

Now how does this apply to us here assembled? Are we in danger of speaking or thinking of Christ irreverently?

Even if we are not, Newman warns us not to even to seem to speak or think of Christ without that fear and love of reverence, lest we "allow ourselves to appear profane" and then actually become irreverent "while we are pretending to be so" out of fear of appearing weak to others. (Men do not begin by intending to dishonour God; but they are afraid of the ridicule of others: they are ashamed of appearing religious; and thus are led to pretend that they are worse than they really are. They say things which they do not mean; and, by a miserable weakness, allow actions and habits to be imputed to them which they dare not really indulge in. Hence, they affect a liberty of speech which only befits the companions of evil spirits.)

He warns that such careless language will affect our hearts and our thoughts eventually, so we must not start down that path to becoming "cold, indifferent, [and] profane".

And what do we do if we encounter those, who may be baptized Christian, who did start down that path and now  "are in heart infidels" and "may attempt to disguise their own unbelief under pretence of objecting to one or other of the doctrines or ordinances of religion" and finally "should a time of temptation come, when it would be safe to show themselves as they really are, they will (almost unawares) throw off their profession of Christianity, and join themselves to the scoffing world"?

Newman warns us to tread lightly, since we are sinners too:

We must not take advantage (so to say) of His goodness; or misuse the powers committed to us. Never must we solicitously press the truth upon those who do not profit by what they already possess. It dishonours Christ, while it does the scorner harm, not good. It is casting pearls before swine. We must wait for all opportunities of being useful to men, but beware of attempting too much at once. We must impart the Scripture doctrines, in measure and season, as they can bear them; not being eager to recount them all, rather, hiding them from the world. Seldom must we engage in controversy or dispute; for it lowers the sacred truths to make them a subject for ordinary debate. Common propriety suggests rules like these at once. Who would speak freely about some revered friend in the presence of those who did not value him? or who would think he could with a few words overcome their indifference towards him? or who would hastily dispute about him when his hearers had no desire to be made love him?

Rather, shunning all intemperate words, let us show our light before men by our works. Here we must be safe. In doing justice, showing mercy, speaking the truth, resisting sin, obeying the Church,—in thus glorifying God, there can be no irreverence. And, above all, let us look at home, check all bad thoughts, presumptuous imaginings, vain desires, discontented murmurings, self-complacent reflections, and so in our hearts ever honour Him in secret, whom we reverence by open profession.

May God guide us in a dangerous world; and deliver us from evil. And may He rouse to serious thought, by the power of His Spirit, all who are living in profaneness or unconcern!

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Constantinople in April, 1182: The Massacre of the Latins

I received this book as premium for a charitable contribution I made. It's from Catholic Answers and in both the subtitle and the book description, there's a defiant tone:

What if there’s a better Christian religion than Catholicism? One that has true apostolic doctrines, a more beautiful and ancient liturgy, and freedom from all that “pope” baggage—and valid sacraments, too.

That’s what apologists for Eastern Orthodoxy are selling. In a time of uncertainty and confusion for many Catholics, Orthodox challenges to the Church’s history, teaching, worship, and authority structure have been drawing Catholics away in hope of greener pastures in the East.

But those thinking of jumping off the barque of Peter toward the siren song of Eastern Orthodoxy—and for Protestants who’d like Catholicism’s historical pedigree without all the mess—need to think twice. In Answering Orthodoxy, Michael Lofton (Reason & Theology Podcast) shows why, with a thorough and critical refutation of Orthodox attacks against the Church.

Formerly Eastern Orthodox himself, Lofton has the knowledge and experience to uncover the flaws in the most common anti-Catholic arguments from Orthodoxy’s top advocates. From intricate doctrinal debates to the historical flubs and foibles of the popes, right on down to the basic understandings (and misunderstandings) of the sacraments Catholics and Orthodox share but don’t always agree on, Answering Orthodoxy shows where Orthodox attacks go wrong. In so doing, he not only strengthens Catholic conviction in the truth of the Faith, but also shows the Orthodox that there’s not as much distance between them and the Church as they might think, and unity with Rome might be closer than ever.

Whether you’re frustrated with today’s Church and find yourself attracted to Orthodoxy’s antiquity, beauty, and religious rigor, or you’re just looking to learn the best Catholic responses to Orthodox arguments, Answering Orthodoxy will equip and edify you.

I admit I've only begun to read the book, but in the Introduction, "The History of the Catholic and Orthodox Divide" the author Michael Lofton mentioned an event I had never heard of: "The Massacre of the Latins" in Constantinople. He offers one sentence:

"In the later twelfth century, Constantinople massacred its Latin Catholic inhabitants for political reasons."

He should have said more: 

Mobs in Constantinople, unimpeded by Andronikos I Komnenos, who was leading a coup to overthrow the regent, Empress Maria of Antioch and her son, Emperor Alexios II Komnenos, attacked the Latin quarter. Nearly all the 60,000 Latin-rite Catholics, mostly from Pisa and Genoa, were massacred. The reasons were not just political, but economic, since the Italians were so dominant in the maritime trade and financial sectors, with the encouragement of the former Emperor Manuel I Komnenos, Maria's husband and Alexios' father.

The usual rape and pillaging occurred, with Latin-rite Catholic churches destroyed, etc. This website offers some detail from Byzantium and Venice: A Study in Diplomatic and Cultural Relations from Cambridge University Press:

Donald M. Nicol wrote in Byzantium and Venice that “the people needed no encouragement. With an enthusiasm fired by years of resentment they set about the massacre of all the foreigners that they could find. They directed their fury mainly against the merchant quarters along the Golden Horn. Many had sensed what was coming with the arrival of Andronikos Komnenos and made their escape by sea. Of those who remained, the Pisans and Genoese were the main victims. The slaughter was appalling. The Byzantine clergy shamelessly encouraged the mob to seek out Latin monks and priests. The pope’s legate to Constantinople, the Cardinal John, was decapitated and his severed head was dragged through the streets tied to the tail of a dog. At the end some 4000 westerners who had survived the massacre were rounded up and sold as slaves to the Turks. Those who had escaped by ship took their revenge by burning and looting the Byzantine monasteries on the coasts and islands of the Aegean Sea.”

After Andronikos I Komnenos imprisoned the regent, Maria of Antioch, he forced her son, Alexios II Komnenos to condemn her to death and then to recognize Andronikos as the new emperor, after which he was executed. She was reportedly strangled to death and buried secretly.

Maria of Antioch was one of the offspring of Raymond of Poitiers and Constance of Antioch, daughter of Bohemund II of Antioch and Alice of Jerusalem/Antioch (one of the daughters of King Baldwin II of Jerusalem)! These names are so redolent of twelfth century history, as the First and Second Crusades brought the noble families of Europe in positions of power in the East.

Reading this little bit of history, all inspired by one sentence in the Introduction of a book, reminded me of course, of Pope Saint John Paul II's apology to the Orthodox Church of Greece on May 4, 2001 for the Rape of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade :

Certainly, we are burdened by past and present controversies and by enduring misunderstandings. But in a spirit of mutual charity these can and must be overcome, for that is what the Lord asks of us. Clearly there is a need for a liberating process of purification of memory. For the occasions past and present, when sons and daughters of the Catholic Church have sinned by action or omission against their Orthodox brothers and sisters, may the Lord grant us the forgiveness we beg of him.

Some memories are especially painful, and some events of the distant past have left deep wounds in the minds and hearts of people to this day. I am thinking of the disastrous sack of the imperial city of Constantinople, which was for so long the bastion of Christianity in the East. It is tragic that the assailants, who had set out to secure free access for Christians to the Holy Land, turned against their own brothers in the faith. The fact that they were Latin Christians fills Catholics with deep regret. How can we fail to see here the mysterium iniquitatis at work in the human heart? To God alone belongs judgement, and therefore we entrust the heavy burden of the past to his endless mercy, imploring him to heal the wounds which still cause suffering to the spirit of the Greek people. Together we must work for this healing if the Europe now emerging is to be true to its identity, which is inseparable from the Christian humanism shared by East and West.

Before that, in 1995, Pope John Paul II had issued two important documents, Ut Unim Sint (That All May be One) and Orientale Lumen (Light of the East), in which he discussed, among more general principles and issues, in particular ecumenical efforts reaching out to the Eastern Orthodox Churches, including not just doctrinal issues, but those controversies and misunderstandings of the past in paragraphs 50 through 61 of Ut Unim Sint. He dedicated Orientale Lumen to more detailed discussion of his regard for the riches of Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

I'll let you know more about the book, Answering Orthodoxy, when I've finished it!

Image Source (Public Domain): Empress Maria of Antioch, from a manuscript now in the Biblioteca Apostólica Vaticana.

Book Review: "Apostles of Empire: The Jesuits and New France"

I have seen reviews (and even the back cover blurb) of this book calling it "revisionist history"; I'd prefer to call it careful history. The author, Bronwen McShea, neither attacks nor defends what the Jesuits did when spreading the Gospel in North America. It's neither hagiography nor a lurid exposé of their efforts both to convert the native population to Christianity and to bring them into the French empire. I say this because throughout the text, McShea demonstrates how the Jesuits both cooperated with the French monarchy and ruling classes to spread the ideals of their native culture and the Catholic faith among the native tribes in North America and differed with the goals and methods of the French monarchy and ruling classes in achieving their missionary efforts. Events in France, like the Fronde, and wars in Europe and North America often thwarted the goals of the Jesuit missionaries to provide protection, education, religious formation, medicine, and other assistance to the Indigenous peoples. While several French elites, like Marie-Madeleine de Vignerot, duchesse d'Aigullon, Francois Sublet de Noyers, and Marguerite d'Alegre, the Marquise de Bauge, and others, contributed to the Jesuits' religious, educational, and charitable efforts, the entity they wanted support from to achieve the other goal of establishing French culture and power in North America, the monarchy and its administration--including military and financial aid--was the one that seemed reluctant to support them as the Society of Jesus desired.

As an example of the cooperation, the Jesuits indeed wanted to encourage cooperation between their Indigenous allies against the Iroquois tribes in colonial organization and military conflict. This continued into the conflict between English and French colonizing efforts in the later seventeenth century in Nine Year's War, etc. They even continued these efforts when the French stopped sending military aid. As an example of their disagreement with the methods and goals of the French monarchy especially during the personal reign of Louis XIV and the premiership of Colbert, the Jesuit missionaries deplored the dangers of the brandy trade and Colbert's encouragement of intermarriage between the Frenchmen and the Indigenous women. The first because it could cause drunkenness and violence in the colonial settlements and the second because the Frenchmen were not worthy of the excellence of the Abenaki or Huron women!

Throughout the book, McShea carefully describes the missionary efforts of the Jesuits in New France, often by telling the stories of the individual Jesuits, their vocations, formation in Old and New France, and missionary careers. At the end of the book, as the Society of Jesus was suppressed first in France by King Louis XV and then throughout the world (except Russia!) by Pope Clement XIV, McShea describes the last days of the remaining Jesuit missionaries in France and in Canada (now held by the English), including two who fell victim to the French Revolution (Fathers Simeon Le Bansais and Julien-Francois Derville) when they returned to France and one who welcomed Benjamin Franklin and the Carroll cousins to Quebec in 1776 (Father Pierre-Rene Floquet). 

The publisher, the University of Nebraska Press describes the book as:

Winner of the 2020 Catholic Press Association Book Award in History

Apostles of Empire is a revisionist history of the French Jesuit mission to Indigenous North Americans in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, offering a comprehensive view of a transatlantic enterprise with integral secular concerns. Between 1611 and 1764, 320 Jesuits were sent from France to North America to serve as missionaries. Most labored in colonial New France, a vast territory comprising eastern Canada and the Great Lakes region, inhabited by diverse Native American populations. Although committed to spreading Catholic doctrines and rituals and adapting them to diverse Indigenous cultures, these missionaries also devoted significant energy to more worldly concerns, particularly the transatlantic expansion of the absolutist-era Bourbon state and the importation of the culture of elite, urban French society.

In Apostles of Empire Bronwen McShea accounts for these secular dimensions of the mission’s history through candid portraits of Jesuits engaged in a range of activities. We see them not only preaching and catechizing in terms borrowed from Indigenous idioms but also cultivating trade and military partnerships between the French and various Indian tribes. McShea shows how the Jesuits’ robust conceptions of secular spheres of Christian action informed their efforts from both sides of the Atlantic to build up a French and Catholic empire in North America through Indigenous cooperation.

Please find additional comments below:

Table of Contents (I've added the subtitles in the chapters)

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction

--Historiographical Interventions

--Sources and Interpretive Approaches

--Men of this World

Note on Primary Sources

Part 1. Foundations and the Era of the Parisian Relations

1. A Mission for France

--A Young Jesuit in Bourbon Paris (Paul Le Jeune)

--French Expansions and Missions before 1632

--Lay Metropolitan Support and Sebastien Cramoisy's Press

--Working for France's "Powerful Genius"

(Throughout this chapter McShea establishes the importance of the Jesuit Relations, the reports written by the Jesuit missionaries and published in Paris by Sebastien Cramoisy, who "may have been the layman most crucial to the early success of the Jesuit mission to New France", p. 20)

2. Rescuing the “Poor Miserable Savage”

--"At the Best, Their Riches are Only Poverty"

--"Voila, Their Fine Eating"

--"The Cabins on This Country Are Neither Louvres Nor Palaces"

--"I Mocked Their Superstitions"

--Natives as Carnival "Maskers," "Sorcerers," and "Charlatans"

(Throughout this chapter McShea compares the Paul Le Jeune's descriptions of the poverty, bad food, and primitive living quarters of the natives in North America to the poverty, bad food, and primitive living quarters of the rural and urban poor in France!)

3. Surviving the Beaver Wars and the Fronde

--A Political Mission in France

--A Martyr for Christ and New France (St. Isaac Jogues)

--Maneuvers during the Fronde

--A New Holy War for the "Heirs of Saint Louis"

4. Exporting and Importing Catholic Charity

--Social Charity at the Sillery Reserve

--The Huron Refugee Crisis

--Diversifying Charitable Ministries and New Transatlantic Challenges

--"Give to Many Poor People and to Many Kinds"

Part 2. A Longue Durée of War and Metropolitan Neglect

5. Crusading for Iroquois Country

--The Carignon-Salieres Campaign and the Iroquois Mission

--Western Expansion and Renewed War

--The Nine Years War and the Peace of Montreal

--Queen Anne's War

--Warfare and Conversion

6. Cultivating an Indigenous Colonial Aristocracy

--To "Civilize" the Natives or "Play the Savage"?

--Frustrations with the Colonial French

7. Losing Paris

--The End of the Cramoisy Relations

--A House Divided

--Mounting Metropolitan Skepticism and Indifference

--Renewed Publishing Efforts for the Mission

8. A Mission with No Empire

--Jesuits at the Limits of Empire

--The French and Indian War

--The French Suppression of the Society of Jesus

--Quiet Death under British, Protestant Rule

Conclusion

(A good summary of her overall analysis of the complexity of the Jesuit mission in New France, combining the spread of the Gospel with the establishment of colonial territories. The anecdotes with which she opens her conclusion, of Pope Benedict XV reprimanding "Catholic missionaries who had helped fan the national-imperial zeitgeist" that contributed to the horrors of World War I (in Maximum Illud, 1919) and then canonizing Joan of Arc in 1920, "a saint exceedingly identified with French Nationalism", before, during, and after the Great War (p. 255), symbolize the dual nature of the Jesuit mission in North America. She offers a devastating analysis of how their efforts set the stage for later French colonial efforts, imposing a political, national culture on the native people.)

Notes

Bibliography

Index

I would have appreciated a better map showing the different areas of Jesuit missionary activity both in the Canadian north and the USA south (and in between). Figure 5 among the illustrations is a contemporary map but it is very faint and hard to read. It's interesting that McShea never looks at the Arkansas region and the efforts of the French there, but then, as Morris Arnold noted in two books (Unequal Laws Unto a Savage Race: European Legal Traditions in Arkansas, 1686-1836 and Colonial Arkansas, 1686-1804: A Cultural and Social History) on Colonial Arkansas, there wasn't much success in that region for either the French or the Jesuits (see my reviews here and here).

There were two strange typos: one even made the index, as King Louis XVI on page 139 is listed: "In the fall of 1688 Louis XVI went to war over territories in Europe against England, the Hapsburg powers, the Dutch, and other members of the Grand Alliance." (Of course "Louis XVI" should be Louis XIV!) The same transposition of the "I" and the "V" occurs in the Conclusion on page 260: "With political, mercantile, and religious interests coalescing in Paris during Richelieu and Louis XVI's eras . . ." Since I worked as a proofreader at an advertising agency years ago, I know how easy it is for one's eyes to miss details like that!

Having read McShea's first two books (this one and her biography of Richelieu's niece), I look forward to picking up my copy of her next work, Women of the Church: What Every Catholic Should Know, from Eighth Day Books soon.