Book Review: A Symphonic Survey of Pope Benedict XVI's Liturgical Theology

Roland Millare visited Eighth Day Books in January 2023 and I bought his book A Living Sacrifice: Liturgy and Eschatology in Joseph Ratzinger at that time (and I also gave a copy of it to my best friend last month for her birthday; she's the educated theologian; I'm just an autodidact reader).

This review from the Adoremus Bulletin by Father Paul J. Keller, O.P., summarizes the book much better than I possibly can.

What I really appreciated was the clarity and balance of Millare's writing style; his declarative yet comprehensive sentences as he described the theologian-Cardinal/Pope's interaction with other theologians. Since I have read many of Romano Guardini's liturgical theology works, I was able to follow Millare's analysis of the issues of Ethos and Logos and even the models of meal/banquet and sacrifice easily. And when Millare compares and contrasts Ratzinger's thoughts with other theologians I'm not familiar with, like Moltman and Metz, he provides the necessary detail and context, even as he emphasizes the central themes of Logos and the eschaton.

In fact, the "consistency and centrality of the Logos" versus placing Ethos at the center of theology, liturgical, moral, or fundamental is one of most crucial themes of the entire book. It informs Millare's discussion of the Sacrifice of the Mass, of the Communion of the Church and the Second Coming, with hope for the New Heavens and the New Earth, of the mission of the Church and the congregation attending Mass and receiving Holy Communion and then going to the world to share the Love of God and neighbor; and the beauty of art and architecture of the celebration of Mass and our churches, etc.

Millare summarizes his study of Pope Benedict XVI's theology of worship and the eschaton thusly on page 266:

Ratzinger describes his work as having an "incomplete character," yet I have demonstrated that there is a unity within his "fragmentary" writings that is defined by the primacy and centrality of the Logos incarnate. It has been argued throughout this book how the focus on the loges consistently unites his eschatology with his theology of liturgy, in whose orbit can also be found his Christology, ecclesiology, theological anthropology, and ethics.

The text is supplemented with extensive footnotes and a substantial bibliography. Well worth reading, even for a non-specialist. I read it after a discussion of the Resurrection and Ascension chapters in Pope Benedict XVI's Holy Week volume in the Jesus of Nazareth trilogy with my theologian friend and in the midst of the Eucharistic Revival here in the USA.

Preview: Two by Ward for the Son Rise Morning Show

For your late summer reading plan, we're going to discuss two of Josephine Ward's novels on the Son Rise Morning Show Monday, July 15, after Matt Swaim and Anna Mitchell (and perhaps Paul Lachmann, the Sound Engineer and the first voice I hear when I connect with Sacred Heart Radio on Monday mornings) come back from their summer break. 

I recommend both of these books: One Poor Scruple and Tudor Sunset. 

One Poor Scruple is a contemporary novel of manners/morals at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries; Tudor Sunset is a historical fiction set in the last years of Elizabeth I's reign at the beginning of the 17th century (1600-1603).

I reviewed One Poor Scruple here and Tudor Sunset here.

I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show at my usual time, about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern. Please listen live here or listen to the podcast later. 

Since I talked to Anna Mitchell about Josephine Ward's life and significance, I went to Eighth Day Books and bought the book that inspired her to ask me to talk about Ward in the first place: Women of the Catholic Imagination: Twelve Inspired Novelists You Should Know. I agree with Eleanor Bourge Nicholson's comments about these two novels in her essay "Josephine Ward: Transforming a Heritage of Exile". She writes of One Poor Scruple that is an "unequivocally Catholic as well as a masterfully executed novel that well deserves the positive reception" it received upon its publication "by Catholic and non-Catholic readers alike". (p. 15) It might even be a more Catholic novel today since the issue at the heart of Marge's moral dilemma is Catholic moral teaching forbidding divorce and remarriage. She wants to be accepted in British society and does not know how to resist the temptation to a prestigious marriage. Crucially, Marge is not receiving the Sacraments!

Of Tudor Sunset, Nicholson comments "that it brings together the themes that had absorbed Ward throughout her life, especially Catholic identity and its relationship to patriotism and her conviction of the operation of grace." (p. 19) When Elizabeth I is dying, Meg Scrope, who has suffered imprisonment and the threat of Richard Topcliffe's cruel attentions in Newgate Prison because of the Queen's religious policy, prays for her salvation through the grace of God, whispering the Ave Maria at her beside on the eve of the Feast of the Annunciation.

The Josephine Ward novel I hope to see published soon is Out of Due Time, since it deals with the Modernist Crisis as described in yesterday's post on Elizabeth Huddleston's project, “‘A Story of Well-Defined Purpose’: Josephine Hope-Scott Ward’s Social Criticism of Modernism.”

More on Josephine Ward: Elizabeth Huddleston's Project

I do believe Josephine Ward's time for revival and reevaluation has come! (Here's some detail about the books she wrote.)

From the University of Notre Dame's Cushwa Center:

Elizabeth Huddleston is head of research and publications at the National Institute for Newman Studies and associate editor of the Newman Studies Journal. She also teaches in the Department of Catholic Studies at Duquesne University. In 2024, she received a Research Travel Grant from the Cushwa Center to carry out archival research at Notre Dame in support of her project, “‘A Story of Well-Defined Purpose’: Josephine Hope-Scott Ward’s Social Criticism of Modernism.” Shane Ulbrich corresponded with Huddleston following her visit in April to the Notre Dame Archives.

Huddleston is focused on the Modernist Crisis and what Ward can teach us about it:

The Modernist Controversy has often been studied through the lens of its key figures—Tyrrell, Loisy, Hébert, Houtin, Sabatier, von Hügel, Bremond, to name a few—and their anti-modernist counterparts—Garrigou Lagrange, Merry del Val, Pius X, etc. What can be lost in only viewing the crisis through these polarized and zoomed-in lenses is a sense of how the crisis spilled into the lives of others not at the epicenter. Wilfrid and Josephine were conversant with tenets of both modernism and anti-modernism. Of course they did not want to be censored or condemned, but they also felt that the church was lacking in her relationship with the modern world. Their writings, both personal and published, reflect the tumult felt within the Catholic landscape of the era. While it is important to study the central figures and tenets of movements and crises, it is also important to take a step back and try to view the ripple effects of the crisis to the wider church. The correspondence and writings of Josephine Ward help us gain a better understanding of these currents.

Please read the rest there . . .

Years ago (pre-blog) I read Critics on Trial: An Introduction to the Catholic Modernist Crisis by Marvin O'Connell. One reason I've been interested in the subject is of course the effect on Cardinal Newman's reputation at the time. You may be sure that I'll be following this project with great interest! It especially makes me hope that Out of Due Time, the novel Huddleston mentions, might be published soon.

CD Review: "Reformation" Keyboard Works: Lamenting Walsingham

I chanced to see a post by Damian Thompson on social media about a new Hyperion CD of Elizabethan keyboard music by William Byrd, et al, so went to his Spectator "Holy Smoke" page to listen to his interview with the performer, Mishka Rushdie Momen (yes, she's related to Salman Rushdie; he's her uncle). Then, of course, I ordered the CD after perusing the Hyperion website for samples, etc.

The soloist wrote the liner notes for the CD and she laments the losses of culture and freedom in Recusant England, not just for Catholics at the time, but for the world (some of that regret comes through even more clearly in the "Holy Smoke" interview linked above). An excerpt:

Thinking about pilgrimages in England also involves confronting a great absence. English culture has been predominantly Protestant for half a millennium and the cult of St Thomas no longer exists. Thomas Becket’s shrine in Canterbury, described by Erasmus as ‘a shryne of gold … [where] all thynges dyd shyne, florishe’, was demolished in 1538 by the agents of Thomas Cromwell, chief minister to Henry VIII and architect of the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The relics of Thomas Becket also vanished; in her novel The Mirror and the Light, Hilary Mantel suggests they might have been thrown into Cromwell’s cellar. Subsequently, a royal proclamation ordered the destruction of any image or mention of Becket in the Church; in Missal books, Becket’s name is redacted more consistently than references to the Pope.

Our picture of the Renaissance is severely fractured and incomplete as a result of the sheer scale of the cultural vandalism caused by the English Reformation. Many paintings and works of art were destroyed in this Puritan [sic] environment. A rare example of a medieval wall painting which has survived is in Pickering, Yorkshire, where I gave a recital for the Ryedale Festival underneath an image depicting the chaplain Edward Grim pleading with the four knights of Henry II who murdered Thomas Becket. Over 700 Catholic religious institutions were destroyed between 1536 and 1540, and a great number of trained musicians and composers lost their positions. Some would have found work in the new Church of England and others in secular environments such as private homes, but I wonder if a wealth of musical treasures and talent may have been squandered. . . .

One might quibble with the "Puritan environment" description as anachronistic, but it does represent the views of someone like Latimer who wanted to purify English churches and shrines of their statues of the Mother of God and the saints. Here's a link to a page describing the wall paintings in Saints Peter and Paul church in Pickering, Yorkshire Momen refers to.

I received the CD Friday and have been listening to it with delight. She performs these pieces on the modern piano instead of the period instruments Byrd and Bull and Gibbons would have used, and I like the range and dynamics of the performances. While through the years I've listened to many recordings of William Byrd's liturgical music, including the three Masses, this is the first time I've listened to his keyboard works for such a stretch, and the soloist's notes about her methods of playing them on a concert piano, including fingering and use of the pedals, were enlightening to me. Her final comment from the notes:

Research has provided us with many details about people’s lives in this era and yet our imagination is compelled to fill in so many gaps. Musically speaking, exploring this repertoire on the piano gives me a sense of encountering a palace of riches, and at the same time a feeling of venturing into relatively uncharted territory. I would love it if works from this period were to become fully integrated into the modern pianist’s canon and for this inspiring repertoire to enter into a dialogue with masterpieces from throughout history.

Please note that this is Hyperion's "Record of the Month" and Momen was featured on BBC Radio's In Tune program Thursday, July 4, and there's a Gramophone interview. 

I think this would be a good CD for any collection. 

Image Source (Fair Use for a Review).

Book Review: "Tudor Sunset" by Mrs. Wilfrid (Josephine) Ward

This book begins and ends with death: the future Saint John Rigby is hanged, drawn, and quartered at St. Thomas Waterings (on the way to Canterbury) on June 21, 1600 and Queen Elizabeth I dies in her bed on March 24, 1603. With a title like Tudor Sunset, I don't think I'm spoiling the plot by telling you that: the sun sets on the Tudor dynasty when she dies.

It's what Josephine Ward does between these two deaths that make a novel a tense and suspenseful historical tale, as the fictional couple at the center of tale, Margaret (Meg) Scrope and Captain Richard Whitlock do their best to survive the last two years and three months of Elizabeth's reign. Especially since Meg is a recusant Catholic lady-in-waiting and friend of Anne (Dacre) Howard, Lady Arundell, the widow of martyred-in-chains Saint Philip Howard, and she and Whitlock frequent the bookstore of future Blessed James Duckett (also a martyr).

Each book and each chapter--numbered, not titled--brings another brush with danger, near escape, temptation or trap, and the reader becomes even more watchful than the characters.

Following a classic historical fiction method, Ward brings real historical characters into the story: not just Queen Elizabeth I, but Richard Topcliffe, William Byrd, Father John Gerard, SJ, Lady Arundell, the two martyrs already mentioned, etc., and one lady in particular, Luisa de Carvajal.

In the appendix with notes on her sources, Ward admits that she has brought Luisa de Carvajal to England earlier than records indicate she actually came. She needs her there for a crucial plot development and resolution. 

This may be a deal breaker for some readers and I'm not completely happy with her decision either. One result of this change in time line is that Ward depicts the "last supper" of Saint John Roberts, OSB and Blessed Thomas Somers the night before their executions at Tyburn arranged by Luisa de Carvajal on December 9, 1610 in Newgate Prison as being arranged instead for Blesseds Francis Page, SJ, Robert Watkinson, and Venerable Thomas Tichborne the night before their executions on April 20, 1602!

I looked at a couple of historical fiction writing guides and they commented that the author may use the excuse of a gap in the historical record to deviate from the timeline. For example Jane Friedman comments:

Rather than worrying about never, ever deviating from history, I advise establishing your own set of rules for when to bend history or not. That way, you’ll be able to make fair and consistent decisions and achieve the kind of balance most readers are looking for. Here are some tips that might help:

• There is a difference between altering verifiable facts and filling in the gaps. History is full of mysteries, unanswered questions, and gaps in the record. If what really happened can’t be verified, you have much more freedom to play around with history. . . .

• If a historical figure isn’t well known and not a lot has been written about them, you have more room for maneuver than you do if their life has been exhaustively documented. But, if you’re going to make something up, make sure it’s consistent with what you otherwise know about the character, including how they behaved, their interests, and what their values were.

So I'll just leave that there for your consideration; the scenes depicting the interactions between the priests and the laywomen, including the tragic figure of Anne Bellamy, who betrayed Saint Robert Southwell after horrible abuse and manipulation by Topcliffe (see the third paragraph on this page for details) are filled with wonderful detail and verisimilitude (?). Ward adds details to their conversations like the stories of Jane Wiseman, a recusant sentenced to the same fate as Saint Margaret Clitherow, of being pressed (literally) for information--which fits the timeline of the novel--and the executions of Blesseds John Thules and Richard Wrenno (Wrenno the Weaver)--which do not! (they were executed in Lancaster in 1616)--so while it's a beautiful scene and fulfills Ward's purposes of using the occasion to present vivid historical detail about how Catholics suffered in different ways in that era, it still troubles me a bit . . .

After a detour through Newgate and a sojourn at the Recusant Sawston Hall in Cambridgeshire with Lady Huddleston and William Byrd (his Mass for Three Voices is sung there), the scene returns to Court after the execution of the Earl of Essex on February 25, 1601. 

There's a different tension in the last part of the book as the two fictional characters wait out the last months of Elizabeth I's life. Meg and Lady Southwell--I presume this is the Lady Elizabeth (Howard) Southwell who went on to serve James I's Queen Anne of Denmark--serve the queen through her last decline: on the floor, standing up for hours, finally in bed, pressed to prepare for death by Archbishop Whitgift and the succession by Lord Cecil . . . 

The last words of the book are: 

It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.

Finally, I must comment on Josephine Ward's extensive preparation for this book, documented in her "Rough Notes on some of the Books Consulted" in the Appendix. The notes are not rough at all as she evaluates the literature available to her at the time and displays her critical judgment of the authors' intentions and methods. She read these works not just for the details about the sufferings of Catholics during Elizabeth I's reign but to help her prepare for the really great challenge of the novel: How to depict Queen Elizabeth I in the waning years of her reign. 

In the note Ward wrote "To Alfred Noyes" at the beginning of the book, she offers some insights into how she framed this depiction:

Does not tyranny provoke falsehood? Was ever a father so tyrannous as Henry VIII? Has it every been understood how his tyranny affected Elizabeth? Mary has been more pitied [?], and perhaps rightly, but the fact that the vices of the triumphant Elizabeth can be traced to her childhood is in itself a tragedy.

If the heart of Mary's mother was broken, the mother of Elizabeth was beheaded. The alternations of their fate were extreme, for first one and the other daughter was proclaimed illegitimate; first one and then the other and then both had the prospect of wearing the crown. The story of their childhood shows how they were conscious that they were utterly helpless and without defense against their father. On Elizabeth the effect was formative and repulsive. It seems to me that she admired the monster as heathens have admired inhuman gods. . . . Was ever child more demoralised by a bad father? (p. xi)

For all my qualms about the Luisa de Carvajal timeline manipulations, this was a marvelous reading experience and I recommend the novel highly.

Ward placed the "Epilogue at the Presentation before Queen Elizabeth of Ben Jonson's "Every Man Out of His Humor" (1599) as the frontispiece of the book (I have the Reprinted edition of December 1932 from Longmans, Green and Co.):

O heaven, that She, whose presence hath effected
This change in me, may suffer most late change
In her admired and happy government:
May still this Island be call'd Fortunate,
And rugged Treason tremble at the sound,
When Fame shall speak it with an emphasis.
Let foreign polity be dull as lead,
And pale Invasion come with half a heart,
When he but looks upon her blessed soil.
The throat of War be stopt within her land,
And turtle-footed Peace dance fairy rings
About her court; where never may there come
Suspect or danger, but all trust and safety.
Let Flattery be dumb, and Envy blind
In her dread presence; Death himself admire her;
And may her virtues make him to forget
The use of his inevitable hand.
Fly from her, Age; sleep, Time, before her throne;
Our strongest wall falls down, when she is gone.

Image Credit (Public Domain): Elizabeth I, painted around 1610, during the first revival of interest in her reign. Time sleeps on her right and Death looks over her left shoulder; two putti hold the crown above her head.

Image Credit (Public Domain): Portrait thought to Elizabeth Southwell as a widow in 1600

The Great Reunion of 1913 at Gettysburg

My late brother Steven was a Civil War history student; he lived in Pennsylvania for several years and went to Gettysburg often, taking our father there once at least. We discussed the Ken Burns PBS program often and talked about the Civil War books he read (often those family members gave him as gifts).

So this off-blog-topic post is in memory of him as we prepare to celebrate Independence Day, always a great family holiday. We had an additional reason: our parents met on a blind date on the Fourth of July!

One hundred and eleven years ago, from June 29 through July 4, Civil War veterans from North and South met on the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. One of the highlights was the re-enactment of Pickett's charge and then the handshake pictured above, after the echoes of the famous Rebel yell had faded. 

President Woodrow Wilson spoke on July 4, 1913--not as long as Edward Everett and not as briefly as President Abraham Lincoln on November 19, 1863--and concluded his remarks with this:

How shall we hold such thoughts in our hearts and not be moved? I would not have you live even to-day wholly in the past, but would wish to stand with you in the light that streams upon us now out of that great day gone by. Here is the nation God has builded by our hands. What shall we do with it? Who stands ready to act again and always in the spirit of this day of reunion and hope and patriotic fervor? The day of our country's life has but broadened into morning. Do not put uniforms by. Put the harness of the present on. Lift your eyes to the great tracts of life yet to be conquered in the interest of righteous peace, of that prosperity which lies in a people's hearts and outlasts all wars and errors of men. Come, let us be comrades and soldiers yet to serve our fellow-men in quiet counsel, where the blare of trumpets is neither heard nor heeded and where the things are done which make blessed the nations of the world in peace and righteousness and love.

May God bless the United States of America and all "the nations of the world in peace and righteousness and love"!

Happy Independence Day!

Image Credit (Public Domain): Now the "Friendly" Angle One of the most affecting sights witnessed during the present reunion of Confederate and Federal veterans at Gettysburg is depicted in this photograph. Across the stone wall, which marks the boundaries of the famous "Bloody Angle" where Pickett lost over 3,000 men from a force of 6,000 these old soldiers of the North and South clasped hands in fraternal affection / / International News Service, 200 William St., New York.