tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88955185565334596072024-03-18T10:27:44.797-05:00Supremacy and Survival: The English ReformationFurther research and information on the English Reformation, English Catholic martyrs, and related topics by the author of SUPREMACY AND SURVIVAL: HOW CATHOLICS ENDURED THE ENGLISH REFORMATIONStephanie A. Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14796489639420491857noreply@blogger.comBlogger3838125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8895518556533459607.post-49472780839569151602024-03-15T00:00:00.173-05:002024-03-15T00:00:00.137-05:00Preview: St. Thomas More on "Vain Confabulations" and "Foolish Mirth"<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgazMQo8L_ndNmSktpJ7Qs_EKO8tZlxzOMyFp-gL5XkoBgIfm_17YEcdhQLFDDm3hZz4G0D-9x1iLLC_bkXNW6M35GsoDe7iFr1VJCfZRuLxkGRaaE6CjTRcWBhRjbXJD88t5-Z1tT9LWMdroV-Cs3_sOeUmjsPkiEqTEFQb1cmuhkg4s3tdA2qt58RVC8/s220/220px-MEDAILLON.OF.SAINT.THOMAS.MORE.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="218" data-original-width="220" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgazMQo8L_ndNmSktpJ7Qs_EKO8tZlxzOMyFp-gL5XkoBgIfm_17YEcdhQLFDDm3hZz4G0D-9x1iLLC_bkXNW6M35GsoDe7iFr1VJCfZRuLxkGRaaE6CjTRcWBhRjbXJD88t5-Z1tT9LWMdroV-Cs3_sOeUmjsPkiEqTEFQb1cmuhkg4s3tdA2qt58RVC8/s1600/220px-MEDAILLON.OF.SAINT.THOMAS.MORE.jpg" width="220" /></a></div>On Monday, March 18, we'll discuss the penultimate section of St. Thomas More's "A Godly Meditation" on the Son Rise Morning Show. I'll be on at my usual time, about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Listen live <a href="https://radio.securenetsystems.net/cirruspremier/WNOP2" target="_blank">here </a>or catch the <a href="https://www.sacredheartradio.com/onair/son-rise-morning-show" target="_blank">podcast </a>later.</div><p></p><p>This may be the most difficult section of this meditation to think about because More seems willing to cast off many of the characteristics that made him More: his love of humor, of silly (sometimes rather off-color) jokes, of mirth, friendship, and gladness . . . (less of More?)</p><p>Do we have to do that too?</p><p>And this section contains one of the most perplexing lines in the prayer: "To buy the time again that I before have lost" . . . </p><p>How do we make up for lost or wasted time? </p><p>In this fifth week of Lent, as we've entered Passiontide and in some parishes the statues and crucifixes are veiled, can we make up for our Lenten failures now?</p><i>Give me thy grace, good Lord, <br /><br />To pray for pardon before the Judge come,<br /> To have continually in mind the Passion that Christ suffered for me.<br /> For his benefits incessantly to give him thanks,<br /><b> To buy the time again that I before have lost.</b><br /><b> To abstain from vain confabulations,</b><br /><b> To eschew light foolish mirth and gladness.</b><br /> Recreations not necessary to cut off;<br /> Of worldly substance, friends, liberty, life and all<br />To set the loss at right naught for the winning of Christ.</i>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: transparent;">The word "confabulations" has the word fable in its root: </span><i style="background-color: transparent;">Merriam Webster</i><span style="background-color: transparent;"> defines it thus:</span></p><br /><i>Confabulate is a fabulous word for making fantastic fabrications. Given the similarities in spelling and sound, you might guess that confabulate and <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/8895518556533459607/7917466262150029536">fabulous</a> come from the same root, and they do—the Latin fābula, which refers to a conversation or a story. Another fābula descendant that continues to tell tales in English is <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/8895518556533459607/7917466262150029536">fable</a>. All three words have long histories in English: fable first appears in writing in the 14th century, and fabulous follows in the 15th. </i><br /><br /><div><span style="background-color: white;">This line about "vain confabulations" recalls his earlier mention of "worldly fantasies", but here he's referring to a method of telling a story. He has to reject those methods if they are in vain, just for the exercise of showing what he can do. </span>He wants to reject "light foolish mirth and gladness" in contrast to the joy and gladness mentioned in last week's meditation ("Gladly to bear my purgatory here; To be joyful of tribulations"). </div><div><br /></div><div>Nevertheless, More used the structure of fables in other Tower Works to make his points through stories. He wrote <i>The Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation</i> while in the Tower, imagining an old sick uncle counselling his frightened nephew on how to deal with the consequences of a Turkish invasion. He was certainly providing spiritual counsel to those afraid of suffering and death, with Christian philosophy and Catholic piety. And he exchanged letters with his daughters Margaret and Alice as his <i>Dialogue on Conscience</i>, using a fable of Aesop and another of the lion and the wolf, and the famous story about "Company" on the Jury to explain what he meant when he said he had to obey his formed and considered conscience. These were among his usual methods of engaging in controversy, using stories to tell a lesson. He established fictional situations--like his <i>Utopia</i>--to showcase a discussion or dialogue about real issues with true consequences.</div><div><br /></div><div>As readers of this blog know, he also wrote the <i>Sadness of Christ</i> and the <i>Treatise on the Passion</i> while in the Tower, as he desired to "have continually in mind the Passion that Christ suffered for me". In those works he explored the texts of the Gospels for their moral and spiritual implications for himself and other Christians.</div><div><br /></div><div>Saint Thomas More's discernment of how to balance these issues of detachment and preparation for death and the life to come is what makes this "Godly Meditation" so deeply personal to him at that time and yet filled with inspiration for us. Even as he faced his past sins and his future judgment, he reminded himself and us that he should be intent upon his present, to make use of the time he had in reparation and preparation. That's what we do every Lent: practice acts of detachment through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving; reflect on, confess, and repent of our sins; prepare for the celebration of Easter--all as the model of being prepared for the life to come in the hope the Resurrection and Heaven.</div><div><br /></div><div>Saint Thomas More, pray for us!</div>Stephanie A. Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14796489639420491857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8895518556533459607.post-73730785347367321352024-03-08T00:00:00.180-06:002024-03-08T08:38:02.926-06:00Preview: St. Thomas More, the Four Last Things and Purgatory<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_5KSKnELP3-3xpAcLhm7FeAXWpngnZu81CPkqaZDAmgPh923GD0LsPf_be5qpYtLqM_amO09N0OdSS1RxBTozpY_6Eofi2wSCkDfN6KilJxAgQFM1Cttf87Exb9PMHjCtAVGQKL_F7TIr_eGV8dXKZbfwI67DE_LVUcymeRwJtWgINwyh3OxRp7wsDcc/s1024/scepter-1186_1024x1024.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="650" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_5KSKnELP3-3xpAcLhm7FeAXWpngnZu81CPkqaZDAmgPh923GD0LsPf_be5qpYtLqM_amO09N0OdSS1RxBTozpY_6Eofi2wSCkDfN6KilJxAgQFM1Cttf87Exb9PMHjCtAVGQKL_F7TIr_eGV8dXKZbfwI67DE_LVUcymeRwJtWgINwyh3OxRp7wsDcc/s320/scepter-1186_1024x1024.jpg" width="203" /></a></div>On Monday, March 11, the Monday of the Fourth Week of Lent 2024, we'll conduct our next segment on St. Thomas More's "A Godly Meditation", focusing on another section of his prayer. I'll be on at my usual time, about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Listen live <a href="https://radio.securenetsystems.net/cirruspremier/WNOP2">here </a>or catch the <a href="https://www.sacredheartradio.com/onair/son-rise-morning-show">podcast </a>later.<div><br /></div><div>I've picked up a few lines from last week's post because they fit in so well with More's theme of repentance and preparation for the four last things: Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell. As part of his preparation, he suggests to us, I propose, the traditional meditation on death, and the desire to avoid suffering in Purgatory after judgment by accepting suffering while we live:<br /><br /><i>Give me thy grace, good Lord, <br /><br />To know my own vility and wretchedness,<br />To humble and meeken myself under the mighty hand of God,<br /><b>To bewail my sins past</b><br /><b> For the purging of them patiently to suffer adversity.<br /> Gladly to bear my purgatory here;<br /> To be joyful of tribulations.</b><br /><b>To walk the narrow way that leadeth to life,<br /> To bear the cross with Christ.</b><br /> To have the last thing in remembrance,<br /> To have ever afore mine eye my death that is ever at hand.<br /> To make death no stranger to me,<br /> To foresee and consider the everlasting fire of hell.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>These are all sobering thoughts: as Christians we all know that we will die, face judgment, and either spend our eternal life in Heaven or Hell. We know the choice we face: choose life or choose death. At times the notion of death can be abstract or distant from us, even as we attend the funerals of friends and family, but once we've been at a couple of deathbeds--as I have--we know it's inevitable.</div><div><br /></div><div>More had written a meditation on Death before in an unfinished collaboration with his daughter Margaret on <i><a href="https://supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.com/2015/08/book-review-trio-of-works-by-st-thomas.html" target="_blank">The Four Last Things</a></i>. In that work, he emphasizes how thinking of Death, based upon Sirach 7:36 ("Remember the last things, and you will never sin"), can help us avoid sin, especially the Seven Deadly Sins, and develop their opposite virtues in preparation for the joys of Heaven.</div><div><br /></div><div>In this prayer More's traditional Catholic piety emphasizes the most somber side of this meditation on the Four Last Things: he does not meditate on the joys of Heaven, but considers the "everlasting fire of hell". The only hint of Heaven is that his preparation "leadeth to life". He is praying to find <b>joy </b>and <b>gladness </b>in the midst of his tribulations with the consolation that they can prepare him for the joys of heaven. In his desire to expiate the temporal effects of his past sins, confessed and forgiven, More wants to avoid Purgatory--a Catholic doctrine he'd defended in <i>The Supplication of Souls </i>in answer to Simon Fish's <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/32464/32464-h/32464-h.htm" target="_blank">Supplication of Beggars</a>--after death: to "go straight to Heaven" and the presence of God.</div><div><br /></div><div>We can juxtapose this somber meditation with More's repeatedly stated hope that he and his family, friends, even those who would condemn him, sentence him, and prepare him for execution would "meet merrily in Heaven". As he <a href="https://thomasmorecollege.edu/2019/04/prayers-by-thomas-more/" target="_blank">prayed </a>in his <i>Treatise on the Passion</i>:</div><div><br /></div><i><b>Good Lord, give me the grace</b> so to spend my life that when the day of my death shall come, though I feel pain in my body, I may feel comfort in soul and – with faithful hope of Your mercy, in due love towards You and charity towards the world – I may, through Your grace, depart hence into Your glory. Amen.</i><div><i><br /></i></div><div>and</div><div><br /></div><i>Almighty Jesus Christ, who would for our example observe the law that You came to change and, being Maker of the whole earth, would have yet no dwelling-house therein: <b>give us Your grace</b> so to keep Your holy law and so to reckon ourselves for no dwellers but for pilgrims upon earth that we may long and make haste, walking with faith in the way of virtuous works, to come to the glorious country wherein You have bought us inheritance forever with Your own precious blood. Amen.</i><div><i><br /></i></div><div>I look forward to my discussion with Anna or Matt on Monday! </div>Stephanie A. Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14796489639420491857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8895518556533459607.post-86702185567806731692024-03-04T00:00:00.039-06:002024-03-04T00:00:00.134-06:00Blessed Nicholas Horner, Tailor and Martyr<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghUfSiMFJ4IlFevu0dUUthLDwggtk8h8UpTuDRUnfaXpL8dmGPgCUloRA7J5yU-ePOIaxzf-SiVmiLCH-P5WKHOyR2a3MdBxO2c3oQMoKtBGYC_nTBWRNTA8GIbX3sauEc-6FiUxlvzoXkgIJexXjBuG41opW-EeqgXuRkN5wO_kV7FWDW_dKBLoPLmFk/s684/Blessed-nicholas-horner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="656" data-original-width="684" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghUfSiMFJ4IlFevu0dUUthLDwggtk8h8UpTuDRUnfaXpL8dmGPgCUloRA7J5yU-ePOIaxzf-SiVmiLCH-P5WKHOyR2a3MdBxO2c3oQMoKtBGYC_nTBWRNTA8GIbX3sauEc-6FiUxlvzoXkgIJexXjBuG41opW-EeqgXuRkN5wO_kV7FWDW_dKBLoPLmFk/w230-h221/Blessed-nicholas-horner.jpg" width="230" /></a></div>While we're focusing on St. Thomas More's "A Godly Meditation" on the Son Rise Morning Show, I did not want to miss some of the great martyrs' and confessors' stories in Father Bowden's <i>Mementoes </i>this Lent. This one today, Blessed Nicholas Horner, is particularly affecting, as he suffered so much in prison and at the scaffold because of his loyalty to The Faith. And yet, he received many consolations:<p></p><i>A native of York, a tailor by trade and a zealous Catholic, he endeavoured, according to his ability, to persuade others to embrace the faith. Having come up to London to be cured of a wound in his leg, he was committed to Newgate for harbouring priests. There the heavy fetter on his leg and the deprivation of all medical aid rendered an amputation necessary. During the operation he sat upon a form, unbound, in silence, a priest the while (</i>[Blessed John]<i> Hewett </i>[or Hewitt]<i>, who was afterwards himself a Martyr) holding his head, and he was further comforted by such a vivid apprehension of Christ bearing His Cross that he seemed to see it on His shoulders. Freed at the earnest suit of his friends, he worked at his trade at some lodgings at Smithfield. Again cast into Bridewell for harbouring priests, he was hung up by the wrists till he nearly died. At length condemned solely for making a jerkin for a priest, he was hanged in front of his lodging in Smithfield, 3 March 1590. On the night before his execution, finding him self overwhelmed with anguish, he betook him self to prayer, and perceived a bright crown of glory hanging over his head. Assured of its reality, he said: “O Lord, Thy will be mine,” and died with extraordinary signs of joy.</i><div><br /></div><div>Father Bowden uses the title "The Vestments of Salvation" for this entry on March 4, and the Bible verse, "He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation" (Isaiah 61:10)</div><div><br /></div><div>According to England's laws he was accused of two great offenses: encouraging others to become Catholic and assisting priests. The only thing he could be guilty of was making a jerkin (a kind of vest) for a priest! When Father Bowden wrote about him, Horner had been declared Venerable; Pope St. John Paul II beatified him with 84 other martyrs of England and Wales in 1987.</div><div><br /></div><div>Blessed Nicholas Horner, pray for us!</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="By Tyburn Convent - https://www.tyburnconvent.org.uk/, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=117884396" target="_blank">Image Credit</a>: (<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" target="_blank">With Permission</a>): Detail of a stained glass window in Tyburn Convent by Margaret Agnes Rope <br /></div>Stephanie A. Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14796489639420491857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8895518556533459607.post-51407277989883935702024-03-01T00:00:00.212-06:002024-03-02T09:37:30.309-06:00Preview: Thomas More on the World, God, and the Confession of Sins<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHSPmcG1kFngVtnlD2lEKYe0jtU9LlJ9ZVxDmeYGJWgjCFRLjbRaMBnHFkRuF39ENI4PfPF5tjW4m8MJ_g93S0LdQe2ZjOquNdRneM-xZX_MHlO4fpm6dtveyjwm2nsveEO7LBnBFcqZ-8bb-JKqjWjn3-OIPl8JVuX7DNLhWA79jBJi2IIyfcRWk___4/s386/Vintage%20More.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="386" data-original-width="255" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHSPmcG1kFngVtnlD2lEKYe0jtU9LlJ9ZVxDmeYGJWgjCFRLjbRaMBnHFkRuF39ENI4PfPF5tjW4m8MJ_g93S0LdQe2ZjOquNdRneM-xZX_MHlO4fpm6dtveyjwm2nsveEO7LBnBFcqZ-8bb-JKqjWjn3-OIPl8JVuX7DNLhWA79jBJi2IIyfcRWk___4/w264-h400/Vintage%20More.jpg" width="264" /></a></div>Continuing our series on St. Thomas More's "A Godly Meditation" on Monday, March 4, Anna Mitchell or Matt Swaim of the Son Rise Morning Show and I will discuss this next arbitrarily chosen portion of More's prayer. </div><p></p><p>As you know by now, I'll be on at my usual time, about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Listen live <a href="https://radio.securenetsystems.net/cirruspremier/WNOP2" target="_blank">here </a>or catch the <a href="https://www.sacredheartradio.com/onair/son-rise-morning-show" target="_blank">podcast </a>later.</p><p>More continues his concern with being rid of worldly concerns and delves more deeply into what it means to have his mind set "fast upon" God, including a good examination of conscience and confession of sins:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span face=""Verdana","sans-serif"" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 115%;">Give me thy grace, good
Lord,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<i>Not to long to hear of any worldly things,<br /> But that the hearing of worldly fantasies may be to me displeasant.<br /> Gladly to be thinking of God,<br /> Piteously to call for his help.<br /> To lean unto the comfort of God,<br /> Busily to labour to love him.<br /> To know my own vility and wretchedness,<br /> To humble and meeken myself under the mighty hand of God,<br />To bewail my sins passed.<br />For the purging of them, patiently to suffer adversity.</i><div><i><br /></i></div><div>Later in this prayer, More refers to "vain confabulations"<span style="background-color: white;">, to avoid making up different versions of reality, imagining himself in different circumstances. He has to face what's happening to him now, face his dependence on God, and face the ways that he has failed to love God throughout his life.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;">He cannot imagine himself back home at Chelsea with his loving family and friends: the only way he can achieve that it by violating his conscience. </span>He certainly doesn't want to think of himself at Court, trying to influence worldly events: that time has passed. He has already done all he could.</div><div><br /></div><div>So he turns to God: thinking of Him; calling for His help; leaning on His comfort; working to love Him, mentally, prayerfully, spiritually.</div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;">As he strives to become more attached to God, More turns to an examination of conscience, reviewing the sins he committed in the past, repenting of them, and being ready to suffer for them in his current circumstances. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;">Matt brought up conscience (referring to the <i>Catechism of the Catholic Church</i>) during our discussion last week, and here More prays to know, to humble himself, to become meek, to bewail his sins, and suffer adversity to purge himself of the temporal punishment due to those sins, all by examining his conscience thoroughly.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;">In his preface to the Vintage Spiritual Classics volume of <i>Selected Writings of Thomas More</i>, Joseph W. Koterski, SJ, highlights More's "practice of a careful and daily examination of conscience in which he had steeled himself since his youth", "reserving a time and place for the examination of conscience", even creating a separate oratory at his home in Chelsea for that meditation. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;">So, applying this portion of More's "Godly Meditation" to our 2024 Lenten observance, it points us to the Sacrament of Confession. Since Lent is the season of repentance and conversion, the Church highlights the Sacrament of Confession. My local parish has added opportunities for Reconciliation/Penance/Confession throughout the Lent and our pastor just <a href="https://blessedsacramentwichita.com/bulletin-archive/2499-sunday-march-3-2024-bulletin/file" target="_blank">highlighted </a>the need for Confession, not just once a year, but more often, for very practical reasons: </span></div><div><br /></div><div><i>While the requirement is once
a year, the Church encourages people to go to Confession once a month, because
she knows how difficult it is to remember things that happened almost a year
ago. Along with that, the less often we go to Confession we lose our sense of sin
and then we do not clearly see sins that we might see if we regularly examine our
conscience and bring ours sins to the sacrament of mercy. </i>(Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church March 3 Parish Bulletin.)</div><div><br /></div><div>And although More may have been faithful in his examinations of conscience and Sacramental Confessions, he admits that he still needs to make up for the consequences of those sins, so he is willing to endure suffering to expiate them. As another English saint, John Henry Newman, wrote in a Lenten sermon when he was an Anglican:</div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><i>Let us be wise enough to
have our agony in this world, not in the next. If we humble ourselves now, God
will pardon us then. We cannot escape punishment, here or hereafter; we must
take our choice, whether to suffer and mourn a little now, or much then.</i> (PPS "Lent, the Season of Repentance.")<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">Saint Thomas More, pray for us!</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!</p></div>Stephanie A. Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14796489639420491857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8895518556533459607.post-81107097267721215632024-02-27T00:00:00.086-06:002024-02-27T00:00:00.135-06:00Two Posts from "The Newman Review": Lost Voices and How to Read NewmanJust a couple of excerpts from two articles in the recent online Newman Review from the National Institute of Newman Studies:<div><br /></div>The first is from Julia Meszaros and Bonnie Lander Johnson, editors of the <a href="https://www.cuapress.org/search-results/?series=catholic-women-writers" target="_blank">Catholic Women Writers</a> series from the Catholic University of America Press. They explain why these <a href="https://www.newmanreview.org/lost-voices-of-the-catholic-literary-revival/" target="_blank">"Lost Voices of the Catholic Literary Revival"</a> deserve to be heard, by being celebrated and read:<div><br /></div><i>The work of these women indicates that the Revival lasted much longer than is usually thought (women were writing earlier and later than most of the men associated with the Revival) and that its writers were located in all areas of Britain and Ireland, not merely in the south of England. Novels by Catholic women are often concerned with different theological questions than we find in the work of Waugh and Greene. They are set in families and villages and in the institutional communities in which the writers themselves first encountered the faith: schools, convents, or convent schools. Almost wholly unrecognized by scholarship of the Catholic novel, or indeed the novel generally, are the frequent depictions of female religious life in novels of the twentieth century.</i><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhntA_BuA7XocMJxvycKW7cj7G7Vtq47KQTqw-fSgrRPEpjbZPvKP1wkAlhlyVtAft3qNkG5Nn0AjyadoBzcjm7Y1_tKCuEmByHuOB2B2VOvs9XuhdUbM_4hS_08p1JG1tWT6SvALJOvcHJS3QJyCcnNW-dWxHYHscKW9Nqz9UV5yAL6LY6XuO8Xtyp9Ik/s447/end%20of%20the%20house%20of%20alard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="447" data-original-width="298" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhntA_BuA7XocMJxvycKW7cj7G7Vtq47KQTqw-fSgrRPEpjbZPvKP1wkAlhlyVtAft3qNkG5Nn0AjyadoBzcjm7Y1_tKCuEmByHuOB2B2VOvs9XuhdUbM_4hS_08p1JG1tWT6SvALJOvcHJS3QJyCcnNW-dWxHYHscKW9Nqz9UV5yAL6LY6XuO8Xtyp9Ik/s320/end%20of%20the%20house%20of%20alard.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>Highlighted is a book I've had on my "to be read" pile for awhile but now have started to read:</div><div><br /></div><i>Another writer of the Revival now back in print in the Catholic Women Writers series is Sheila Kaye-Smith, until recently forgotten but a bestseller in the 1920s. Her 1925 novel</i> <a href="https://www.cuapress.org/9780813235622/the-end-of-the-house-of-alard/" target="_blank">The End of the House of Alard</a> <i>was written during her conversion from high Anglicanism to Catholicism and, long before Waugh’s </i>Brideshead Revisited, <i>explores the post-war erosion of the aristocracy from a Catholic point of view. Faced with the decline of their family estate, Alard’s characters must discern between intrinsic and instrumental goods. In relaying their struggles, Kaye-Smith boldly takes all that was most loved about her own best-selling genre—the aristocracy’s glamour, its age-old traditions, and its role in community-building—and subordinates it to a higher truth. The novel in some ways dramatizes Kaye-Smith’s own experience of how many fruits of the world can, and at times must, be put aside by those who choose God, and how this sacrifice brings with it different riches entirely unseen and unknown by those who refuse to give up what is most dear to them.</i><div><i><br /></i></div><div>The second <a href="https://www.newmanreview.org/like-a-slowly-moving-censer-learning-to-read-with-newman/" target="_blank">article </a>offers some insights into what makes reading Newman such a rewarding challenge. (The author, Luigi Rossi was a Visiting Scholar at NINS during September 2023. He is Assistant Professor (Maître de Conférences) of Education at the Catholic University of the West in Angers, France.):</div><br /><i>Compared to my usual diet of scholarly articles and books, Newman’s writings stood out for what appeared to me as their meandering character. Unlike most contemporary works, Newman does not state upfront what he is going to say and then take the reader through the motions of a demonstration delivered blow by blow. He begins, instead, with a puzzle, or a question, that he brings before his audience; he unfolds his thinking slowly, almost searchingly, from his initial questions; he also frequently refrains from tying up his argument, leaving whatever he said simply to “air” with the reader.<a href="https://www.newmanreview.org/like-a-slowly-moving-censer-learning-to-read-with-newman/#sdfootnote4sym" target="_blank">4</a><br /><br />After overcoming my initial disorientation at a style that looks unsystematic––from the standpoint of contemporary academic standards––I started to notice a growing curiosity in me: not just for what Newman says, but precisely for how he says it. To be more precise: I noticed myself referring back to the experience of reading Newman’s texts in order to get a firmer hold on his understanding of how reason operates in the ordinary conduct of life. As I did that, I eventually retrieved within myself a freer, more meandering style of reasoning, not unlike that which Newman practices in his writing. In a way, reading Newman brought me closer to what it is to read a text: making space for it to breathe, for its images to resonate, for its metaphors to blossom into rich associations, and eventually, to witness a meaningful figure come into being by this slow maturation. . . .</i><div><i><br /></i></div><div>Please read the rest <a href="https://www.newmanreview.org/like-a-slowly-moving-censer-learning-to-read-with-newman/" target="_blank">there</a>.<i><br /></i><div><br /></div><div>I think this is one of the ways that Newman drew his listeners and draws his readers into their imaginations--not of fantasy--but of thought and reality. They were, as evidenced by the popularity of these sermons in their time, and those who read him today--or hear him read as I do at our monthly Newman reading gatherings--engaged in his exploration of an important spiritual, moral, religious truth.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6QZRUFaTysj8ppIEw-_lbGiavBgSu1c9HvpTGJpW6IzxVu2UVvSrFj9is3pCD9Tf61qSV5wtu1WNgbW1RjsCjudaVFBbrMrCuVF9-M_W0aNPfSxLjmzbj05CAmcEWFjO-sNKjtJs8wPu2S1BP4CCQeLiQsyEGAJ3fur3IwPIBceYF2YR3lh-94NUTWw0/s320/Book%20Cover.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="240" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6QZRUFaTysj8ppIEw-_lbGiavBgSu1c9HvpTGJpW6IzxVu2UVvSrFj9is3pCD9Tf61qSV5wtu1WNgbW1RjsCjudaVFBbrMrCuVF9-M_W0aNPfSxLjmzbj05CAmcEWFjO-sNKjtJs8wPu2S1BP4CCQeLiQsyEGAJ3fur3IwPIBceYF2YR3lh-94NUTWw0/s1600/Book%20Cover.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>After our most recent "Lovers of Newman" meeting, following a "Colloquy" tradition founded by the late Father Ian Ker in the 1990's, I realized that I could not think of another convert to Catholicism whose pre-conversion works we read with such attention and devotion. </div><div><br /></div><div>Can you?</div><div><br /></div><div>And I'm thinking particularly of our reading of his <i>Parochial and Plain Sermons</i> and other sermons he wrote as an Anglican, not just as explorations of his developing thought, but as sources of spiritual, moral, and religious insights and guidance. Since I attended my first <a href="https://supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.com/2013/02/more-about-newman-school-of-catholic.html" target="_blank">Newman School of Catholic Thought in 1979</a>, I've been encouraged to read these Anglican sermons. It's true that at our monthly sermon readings we have discussions about a more Catholic understanding of some matters, but primarily, as Father William R. Lamm did so many years ago in 1934, we appreciate his spiritual legacy and his goals in those sermons (from my 2021 <a href="https://supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.com/2021/09/book-review-spiritual-legacy-of-newman.html" target="_blank">review </a>of Father Lamm's book):</div><br /><i>Father Lamm's thesis is that in Newman's sermons given as Vicar of the University Church of St. Mary's the Virgin in Oxford, he had a special purpose. He wanted to give general spiritual direction to those students in his congregation who wanted to be REAL Christians, who wanted to pursue holiness and perfection in the spiritual and moral life. Therefore, Father Lamm argues that Newman's spiritual legacy centers around these themes: what keeps us from becoming perfect (not considering grave, mortal sin) and what can help us become perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect. <br /><br />What Newman sees as keeping us from pursuing holiness and the realizing of God's Presence in our souls, according to Lamm, is our hypocrisy as we deceive ourselves about our spiritual state, deceive others, and attempt to deceive God. What will help us pursue holiness and the realizing of God's Presence is Surrender to God's Will through repentance, and the practice of a host of virtues, including love, faith, hope, obedience, and fervour, summed up as sincerity and simplicity--watching for God and developing the habit of prayer. . . .</i></div><div><br /></div><div>Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!</div>Stephanie A. Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14796489639420491857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8895518556533459607.post-65255538279828774882024-02-23T00:00:00.094-06:002024-02-23T00:00:00.126-06:00Preview: St. Thomas More on God's Grace and the "World"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIFv8Pa5CUnsJIT87RaVJobn1vOXiorbDeHf3OUhyphenhyphenyeyKkGGuJbhyphenhyphenR7jDXX_ZPN9WxUwPPZGtVXAnQvUVt7f2k7Q0iL7T9He5OLeBU1sy_LGq_QiCCPEFtayYY7V1ib-yYb30pEV76zYz8WRnhcgSO4U8ByJHxXSqr0aX7jqSckCz11IiornpVnqBuZ2M/s1600/D740.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1135" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIFv8Pa5CUnsJIT87RaVJobn1vOXiorbDeHf3OUhyphenhyphenyeyKkGGuJbhyphenhyphenR7jDXX_ZPN9WxUwPPZGtVXAnQvUVt7f2k7Q0iL7T9He5OLeBU1sy_LGq_QiCCPEFtayYY7V1ib-yYb30pEV76zYz8WRnhcgSO4U8ByJHxXSqr0aX7jqSckCz11IiornpVnqBuZ2M/w284-h400/D740.jpg" width="284" /></a></div>On Monday, February 26, we'll continue our series on St. Thomas More's "A Godly Meditation" on the Son Rise Morning Show. I'll be on at our usual time, about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Listen live <a href="https://radio.securenetsystems.net/cirruspremier/WNOP2">here </a>or catch the <a href="https://www.sacredheartradio.com/onair/son-rise-morning-show">podcast </a>later.<div><br /></div><div>We're going to begin with the prayer itself after our general introduction <a href="https://www.sacredheartradio.com/son-rise/show-notes-for-monday-2-19-2024" target="_blank">last week</a> to More's circumstances and plan for his life and death in the Tower of London. Now we'll begin to see how applicable his plan is to our Lenten practices of fasting, almsgiving and prayer. Here are the lines for this conversation:</div><div><br /></div><i>Give me thy grace, good Lord,<br />To set the world at naught.To set my mind fast upon thee and not to hang<br />Upon the blast of men’s mouths.<br />To be content to be solitary,<br />Not to long for worldly company.<br />Little and little utterly to cast off the world<br />And rid my mind of all the business thereof. </i><br /><div><br /></div><div><b>Give my thy Grace, good Lord</b>; More begins in the right place, asking God's grace to accomplish his plan of life. I think that's where we should begin too. "Oh God, come to my assistance. Make haste to help me." We can't do this on our own, saving ourselves, manifesting our own willpower to achieve these ends. Whatever we set out to do or not to do, we have to discern that it's what is best for us to do, with God's grace, and then ask for His grace to help us persevere with our Lenten discipline so it transforms us by the end of the season, prepared for the Holy Triduum and Easter Sunday!</div><div><br /></div><div>His first petitions introduce the negative and positive aspects of his preparation, and ours: </div><div><br /></div><b>To set the world at naught.</b><div><b>To set my mind fast upon thee and not to hang<br />Upon the blast of men’s mouths.</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>First to treat the world as nothing of importance; to become detached from the world. How do we do this?</div><div><br /></div><div>Like Thomas More, husband, father, and friend, diplomat and author, former Speaker of the House of Commons, Lord Chancellor, if we're active laity, we have to be involved in the world in many ways, in our families, workplaces, our cities, states, and country. We can't abandon it.</div><div><br /></div><div>I think he offers two ways to face this challenge: </div><div><br /></div><div>First, setting our minds fast upon the Lord, through prayer, spiritual reading, silence, and all the different ways Catholic tradition has given us. That's part of any Christian life, intensified during Lent.</div><div><br /></div><div>Second, to avoid the "blast of men's mouths", the cacophony of talk and endless speculative debate. Perhaps not reading or listening to all the "talking heads" on television and radio discussing politics or sports to no consequence? When I heard some sports talk still discussing the Super Bowl two weeks after the event, debating who lost the game for the 49ers, I thought, how useless! They've got to fill the hours, but I don't have to listen or watch.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the following lines, perhaps the first part <b>("To be content to be solitary,/Not to long for worldly company."</b>) applies most directly to More's situation in the Tower of London, but the last part can apply to us as we try to <b>"Little and little utterly to cast off the world/And rid [our minds] of all the business thereof"</b>, especially when it's not really our business . . .</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm sure Matt or Anna will have other responses and suggestions . . .</div><div><div><br /></div><div>Saint Thomas More, pray for us!</div></div>Stephanie A. Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14796489639420491857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8895518556533459607.post-79174662621500295362024-02-16T00:00:00.227-06:002024-02-16T00:00:00.136-06:00Preview: St. Thomas More's "A Godly Meditation": A Guide for Lent<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrSqPo7tjJZT4Rwj5w4xjkTvdRjJEMdblLm8H6mAAeJLMlgYOSPpTGv9AE7Bchlb9mtgGHHd0GhH4YvK0fM2V7kKOgiejI-o7-Mayxq1vvGlRoD44VHybx2D4WgN1rWffVcdljqWUtWUrMXSNnaoctfHXYGaNuVt3A8j5P0lR6NqJU7yDAKACqYiJlYN8/s599/482px-Hans_Holbein,_the_Younger_-_Sir_Thomas_More_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="599" data-original-width="482" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrSqPo7tjJZT4Rwj5w4xjkTvdRjJEMdblLm8H6mAAeJLMlgYOSPpTGv9AE7Bchlb9mtgGHHd0GhH4YvK0fM2V7kKOgiejI-o7-Mayxq1vvGlRoD44VHybx2D4WgN1rWffVcdljqWUtWUrMXSNnaoctfHXYGaNuVt3A8j5P0lR6NqJU7yDAKACqYiJlYN8/s320/482px-Hans_Holbein,_the_Younger_-_Sir_Thomas_More_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg" width="257" /></a></div>For February 19 and 20 in his<i> Mementoes of the English Martyrs and Confessors For Every Day of the Year </i>(and he does include an entry for February 29 during a Leap Year!), Father Henry Sebastian Bowden chose one of the prayers Saint Thomas More wrote in the Tower of London. Some sources date this prayer to sometime in 1534 (More was imprisoned on April 17, 1534; he was tried on July 1, 1535 and executed on July 6), as he began his life in prison.<div><br /></div><div>Since Saint Thomas More spent the last months of his life, as he said, meditating on the Passion of Christ and preparing himself for death, I thought it could make a good guide for the Lenten Season.<p></p><p>Therefore, on Monday, February 19, Anna Mitchell or Matt Swaim and I will start our discussion of this great prayer on the Son Rise Morning Show, continuing to reflect on its riches each Monday of Lent 2024. </p><p><span face="Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif" style="background-color: white;">I'll be on at our usual time, about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Listen live </span><a href="https://radio.securenetsystems.net/cirruspremier/WNOP2" style="background-color: white; color: #cc0000; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">here </a><span face="Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif" style="background-color: white;">or catch the </span><a href="https://www.sacredheartradio.com/onair/son-rise-morning-show" style="background-color: white; color: #cc0000; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">podcast </a><span face="Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif" style="background-color: white;">later.</span><span face="Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif" style="background-color: white;"> </span></p><p><span face="Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif" style="background-color: white;">Father Bowden titles the two entries, on pages 63 and 64, "In the Shadow of Death" (1) and (2) with the final verse from the Benedictus, "To enlighten them that sit in darkness and the shadow of death" and "To direct our feet into the way of peace" divided between them. (Luke 1:79)</span></p><p><span face="Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif" style="background-color: white;">For our first episode, we'll just review the issues More is dealing with in this prayer: all that he's lost and all that he hopes to gain. The entire text is a litany of petitions. </span><span face="Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif" style="background-color: white;">As he wrote this in the margins of his breviary Thomas More was preparing himself for death, either in prison or by execution. He had already lost his freedom, his influence, his power, his friends, and many of the comforts of his family and he was praying to be reconciled to those losses. </span>I don't think this was easy for Saint Thomas More: <span style="background-color: white;">Although the petitions seem measured and calm, More was facing a great struggle.</span></p><p><span face="Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif" style="background-color: white;">Here is the text as Father Bowden presents it:</span></p><p><span face="Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif" style="background-color: white;">"In the Shadow of Death" (1)</span></p><i>Give me thy grace, good Lord,<br />To set the world at naught.</i><div><i><br /></i></div><div>Note: you may see these first two lines written at the top and bottom of a page from More's breviary <a href="https://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/articles/4092-st-thomas-mores-last-book" target="_blank">here</a>.</div><div><i><br />To set my mind fast upon thee and not to hang<br />Upon the blast of men’s mouths.<br />To be content to be solitary,<br />Not to long for worldly company.<br />Little and little utterly to cast off the world<br />And rid my mind of all the business thereof.<br />Not to long to hear of any worldly things,<br />But that the hearing of worldly fantasies may be to me displeasant.<br />Gladly to be thinking of God,<br />Piteously to call for his help.<br />To lean unto the comfort of God,<br />Busily to labour to love him.<br />To know my own vility and wretchedness,<br />To humble and meeken myself under the mighty hand of God.<br />To bewail my sins past<br />For the purging of them patiently to suffer adversity.<br />Gladly to bear my purgatory here;<br />To be joyful of tribulations.</i><div><br /></div><div><span face="Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif" style="background-color: white;">"In the Shadow of Death" (2)</span><br /><div><br /><i>To walk the narrow way that leadeth to life,<br />To bear the cross with Christ.<br />To have the last thing in remembrance,<br />To have ever afore mine eye my death that is ever at hand.<br />To make death no stranger to me,<br />To foresee and consider the everlasting fire of hell.<br />To pray for pardon before the Judge come,<br />To have continually in mind the Passion that Christ suffered for me.<br />For his benefits incessantly to give him thanks,<br />To buy the time again that I before have lost.<br />To abstain from vain confabulations,<br />To eschew light foolish mirth and gladness.<br />Recreations not necessary to cut off;<br />Of worldly substance, friends, liberty, life and all </i><div><i>To set the loss at right naught for the winning of Christ.</i></div><div><i><br />To think my most enemies my best friends, for the brethren of Joseph could never have done him so much good with their love and favour as they did him with their malice and hatred.</i></div><div><span style="color: #cc0000;"><br /></span></div><div>Father Bowden does not include this final line in these two entries:</div><div><br /></div><div>[These minds are more to be desired of every man than all the treasure of all the princes and kings, Christian and heathen, were it gathered and layed together all upon one heap.]</div></div></div></div><div><br /></div><div>Saint Thomas More starts out preparing to lose much that he held dear; then he prays for what he needs not just to replace but to surpass those things; then he meditates on preparing for death and repenting of past sins--then he mentions again all the things he needs to give up and what he'll gain thereby. As Father Bowden concludes the prayer, More wants to be grateful, even, to those who've put him in the Tower of London, comparing his situation to the story of Joseph in the Old Testament. </div><div><br /></div><div>Finally, More compares worldly treasures to spiritual goods, with the latter far surpassing the former.</div><div><br /></div><div>Each Monday of Lent, we'll discuss More's " A Godly Meditation" as a pattern for Lent, as it serves as a model of detachment, repentance, and faith in God. Some of the things More gave up may easy for some of us, or as hard or harder for some of us as they were for him, but what he stood to gain--"the comfort of God" and "the winning of Christ" are as precious to us as they were to him.</div><div><br /></div><div>Saint Thomas More, pray for us!</div></div>Stephanie A. Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14796489639420491857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8895518556533459607.post-66390201581957661442024-02-09T00:00:00.002-06:002024-02-09T08:17:49.804-06:00Preview: The End of Shrovetide/Mardi Gras/Carnival/Fasching on the Son Rise Morning Show<p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;"></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6omjT4vCwTsgIMFdAjdlioOcxDaL0X5praH73yic9Ar1Mx6dT8iXHi6WWtObD8bHtNFv8Ogi491H9yTRutMvIyYVtaTOY-XiAh8SA9wu6dEsD8fM8Aj-8_Mwyy3M6TaS56-QnQ_MRrQOdlBN9snGY4MxYBiMBYqvnBxt6TdCuuiVQY3BL7vTYra-u-xI/s400/800px-Pieter_Aertsen_017.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="206" data-original-width="400" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6omjT4vCwTsgIMFdAjdlioOcxDaL0X5praH73yic9Ar1Mx6dT8iXHi6WWtObD8bHtNFv8Ogi491H9yTRutMvIyYVtaTOY-XiAh8SA9wu6dEsD8fM8Aj-8_Mwyy3M6TaS56-QnQ_MRrQOdlBN9snGY4MxYBiMBYqvnBxt6TdCuuiVQY3BL7vTYra-u-xI/w400-h206/800px-Pieter_Aertsen_017.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;"><br />In order, from the title: Shrovetide in England/Mardi Gras in Louisiana/Carnival in parts of Europe/Fasching in Germany; not to mention the Liturgical pre-Lenten season of Septuagesima! These are all different names for the lead-up to Lent, which was at least partially a practical matter of emptying out the larder of meat and meat by-products before the very strict Lenten period of fasting and abstinence. </span><p></p><p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">On the Son Rise Morning Show on Monday, February 12, we'll talk about Shrovetide and the Pancake Races held in England and in Liberal Kansas (!): the background for Pancake Day and free short stacks at various locations in the USA! </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">I'll be on at our usual time, about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Listen live </span><a href="https://radio.securenetsystems.net/cirruspremier/WNOP2" style="background-color: white; color: #cc0000; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">here </a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">or catch the </span><a href="https://www.sacredheartradio.com/onair/son-rise-morning-show" style="background-color: white; color: #cc0000; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">podcast </a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">later.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"> </span></p><p><a href="http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=5877" style="background-color: white; color: #cc0000; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-decoration-line: none;">Here</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"> is a good source for a description of Shrovetide and Shrove Tuesday:</span></p><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><i>Shrove Tuesday is the last day of what traditionally was called "Shrovetide," the weeks preceding the beginning of Lent. The word itself, Shrovetide, is the English equivalent for "Carnival," which is derived from the Latin words carnem levare, meaning "to take away the flesh." (Note that in Germany, this period is called "Fasching," and in parts of the United States, particularly Louisiana, "Mardi Gras.") <b>While this was seen as the last chance for merriment, and, unfortunately in some places, has resulted in excessive pleasure, Shrovetide was the time to cast off things of the flesh and to prepare spiritually for Lent.</b></i></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><i><b><br /></b></i></div><div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim5faOwOZOwmHd5_VqrOhtaS_MeAqyLhGqdAuGL9kF-1ib1caQGENMPFobCtqWg9oAt1ogK8IRNBQu6BMUYED9A-p3J2_yp7BudQOhJXVnN3VJvcUKHjn8ogdSXJgnzuEkSHTO3OqglIbr_umKtkVzhyC6m8k9EC8SQHIbXTw27x7T1xralo59rh_zRbg/s640/Eucharist-Adoration-727666053.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="640" height="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim5faOwOZOwmHd5_VqrOhtaS_MeAqyLhGqdAuGL9kF-1ib1caQGENMPFobCtqWg9oAt1ogK8IRNBQu6BMUYED9A-p3J2_yp7BudQOhJXVnN3VJvcUKHjn8ogdSXJgnzuEkSHTO3OqglIbr_umKtkVzhyC6m8k9EC8SQHIbXTw27x7T1xralo59rh_zRbg/w400-h176/Eucharist-Adoration-727666053.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"><i><b><br /></b></i></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.2px;">That excessive merriment and pleasure--that is, gluttony and drunkenness--is the reason that some churches started the tradition of the </span></span><a href="https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2018/03/a-history-of-40-hours-devotion-by-henri.html" style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;" target="_blank">Forty Hours Devotion</a><span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.2px;"> </span></span>(Quarant'ore in Italian)<b style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><span title="Italian-language text"><i lang="it"> </i></span></b><span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.2px;">leading up to Ash Wednesday, from the last Sunday of the Septuagesima "season", Quinquagesima, through Tuesday. Instead of partying, Catholics were encouraged to adore the Blessed Sacrament in the Monstrance.</span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><br /><i>Actually, the English term provides the best meaning for this period. "To shrive" meant to hear confessions. In the Anglo-Saxon "Ecclesiastical Institutes," recorded by Theodulphus and translated by Abbot Aelfric about AD 1000, Shrovetide was described--as follows: "In the week immediately before Lent everyone shall go to his confessor and confess his deeds and the confessor shall so shrive him as he then may hear by his deeds what he is to do in the way of penance." To highlight the point and motivate the people, special plays or masques were performed which portrayed the passion of our Lord or final judgment. </i><b style="font-style: italic;">Clearly, this Shrovetide preparation for Lent included the confessing of sin and the reception of absolution; as such, Lent then would become a time for penance and renewal of faith.</b><br /><br /><i>While this week of Shrovetide condoned the partaking of pleasures from which a person would abstain during Lent, Shrove Tuesday had a special significance in England. Pancakes were prepared and enjoyed, because in so doing a family depleted their eggs, milk, butter, and fat which were part of the Lenten fast. At this time, some areas of the Church abstained from all forms of meat and animal products, while others made exceptions for food like fish. For example, Pope St. Gregory (d. 604), writing to St. Augustine of Canterbury, issued the following rule: "</i><b style="font-style: italic;">We abstain from flesh, meat, and from all things that come from flesh, as milk, cheese, and eggs." These were the fasting rules governing the Church in England; hence, the eating of pancakes on Shrove Tuesday.</b></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">And the eating of bacon on Collop/Shrove Monday!<br /><br />Here is a <a href="http://findingshakespeare.co.uk/tasting-tudor-pancakes" style="color: #cc0000; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">recipe</a> for pancakes from the Tudor era: specifically, from <i>The good Huswifes Handmaide for the Kitchin</i> from 1588:<br /><br /><i>To make the pancakes:<br /><br />Take new thicke Creame a pinte, four of five yolks of Egs, a good handful of flower, and two or three spoonfuls of ale, strain them altogether into a faire platter, and season it with a good handful of Sugar, a sooneful of Synamon and a little Ginger: then takea frying pan, and put in a little peece of Butter, as but as your thombe, and when it is molten browne, cast it out of your pan, and with a ladle put to the furthesr side of your pan some of your stuffe, and hole your pan aslope, so that you stuffe may run abroad all ouer all the pan, as thin as may be: then set it to the fyre, and let the fyre be verie soft, and when the one side is bakes, then turne the other, and bake them as dry as ye can without burning.</i></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">After one Tudor housewife starting making her pancakes, she heard the church bells ring and ran to church, carrying the frying pan with a pancake in it, still wearing her apron, and tying a scarf around her head--and that's how the tradition of Pancake Races began. Since 1950, ladies in Olney, England and Liberal, Kansas (USA) have competed in the <a href="http://www.pancakeday.net/" style="color: #cc0000; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">International Pancake Day</a> races!</div>Stephanie A. Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14796489639420491857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8895518556533459607.post-41914727579577615012024-02-03T00:00:00.067-06:002024-02-03T14:39:10.585-06:00Book Review: "Cradle of Redeeming Love" by John Saward<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqtc10upPqDO14ab8KVACFCiQAzyDt-i40XSemp8fmu6tm9698gsFjXIXXvLUCAEnjD6Ruwx2eRR0MADGoznJ_iMOTKZyGjrSt9kJm3GUwnAUIyK2KewGMurZLxY-QzAmIYXiqrYc9LbxeYBVhZeBVDY9vwD3qfsc1S2L23MNt6XCSY2XuyanGvR_aDfU/s466/Cradle%20of%20Redeeming%20Love.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="466" data-original-width="302" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqtc10upPqDO14ab8KVACFCiQAzyDt-i40XSemp8fmu6tm9698gsFjXIXXvLUCAEnjD6Ruwx2eRR0MADGoznJ_iMOTKZyGjrSt9kJm3GUwnAUIyK2KewGMurZLxY-QzAmIYXiqrYc9LbxeYBVhZeBVDY9vwD3qfsc1S2L23MNt6XCSY2XuyanGvR_aDfU/s320/Cradle%20of%20Redeeming%20Love.jpg" width="207" /></a></div>Just in time for Candlemas, I finished this book by John Saward, <i>Cradle of Redeeming Love: The Theology of the Christmas Mystery</i>. I had read it almost a <a href="https://supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.com/2014/12/december-31-2014-in-ending-of-year.html" target="_blank">decade </a>before, and both times I've read the Ignatius Press paperback edition. Now it is published by <a href="https://angelicopress.com/products/cradle-of-redeeming-love" target="_blank">Angelico Press</a>, with a similar cover image and similar cover blurb:<p></p><i>In </i>Cradle of Redeeming Love, <i>John Saward returns to the mystery of Christ’s incarnation and birth. Drawing upon both the rich traditions of the Church and the writings of the great Christian mystics, he fashions a work both new and old, revolutionary and orthodox. This profoundly moving meditation on the meaning of the Incarnation will enrich any contemplation on the life of Christ.<br /><br />The subject of this book is the “Christmas” dogma: the divinely revealed truth of the Nativity of Christ, as proclaimed by His infallible and immaculate Bride, the Church. It is the splendor of this truth, of “Love’s noon in Nature’s night,” which for two millennia has captivated the minds of Fathers and Schoolmen, activated the genius of poets, painters, and musicians, and, in even the bleakest of mid-winters, brightened the eyes of little ones kneeling by the Crib.</i><div><br /></div><div>And also, as our Greater Wichita G.K. Chesterton group continues to read <i>The Everlasting Man</i> (also for the second time as group, but with different members), I must note how often Father Saward quotes and references Chesterton throughout the book. There are also a few mentions of Saint John Henry Newman, but the theologian and saint quoted most often is Saint Thomas Aquinas, whose feast (though superseded by Sunday! as we know Saint Thomas would think entirely fitting!) was January 28, opening Catholic Schools week. Other saints and theologians frequently cited are Pope St. Leo the Great, Saints Ambrose of Milan, Augustine of Hippo, Bernard of Clairvaux, Bonaventure, Cyril of Alexandria, and Jerome, etc. In addition to Chesterton, Father Saward also cites another Englishman, Father Frederick Faber of the London Oratory, especially Faber's book <i>Bethlehem: The Sacred Infancy of Our Most Dear and Blessed Redeemer</i>.</div><div><br /></div><div>What impressed me most this reading was Father Saward's emphasis in Chapter One, "How great the mystery!" The Mysteries of the Life of Jesus, that every act of Jesus's life on earth was an act for our salvation: not just (!) His Passion, Death and Resurrection, but every act from His Infancy and through His active ministry: every teaching, every healing, every rejection--everything the Incarnate Son of God did on earth was for our salvation. Not just for our moral improvement, doctrinal instruction, or our spiritual development, but for our salvation. </div><div><br /></div><div>From page 78-79 in the Ignatius press edition:</div><div><br /></div><div><i>But the mysteries of the life of Jesus are more than just a series of dogmatic instructions and moral lessons. They provide not only a model for outward imitation but also a source of inward transformation. . . . they sanctify us by an efficient as well as an exemplary causality; they not only show us how to be holy in the likeness our Saviour but reproduce that likeness in our souls. From the fleshly birth of the Head comes the spiritual rebirth of the members. When the divine Messiah takes on the Old Law at His Circumcision, He lifts the burden from other men. The immersion of His body in the Jordan gives a new sacramental vocation to water. His victory over Satan in the wilderness strengthens His faithful against temptation. His Passion saves us my merit, satisfaction, sacrifice and redemption. His Resurrection from the tomb is the source and model of our own resurrection, in soul and in body. "Redemption," says the Catechism [of the Catholic Church], "comes to us above all through the blood of his cross, but this mystery is at work throughout Christ's entire life." [517] As Pope Pius II [in Mediator Dei, no. 163], in each mystery, Christ is the 'Author of our salvation.'</i></div><div><br /></div><div>I think this knowledge should make a great difference in the way I read or, especially, hear the Gospels proclaimed at Holy Mass! </div><div><br /></div><div>As a good friend of mine said, who finished the book before Christmas, this is a book to read again and again--probably more often than every ten years!</div>Stephanie A. Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14796489639420491857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8895518556533459607.post-85428642920708818802024-02-02T00:00:00.067-06:002024-02-02T00:00:00.132-06:00Preview: Margaret Powell, Recusant Catholic Confessor<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqCku3_vosQLI7MFyliDfkQtyb1OeJaV2gF-mwC8q1fbFctJcWroBuE_3tJkAFg2phMQzBPps6s-ZXbczRYblRyBmKwEL7bxTGMug7pMQ_iOpSX1zWf3JO1oepN8hvVlu3xS6i0mk7ErQHk-5Okr4bDjJl__9GVJ3OfAv8I7VbEj1iIC03dOVIxp9QIRw/s500/Thomas_Bullaker.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="373" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqCku3_vosQLI7MFyliDfkQtyb1OeJaV2gF-mwC8q1fbFctJcWroBuE_3tJkAFg2phMQzBPps6s-ZXbczRYblRyBmKwEL7bxTGMug7pMQ_iOpSX1zWf3JO1oepN8hvVlu3xS6i0mk7ErQHk-5Okr4bDjJl__9GVJ3OfAv8I7VbEj1iIC03dOVIxp9QIRw/s320/Thomas_Bullaker.jpg" width="239" /></a></div>Among the beatified and canonized English martyrs, there are only several women (Saints Margaret Ward, Margaret Clitherow, Anne Line, and Blessed Margaret Pole), but there are many whom Father Henry Sebastian Bowden would call Confessors. In his daily <i>Mementoes of the English Martyrs and Confessors</i>, he highlights one such Confessor, Margaret Powell, who was arrested, tried, and sentenced to death in 1642 for aiding and abetting Blessed Thomas Bullaker, OSF, one of the 85 Martyrs of England and Wales beatified by Pope John Paul II. So on Monday, February 5, we'll continue our series on the the Son Rise Morning Show by remembering this brave woman.<p></p>I'll be on at our usual time, about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Listen live <a href="https://radio.securenetsystems.net/cirruspremier/WNOP2" target="_blank">here </a>or catch the <a href="https://www.sacredheartradio.com/onair/son-rise-morning-show" target="_blank">podcast </a>later.<div><br /></div><div>Father Bowden titles her entry for February 6 (p. 48) "The Sunamitess Rewarded" with this verse from 2 Kings 4:8: "now there was a great woman there, who detained him to eat bread; and as he passed often that way, he turned into her house to eat bread." Margaret Powell is the "great woman"; Blessed Thomas Bullaker the prophet Elisha; the bread is the Holy Mass in Bowden's analogy.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoiIHD-ExV5OxsWxyKiPmhYvsho0_Z0AvIAXJV7id_gO7sa4U_Oqnxl2auRKu_yJNQA5NSYMhI3Ibb_ZVcmzHvakmcKNI6ClgfRINGh4X2L7xoVvplIo3eWW2vPTWP_04tNQJc5SePf6v-_tjvLi6k9hyphenhyphenXsuZ0tk0aO_eTnw0sTth846Vc816uVtx0FyQ/s1000/Bowden.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="667" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoiIHD-ExV5OxsWxyKiPmhYvsho0_Z0AvIAXJV7id_gO7sa4U_Oqnxl2auRKu_yJNQA5NSYMhI3Ibb_ZVcmzHvakmcKNI6ClgfRINGh4X2L7xoVvplIo3eWW2vPTWP_04tNQJc5SePf6v-_tjvLi6k9hyphenhyphenXsuZ0tk0aO_eTnw0sTth846Vc816uVtx0FyQ/s320/Bowden.jpeg" width="213" /></a></div>As he describes her, Margaret Powell was "of good birth," but "reduced to great poverty through her sufferings for the Faith." Like Saint Margaret Clitherow, she was married to a Protestant, but still ministered to priests in prison, and often had one visit their home to say Mass. In October 1642, Father Thomas Bullaker "was seized while saying Mass, and Margaret and her boy, aged twelve, who was serving the Mass, were taken with him".</div><div><br /></div><div>One of the sources Father Bowden mentions in his introduction is "Mrs. Hope's <i>Franciscan Martyrs</i>". <a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_National_Biography,_1885-1900/Hope,_Anne" target="_blank">Mrs. Anne Hope</a>'s <i><a href="https://archive.org/details/franciscanmartyr00hopeiala/page/n3/mode/2up?view=theater" target="_blank">Franciscan Martyrs in England</a></i> was published in 1878; she was convert to Catholicism after studying Church History and moved to Edgbaston to be close to Saint John Henry Newman at the Birmingham Oratory (are you surprised?) She provides these details about Margaret Powell (p. 140):</div><div><br /></div><i>M. de Marsys, a gentleman in the household of the Comte d'Harcourt, the French ambassador, tells us that this lady was Margaret Parkins, the wife of Mr. Powell, a Protestant. She was about thirty years of age, and though connected with the principal families of England, was reduced to great poverty by the constant persecutions which she suffered for the cause of God. She had an only son whom she educated with great care in the Catholic faith. She devoted herself to prayer, fasting, and good works, especially to waiting upon priests who were ill in the prisons, gladly shutting herself up with them, and nursing them with such care and liberality that even the most hardened heretics could not but admire her extra- ordinary virtue.</i><div><br /></div><div>Mrs. Hope also provides Father Bowden these comments about her behavior at trial<span> (p. 150)</span>:</div><div><br /></div><i>One of the judges, who was a Puritan, exhorted her to think of her soul and her family, and to embrace the religion of the kingdom instead of giving her life for papistical superstitions. But she answered, smiling, that "as soon as the Parliament should have made choice of a religion they might invite her to receive it; as at the present moment they were disputing on it among themselves, it was ridiculous to make such a proposal to her." Her eloquence, her modest and courageous bearing, and her presence of mind touched even the Protestants who were present. The judges, therefore, finding that they drew from her only disagreeable truths and repartee which exposed them to the laughter of the bystanders, sent her back to prison.</i><div> <div><i>British History Online</i> has some <a href="https://www.british-history.ac.uk/middx-county-records/vol3/pp79-85" target="_blank">detail </a>about the indictments of Father Bullaker and Margaret Powell (though the dates don't match Father Bowden's timeline):</div><div><br /></div><i>August 31: Also record of the arraignment &c. of Thomas Bullaker for being a catholic priest; and also of Margaret Powell, for receiving and harbouring the said Thomas Bullaker (pro hospitacione Tho. Bullaker). Against the name of Thomas Bullaker appears this minute "non vult directe respondere nec se super patriam ponere, Ideo consideratum est quod predictus Thomas Bullaker trahetur super hurdellam usque furcas de Tiborne et ibidem suspendetur et vivens ad terram prosternatur, quodque interiola et membra sua e corpore suo abscindentur et in conspectu comburentur, quodque caput ejus abscindetur, et corpus ejus in quatuor partes dividetur, Et quod corpus et quarteria ejus ponantur ubi Dominus Rex assignare voluerit."—Against the record of Margaret Powell's arraignment appears the memorandum "po se Repr usq' prox sine ball" = She puts herself 'Not Guilty' on a jury of the country, and is reprieved without bail till next Session.—In the record of the proceedings of the next Session, viz., of 7 December, 18 Charles I., appears this memorandum, "Itt is thought fitt and soe desired by this Courte that Mr. Serjeant Phesant doe attende the House of Lords to acquainte theire Lordships with the proceedings against one Margarett Powell, convicted for the felonious receivinge Thomas Bullaker a Popishe Priest (who was executed the last Session) knowinge him to bee soe, And to knowe theire Lordships' pleasure whether shee shall bee executed according to the judgment given against her or be reprieved." G. D. Reg.</i><div><br /></div><div>Thus, Father Bullaker was condemned to being hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn in great Latin detail and Margaret, representing herself, pled not guilty and was bound over for trial. A later <a href="https://www.british-history.ac.uk/middx-county-records/vol3/pp79-85" target="_blank">entry </a>further notes:</div><div><br /></div><i>September 11: True Bill that, at St. Sepulchre's London co. Midd. on the said day, Thomas Bullaker late of the said parish clerk, born within the kingdom of England, and after the Feast of St. John the Baptist, 1 Eliz., and before the said 11 Sept., 18 Charles I., made and ordained "Sacerdos anglice a Seminarye Preist" by authority derived and pretended from the See of Rome, was and remained &c.; and that, at St. Sepulchre's London co. Midd. on the said 11 Sept, 18 Charles I., knowing him to be a priest of such kind as is abovesaid, Margaret Powell late of the said parish spinster received, harboured, comforted and maintained the said Thomas Bullaker. The clerical note over Thomas Bullaker's name at the bill's head is, "Nihil dic' Judiciu' qd. trahetur suspendetur et quartiatur videlt.' At the bill's foot appears the usual record in full of the sentence for execution at Tiborne, in the manner prescribed for the execution of felons, convicted of high treason. A note over Margaret Powell's name shows that at a subsequent Session, held on 7 Dec, 18 Charles I., she was found 'Guilty' and sentenced to be hung. G. D. R., 5 Oct., 18 Charles I.</i><div><br /></div><div>Blessed Thomas Bullaker was <a href="https://supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.com/2011/10/blessed-thomas-bullaker-ofm.html" target="_blank">executed </a>at Tyburn on October 12, 1642, but according to Father Bowden's memento, Margaret Powell was not hanged as sentenced (evidently Parliament ordered her reprieved in December 1642). Bowden comments on her reaction:</div><div><br /></div><div><i>At her trial, she had "expressed her joy at the prospect of laying down her life for the Faith in which she had been born, and which she hoped with God's mercy to bear unspotted to the grave." When she heard that her "sentence was deferred, she burst into tears; yet quickly recovering herself, she offered her new lease of life to God as obediently as she had accepted death." </i></div><div><br /></div><div>Whether she remained in prison for the rest of her life or was released, the record does not say--nor could I find out the fate of "her boy, aged twelve." But we might remember that the reward of the Sunamitess was the life of her son, miraculously conceived although her husband was old and miraculously restored to life by the Prophet Elisha (2 Kings 4:16-37)</div><div><br /></div><div>Blessed Thomas Bullaker, pray for us!</div><div>Margaret Powell, rest in peace! (and pray for us!)</div></div>Stephanie A. Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14796489639420491857noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8895518556533459607.post-23901907254840638452024-01-30T00:00:00.006-06:002024-02-15T11:06:35.159-06:00Book Review: "Flannery O'Connor's 'Why Do the Heathen Rage?'"<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuCqOIqB_0_avx3BjKGNDXHZtFNl8ZG9eFIpMEkUyUUFxWGTcZVngVJWe5OjqV86nnB76XoMLPXJkoBptFFFgwPPZ_aamAZaTL3VBAPYgl4Emck81SEIXEUCRdcxOnkTS1UgY__ZkkSjT79LLaszHT9K94qzwT6eZEHaZ956bycTh09SIkHkJpNQB4GLE/s440/9781587436185.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="440" data-original-width="286" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuCqOIqB_0_avx3BjKGNDXHZtFNl8ZG9eFIpMEkUyUUFxWGTcZVngVJWe5OjqV86nnB76XoMLPXJkoBptFFFgwPPZ_aamAZaTL3VBAPYgl4Emck81SEIXEUCRdcxOnkTS1UgY__ZkkSjT79LLaszHT9K94qzwT6eZEHaZ956bycTh09SIkHkJpNQB4GLE/w260-h400/9781587436185.jpg" width="260" /></a></div>Last Friday I watched the repeat of <i><a href="https://www.ewtn.com/tv/shows/world-over" target="_blank">The World Over</a></i> 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, <i>Why Do the Heathen Rage?</i><p></p><p>So after attending Adoration and Mass at the Newman Center (St. Paul's University Parish) at Wichita State University, I went to <a href="https://www.eighthdaybooks.com/product/157038/Flannery-OConnors-Why-Do-the-Heathen-Rage-A-Behind-the-Scenes-Look-at-a-Work-in-Progress" target="_blank">Eighth Day Books</a> 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: <i>Flannery O'Connor's Why Do the Heathen Rage? A Behind-the-Scenes Look at a Work in Progress. </i>The publisher provides the Table of Contents on their <a href="http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/flannery-o-connor-s-why-do-the-heathen-rage/417540" target="_blank">website</a>: </p><p><span face=""Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 0.875rem;">Introduction</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; line-height: 1.71429; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box;"><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Why Do the Heathen Rage? </i></b>The Porch Scene<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Koinonia<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Sequel to "The Enduring Chill"<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><b style="box-sizing: border-box;"><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Why Do the Heathen Rage? </i></b>Walter's Last Will and Testament<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><b style="box-sizing: border-box;"><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Why Do the Heathen Rage? </i></b>Baptism<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><b style="box-sizing: border-box;"><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Why Do the Heathen Rage? </i></b>Walter/Asbury's Childhood<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><b style="box-sizing: border-box;"><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Why Do the Heathen Rage? </i></b>Walter Recites the Ten Commandments<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Epistolary Blackface<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><b style="box-sizing: border-box;"><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Why Do the Heathen Rage? </i></b>The Black Double<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Maryat Lee and Oona Gibbs<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Documenting "Real" Life<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><b style="box-sizing: border-box;"><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Why Do the Heathen Rage? </i></b>Photo Journal<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />The Revolting Conversion<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><b style="box-sizing: border-box;"><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Why Do the Heathen Rage? </i></b>Do Not Come, Oona Gibbs!<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Introducing the Girl<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><b style="box-sizing: border-box;"><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Why Do the Heathen Rage? </i></b>The Girl<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Who Is Oona Gibbs? Mother, Daughter, Aunt, Cousin, or Lover<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><b style="box-sizing: border-box;"><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Why Do the Heathen Rage? </i></b>Walter's Aunt<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Burning Crosses<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><b style="box-sizing: border-box;"><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">The Violent Bear It Away: </i></b>The Burnt Cross</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; line-height: 1.71429; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box;"><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Why Do the Heathen Rage? </i></b><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />One Potential Ending</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; line-height: 1.71429; margin: 0px 0px 1em;">The Other Half of the Story<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Afterword by Steve Prince</p><div>So when the content follows the bold type <b>Why Do the Heathen Rage?</b>, 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 "<b>Why Do the Heathen Rage? </b>One Potential Ending", JHW provides her own version of the main character's conversion, based on a scene from O'Connor's <i>The Violent Bear it Away</i>.</div><div><br /></div><div>Just a reminder that I have read another of JHW's books, <i>Giving the Devil His Due: Demonic Authority in the Fiction of Flannery O’Connor and Fyodor Dostoevsky</i>, which I reviewed <a href="https://supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.com/2019/02/oconnor-and-dostoevsky-giving-devil-his.html" target="_blank">here</a>. She has visited Wichita twice to speak at Eighth Day Institute events, once at the <a href="https://supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.com/2019/10/confessions-surprises-and-apologies.html" target="_blank">Inklings Festival</a> and once at a <a href="https://supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.com/2020/01/liturgical-mysticism-at-eighth-day.html" target="_blank">Symposium</a>. She is now the Fletcher Jones Endowed Chair at Pepperdine University.<p>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 <a href="https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2020/06/how-flannery-oconnor-fought-racism" target="_blank">defense </a>of Flannery O'Connor after Paul Elie not only accused O'Connor of Racism, but even asked “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/06/22/how-racist-was-flannery-oconnor">How Racist Was Flannery O’Connor</a>?” in a 2020 <i>New Yorker</i> essay. JHW even repeats her analysis of the short story "Revelation" in that <i>First Things</i> article on pages 172 through 174 in this book. </p><p>The book is sympathetic to O'Connor's struggles and takes care to place her in her historical and cultural context: the post-<i>Gone With the Wind</i> 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 <i>oeuvre</i>, 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.</p><p>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 <i>Why Do the Heathen Rage?</i>) 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 "<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43959/say-not-the-struggle-nought-availeth" target="_blank">The Struggle</a>":</p><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: adobe-garamond-pro, Garamond, Baskerville, "Baskerville Old Face", "Hoefler Text", "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1em; text-indent: -1em; vertical-align: baseline;"><i>Say not the struggle nought availeth,<br /></i></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: adobe-garamond-pro, Garamond, Baskerville, "Baskerville Old Face", "Hoefler Text", "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1em; text-indent: -1em; vertical-align: baseline;"><i> The labour and the wounds are vain,<br /></i></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: adobe-garamond-pro, Garamond, Baskerville, "Baskerville Old Face", "Hoefler Text", "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1em; text-indent: -1em; vertical-align: baseline;"><i>The enemy faints not, nor faileth,<br /></i></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: adobe-garamond-pro, Garamond, Baskerville, "Baskerville Old Face", "Hoefler Text", "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1em; text-indent: -1em; vertical-align: baseline;"><i> And as things have been they remain.<br /></i></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: adobe-garamond-pro, Garamond, Baskerville, "Baskerville Old Face", "Hoefler Text", "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1em; text-indent: -1em; vertical-align: baseline;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: adobe-garamond-pro, Garamond, Baskerville, "Baskerville Old Face", "Hoefler Text", "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1em; text-indent: -1em; vertical-align: baseline;"><i>If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;<br /></i></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: adobe-garamond-pro, Garamond, Baskerville, "Baskerville Old Face", "Hoefler Text", "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1em; text-indent: -1em; vertical-align: baseline;"><i> It may be, in yon smoke concealed,<br /></i></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: adobe-garamond-pro, Garamond, Baskerville, "Baskerville Old Face", "Hoefler Text", "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1em; text-indent: -1em; vertical-align: baseline;"><i>Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,<br /></i></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: adobe-garamond-pro, Garamond, Baskerville, "Baskerville Old Face", "Hoefler Text", "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1em; text-indent: -1em; vertical-align: baseline;"><i> And, but for you, possess the field.<br /></i></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: adobe-garamond-pro, Garamond, Baskerville, "Baskerville Old Face", "Hoefler Text", "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1em; text-indent: -1em; vertical-align: baseline;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: adobe-garamond-pro, Garamond, Baskerville, "Baskerville Old Face", "Hoefler Text", "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1em; text-indent: -1em; vertical-align: baseline;"><i>For while the tired waves, vainly breaking<br /></i></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: adobe-garamond-pro, Garamond, Baskerville, "Baskerville Old Face", "Hoefler Text", "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1em; text-indent: -1em; vertical-align: baseline;"><i> Seem here no painful inch to gain,<br /></i></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: adobe-garamond-pro, Garamond, Baskerville, "Baskerville Old Face", "Hoefler Text", "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1em; text-indent: -1em; vertical-align: baseline;"><i>Far back through creeks and inlets making,<br /></i></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: adobe-garamond-pro, Garamond, Baskerville, "Baskerville Old Face", "Hoefler Text", "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1em; text-indent: -1em; vertical-align: baseline;"><i> Comes silent, flooding in, the main.<br /></i></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: adobe-garamond-pro, Garamond, Baskerville, "Baskerville Old Face", "Hoefler Text", "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1em; text-indent: -1em; vertical-align: baseline;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: adobe-garamond-pro, Garamond, Baskerville, "Baskerville Old Face", "Hoefler Text", "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1em; text-indent: -1em; vertical-align: baseline;"><i>And not by eastern windows only,<br /></i></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: adobe-garamond-pro, Garamond, Baskerville, "Baskerville Old Face", "Hoefler Text", "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1em; text-indent: -1em; vertical-align: baseline;"><i> When daylight comes, comes in the light,<br /></i></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: adobe-garamond-pro, Garamond, Baskerville, "Baskerville Old Face", "Hoefler Text", "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1em; text-indent: -1em; vertical-align: baseline;"><i>In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,<br /></i></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: adobe-garamond-pro, Garamond, Baskerville, "Baskerville Old Face", "Hoefler Text", "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1em; text-indent: -1em; vertical-align: baseline;"><i> But westward, look, the land is bright.</i></div></div>Stephanie A. Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14796489639420491857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8895518556533459607.post-87146473053489921622024-01-26T00:00:00.162-06:002024-01-26T08:54:50.545-06:00Preview: "Catholics are . . . not papists but Christians" (Cardinal Müller)<div>On the <i>Crisis Magazine</i> website, I had to stop and read an <a href="https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/the-catholic-church-is-not-the-popes-church-and-catholics-are-therefore-not-papists-but-christians-an-exclusive-interview-with-cardinal-gerhard-muller" target="_blank">opinion piece</a> 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 <a href="https://radio.securenetsystems.net/cirruspremier/WNOP2" target="_blank">here </a>or catch the <a href="https://www.sacredheartradio.com/onair/son-rise-morning-show" target="_blank">podcast </a>later.</div><div><br /></div><div>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 <b>Catholics are therefore not papists but Christians</b>" 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? ")</div><blockquote> . . . The approach to a Catholic ecclesiology is important.<span face="minion-pro, serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 22.4px; letter-spacing: -0.05px;"> </span>In <i>Lumen Gentium</i>, Vatican II did not begin with the Pope because, <b>contrary to what traditional Protestant polemics believed, <i>the Catholic Church is not the Pope’s Church</i> and Catholics are therefore not <i>papists</i> but Christians</b>. <b>Christ is the head of the Church</b> 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 <i><a href="https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei-verbum_en.html" target="_blank">Dei verbum</a></i> (Art. 10). (emphasis added0</blockquote><div><b>Papist </b>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, <span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;"> </span>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.</div><div><br /></div><div>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.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtJoAM7hoinxMGdEyDiUrwdQiC0qWfelvc5WxeBLN9_rGIrg9eE1kgw2LOFh8yBwEktTAqB_ttIMeVtHmDyFzZd8AZZdB3uL5Up6_pD344HFLi9UqajkNS0V0mt3LD-p3cgG-XlH0R_U4IQ8KItJrBG0MLxbG42htolwRNPhIJ3ZQsR8D909zbsr17wcs/s1056/Beza's_Icones,_contemporary_portraits_of_reformers_of_religion_and_letters_-_William_Tindale_on_Page_58.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1056" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtJoAM7hoinxMGdEyDiUrwdQiC0qWfelvc5WxeBLN9_rGIrg9eE1kgw2LOFh8yBwEktTAqB_ttIMeVtHmDyFzZd8AZZdB3uL5Up6_pD344HFLi9UqajkNS0V0mt3LD-p3cgG-XlH0R_U4IQ8KItJrBG0MLxbG42htolwRNPhIJ3ZQsR8D909zbsr17wcs/s320/Beza's_Icones,_contemporary_portraits_of_reformers_of_religion_and_letters_-_William_Tindale_on_Page_58.jpg" width="242" /></a></div>Its first use as a noun in England occurred in <b>1528</b> (as in, "He is a Papist") according to <i><a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/papist" target="_blank">Merriam-Webster</a></i>; as an adjective in <b>1562 </b>(as in, "He has Papist loyalties"). </div><div><br /></div><div>In <b>1528</b>, William Tyndale had written and published <i>The Obedience of the Christian Man</i>, 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 <b>1532</b>, 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.</div><div><br /></div><div>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?</div><div><br /></div><div>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 (<i>Regnans in Excelsis</i>), 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.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjXYaNJM9aphqsVOwg6SpRZlfnM5XE7rtFtYfAaob17GApsZTS3XtDh5i4eFzK3EeFAd1m6gVvoJfvA5bRPyLN2xiUGzYh3l0SHw7zsV4Fartaz4iyobKAo8uzAhAXubpPV46j5msf6LTBfAlp_znF8f40GVhkfCA8tqor_5aJ9O2d0LiLF1kJTwA0980/s500/Elizabeth-I-Allegorical-Po.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="360" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjXYaNJM9aphqsVOwg6SpRZlfnM5XE7rtFtYfAaob17GApsZTS3XtDh5i4eFzK3EeFAd1m6gVvoJfvA5bRPyLN2xiUGzYh3l0SHw7zsV4Fartaz4iyobKAo8uzAhAXubpPV46j5msf6LTBfAlp_znF8f40GVhkfCA8tqor_5aJ9O2d0LiLF1kJTwA0980/s320/Elizabeth-I-Allegorical-Po.jpg" width="230" /></a></div>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 <a href="https://supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.com/2018/02/blessed-robert-drury-appellant-martyr.html" target="_blank">Blessed Robert Drury</a>: 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.</div><div><br /></div><div>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 <i>Regnans in Excelsis</i>. 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.</div><div><br /></div><div>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.</div><div><br /></div><div>Skipping a few centuries, Cardinal Müller also alludes to the <i>Kulturkampf </i>of Chancellor Bismarck in Prussia after the First Vatican Council in 1870:</div><blockquote><i>The German bishops, with the approval of Pope Pius IX, declared to the German Chancellor Bismarck, <b>who wanted to misuse Vatican I to justify the destruction of the Catholic Church in the “Kulturkampf”</b>: “…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).</i></blockquote><div>And we know that Saint John Henry Newman responded to William E. Gladstone's over-reaction to the doctrine of Papal Infallibility in his <i>Letter to the Duke of Norfolk.</i><br /> <div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlmRE1UXipbnGcjKFmDr0-5VWweoPWjDM-LNhFNVGUwGkzV9XvmMtGinvPzJXGE330NQFrWIi-b5cpuv01RXPNQEkYlFoy9HtG-mn6-vZO7Ru3KHdPFZ5KXnMkGAUCAHevS2xdgrmilrIXSVThjqgB0zBpd9Ia81zNKzFjF1BTAj-y3M8WDQVC36O4Yj4/s1024/1024px-Udo_J.,Keppler_The_American_Pope_1894_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1118_01.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="692" data-original-width="1024" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlmRE1UXipbnGcjKFmDr0-5VWweoPWjDM-LNhFNVGUwGkzV9XvmMtGinvPzJXGE330NQFrWIi-b5cpuv01RXPNQEkYlFoy9HtG-mn6-vZO7Ru3KHdPFZ5KXnMkGAUCAHevS2xdgrmilrIXSVThjqgB0zBpd9Ia81zNKzFjF1BTAj-y3M8WDQVC36O4Yj4/s320/1024px-Udo_J.,Keppler_The_American_Pope_1894_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1118_01.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />The term travelled across the Atlantic Ocean to the British American Colonies, of course, thus a couple of recent books including the term, <i><b>Papist </b>Patriots: The Making of American Catholic Identity </i>by Maura Jane Farrelly and <i><b>Papist </b>Devils: Catholics in British America, 1574-1783</i> 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. </div><div><br /></div><div>In 1928, when Al Smith ran for President, he was called a Papist! and we know that in 1960 candidate John F. Kennedy <a href="https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jfkhoustonministerialQ&A.htm" target="_blank">faced, and mollified</a>, to some extent, fears that he would obey the Pope instead of the U.S. Constitution.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>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.</div><div><br /></div><div>All images public domain:</div><div><br /></div><div>Top image: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Tyndale#/media/File:Beza's_Icones,_contemporary_portraits_of_reformers_of_religion_and_letters_-_William_Tindale_on_Page_58.jpg" target="_blank">William Tyndale</a></div><div>Bottom image: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Catholicism_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Udo_J.,Keppler_The_American_Pope_1894_Cornell_CUL_PJM_1118_01.jpg" target="_blank">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.</a></div>Stephanie A. Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14796489639420491857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8895518556533459607.post-43413206414443805162024-01-19T00:00:00.048-06:002024-01-19T13:43:51.086-06:00Preview: "Mass Under Penal Laws" on the SRMSSince 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 <i><a href="https://sophiainstitute.com/product/mementoes-of-the-english-martyrs/" target="_blank">Mementoes of the English Martyrs and Confessors for Every Day in the Year</a></i> 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 <a href="https://radio.securenetsystems.net/cirruspremier/WNOP2" target="_blank">here </a>or catch the podcast later <a href="https://www.sacredheartradio.com/onair/son-rise-morning-show" target="_blank">here</a>.<div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmGIEsCTsbWcEg58efbffnGivl5wyieXokpnmWcxcqkj0MFvn35bmlKxrddMUjJ0Mm6-xEiBJaULKgN8gJiGEFhb2BEOurVGDVcjvCEiTB4VyxoZlKZ_dVixo8vMFANsEHChUK0o_EGkzHH5FdxQ5H6o3xpw2IW3sowDZCiD3sTtxe9G2XIpTxz8kXBAY/s800/800px-Mass_in_a_Connemara_Cabin_by_Aloysius_O'Kelly_(1883).png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="594" data-original-width="800" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmGIEsCTsbWcEg58efbffnGivl5wyieXokpnmWcxcqkj0MFvn35bmlKxrddMUjJ0Mm6-xEiBJaULKgN8gJiGEFhb2BEOurVGDVcjvCEiTB4VyxoZlKZ_dVixo8vMFANsEHChUK0o_EGkzHH5FdxQ5H6o3xpw2IW3sowDZCiD3sTtxe9G2XIpTxz8kXBAY/w400-h297/800px-Mass_in_a_Connemara_Cabin_by_Aloysius_O'Kelly_(1883).png" width="400" /></a></div><br />From a Letter of a Missionary Priest:</div><div><br /></div><div><i>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.</i></div><div><br /></div><div>Once the priest reminds them that he will have to leave in morning because of the danger of staying longer, the letter continues:</div><div><br /></div><div><i>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).</i></div><div><br /></div><div>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 <a href="https://supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.com/2023/09/preview-another-confessor-george.html" target="_blank">George Gilbert</a> 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, "<i style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">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."</i></div><div><br /></div><div>The letter goes on:</div><div><br /></div><div><i>No one is to be found to complain of the length of the services. <b>If the Mass does not last nearly an hour many are discontented.</b></i></div><div><br /></div><div>The Catholic recusant laity were hungry for the Mass, wanting more and more:</div><div><br /></div><div><i>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), <b>the same congregation will assist at all.</b></i></div><div><br /></div><div>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.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>When they can get priests, they confess every week.</i></div><div><br /></div><div>These Catholic communities had to work together for their access to the Sacraments and to assure their mutual safety, so</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Quarrels are scarcely known amongst them. Disputes are almost always left to the arbitration of the priests.</i></div><div><br /></div><div>And they had to be careful with whom they interacted outside of their communities:</div><div><br /></div><div><i>They do not willingly intermarry with heretics </i>[that could mean they wouldn't be able to practice their Catholic faith]<i>, not will they pray with them </i>[they were Recusants, not attending Anglican services]<i>, nor do they like to have any dealings with them </i>[they probably had to, but that could be dangerous because their recusancy was already known]<i>.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>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.</div><div><br /></div><div>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. </div><div><br /></div><div>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).</div><div><br /></div><div>Father Bowden selected this verse from Psalm 22 (5): </div><div><br /></div><div><i>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.</i></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloysius_O%27Kelly#/media/File:Mass_in_a_Connemara_Cabin_by_Aloysius_O'Kelly_(1883).png" target="_blank">Image Source</a> (Public Domain): <i>Mass in a Connemara Cabin </i>by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloysius_O%27Kelly" target="_blank">Aloysius O'Kelly</a>, 1883 (in Ireland)</div>Stephanie A. Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14796489639420491857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8895518556533459607.post-90400779971642715882024-01-05T00:00:00.107-06:002024-01-07T20:10:11.553-06:00Preview: "Disestablishment" on the Son Rise Morning Show<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBJ3AqVhmAVel_ibcsFaxMkEeDLfkX4rkkECLmbqbrPwEE7pPqFxZdEcBe-PtLswSIL9uUdxRG9hVI5n3JRIBAOwFSJPBHE3smMcLjLXIxSCuZXxRFeGexraI0bDb6g0IHqVgBKxc-SfguH51n1RBnpHebttZsJx6ODhOokq7jc-xziG39iRcKWPo_OY0/s1311/800px-HistoryRefEngTPVol11679.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1311" data-original-width="800" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBJ3AqVhmAVel_ibcsFaxMkEeDLfkX4rkkECLmbqbrPwEE7pPqFxZdEcBe-PtLswSIL9uUdxRG9hVI5n3JRIBAOwFSJPBHE3smMcLjLXIxSCuZXxRFeGexraI0bDb6g0IHqVgBKxc-SfguH51n1RBnpHebttZsJx6ODhOokq7jc-xziG39iRcKWPo_OY0/w244-h400/800px-HistoryRefEngTPVol11679.jpg" width="244" /></a></div>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 <a href="https://radio.securenetsystems.net/cirruspremier/WNOP2" target="_blank">here </a>or catch the podcast later <a href="https://www.sacredheartradio.com/onair/son-rise-morning-show" target="_blank">here</a>: remember you can also watch the hosts on the Son Rise Morning Show as they interview guests, etc, on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SonRiseMorningShow" target="_blank">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@sacredheartradio/streams" target="_blank">YouTube</a>…!<p></p><p>According to the <a href="https://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2023/12/bill-to-disestablish-the-church-of-england-introduced-in-parliament" target="_blank">website</a> of National Secular Society (NSS) on December 6, 2023:</p><p><i>A bill backed by the National Secular Society to disestablish the Church of England has been introduced in parliament.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />The <a href="https://bills.parliament.uk/publications/53286/documents/4125" target="_blank">bill</a> makes provision for the separation of church and state by removing the Church of England's established status, abolishing the automatic right of <a href="https://www.secularism.org.uk/scrap-bishops-bench/" target="_blank">bishops</a> to seats in the Lords and removing the monarch's <a href="https://www.secularism.org.uk/head-of-state/" target="_blank">title</a> "Defender of the Faith and Supreme Governor of the Church of England".<br /><br />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<b> </b>regulation of notaries would also be transferred from the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Lord Chancellor.<br /><br />Under the bill, the government would set up a committee to oversee these legal changes.</i></p><p>Please note that <a href="https://www.thenotariessociety.org.uk/" target="_blank">notaries </a>in England are lawyers; they are not the same as the kind of <a href="https://www.nationalnotary.org/resources-for/public/find-a-notary" target="_blank">notaries </a>we have in the USA.</p><p>When I first posted about this news, I looked for any reaction from either the Anglican <a href="https://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/news/news-and-statements" target="_blank">Archbishop of Canterbury</a> or the Catholic Cardinal <a href="https://rcdow.org.uk/news/" target="_blank">Archbishop of Westminster</a>, but found none--and still don't find any now. The Humanist UK <a href="https://www.politics.co.uk/opinion-former/press-release/2023/12/07/humanists-uk-backs-first-reading-of-disestablishment-bill/page/83/" target="_blank">website</a>--announcing their organization's support for the Bill--does <a href="https://humanists.uk/2018/05/18/justin-welby-disestablishment-a-decision-for-parliament-and-the-people/" target="_blank">cite </a>a 2018 comment by Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury:</p><i>In an interview with the</i> Guardian<i>, 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’.</i><p>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, <a href="https://bills.parliament.uk/publications/53286/documents/4125" target="_blank">here</a> and track its progress through Parliament <a href="https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3539" target="_blank">here</a>.</p><p>This Religion News Service <a href="https://religionnews.com/2023/12/15/church-of-england/" target="_blank">story </a>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 <a href="https://supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.com/2023/06/from-first-things-consideration-of.html" target="_blank">division </a>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.</p><p>Re: the division in the worldwide Anglican Communion: </p><p><i style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"></i></p><blockquote><i style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">The <a href="https://acl.asn.au/pdf/Kigali-Commitment-2023.pdf" style="color: #cc0000; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Kigali Commitment</a> of April 21, 2023, was a shot heard around the world. </i><i style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">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. <b>Representing 85 percent of the Anglican Communion</b>, they pronounced their determination to “reset the Communion on its biblical foundations.” </i></blockquote><i style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"></i><p></p><p>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! (<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Church_of_England#/media/File:HistoryRefEngTPVol11679.jpg" target="_blank">pictured </a>above on the title page of Gilbert Burnet's <i>History of the Reformation of the Church of England</i>.)</p><p>The statistics <a href="https://www.politics.co.uk/opinion-former/press-release/2023/12/07/humanists-uk-backs-first-reading-of-disestablishment-bill/page/83/" target="_blank">cited </a>by Humanists UK to back the Bill are that:</p><i>The recent <a href="https://link.mediaoutreach.meltwater.com/ls/click?upn=O7U1lqopWmnx7fkYDDvy9ORS5aqYpU4bZJfJIIWV8IYwEBCVX2seP75DdPa362koL9qAJcQVp2jZgJ-2BtKtDQHVLELmmFujHL9gMnZFrFp-2FBx0DAC64XjWe9yZZHXKunYRYPtFVyzhVmMDVrCnzrMFwueQ9zf0MkftikMduD3iQgejVDBP59nzVRMWBTHIfZbEYCz_QriuayjSVSZuIoSv3cP2uv1WdanXkvcFlAsLDQfDz5KeMZeheZphpueNmQHKyzZ3xSLKpuNQnWziCu9FJc1SQUNsvsXOnWgpw-2B-2FkBDsF1Q3Pcn9A-2B8Ii65zo-2BNySBexiqTPlN9XdR3y-2FrGguADOKZaxKifjvsLpBfH7VX7SyEsDgyTgZVumPOeZywTDw1BqBNgDyg4sdZ1dElzoYDav8csI1AdJTeeRxAYLGW-2FX4mfJYfMz3SZeB8-2BZU7EYPPmawig8z20baal3VjkMFOo41wuQs8-2FlSnZ70iii8H0RRO8gh3nZ8T5liUPqByuwsdqMC9tL5XTO216c1Szxs4Tdn5wlpu53AlbC6zwzuSvddBuG1iHjpiF9Op2zhXsXPcVMt2WDiCZWWf0zJWan8ybnDxw-3D-3D">British Social Attitudes survey</a> 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.</i><div><br /></div><div>The backers of the Bill claim that England has become a more secular society and having an Established Church doesn't make sense.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguDOmj1U9zBpFU32C9GJ2-J9YejpvVSXJWMIRH8MPENzXKYoulhyU4Uq-odfg7ZhQYFxBqlO1zV-R291x5oLophhUny_o3UrQS9unF8qxNTcuV7AYZ8CXapD0fLX3Nnar9igGluxITqor1RmCz-Ptu3lSA7_dq4BImiHWPtmVXJOPaDeafd0Pl1lZ5pkg/s1227/800px-Portrait_Miniature_of_John_Henry_Newman.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1227" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguDOmj1U9zBpFU32C9GJ2-J9YejpvVSXJWMIRH8MPENzXKYoulhyU4Uq-odfg7ZhQYFxBqlO1zV-R291x5oLophhUny_o3UrQS9unF8qxNTcuV7AYZ8CXapD0fLX3Nnar9igGluxITqor1RmCz-Ptu3lSA7_dq4BImiHWPtmVXJOPaDeafd0Pl1lZ5pkg/s320/800px-Portrait_Miniature_of_John_Henry_Newman.jpg" width="209" /></a></div>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 <a href="https://www.newmanreader.org/biography/ward/volume1/chapter2.html" target="_blank">explains </a>in his biography of Newman, Volume 1, Chapter 2:</div><div><br /></div><i>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. <b>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. </b>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.'</i><div><br /></div><div>Newman's concern at that time was that the Truth of Revelation be defended in English society and culture and his letters to family, <a href="https://www.newmanreader.org/biography/mozley/volume1/file5.html" target="_blank">like this one</a> in March of 1829, indicate his ambivalence to the legislation and how it would affect that defense:</div><br /><i>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. <b>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 </b>(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.<br /><br />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. <b>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. </b>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.</i><div><br /></div><div>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.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7QzfnW6i8uIuFErMZ0GuULSBh1xPhWHbcNer9fhi0bOu1o2Iq82LiIyqFPqDg_GLtROkSINqRutY6eIs9wYBqtBfIS6g72-14rNPxzeh2IYGQaKmqKypzB9T_82e-AK396CYdtZobJEyhBrM6-o6NZut4OHIdcds5hLt50TB-Zd8VMTm7o8qKBaRHws4/s365/Anglican%20Difficulties.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="365" data-original-width="235" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7QzfnW6i8uIuFErMZ0GuULSBh1xPhWHbcNer9fhi0bOu1o2Iq82LiIyqFPqDg_GLtROkSINqRutY6eIs9wYBqtBfIS6g72-14rNPxzeh2IYGQaKmqKypzB9T_82e-AK396CYdtZobJEyhBrM6-o6NZut4OHIdcds5hLt50TB-Zd8VMTm7o8qKBaRHws4/s320/Anglican%20Difficulties.png" width="206" /></a></div>After he had become a [Roman] Catholic and he spoke to "the Religious Movement of 1833" in his 1850 lectures on <i>Anglican Difficulties</i> 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 <a href="https://www.newmanreader.org/works/anglicans/volume1/lecture1.html">first lecture</a> "On the Relation of the National Church to the Nation" he warned them:</div><div><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><i></i></p><blockquote style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><i>I have said all this, my brethren, not in declamation, but to bring out clearly to you, <b>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.</b> <b>Its life is an Act of Parliament.</b> 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. <b>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. </b>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.</i></blockquote></div><div>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 <i>"Truths divinely revealed, developed, and explained by men of genius in the past . . ."</i> And he was proved right as we have seen the last century (women priests; women bishops; <a href="https://lawandreligionuk.com/2019/11/29/church-of-england-statement-on-abortion/" target="_blank">abortion</a>; 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.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Would anything change in the Church of England if this Disestablish Bill became law?</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Next week, we'll resume our regular Monday morning segments on <i>Mementoes of the English Martyrs and Confessors</i> by Father Henry Sebastian Bowden, formerly a member of the Church of England before he became a Catholic and an Oratorian priest!</div>Stephanie A. Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14796489639420491857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8895518556533459607.post-42988258288031358502024-01-03T00:00:00.001-06:002024-01-04T14:08:20.800-06:00Richelieu's "Treatise on Perfection"<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisep3TxriER3CS28zoVeuykneK8hEnGKm5sj_1HF4gr4Wyny3krmaCZ8WlDNd8ofEyBOov5PL7_4wMu9N3XOg1hd5JsqSn7oAU1Pl0dfYHEUxfFxPKkj7Juy7el0OPHGf4eS8483JrqMfIgDk3F4u0LsVEzHTic4HFP_q1h77TJQyK_8gzRbJRa9lBFeY/s1090/Cardinal_Richelieu,_Kneeling,_Presents_His_Book_to_the_Virgin_and_Child_MET_DP822441.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1090" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisep3TxriER3CS28zoVeuykneK8hEnGKm5sj_1HF4gr4Wyny3krmaCZ8WlDNd8ofEyBOov5PL7_4wMu9N3XOg1hd5JsqSn7oAU1Pl0dfYHEUxfFxPKkj7Juy7el0OPHGf4eS8483JrqMfIgDk3F4u0LsVEzHTic4HFP_q1h77TJQyK_8gzRbJRa9lBFeY/s320/Cardinal_Richelieu,_Kneeling,_Presents_His_Book_to_the_Virgin_and_Child_MET_DP822441.jpg" width="235" /></a></div>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 <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/8895518556533459607/4298825828803135850"><i>Treatise on Perfection</i></a>, I immediately thought of Marie de Vignerot, whose <a href="https://supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.com/2023/12/book-review-la-duchesse-by-bronwen.html">biography </a>I'd just read. <br /><br />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 <i>Instruction du Chretien</i> and reissued in various editions thereafter." <br /><br />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, <i>Traitte de la Perfection du Chretien par l'Eminentissime Cardinal Duc de Richelieu</i>" 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."!<br /><br />McShea also highlights the <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Cardinal_Richelieu_in_art#/media/File:Cardinal_Richelieu,_Kneeling,_Presents_His_Book_to_the_Virgin_and_Child_MET_DP822441.jpg" target="_blank">frontispiece</a> that Vignerot commissioned by Claude Mellan, which is in the Public Domain.<br /><br />The TAN Books <a href="https://tanbooks.com/products/books/a-treatise-on-perfection-saintly-counsel-on-obtaining-salvation/#">description</a>:<br /><br /><i> For many people, the name of Cardinal Richelieu will immediately call to mind the ambitious and cynical villain of Alexander Dumas’s </i>The Three Musketeers <i>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.<br /> <br /> 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 </i>Treatise on Perfection, <i>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.<br /> <br /> 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. </i><br /><br /> According to the Translator's Introduction, <a href="https://www.newnorcia.com.au/education-research/institute/academic-committee/robert-nixon" target="_blank">Father Robert Nixon, OSB</a> used primarily the Latin edition, <i>Tractatus de Perfectione Christiani</i>, 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.<br /><br />I'm thinking of adding this to my wish-list for the New Year! <p></p>Stephanie A. Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14796489639420491857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8895518556533459607.post-72446644433870183752024-01-02T00:00:00.014-06:002024-01-02T12:13:34.857-06:00A "Merry Christmas" from Saint John Fisher to Thomas Cromwell<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi7dw6LGgkMr1osJCJtVF05TWaUVCbxuT7Nycoc6WgmG9BLcZ17W7xVw8m3Jducp1mqUqDDnFLHBEMOGSkYAVivNhdtAkqfSBhLNuFhiyaurW6uEHK24jqu0GuGt6pr5hJxgzpY9EVtZQJNZiM9OjqJJlJ-PCNvHm6K-aWorMkTuUgxS1a-zxt-9AInzQ/s800/John_Fisher_by_Gerard_Valck,_after_Adriaen_van_der_Werff.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi7dw6LGgkMr1osJCJtVF05TWaUVCbxuT7Nycoc6WgmG9BLcZ17W7xVw8m3Jducp1mqUqDDnFLHBEMOGSkYAVivNhdtAkqfSBhLNuFhiyaurW6uEHK24jqu0GuGt6pr5hJxgzpY9EVtZQJNZiM9OjqJJlJ-PCNvHm6K-aWorMkTuUgxS1a-zxt-9AInzQ/s320/John_Fisher_by_Gerard_Valck,_after_Adriaen_van_der_Werff.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>I saw this letter cited on a Facebook <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=357757856899734&set=a.158210470187808" target="_blank">post </a>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. <div><br /></div><div>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.</div><div><br /></div><div>Here is a transcript from the letter, <a href="https://www.tudorsociety.com/22-december-bishop-fisher-begs-for-a-shirt/https://www.tudorsociety.com/22-december-bishop-fisher-begs-for-a-shirt/" target="_blank">cited </a>on the Tudor Society website <a href="https://www.british-history.ac.uk/letters-papers-hen8/vol7/pp582-585" target="_blank">from </a>the <i>Letters and Papers</i>, Volume 7, page 583<span style="font-size: x-small;"> ('Henry VIII: December 1534, 21-25', in<i> Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 7, 1534</i>, 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].):</span></div><div><br /></div><i>“John [Fisher] Bishop of Rochester to [Cromwell].<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4GIwmUxqphIfpk6teB7N4k3ldssgkc13WtW-Bt2IpjQw-2KTF0wxd_25d7TUWzR24-qkWataaIRPT3fsAdiZi2dpAWjI05rE_d1V-EC1-Mo4Mdj17CT7656BzofupO5POrugI-45eHozXFZA5-ADh9A91BmCaBk0rdWIIcVR3ePQ7D5i25p_apPPQJEw/s599/501px-Cromwell,Thomas(1EEssex)01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="599" data-original-width="501" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4GIwmUxqphIfpk6teB7N4k3ldssgkc13WtW-Bt2IpjQw-2KTF0wxd_25d7TUWzR24-qkWataaIRPT3fsAdiZi2dpAWjI05rE_d1V-EC1-Mo4Mdj17CT7656BzofupO5POrugI-45eHozXFZA5-ADh9A91BmCaBk0rdWIIcVR3ePQ7D5i25p_apPPQJEw/w168-h200/501px-Cromwell,Thomas(1EEssex)01.jpg" width="168" /></a></div><br />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 </i>[he was 65 years old] <i>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. <b>Wishes him a merry Christmas</b>. At the Tower, 22 Dec.”</i><div><i><br /></i></div><div>The OED (consulting my two volume tiny type edition) lists various meanings of the word merry, often using the word <i>pleasant</i>:</div><div><br /></div><div>Of things: <i>pleasant</i>, agreeable</div><div>Of a place or country: <i>pleasant</i>, delightful in aspect or conditions: Merry England!</div><div>Of sound or music: <i>pleasant</i>, sweet</div><div>Of weather: <i>pleasant</i>, fine</div><div>Of dress: handsome, gay (original meaning!)</div><div>Of herbs or medicines: <i>pleasant </i>to taste or smell</div><div>Of a saying: amusing, diverting</div><div>Of looks: <i>pleasant</i>, agreeable, bright</div><div>Of persons: joyous, mirthful: The Merry Monarch (Charles II)</div><div><b>Of times or seasons: characterized by festivity or rejoicing</b></div><div><br /></div><div>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. </div><div><br /></div><div>The OED does cite Shakespeare's <i>Henry IV, part 2</i>, <a href="https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/henry-iv-part-2/read/5/3/" target="_blank">Act V, scene 3</a> 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). </div><div><br /></div><div>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.</div><div><br /></div><div>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":</div><div><br /></div><div><div>He wished the members of the Court and the jury that condemned him that they <span style="color: #081721; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: #fffde8;">"</span></span>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."</div><div><br /></div><div>And so may we all!</div><div><br /></div><div>Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!</div></div>Stephanie A. Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14796489639420491857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8895518556533459607.post-20767785843073658642023-12-29T00:00:00.019-06:002023-12-29T00:00:00.136-06:00Devotion to Saint Thomas of Canterbury<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPriELB0yW6pWHiV4iMrgsXKGKDAyJic5LAPFqtDuCF6FKgwAaNGw-nA7EpuZOgTLcuC7zJfniNWcXqP_DgH5siIWK_Y5H-5Je3HYt2k63TW5XMSP6yWQjd64ivGKuM6mXYQDjomlw72svCu5O2Pm34pH2LEktRBgxdrXnAy1TnZepydd3Ww5p6Sx-7kI/s1360/Devotions%20to%20Thomas%20Becket.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1360" data-original-width="880" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPriELB0yW6pWHiV4iMrgsXKGKDAyJic5LAPFqtDuCF6FKgwAaNGw-nA7EpuZOgTLcuC7zJfniNWcXqP_DgH5siIWK_Y5H-5Je3HYt2k63TW5XMSP6yWQjd64ivGKuM6mXYQDjomlw72svCu5O2Pm34pH2LEktRBgxdrXnAy1TnZepydd3Ww5p6Sx-7kI/s320/Devotions%20to%20Thomas%20Becket.jpg" width="207" /></a></div>I've grown in my spiritual devotion to the Catholic Martyrs of England and Wales of the Reformation era, and I'm also growing in devotion to Saint Thomas of Canterbury, thanks to this book of prayers asking his intercession and meditating on his life and martyrdom.<div><br /></div><div>Saint Thomas has often been seen as an important figure in the conflicts between Church and State: defending the rights of the Church in England against Henry II's attempt to take away the bishops's authority over priests and clergy. But Father John S. Hogan, in this book from Gracewing, <i><a href="https://www.gracewing.co.uk/page262.html" target="_blank">Devotions to St Thomas Becket</a></i>, reminds us that devotion to the martyred saint began as people went on pilgrimage to pray for his intercession, seeking miraculous healings through his prayers.</div><div><br /></div><div>Therefore, Father Hogan includes prayers to Saint Thomas of Canterbury for the sick, a Litany for the Sick, a Prayer for Miracles, etc.</div><div><br /></div><div>Father Hogan also reminds us that Saint Thomas of Canterbury grew in his Christian faith, that we find a process of conversion in his life, not just from his secular life at Court with Henry II, but through his exile and other sufferings. Father Hogan declares, "As he slowly woke to the way of true Christian discipleship, his experiences, his mistakes, his trials and sufferings, progressively turned him completely to Christ". (p. x) So there are prayers for conversion, including a Novena for the Grace of Conversion. </div><div><br /></div><div>Because Saint Thomas of Canterbury was a priest and bishop Father Hogan includes prayers for priests, for bishops, and a "Eucharistic Prayer", emphasizing Becket's growth in devotion to the Eucharist and to celebrating Mass with great reverence.</div><div><br /></div><div>Thomas Becket was born on the 21st of December (in 1119/20) and died on the 29th of December (in 1170), so there's a novena to celebrate the martyr between those dates. Since Canterbury is still a site for pilgrimage, there's a "Seven Stations" series of prayers with landmarks like St. Dunstan's Church, where Henry II started his penitential pilgrimage to the Cathedral in reparation for the martyr's murder, the Cloister of the Cathedral through which both the saint and his killers walked to enter the north transept, the Crypt where his first tomb was located, and the parish church of Saint Thomas of Canterbury, the Catholic shrine to this great saint.</div><div><br /></div><div>There's also a Litany to St Thomas Becket and other prayers for courage, in time of persecution, etc. Gracewing has also published Father Hogan's biography of the saint.</div><div><br /></div><div>Saint Thomas of Canterbury, pray for us.</div>Stephanie A. Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14796489639420491857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8895518556533459607.post-81296200253408299642023-12-26T00:00:00.295-06:002024-01-04T14:33:14.861-06:00Book Review: "La Duchesse" by Bronwen McShea<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8kPfOxfZPN3moFraCd5SxCjVubfRtKBpNu_YkvEostEnnoBjTUXQSVfhKoZ_gjM0R1hdfvSAOorPm9APYkJwlxMV1atc3mDev2TbqM0XqcmPmAgZl7b9h241yRDEaKIGT-nESeyEYXbNYxmEHS0ML4JzL0fXB80i1c5hWeAU3lx2tEUmhCVbhDfwhCnI/s420/9781639363476.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="277" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8kPfOxfZPN3moFraCd5SxCjVubfRtKBpNu_YkvEostEnnoBjTUXQSVfhKoZ_gjM0R1hdfvSAOorPm9APYkJwlxMV1atc3mDev2TbqM0XqcmPmAgZl7b9h241yRDEaKIGT-nESeyEYXbNYxmEHS0ML4JzL0fXB80i1c5hWeAU3lx2tEUmhCVbhDfwhCnI/s320/9781639363476.jpg" width="211" /></a></div>From <a href="http://pegasusbooks.com/books/la-duchesse-9781639363476-hardcover" target="_blank">Pegasus Books</a> with the double subtitle: <i>The Life of Marie de Vigneron--Cardinal Richelieu's Forgotten Heiress Who Shaped the Fate of France</i>:<p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-style: italic;">A rich portrait of a compelling, complex woman who emerged from a sheltered rural childhood into the fraught, often deadly world of the French royal court and Parisian high society—and who would come to rule them both.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #252525;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #252525;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-style: italic;">Married off at sixteen to a military officer she barely knew, Marie de Vignerot was intended to lead an ordinary aristocratic life, produce heirs, and quietly assist the men in her family rise to prominence. Instead, she became a widow at eighteen and rose to become the indispensable and highly visible right-hand of the most powerful figure in French politics—the ruthless Cardinal Richelieu.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #252525;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #252525;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-style: italic;">Richelieu was her uncle and, as he lay dying, the Cardinal broke with tradition and entrusted her, above his male heirs, with his vast fortune. She would go on to shape her country’s political, religious, and cultural life as the unconventional and independent Duchesse d’Aiguillon in ways that reverberated across Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #252525;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #252525;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-style: italic;">Marie de Vignerot was respected, beloved, and feared by churchmen, statesmen, financiers, writers, artists, and even future canonized saints. Many would owe their careers and eventual historical legacies to her patronage and her enterprising labor and vision. Pope Alexander VII and even the Sun King, Louis XIV, would defer to her. She was one of the most intelligent, accomplished, and occasionally ruthless French leaders of the seventeenth century. Yet, as all too often happens to great women in history, she was all but forgotten by modern times.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #252525;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #252525;" /><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #252525;">La Duchesse<i> </i></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-style: italic;">is the first fully researched modern biography of Vignerot, putting her onto center stage in the histories of France and the globalizing Catholic Church where she belongs. In these pages, we see Marie navigate scandalous accusations and intrigue to creatively and tenaciously champion the people and causes she cared about. We also see her engage with fascinating personalities such as Queen Marie de Médici and influence French imperial ambitions and the Fronde Civil War. Filled with adventure and daring, art and politics, </span><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #252525;">La Duchesse</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-style: italic;"> establishes Vignerot as a figure without whom France’s storied Golden Age cannot be fully understood.</span></span></p>While I'm not quite sure that the Duchesse d'Aiguillon "shaped the Fate of France", she certainly had a great impact on the Catholic Church in France, French Canada (Quebec), and missionary fields around the world. The impact of the French Revolution kind of limits how much her political and social efforts could shape France's fate/future. Slightly hyperbolic, but perhaps indirectly she did by supporting the monarchy against the Fronde and Mazarin so that King Louis XIV ruled absolutely, giving the later French revolutionists something to rebel against!<div><br /></div><div>Nevertheless, McShea's biography of this forgotten and misunderstood (at least in Catholic circles) French peer provides enough evidence of her subject's impact on culture, literature, and religion in her lifetime that it does make the reader wonder why she has been forgotten. <div><br /></div><div>Marie de Vignerot influenced Catholic piety and charity in Paris and beyond not just by her charitable contributions but even more by her vision and goals in giving the money to support her causes. One example that struck me because I am devoted to Eucharistic Adoration with a weekly hour at my parish, and regularly attend First Friday Benediction and Adoration at our Cathedral, was her influence at her parish church of Saint Sulpice while Jean-Jacques Olier was pastor. She supported him in establishing "a Benediction service that would take place in the church on the first Sunday and first Thursday of every month." (p. 207) There was a procession with the Host in the Monstrance and adoration of the Host on the Altar, this in a time when "Benediction services were rare in France" and Marie regularly attended these services because her "devotion to Christ in the Blessed Sacrament . . . was deep and sincere." She provided the funds for the candles, vestments, and the other liturgical objects required (the Monstrance, the thurifer, incense, and bells, etc). But as McShea explains, Marie also attached certain conditions, including "organ music, the ringing of the church bells, and the singing of numerous Latin hymns and responses" and "a vocal prayer for the repose of the soul of the late Cardinal Richelieu." (p. 208) <div><br /></div><div>This example is emblematic of the Duchesse's involvement in her charitable causes: she didn't just give the money, she gave direction and encouraged certain goals. McShea emphasizes that as the patroness of Saint Vincent de Paul, she inspired--not always with his immediate agreement--the methods by which improvements in the lives of the poor in rural France and civic Paris would be carried out. She had vision and the will and means to achieve her goals. </div><div><br /></div><div>McShea notes one vision Marie could not achieve: she thought she had a vocation to the Carmelite order but her uncle Richelieu dissuaded her, even after her husband died, to pursue it. But she certainly balanced an active live with breaks for contemplation and prayer. For example, in the chapter on Saint Sulpice, McShea recounts a 1:00 a.m. visit Marie made to the Blessed Sacrament after a busy day: She wished to make her prayer where she could be "more returned and recollected" than at home. (p. 210)</div><div><br /></div><div>The other goal that she did not achieve as she wished was to publish her uncle's works and a history of his era based on his memoirs and other documents. The death of the author of the history she commissioned thwarted that latter effort as "the Jesuit leadership in Paris for some reason confiscated [his manuscript]" instead of giving it to her as he instructed (p. 367). She did negotiate the completion of his tomb in the chapel of the Sorbonne, but she could not maintain the unity of the house of Richelieu because of constant demands for money from her nephew Armand-Jean. His lawsuits and other actions against her estate made her last months, as she suffered from breast cancer, harder. She died on April 17, 1675. </div><div><br /></div><div>The book is divided into two parts: the first when Cardinal Richelieu was alive and had taken such an interest in his niece, especially after her husband died (Part One--<i>Princesse Niece</i>), including chapters 1 through 31, and the second after his death, since he chose her rather than her younger brother as his heir and executrix (Part Two--<i>Pair </i>[Peer] <i>de France</i>, including chapters 32 through 58. There is also a charming "Author's Afterword" demonstrating the personal link between the author and her subject (as she comes as close as she can to Marie's grave site), Acknowledgements, Sources, Notes, and an Index. It is a well-researched and narrated book. I would have appreciated either a table of names or a couple of family trees as the names and titles can be a little confusing as the characters emerge, drop away and come back again.</div><div><br /></div><div>If Marie de Vignerot did not "shape the fate of France", she was certainly alive at an exciting time in French history: the reigns of Kings Louis XIII and XIV, with motherly Regents to both young kings (Marie de Medici and Anne of Austria respectively), the chief ministries of Richelieu and Mazarin, the Thirty Years War, the Fronde revolution, the Jansenist controversy, even the English Civil War, as Henrietta Maria returned to France after King Charles I was imprisoned. Marie even hoped to do more to support English Catholics in exile or at home--and also Catholics in Ireland, ravaged by Oliver Cromwell. She was also interested and engaged in missionary efforts in Tunis, Algiers, Vietnam, and Madagascar, and supported the seminary in Paris training missionaries as part of the Société des Missions Étrangères de Paris.</div><div><br /></div><div>Why was such an influential figure forgotten? McShea suggests that it is because one eulogy which emphasized her retirement from worldly pursuits was chosen as the template for understanding her life, rather than another, which demonstrated her energy and direction. The preacher at one memorial Mass, at the seminary cited above, on May 13, 1675, Father Jacques-Charles de Brisacier, credited her for "magnanimity, courage, and great negotiating skills" and praised her for ardor, leadership, and judicious governance. Father Brisacier offered a more dynamic appraisal of Marie de Vignerot's achievements. (Here's an <a href="https://cushwa.nd.edu/news/the-priestly-duchess/" target="_blank">article </a> by McShea discussing that eulogy and describing her "contributions to the colonial-era foundations of the American church while clarifying her role in spreading French Catholicism elsewhere in the world.")</div><div><br /></div><div>On August 12 of the same year, Father Esprit Fléchier, at the Carmelite convent church on Rue Chapon, portrayed her as the victim of a frustrated religious vocation and much more conventionally as a pious, retiring, and charitable benefactress. (See pages 377 through 380 in chapter 58, "A Forgotten "Femme Forte""). Indeed, when one reads her <a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/Duchess_of_Aiguillon" target="_blank">biography </a>in the old <i>Catholic Encyclopedia</i>, it is Fléchier's version that is cited while Brisacier's is ignored:</div><div><br /></div><i>After the death of Richelieu, who made her his principal heir, she retired to the Petit-Luxembourg, published her uncle's works and continued her generous benefactions to all kinds of charities. She carried out the Cardinal's last request by having the church and the college of the Sorbonne completed, as well as the Hôtel Richelieu, which has since been converted into the Bibliothèque Nationale.<b> The great Fléchier was charged with pronouncing her funeral oration, which is regarded as one of the masterpieces of eloquence of French pulpit oratory.</b></i><div><i><br /></i></div><div>Highly recommended. Please note that I purchased my copy from <a href="https://www.eighthdaybooks.com/product/156035/La-Duchesse-The-Life-of-Marie-de-VignerotCardinal-Richelieus-Forgotten-Heiress-Who-Shaped-the-Fate-of-France" target="_blank">Eighth Day Books</a>. I look forward to reading her first book (<i><a href="https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9781496208903/" target="_blank">Apostles of Empire: The Jesuits and the New Frontier</a></i>) and to the publication next year of <i>Women of the Church: What Every Catholic Should Know</i> from Augustine Institute and Ignatius Press.</div></div></div>Stephanie A. Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14796489639420491857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8895518556533459607.post-16346858834689328292023-12-18T00:00:00.022-06:002023-12-18T00:00:00.146-06:00Bill Introduced to Disestablish the Church of England!<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq55JUmJWm2DYrght5qJnnueoIFPHpTCwXgXX8sFJz0tgFNpD6n5X1VSmqf9R68TcyyD_bcPFlW9u4bAfdcSuaWYBU_k6vpL49eGPCg7r-AJx-MhyphenhyphenZMldFt5h7eeqRt-D5Oh_Vn9gUILp4FVY3jUVCurWnmcppEmVRRvyW7oomm64jqZyAan3tpvERfnY/s2048/143%20Westminster%20CE.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq55JUmJWm2DYrght5qJnnueoIFPHpTCwXgXX8sFJz0tgFNpD6n5X1VSmqf9R68TcyyD_bcPFlW9u4bAfdcSuaWYBU_k6vpL49eGPCg7r-AJx-MhyphenhyphenZMldFt5h7eeqRt-D5Oh_Vn9gUILp4FVY3jUVCurWnmcppEmVRRvyW7oomm64jqZyAan3tpvERfnY/s320/143%20Westminster%20CE.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>You might remember earlier this year that the Oaths that King Charles III took upholding the Church of England and his place as the Defender of the Faith were <a href="https://supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.com/2023/05/preview-coronation-oaths-and-kings.html" target="_blank">important issues</a> during his Coronation on May 6: <p></p><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><i>Archbishop of Canterbury: Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel?</i></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><i><br />Will you to the utmost of your power maintain in the United Kingdom the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law? Will you maintain and preserve inviolably the settlement of the Church of England, and the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government thereof, as by law established in England?<br /><br />And will you preserve unto the Bishops and Clergy of England, and to the Churches there committed to their charge, all such rights and privileges as by law do or shall appertain to them or any of them?<br /><br />The King: All this I promise to do. The things which I have here before promised I will perform and keep. So help me God.<br /><br />Archbishop of Canterbury: Your Majesty, are you willing to make, subscribe and declare to the statutory Accession Declaration Oath?<br /><br />The King: I am willing. The King: I Charles do solemnly and sincerely in the presence of God profess, testify, and declare that I am a faithful Protestant, and that I will, according to the true intent of the enactments which secure the Protestant succession to the Throne, uphold and maintain the said enactments to the best of my powers according to law.</i></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">But before making these promises and taking this Oath, King Charles heard the Archbishop of Canterbury add an important caveat, recognizing the sovereign's obligation to<b> "</b><i><b>seek to foster an environment in which people of all faiths and beliefs may live freely."</b></i></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><i><b><br /></b></i></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">Just recently, on December 6 (St. Nicholas's Day!), however, a Bill has been <a href="https://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2023/12/bill-to-disestablish-the-church-of-england-introduced-in-parliament" target="_blank">proposed </a>in Parliament that would change all that: </div><br /><i>A bill backed by the National Secular Society </i>[NSS] <i>to disestablish the Church of England has been introduced in parliament.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />The <a href="https://bills.parliament.uk/publications/53286/documents/4125" target="_blank">bill</a> makes provision for the separation of church and state by removing the Church of England's established status, abolishing the automatic right of <a href="https://www.secularism.org.uk/scrap-bishops-bench/" target="_blank">bishops</a> to seats in the Lords and removing the monarch's <a href="https://www.secularism.org.uk/head-of-state/" target="_blank">title</a> "Defender of the Faith and Supreme Governor of the Church of England".<br /><br />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.</i><div><br /></div><div>If you go to the official website, you can see the progress of the <a href="https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3539" target="_blank">Bill </a>as it moves through the House of Lords and the House of Commons to the final stages and Royal Assent. </div><div><br /></div><div>Will King Charles III give his Royal Assent? Can he refuse?</div><div><br /></div><div>In 2017, PBS Masterpiece presented a film adaptation of Mark Bartlett's <i><a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/episodes/king-charles-iii/#" target="_blank">King Charles III</a></i> in which the king considers opposing an Act of Parliament--he does not refuse his Royal Assent but he enters and Prorogues Parliament (out of turn)!</div><div><br /></div><div>Here's an online <a href="https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/84545/could-a-british-monarch-refuse-royal-assent-if-an-act-of-parliament-was-very-unp" target="_blank">conversation </a>about whether or not a King can refuse Royal Assent and what it would mean.</div><div><br /></div><div>As of this writing, I do not find any reaction or <a href="https://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/news/news-and-statements" target="_blank">statement</a> from the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, who visited the House of Lords on December 8 for a debate on "Love Matters", focused on support for families.</div><div><br /></div><div>The real question is, of course, what would passage of such an Act, with Royal Assent, mean for Christianity in England? </div><div><br /></div><div>Also: What would it mean for the Catholic Church in England? and What will the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster say about this Bill? Vincent Cardinal Nichols <a href="https://supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.com/2023/05/updatesclarification-on-coronation-oath.html" target="_blank">attended </a>the Coronation and the Catholic Bishops Conference issued a <a href="https://www.cbcew.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2023/04/prayer-card-Coronation-of-King-Charles-V2.pdf" target="_blank">statement and official prayer</a> for King Charles III. </div><div><br /></div><div>I did not see anything currently on the Westminster website, nor on <i>The Tablet </i>or <i>Catholic Herald</i> websites. </div><div><br /></div><div>Something to watch for!</div><div><br /></div><div>Photo: The late Monsignor William Carr and I walking toward Westminster Abbey; my late husband Mark took the picture. (C) Stephanie A. Mann 2023; All Rights Reserved.</div>Stephanie A. Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14796489639420491857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8895518556533459607.post-50822415284051296912023-12-15T00:00:00.184-06:002023-12-15T00:00:00.136-06:00Preview: Saint John Roberts' "Last Supper"<p>In this shortest of Advents, our last discussion for 2023 of Father Henry Sebastian Bowden's <i>Mementoes of the English Martyrs and Confessors</i> on the Son Rise Morning Show will take place on Monday, December 18, at the usual time of 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern. Appropriately enough as we're all thinking of our Christmas gatherings just a week to the day later (!) we'll look at the feast shared by Saint John Roberts, OSB and Blessed Thomas Somers the night before their executions at Tyburn. You may listen live <a href="https://radio.securenetsystems.net/cirruspremier/WNOP2" target="_blank">here </a>or follow up with the podcast later <a href="https://www.sacredheartradio.com/onair/son-rise-morning-show" target="_blank">here</a>.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLQ81hXXfrfIq06vWFSCb0wgHrv07ZJZ1usD62Ynr8oFrEEvMPlB3i1rYO4iK9Jxj9i1_3hEIf-yww4eo7Xb9A3jsk1kU5gE91X9ImrkiwdvjRtmRBD8veQjzwTXbwkWGtRjYnexv9rGWIm_3bvESHHhk6uJxbd1e4g-sm_9DrAKmTU8VLdpWFFahcgSU/s309/redworth_the_she_apostle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="309" data-original-width="200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLQ81hXXfrfIq06vWFSCb0wgHrv07ZJZ1usD62Ynr8oFrEEvMPlB3i1rYO4iK9Jxj9i1_3hEIf-yww4eo7Xb9A3jsk1kU5gE91X9ImrkiwdvjRtmRBD8veQjzwTXbwkWGtRjYnexv9rGWIm_3bvESHHhk6uJxbd1e4g-sm_9DrAKmTU8VLdpWFFahcgSU/w259-h400/redworth_the_she_apostle.jpg" width="259" /></a></div>This feast was arranged by a Spanish lady, Luisa de Carvajal, who had come to England because of her great devotion to the Catholic missionary priests. Years ago Glyn Redworth wrote a biography of this noble woman, <i>The She Apostle: The Extraordinary Life and Death of Luisa de Carvajal</i> which I reviewed <a href="https://supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.com/2012/01/book-review-she-apostle-by-glyn.html" target="_blank">here</a>. <p></p><p>So why was she in England and why was she able to hold a dinner party, a "Last Supper" for two Catholic priests in an English prison the night before their executions? From book description:</p><p><em style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;">In 1605 - the year of the Gunpowder Plot - she was secreted into England by the Jesuits, despite the fact that she spoke not a word of English. To everyone's surprise including her own, she steadily assumed a prominent role within London's underground Catholic community, setting up an unofficial nunnery, offering Roman priests a secure place to live, <b>consoling prisoners awaiting execution</b>, importing banned books, and helping persecuted Catholics to flee abroad. Throughout this time she ran the grave risk of imprisonment and execution, yet she miraculously managed to avoid this ultimate fate in spite of being arrested on a number of occasions. </em></p>Father Bowden describes the dinner she arranged on December 9, 1610 in Newgate Prison for Saint John Roberts, OSB, one of the six Welsh martyrs included among the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales, and Blessed Thomas Somers, who was beatified in 1929 by Pope Pius XI. This memento is titled "The Last Supper" with the verse from Luke 22:11, "The Master saith to thee: Where is the guest chamber, where I may eat the pasch with My disciples?" <div><br /></div><div>Perhaps because she had the support of the Spanish Ambassador and King James I wanted to maintain peace with Spanish, <i>"she obtained leave to prepare a supper for Frs. Roberts and Somers on the eve of their martyrdom, and for their fellow prisoners."</i></div><div><br /></div><div>This was not a small gathering:</div><div><br /></div><div><i>"They then sat down to support--twenty prisoners for conscience's sake; twenty confessors of the Faith--Luisa de Carvajal presiding at the head of the table. The meal was a devout and joyful one--heavenly the refreshment ministered to the guests, great the fervor and spiritual delight which our Lord bestowed on His valiant soldiers, giving them that peace which passeth all understanding."</i></div><div><br /></div><div>Isn't this the kind of Christmas dinner we all hope for? Festivity, peace, joy, camaraderie, and fellowship? Yes, the food is delicious and fine! And yes, the spirit is peaceful and complete!</div><div><br /></div><div>But in fact, these guests hardly thought of eating the feast Carvajal had prepared! In the midst of that joyous celebration, Father John Roberts, the Benedictine monk, had some misgivings:</div><div><br /></div><div><i>"'Do you not think I may be causing disedification by my great glee? Would it not be better to retire into a corner and give myself up to prayer?'"</i></div><div><br /></div><div>No, she replied, <i>'You cannot be better employed than by letting them all see with what cheerful courage you are about to die for Christ.'</i></div><div><br /></div><div>The next day, December 10. 1610, the martyrs suffered at Tyburn. Their executions were unusual, however, because of their reputations among the spectators:</div><div><br /></div><i>. . . the two Martyrs in the midst of the sixteen criminals were left hanging, and quietly rendered their souls into the hands of the Holy Angels. <b>They were allowed to remain until they were quite dead, a special mercy which it was not usual to extend to Catholics.</b> It was already late, and nearly an hour after mid-day when the executioner cut the rope and took down the body of Father Roberts; it was first disembowelled, and the bowels thrown into a large fire. Then he cut off the head, and divided the trunk into four quarters. The same thing was done to Mr. Somers. But here a remarkable thing happened. <b>It is usual for the hangman when he disembowels those executed for high treason, to take out the heart, and holding it up, to say, “This is the heart of a traitor,” and the people answer, “ Long live the King.” In this case when the hangman said the words, not one person answered, but all remained silent as if struck dumb.</b></i><br /><div><br /></div><div>And John Hungerford Pollen, SJ in in his 1891 <i><a href="https://archive.org/details/ActsOfEnglishMartyrs/page/n5/mode/2up?view=theater" target="_blank">Acts of the English Martyrs Hitherto Unpublished</a></i> also reports this jest among Saint John Roberts' last words:<i> "Then he arose, and looking at the fire that was already burning to consume their
bowels, said, 'Here’s a hot breakfast ready, despite the cold weather.'"</i> (see pages 143 to 170 for the full account of their trial and execution).<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Thus the joyful spirit of that Last Supper sustained him through the end of his life!</div><div><br /></div><div>While Rowan Williams was the Archbishop of Canterbury, he <a href="http://rowanwilliams.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/808/archbishop-whats-the-martyrs-message-to-our-society.html" target="_blank">spoke </a>about Saint John Roberts with great admiration:</div><br /><i>John Roberts went from London to Paris and then to Spain, and first to the monastery of Saint Martin in Valladolid – the centre of a severe and serious monastic family, in a context where many new things were going on in the life of prayer. The heritage that mattered here was the heritage of people like Ignatius Loyola, Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross; the emphasis of this monastic family, the Congregation of Valladolid, was on the inner life, the life of contemplation and self-knowledge. This was a 'renaissance' of prayer and contemplation, a kind of parallel to the cultural renaissance. In both, the human spirit was able to discover new depths and new possibilities. <b>In Valladolid, John Roberts was encouraged towards these depths. And when he returned to England, he was able to speak and act out of these depths – in his ministry to the sick at the time of the plague in London, his compassion for all, his service to the poor of the city. And at the end, he was able also to face the appalling agony of his death out of those same depths, on the foundation of the silence and love of his monastic experience.</b><br /><br />The martyr isn't a person who says 'No' to the world in any simple sense. <b>The martyr sees the richness of the world, the wealth of mind and imagination, the wealth of culture and the beauty of the human spirit. And because he sees the whole as the gift and sign of God, he knows that the beauty of the Giver is infinitely more than the whole world itself. </b>'More treasures are found in your name than in the whole of India', in the unforgettable words of Williams Pantycelyn in the greatest Welsh hymn of the eighteenth century ('Iesu, Iesu rwyt ti'n ddigon' – 'Jesus, Jesus all-sufficient'). And so the martyr sets out on the journey to a heavenly 'India', a land of marvels, through his death.</i><div><br /></div><div>Saint John Roberts, pray for us!</div><div>Blessed Thomas Somers, pray for us!</div>Stephanie A. Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14796489639420491857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8895518556533459607.post-65020076025392929862023-12-12T00:00:00.006-06:002023-12-12T10:35:34.525-06:00Henry VIII's Psalter: Himself as King David<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqJ3L92jwX95tdU1qosZiebGefZvbyHapZ7NWMkmly6K3OerlYMLyNbLKZ0MZZ3Kz6eBftgatuXdMv2gBUZYxb2HDggymBDIGVso_OQmNJdI2Fv4x05MYmFJELvFqKZUwzmN-2t612LXqBuUtxi4f-dOymmtUvyqtEGcnkSicUE_mMEm43JTRQf1Ompxk/s1239/Henry_VIII's_Psalter,_British_Library.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1239" data-original-width="800" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqJ3L92jwX95tdU1qosZiebGefZvbyHapZ7NWMkmly6K3OerlYMLyNbLKZ0MZZ3Kz6eBftgatuXdMv2gBUZYxb2HDggymBDIGVso_OQmNJdI2Fv4x05MYmFJELvFqKZUwzmN-2t612LXqBuUtxi4f-dOymmtUvyqtEGcnkSicUE_mMEm43JTRQf1Ompxk/w259-h400/Henry_VIII's_Psalter,_British_Library.jpg" width="259" /></a></div>Earlier this year there was an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City on <i>The Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England</i>. One of the featured exhibits was the Psalter King Henry VIII commissioned from Jean Mallard in 1540, on loan from the British Library. Both the British Library and the Smithsonian Magazine comment on how Henry VIII designed the Psalter to reflect his piety--including comparisons of himself to King David--and how he annotated certain psalms to identify himself in the psalms as one who had done the Lord's Will and was being rewarded for it (i.e., the birth of his son Edward).<p></p><p>From the British Library's <i><a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2022/10/king-henry-psalter.html" target="_blank">Medieval manuscripts blog</a></i>:</p><i>The Psalter was commissioned by the King himself in 1540 and written and illustrated for him by Jean Mallard, a French scribe and illuminator. It is a lavish production and is still in its original binding, which although quite threadbare, retains traces of deep red velvet. The Psalms are written in an elegant, humanist script and accompanied by exquisitely decorated initials showing birds, insects, fruit, flowers and foliage. <br /><br />But the Psalter’s true significance lies in its main illustrations, four of which depict Henry, and its annotations written by the King. Taken together, they demonstrate that by the 1540s Henry perceived himself as King David of the Old Testament who, according to tradition, composed the Psalms and whose story was used to justify Henry’s declaration of independence from Rome and to define the Royal Supremacy. . . .</i><div><br /></div><div>The<i> Smithsonian Magazine</i> <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/henry-viiis-book-psalms-reflects-his-quest-for-legitimacy-and-his-fear-of-death-180982801/" target="_blank">article </a>includes some analysis of Henry VIII's annotations in the margins of his Psalter:</div><div><br /></div><i>Henry appears to have found the self-justification he’d been seeking. <a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2022/10/king-henry-psalter.html" target="_blank">Handwritten annotations</a> in the psalter reveal what the king thought of the text and its implications for his own power. On one page, Henry scrawled “nota de peccatore quid ait,” Latin for “note: what he says about the sinner,” next to a passage declaring that sinners’ hereditary lines will be cut off as punishment for their evil deeds. By 1540, after years of waiting and seizing power to enable his multiple marriages, he had at last been rewarded with a son who would continue the Tudor line. Based on his interpretation of the psalm, Henry saw himself as being in God’s good graces—perhaps unthinkable when modern readers consider that he had <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-henry-viii-orchestrated-every-detail-anne-boleyns-execution-180976135/" target="_blank">already executed</a> one of his wives, Anne Boleyn, and would soon execute another, the young <a href="https://onthetudortrail.com/Blog/2012/10/17/the-execution-of-catherine-howard/" target="_blank">Katherine Howard</a>.</i><div><br /></div><div>In 1540, Henry married again--twice!--to Anne of Cleves and then to Katherine Howard, who followed, as stated above, his second wife to the block.</div><div><br /></div><div>The article goes on to state:</div><div><br /></div><i>If these markings tell scholars anything, it’s that Henry wasn’t suffering from a <b>twinging conscience</b>. On the contrary, he viewed unfolding events as vindicating the very choices that later led to his reputation as a <a href="https://www.historyhit.com/what-caused-henry-viiis-descent-into-tyranny/" target="_blank">callous tyrant</a>. Henry’s notes implicitly justify his self-empowerment; his marriages; and the executions of those who opposed him or fell out of favor, including chief adviser <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/prayer-book-owned-by-thomas-cromwell-adviser-to-henry-viii-was-hidden-in-plain-sight-for-centuries-180982370/" target="_blank">Thomas Cromwell</a> and his old tutor and lord chamberlain, <a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2016/07/the-execution-of-sir-thomas-more.html" target="_blank">Thomas More</a>. These individuals and <a href="https://www.tudorsociety.com/henry-viii-and-the-carthusian-monks/">many others</a> were, in one way or another, casualties of Henry’s attempt to break from Rome and marry Anne Boleyn.</i><div><br /></div><div>Following one's conscience is an important theme in Henry VIII's religious and marital matters. He complained of his <a href="https://supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-conscience-of-king-november-8-1528.html" target="_blank">conscience bothering him</a> after years of marriage to Catherine of Aragon that he had done wrong in marrying his brother's widow. St. Thomas More writes extensively about how he had formed his conscience to answer Henry VIII's questions about the validity of that marriage. His <i><a href="https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/st-thomas-more-dialogue-on-conscience/" target="_blank">Dialogue on Conscience</a></i> also explains his position and he explained the traditional Catholic view of conscience to Cromwell and those questioning him on why he would not take the Oath as his monarch required when Cromwell tried to compare More's conscience to the consciences of the heretics which More had investigated as Chancellor (as he described the conversation to his daughter Meg in a <a href="http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/more/moreinterrogations.html" target="_blank">letter </a>dated June 3, 1535):</div><div><br /></div><div><i><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvWoFCS-b9AMYbcodLLwaAdYLwckVOuX_StQVWBncABjtZWhJP_HuaJouUEVuVLXBqFa9R6MLh8oeUWxDFPdJ56tXNNV2403Pq_yqphMbbxAAcpEju6f7WkJazqoFukosoZqzHxJuCpS39OCBkgerfGFU5by2skg_-aSWP6tebOry-PKjzH8X_Qt155e8/s220/220px-MEDAILLON.OF.SAINT.THOMAS.MORE.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="218" data-original-width="220" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvWoFCS-b9AMYbcodLLwaAdYLwckVOuX_StQVWBncABjtZWhJP_HuaJouUEVuVLXBqFa9R6MLh8oeUWxDFPdJ56tXNNV2403Pq_yqphMbbxAAcpEju6f7WkJazqoFukosoZqzHxJuCpS39OCBkgerfGFU5by2skg_-aSWP6tebOry-PKjzH8X_Qt155e8/s1600/220px-MEDAILLON.OF.SAINT.THOMAS.MORE.jpg" width="220" /></a></div>To this Master Secretary said that I had before this when I was Chancellor examined heretics and thieves and other malefactors and gave me a great praise above my deserving in that behalf. And he said that I then, as he thought and at the leastwise Bishops did use to examine heretics, whether they believed the Pope to be the head of the Church and used to compel them to make a precise answer thereto. And why should not then the King, since it is a law made here that his Grace is Head of the Church, here compel men to answer precisely to the law here as they did then concerning the Pope. <br /><br />I answered and said that I protested that I intended not to defend any part or stand in contention; but I said there was a difference between those two cases because at that time, as well here as elsewhere through the corps of Christendom, the Pope's power was recognized for an undoubted thing which seems not like a thing agreed in this realm and the contrary taken for truth in other realms. Whereunto Master Secretary answered that they were as well burned for the denying of that as they be beheaded for denying of this, and therefore as good reason to compel them to make precise answer to the one as to the other. <br /><br />Whereto I answered that since in this case a man is not by a law of one realm so bound in his conscience, where there is a law of the whole corps of Christendom to the contrary in matter touching belief, as he is by a law of the whole corps though there hap to be made in some place a local law to the contrary, the reasonableness or the unreasonableness in binding a man to precise answer, standeth not in the respect or difference between beheading and burning, but because of the difference in charge of conscience, the difference standeth between beheading and hell.</i></div><div><br /></div><div>What the <i>Smithsonian Magazine</i> article highlights is that by 1540 Henry VIII was not suffering from any troubled conscience about what he had done to achieve his desire to sire a legitimate son to succeed him. Henry VIII died in 1547, leaving that son, Edward VI a young boy who would never reach the age of majority, marry, or sire a son to succeed him. </div><div><br /></div><div>The commentator in the article, James Clarke, notes that Henry might have thought himself in God's good graces, but was concerned that that youth had passed him by and that he was getting old: he was beginning to face his mortality, if not his morality! </div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psalter_of_Henry_VIII#/media/File:Henry_VIII's_Psalter,_British_Library.jpg" target="_blank">Image Credit </a>(Public Domain): Henry VIII reading Psalm 1: <i>Beatus Vir </i>(Blessed the man).</div>Stephanie A. Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14796489639420491857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8895518556533459607.post-62025107054801285452023-12-08T00:00:00.103-06:002023-12-08T00:00:00.133-06:00Preview: Saint Eustace White Meets Richard Topcliffe<p>The martyrs of England and Wales suffered throughout the Advent and Christmas seasons, so we'll continue our series of discussions of Father Henry Sebastian Bowden's <i style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">Mementoes of the English Martyrs and Confessors For Every Day in the Year, </i>with his memories of Saint Eustace White, martyr.</p><p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show Monday, December 11 at my usual time at about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern, the last segment in the second national hour on EWTN Radio. Please listen live </span><a href="https://radio.securenetsystems.net/cirruspremier/WNOP2" style="background-color: white; color: #cc0000; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">here </a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">and/or catch the podcast later </span><a href="https://www.sacredheartradio.com/onair/son-rise-morning-show" style="background-color: white; color: #cc0000; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">here</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt2uraLjk3gaUWHi3v_F6ew87trDF1B8FayU2l-7Hbrwc4pZN4h8EI59M48lTuBLqzzjpfOqr499_uVxNYiM1pzMe88HwSj8GsVopmgFu-u3zqbY1oKUOPb53Sa8_WSRr1hrX2HwMXACgDMwh0RBVhieymzmN9IZwzjSfOVdKT7GGKhSqBPhmm7hi2vaA/s422/saint%20eustace%20white.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="422" data-original-width="319" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt2uraLjk3gaUWHi3v_F6ew87trDF1B8FayU2l-7Hbrwc4pZN4h8EI59M48lTuBLqzzjpfOqr499_uVxNYiM1pzMe88HwSj8GsVopmgFu-u3zqbY1oKUOPb53Sa8_WSRr1hrX2HwMXACgDMwh0RBVhieymzmN9IZwzjSfOVdKT7GGKhSqBPhmm7hi2vaA/s320/saint%20eustace%20white.jpg" width="242" /></a></div>Saint Eustace White, one of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales, was hanged, drawn, and quartered on December 10, 1591. In his entry for the then Venerable Eustace White (declared so in 1886), Father Henry Sebastian Bowden described the priest's conversion, vocation, imprisonment, and torture:<p></p><i>He was born at Louth, Lincolnshire, and his conversion so much offended his father, an earnest Protestant, that he laid his curse upon him ; but God turned the curse to a blessing, and Eustace White became a priest and entered on the English Mission, October 1588. He was apprehended at Blandford, and having confessed himself a priest, a certain minister, one Dr. Houel, a tall man, reputed of great learning, was sent for to dispute with him, but was ignominiously vanquished, as he failed to disprove a certain text which White affirmed to be in the Bible. At the Bridewell, London, he was once hung by Topcliffe in iron manacles for eight hours together; but though the torment caused the sweat from his body to wet the ground beneath, nothing could be extracted from him of the least prejudice to Catholics. Under the extremity of his passion he cried out, “Lord, more pain if Thou pleasest, and more patience.” To his torturer he said, “I am not angry at you for all this, but shall pray to God for your welfare and salvation.” Topcliffe replied in a passion that he wanted not the prayers of heretics, and would have him hung at the next session. Then said the martyr, “I will pray for you at the gallows, for you have great need of prayers.”</i><div><br /></div><div>Because of the reference to how much Father White sweated as he hung by his wrists, Father Bowden chose the title "The Sweat of the Passion" and the verse from the Gospel of St. Luke 22:44, "And His sweat became as drops of blood running down to the ground." (p. 390 in the <a href="https://sophiainstitute.com/product/mementoes-of-the-english-martyrs/&amp;_rt_nonce=0d39d28dab" target="_blank">Sophia Institute Press</a> edition)<br /><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjww37x3nS-57VQz_h09dnXEYCzSqmN6q-NbuGluOnSKVnh7VU8d-rTQvoaUsSIbNVQRL9phzJ6OTtoFWwxs-utwEIk3XN7TsyXF4xaAl8RtBkYmfx3l7gIRcSkmMD_NXoOHu4xY9yfO0rnegzUn0JFLIBvjh0pSPwKO-AX12RII9WxnMSjWgRi9CJ_a-U/s1000/61U9yCabv2L._SL1000_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="656" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjww37x3nS-57VQz_h09dnXEYCzSqmN6q-NbuGluOnSKVnh7VU8d-rTQvoaUsSIbNVQRL9phzJ6OTtoFWwxs-utwEIk3XN7TsyXF4xaAl8RtBkYmfx3l7gIRcSkmMD_NXoOHu4xY9yfO0rnegzUn0JFLIBvjh0pSPwKO-AX12RII9WxnMSjWgRi9CJ_a-U/s320/61U9yCabv2L._SL1000_.jpg" width="210" /></a></div>The torture technique of being "hung by iron manacles" was described by Father John Gerard, SJ in his <i>Autobiography of a Hunted Priest</i>:</div><div><br /></div><div><em style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">My arms were then lifted up and an iron bar was passed through the rings of one gauntlet, then through the staple and rings to the second gauntlet. This done, they fastened the bar with a pin to prevent it from slipping, and then, removing the wicker steps one by one from under my feet, they left me hanging by my hands and arms fastened above my head. The tips of my toes, however, still touched the ground, and they had to dig the earth away from under them. They had hung me up from the highest staple in the pillar and could not raise me any higher, without driving in another staple. </em><em style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">Hanging like this I began to pray. The gentlemen standing around me asked me whether I was willing to confess now. </em><em style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">'I cannot and I will not,' I answered. </em><em style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">But I could hardly utter the words, such a gripping pain came over me. It was worst in my chest and belly, my hands and arms. All the blood in my body seemed to rush up into my arms and hands and I thought that blood was oozing from the ends of my fingers and the pores of my skin. But it was only a sensation caused by my flesh swelling above the irons holding them. </em><em style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">The pain was so intense that I thought I could not possibly endure it, and added to it, I had an interior temptation. Yet I did not feel any inclination or wish to give them the information they wanted. </em> <div><br /></div><div>Saint Eustace White was hanged, drawn, and quartered on December 10, 1591 at Tyburn Tree, the same day that Saints Edmund Gennings, Polydore Plasden (priests), and Swithun Wells (layman), and Blesseds John Mason and Sidney Hodgson (also laymen who had assisted Catholic missionary priests) suffered near Saint Swithun Wells' home on Grays Inn Road. </div><div><br /></div><div>Richard Topcliffe, Elizabeth I's chief pursuivant of Catholic priests, and an expert torturer, was present at that site. He didn't show up at Tyburn--was it maybe because he did not want to hear Father White's prayers for him? He did hear Saint Swithun Wells pray that like Saul, Topcliffe would hear the voice of Jesus on his own road to Damascus, stop persecuting Catholics, and become like Saint Paul!<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>A layman suffered at Tyburn with Father White:</div><div><br /></div><a href="http://saints.sqpn.com/blessed-brian-lacey/" target="_blank">Brian Lacey </a>was a Yorkshire country gentleman. Cousin, companion, and assistant to <a href="http://supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.com/2012/07/two-martyrs-on-fleet-street-1591.html" target="_blank">Blessed Father Montford Scott</a>. Arrested in 1586 for helping and hiding priests. Arrested again in 1591 when his own brother Richard betrayed him, Brian was tortured at Bridewell prison to learn the names of more people who had helped priests. Finally arraigned at the Old Bailey, he was condemned to death for his faith, for aiding priests and encouraging Catholicism. Pope Pius XI beatified him in 1929. Blessed Brian Lacey was also related to <a href="http://supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.com/2012/08/meeting-in-prison-blesseds-lacy-and.html" target="_blank">Blessed William Lacey</a>, a 1582 martyr in York.</div><div><br /></div><div>Saint Eustace White, pray for us!</div><div>Blessed Brian Lacey, pray for us!</div></div>Stephanie A. Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14796489639420491857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8895518556533459607.post-9526045768321930582023-12-05T00:00:00.011-06:002023-12-05T00:00:00.145-06:00A Cistercian Seal found in Smithfield, Virginia<p>You might remember that years ago--in 2015, to be precise--there was a <a href="https://supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.com/2015/07/jamestown-in-national-catholic-register.html" target="_blank">story </a>about a reliquary, presumed to be of Catholic provenance, found in the grave of one of the Jamestown founders. There are more details about the reliquary <a href="https://historicjamestowne.org/collections/artifacts/reliquary/" target="_blank">here</a>. Now, there's a story about a seal from a suppressed English Cistercian monastery being identified in Smithfield, Virginia:</p><i>At a recent archaeological artifact workshop hosted by our good friends at the Isle of Wight County Museum in Smithfield, Va., a most unusual 14th-century religious seal <a href="https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/blog-posts/smithfield-virginia-archaeological-workshop-identifying-artifacts-local-history/">was brought to our attention</a>. After sharing the information we had obtained from earlier research conducted by Judith Paulos of The Mount Vernon Ladies Association, we discussed the artifact with a friend and colleague, Dr. Bly Straube, who is the Senior Curator at the <a href="https://www.jyfmuseums.org/">Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation</a> and a superlative researcher. Bly shared the fact that the late Ivor Noel Hume, the former Director of Archaeology at Colonial Williamsburg, had seen the same seal matrix just prior to finishing his 1994 book</i> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Virginia-Adventure-Roanoke-Archaeological-Historical/dp/0394564464">The Virginia Adventure</a>. <i>In his book, Hume included a photo of the item and recognized its antiquity. He speculated that it may have been a sign indicating that the “lost colony” had made its way to the area after leaving Roanoke Island sometime prior to the 17th century. . . .</i><div><i><br /></i></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUTarQQMeSh6CuxFuXiXX59RfzoQfTvYdFrhtBcgEyoEm_xshN8vb8xPHI0aeXgI9XdgN171gRIlGiq9Fjei8WGQD5kr3OGEsHf1KX7tf3aDt3OnrLO8E-wAPY8DIzbsoQ8MVV4b1UW85kzJ8jsGFENmOIs10j8tnklfbQ0M6BmXrfYOQUd7-tRNsVCWQ/s789/320px-San_Bernardo,_de_Juan_Correa_de_Vivar_(Museo_del_Prado).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="789" data-original-width="320" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUTarQQMeSh6CuxFuXiXX59RfzoQfTvYdFrhtBcgEyoEm_xshN8vb8xPHI0aeXgI9XdgN171gRIlGiq9Fjei8WGQD5kr3OGEsHf1KX7tf3aDt3OnrLO8E-wAPY8DIzbsoQ8MVV4b1UW85kzJ8jsGFENmOIs10j8tnklfbQ0M6BmXrfYOQUd7-tRNsVCWQ/w261-h640/320px-San_Bernardo,_de_Juan_Correa_de_Vivar_(Museo_del_Prado).jpg" width="261" /></a></div>As part of the ongoing investigation into what happened at the Roanoke Settlement, the archaeologists hope to make a connection between the seal and the movement of those colonists. They identified the seal as coming from one of the Cistercian monasteries suppressed by Henry VIII, Garendon Abbey in Leicestershire, one of the <a href="https://www.dhi.ac.uk/cistercians/cistercian_life/the_cistercians/britain/index.php" target="_blank">hundreds </a>of Cistercian houses established in England, Scotland, and Ireland:</div><div><br /></div><i>Bly discovered that the seal matrix likely came from the Cistercian Garendon Abbey in Leicestershire, England. The Garendon Abbey was established under the protection of St. Mary the Virgin in 1133 by Robert [de Beaumont], Earl of Leicester. The Cistercians held a great deal of land over several counties near the Abbey, and the monks, priests, and other residents living there appear to have been occupied heavily in sheep farming. . . . </i><div><br /></div><div>The post references the dissolution of abbey in 1536, stating that in that year Henry VIII "officially dissolved all Catholic institutions in England, marking the end of the Garendon Abbey." That's not completely accurate: in 1536, Cromwell and Henry, after an extensive visitation of the monasteries throughout England, ostensibly to value their property for taxation purposes, but also to identify abuse and infidelity, acted upon the 1535 Act of Parliament for the <span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">"</span>Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries<span style="color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">"</span></span>, those valued less than 200 pounds. Garendon Abbey fell beneath that threshold in value, and thus was liable to suppression.</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/leics/vol2/pp5-7" target="_blank">British History Online</a> notes the discrepancy between the reports of Cromwell's visitors and local commissioners in 1535:</div><div><br /></div><i>In the 16th century, if not earlier, the Holy Cross at Garendon was an object of pilgrimage locally. <a href="https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/leics/vol2/pp5-7#fnn40" target="_blank">(fn. 40)</a> In 1535 the clear yearly value of the abbey's revenues was assessed at less than £160. <a href="https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/leics/vol2/pp5-7#fnn41" target="_blank">(fn. 41)</a> Cromwell's investigators, visiting Garendon in the following year, alleged that five of the monks were guilty of unnatural vice, and that three sought release from religion. <a href="https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/leics/vol2/pp5-7#fnn42" target="_blank">(fn. 42)</a> The county commissioners, who visited the house in June of the same year, gave a much more favourable report, stating that all the fourteen monks of the house desired to continue in religion, and that twelve of them were priests, of good conversation. Divine service was well maintained, though the large old monastery was partly ruinous. Five children and five impotent persons were maintained by the monks' charity, <a href="https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/leics/vol2/pp5-7#fnn43" target="_blank">(fn. 43)</a> and there were also two corrodiaries </i>[individuals living in the monastery with room and board provided]<i>. <a href="https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/leics/vol2/pp5-7#fnn44" target="_blank">(fn. 44)</a> The abbey, however, was listed amongst the smaller monasteries dissolved in 1536. <a href="https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/leics/vol2/pp5-7#fnn45" target="_blank">(fn. 45)</a> The abbot </i>[Randolph Arnold] <i>obtained a pension of £30. <a href="https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/leics/vol2/pp5-7#fnn46" target="_blank">(fn. 46)</a> The First Minister's Account shows a net income of £100. 18s. 10½d. <a href="https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/leics/vol2/pp5-7#fnn47" target="_blank">(fn. 47)</a></i><div><br /></div><div>Why did someone bring a seal from a suppressed Cistercian abbey to the New World in the 16th or 17th century? Does this mean there was Church Papist from Leicestershire in the colony, who remained inwardly true to the Catholic Church while attending Church of England services to avoid recusancy? Like the reliquary box in Jamestown, it remains a mystery because it does not seem that the provenance of this artifact has been identified.</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_of_Clairvaux#/media/File:San_Bernardo,_de_Juan_Correa_de_Vivar_(Museo_del_Prado).jpg" target="_blank">Image Credit</a> (Public Domain): Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, one of the founders of the Cistercian reform of the Benedictine order.</div>Stephanie A. Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14796489639420491857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8895518556533459607.post-42425222356627721562023-12-01T00:00:00.017-06:002023-12-01T08:15:18.421-06:00Preview: Saint Edmund Campion, SJ in Father Bowden's "Mementoes"<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjClR70_QWM4s1ZlCy7rSH7zfbEr5DsNWVIgCdJIrR8gCKV2hpCQpNN5DZhV3P0OZyeQuNkbPN5ar9WoVlT9o2AV6bmVjG2KkZTkn3RY2iDFK_pEKZqZtaZH-JOIEsLYCEehbcaqNNCfkDsfk_HGuyGKMEpCkmCBuzl-KQCsq17etvCNtwzDLwuoBNDZnI/s473/Edmundus_Campion.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="473" data-original-width="369" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjClR70_QWM4s1ZlCy7rSH7zfbEr5DsNWVIgCdJIrR8gCKV2hpCQpNN5DZhV3P0OZyeQuNkbPN5ar9WoVlT9o2AV6bmVjG2KkZTkn3RY2iDFK_pEKZqZtaZH-JOIEsLYCEehbcaqNNCfkDsfk_HGuyGKMEpCkmCBuzl-KQCsq17etvCNtwzDLwuoBNDZnI/s320/Edmundus_Campion.jpg" width="250" /></a></div>There are many reasons to admire, imitate and be inspired by Saint Edmund Campion, SJ: his intelligence, his courage, his care for his flock (he went back to a house to minister to the Catholics there and was thus captured), his <a href="https://supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.com/2012/08/st-edmund-campion-in-st-johns-chapel.html" target="_blank">ability </a>to defend the teachings of the Church, and of course, his holiness, well attested by his martyrdom. <p></p><p>Thus it's no surprise that Father Henry Sebastian Bowden mentions Campion 20 (twenty) times in his <i>Mementoes of the English Martyrs and Confessors For Every Day in the Year</i>, not counting the poem Saint Henry Walpole, SJ wrote about his mentor in martyrdom (Campion's blood splashed on Walpole and he left London to study for the priesthood and return to England as a missionary and martyr) included as an appendix ("Why do I use my paper, ynke and penne?") </p><p>And it's no surprise that we'll look at what Father Bowden says about Campion's martyrdom in our next segment on the Son Rise Morning Show on Monday, December 4.</p><p>I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show at my usual time at about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern, the last segment in the second national hour on EWTN Radio. Please listen live <a href="https://radio.securenetsystems.net/cirruspremier/WNOP2" target="_blank">here </a>and/or catch the podcast later <a href="https://www.sacredheartradio.com/onair/son-rise-morning-show" target="_blank">here</a>.</p><p>I chose the most dramatic of the mementoes Father Bowden offers, the description of the day of Campion's martyrdom, December 1, 1581, with the title "A Sight to God and Man" because of the richness of the details in the account. As we read the description, we can try to imagine what that day was like, as though we are witnessing it:</p><i>In the splash and mud of a wet December morning, Campion was led forth from the Tower, still in his old gown of Irish frieze. Undaunted he saluted the vast crowd, saying, “God save you all, gentlemen! God bless you and make you all good Catholics!” </i><div><br /></div><div>Irish frieze was a coarse, woven woolen cloth, very durable, with the nap left on one side. This garment would have been stripped from Campion once his execution began. On his way to a horrible death, Campion is both undaunted and loyal to his mission as a Catholic priest: to offer blessings and good will.<br /><div><br /></div><div><i>After kneeling in prayer he was strapped on the hurdle, Sherwin and Briant being together bound on a second hurdle. They were dragged at the horses’ tails through the gutter and filth, followed by an insulting crowd of ministers and rabble. </i></div><div><br /></div><div>Saint Ralph Sherwin, SJ (31 years old) and Saint Alexander Briant (25 years old) had been imprisoned, tortured, and tried at the same as Campion (41 years old). They and other Catholic priests had been accused of complicity in the Rome and Reims Plot, an invention of the Court. The gutters and streets would have been wet, and dirty not just from mud but from horses' dung and other waste. That was below them; above them were insults and curses.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Still some Catholics were consoled by a word from him, and one gentleman, like Veronica on another Via Dolorosa, most courteously wiped his face all spattered with mire and filth. Passing under the arch of Newgate, whereon still stood an image of Our Lady, Campion raised himself and saluted the Queen of Heaven, whom he hoped so soon to see. </i></div><div><br /></div><div>These two gestures of honor, one to comfort Campion and the other to show devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, are moving intervals as the martyrs are drawn to brutal executions.</div><div><br /></div><div><i><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQIHLFkNPMuQNziH4fATz4IVOvKUl6rH5HS63RwzeHOkfUPJ9JrsfRXEefdkV95krv9gYRREFygzOQuRXc152y9K_cXW42hrLiMXAwz6FonNYN5SV3EyrNUEvZ1LIUf5c_OEzYzMY78oD4ryT-Kt3rsdGlfELRN_IV1m6nmRvv9pF1gKEK0KOjYvuI6Q4/s320/sampleEdmund-Campions-Martyrdom1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="240" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQIHLFkNPMuQNziH4fATz4IVOvKUl6rH5HS63RwzeHOkfUPJ9JrsfRXEefdkV95krv9gYRREFygzOQuRXc152y9K_cXW42hrLiMXAwz6FonNYN5SV3EyrNUEvZ1LIUf5c_OEzYzMY78oD4ryT-Kt3rsdGlfELRN_IV1m6nmRvv9pF1gKEK0KOjYvuI6Q4/s1600/sampleEdmund-Campions-Martyrdom1.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br />At the gallows he began with a sweet firm voice, “Spectaculum facti sumus Deo Angelis et hominibus,”* but the Sheriffs interrupted him, and urged him to confess his treason. He repeatedly maintained his innocence, and having declined to join in prayer with the ministers, asked all Catholics for a Credo for him in his agony, and while again professing his loyalty to the Queen he went to his reward.</i></div><div><br /></div><div>Campion begins by citing the verse Father Bowden includes in this memento, from St. Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians: *“ We are made a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men.”—1 Cor. 5:9. </div></div><div><br /></div><div>In his <a href="https://tanbooks.com/products/books/edmund-campion-a-definitive-biography/" target="_blank">biography </a>of Saint Edmund Campion, Richard Simpson cited the martyr's last words:</div><blockquote style="text-align: left;"><i>"I am a Catholic man and a priest; in that faith have I lived, and in that faith do I intend to die. If you esteem my religion treason, then am I guilty; as for other treason, I never committed any, God is my judge. But you have now what you desire. I beseech you to have patience, and suffer me to speak a word or two for discharge of my conscience."</i><br /><br />He was not allowed to continue and his execution was almost another trial as he was questioned again about his loyalty to the Pope as the head of the Catholic Church and/or to the Queen of England. His final statement was:<div><br /><i>"Wherein have I offended her? In this I am innocent. This is my last speech; in this give me credit — I have and do pray for her." Then the Lord Charles Howard asked of him for which queen he prayed, whether for Elizabeth the queen. To whom he answered, "Yea, for Elizabeth, your queen and my queen, unto whom I wish a long quiet reign with all prosperity."</i></div></blockquote><div>Then he was stripped, hanged until barely conscious, eviscerated, beheaded, and quartered. During this agony, his blood splashed on the bystander, Henry Walpole. Then Sherwin and Briant endured the same agony. </div><div><br /></div><div>How long could I -- or you -- have watched it?</div><div><br /></div>He and his companions, and Henry Walpole, were canonized among the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales by Pope St. Paul VI in Rome on October 25, 1970.<div><br /></div>Saint Edmund Campion, pray for us!<br />Saint Ralph Sherwin, pray for us!<br />Saint Alexander Briant, pray for us!<br />Saint Henry Walpole, pray for us!Stephanie A. Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14796489639420491857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8895518556533459607.post-72182849458003296982023-11-29T00:00:00.015-06:002023-11-30T09:10:35.096-06:00Book Review: "Betrayed Without a Kiss"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf8Ts4xL36Yz33F9Pc0uzKpR3Zo52_MbyM90_mU0AyEZqLygYo_2JweaSQpT2Wk-O9c8QoeuIpvhQJBvnAsUC-NvLJm4Iu1gVctg_Kui4_4mpIJHUZcMCmiEusbcW97cSwtfp2BK5AQX0ri8PMqYK1IFpO2Jyio4Axe4oPQnI4IQjHGxhKqm9hfG-oRWo/s1280/61TcUTurWeL._SL1280_.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="826" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf8Ts4xL36Yz33F9Pc0uzKpR3Zo52_MbyM90_mU0AyEZqLygYo_2JweaSQpT2Wk-O9c8QoeuIpvhQJBvnAsUC-NvLJm4Iu1gVctg_Kui4_4mpIJHUZcMCmiEusbcW97cSwtfp2BK5AQX0ri8PMqYK1IFpO2Jyio4Axe4oPQnI4IQjHGxhKqm9hfG-oRWo/w259-h400/61TcUTurWeL._SL1280_.jpg" width="259" /></a></div>After I <a href="https://supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.com/2023/10/cover-story-queen-catherine-of-aragon.html" target="_blank">posted </a>the cover of John Clark's <i>Betrayed Without a Kiss: Defending Marriage after Years of Failed Leadership in the Church</i>, I contacted the author. He had the <a href="https://tanbooks.com/products/betrayed-without-a-kiss-defending-marriage-after-years-of-failed-leadership-in-the-church/" target="_blank">publisher </a>send me a review copy--I offered particularly to comment on his treatment of Henry VIII's Great Matter of the validity of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon and its aftermath, but of course I read the entire book. <div><br /></div><div>In the first chapter, Clark sets up the Biblical basis of Catholic Church teaching on the purposes and sacramental nature of marriage with readings from Genesis (Adam and Eve), Tobit (Tobias and Sarah), and the St. John's Gospel (Wedding Feast of Cana).<br /><div><br /></div><div>The book is often historical in theme and treatment, looking at historical events in the Church, the world, and the United States: not only Henry VIII's marital machinations (Chapter 2), but the Lutheran demotion of Marriage from a Sacrament to a civil contract, to be overseen by the State and the Catholic response at the Council of Trent; contrasting the Anglican change-of-mind on contraception at Lambeth in 1930 (reversing statements in 1908 and 1920) with Pope Pius XI's re-iteration of Catholic doctrine on the purposes of marriage and why contraception was not allowed in <i><a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_19301231_casti-connubii.html" target="_blank">Casti Connubii</a></i> in the same year. (Chapter 3)</div><div><br /></div><div>Clark also looks at two social and moral trends in the past and their influences on the present: one that generally affects men more than women (pornography; through Hugh Hefner's Playboy philosophy), and one that influences women more than men (feminism, via Simone Beauvoir, Gloria Steinem, and Betty Friedan). Both, he says, contribute to a view that marriage and family are either not necessary to human satisfaction (pornography) or is detrimental to human fulfillment (feminism): they condition men and women to seek happiness outside of marriage and family. (Chapter 4)</div><div><br /></div><div>Then he turns to the crisis of confidence within in the Church in Chapter 5, noting the dissident reaction to <i>Humanae Vitae</i>, which as Clark points out, was merely the reaffirmation of Pope Pius XI's re-iteration of Catholic doctrine on the purposes of marriage noted above. In Chapter 6, he looks again, historically, at a trend in the granting of decrees of nullity notably in the USA on the basis of a defect of consent, which Pope St. John Paul II deplored in several addresses to the Roman Rota (pages 159-163). Finally, in Chapter 7, he looks at more recent history: the controversial apostolic exhortation Pope Francis issued in 2016, <i>Amoris Laetitia</i>, and footnote 351 in chapter 8. In his discussion of that document and Cardinal Walter Kasper's efforts at the Synod on the Family to argue for allowing Holy Communion for the divorced and remarried, Clark cites Archbishop Samuel Aquila's article <a href="https://www.ncregister.com/blog/did-thomas-more-and-john-fisher-die-for-nothing" target="_blank">"Did Thomas More and John Fisher Die for Nothing?"</a></div><div><br /></div><div>In the next three chapters, about pre-Cana programs (Chapter 8), how the Church can help married couples and families (Chapter 9), and how the married laity can help themselves, Clark offers different recommendations. As I read these chapters, I noted the anecdotal nature of some of these situations. He writes about priests not always being involved in pre-Cana programs, and that may be true in some dioceses, but I know not all. He also comments on the need for free education in Catholic schools, and I wondered if Clark was aware of dioceses, like the Wichita diocese I live in, that have instituted a Stewardship program through which families don't pay tuition, but make contributions to their parish according to their income for their children to attend the parish school--it's not free, but it's fair. (We also have the <a href="https://catholicdioceseofwichita.org/development/drexel-school-fund/" target="_blank">St. Katherine Drexel Fund</a> to further assist with parish and high school education.)</div><div><br /></div><div>Throughout these chapters, Clark writes with both clarity and charity about what he sees affecting the sacrament and marriages inside and outside of the Church. He particularly focuses on the anomalous situation of couples seeking an annulment having to first obtain a civil divorce in contrast to the statements of the <i>Catechism of the Catholic Church</i> in <a href="https://www.usccb.org/sites/default/files/flipbooks/catechism/574/" target="_blank">paragraph 2384</a>. He persuaded me that is a strange condition (please see pages 168-172).</div><div><br /></div><div>But to the heart of the reason I wanted to read and review the book:</div><div><br /></div><div>Regarding Clark's analysis of Henry VIII's marital issues and the martyrs they produced in Chapter 2, "Letting No Man Put Asunder: When Catholics Defended Marriage to the Death": the issue of the validity of Henry and Catherine of Aragon's sacramental marriage was much bound up in issues of the authority of the pope to issue a dispensation to allow Henry to marry his brother's widow. </div><div><br /></div><div>Henry, Thomas Cranmer, Thomas Cromwell, and others set up a conflict between Bible verses (laws regarding Levirate marriage in the Old Testament) and Papal authority. They also consulted William of Occam's <a href="https://supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.com/2015/02/william-of-ockham-and-henry-viii.html" target="_blank">arguments </a>about the limits of Papal authority versus the monarch's authority in his own kingdom. Thus the overlap between the two issues: the validity of the marriage and papal authority.</div><div><br /></div><div>Clark is correct to distinguish between St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More in their different public reactions and statements re: Henry's efforts. Fisher, as a bishop and successor of the Apostles, stood up against Henry's efforts in Convocation and before the king. More made his opinion, based on study of the Scriptures and the Councils of the Church, known privately to Henry VIII, but he did not speak of it publicly. Henry VIII knew it and yet appointed More his Chancellor after Cardinal Wolsey's death anyway, thus Thomas Cromwell took the lead on the matter of Henry and Catherine's marriage.</div><div><br /></div><div>While Clark is also correct to emphasize the brave stand of the protomartyr Carthusians of the Charterhouse of London, I wish he could have found room to mention the Observant Franciscans, both the non-martyrs and martyrs, who stood up against Henry VIII's plans from beginning. Father William Peto famously preached before Henry and Anne Boleyn in the Greenwich chapel; he and Father Henry Elston were threatened with martyrdom but were not dissuaded. Blessed John Forrest was burned to dead, hung in chains above a fire kindled with the statues of saints. Henry VIII just as brutally <a href="https://supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.com/2018/08/suppression-of-observant-friars-1534.html" target="_blank">suppressed </a>the Observant Franciscan Order as he did the Carthusians, and there are a few Venerated martyrs of that order: Anthony Brookby, Thomas Cort, and Thomas Belchiam.</div><div><br /></div><div>And most of all, three of Catherine of Aragon's <a href="https://supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.com/2021/07/henry-viii-in-late-july-1540-matching.html" target="_blank">counselors and chaplains</a>--who might be considered The Defenders of the Bond--were hanged, drawn, and quartered after long imprisonment on July 30, 1540:</div><blockquote>Thomas Abell, Richard Fetherston, and Edward Powell had all been chaplains and defenders of Queen Catherine of Aragon--very learned men; graduates of the University of Oxford. Thomas Abell had written <i>Invicta veritas. An answere, That by no manner of law, it may be lawfull for the most noble King of England, King Henry the eight to be divorced from the queens grace, his lawfull and very wife. B.L.</i> in 1532 and had also been implicated in the Nun of Kent cause célèbre. Richard Fetherston had also written against Henry's divorce of Catherine in <i>Contra divortium Henrici et Catharinae, Liber unus</i> although no copy of the text survives. He also tutored the Princess Mary. Henry VIII had favored Edward Powell for his works against Lutheran doctrines in earlier days, but then Powell ran afoul of Henry's changing policies and desires to cast aside Catherine of Aragon.</blockquote>Along with Fisher and More and the Carthusian and Briggitine (Richard Reynolds) protomartyrs (and John Forest), they were beatified by Pope Leo XIII on December 29, 1886--on Saint Thomas of Canterbury's feast day. So I wish these brave men could have been highlighted. <div><br /></div><div><div>Otherwise I thought this chapter was a good overview of Henry VIII's Great Matter and what those many years meant for the Sacrament of Marriage and the Church in England and beyond.<div><br /></div><div>I appreciate TAN sending me the review copy; written by a married layman and father, it is a substantial example of how the laity can respond to issues in the Church combining practical experience and knowledge of doctrine, both sacramental and moral. That reminds me, of course, of Saint John Henry Newman's description of the laity (from <i>The Present Position of Catholics in England</i>): </div></div><div><br /></div><i>What I desiderate in Catholics is the gift of bringing out what their religion is. I want a laity, not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious, <b>but men who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it. I want an intelligent, well-instructed laity I wish you to enlarge your knowledge, to cultivate your reason, to get an insight into the relation of truth to truth, to learn to view things as they are, to understand how faith and reason stand to each other, what are the bases and principles of Catholicism . . .</b></i><div><i><br /></i></div><div>The book has an excellent bibliography; no index.</div></div></div>Stephanie A. Mannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14796489639420491857noreply@blogger.com0