Robert Hugh Benson, RIP

I missed posting a notice of the anniversary of Robert Hugh Benson's death last Sunday (October 19; he died in 1914), but want to make up for it by noting his poetry today. A book of his poems was published in the U.S. by P.J Kenedy & Sons of New York soon after his death with an introduction by Wilfred Meynell.

Meynell noted first the purpose for which Benson published his poetry: as a fundraising effort:

Yet one may be named apart, the Homes of Mr. Norman Potter, since it was for their benefit that he put into the market the autobiographical and heart-searching poems here printed. They are very intimate; and as such are proper to poetry even in the case of a writer who had not specially studied the mechanism of poetry as his medium. Under cover of poetical convention, he is able to bare himself, equally in the lines written before he became a Catholic in 1903, and in "The Priest's Lament" of a later date. In "Christian Evidences" he gets back to his intuitions; to that which made him, ardent investigator though he was, ever in closer touch with the simple than with the scientific -- back to that witness within himself which Christ promises and gives to all His own; while in "Visions of the Night" we are at close quarters with that apprehensiveness which, while it imposed suffering, also conferred insight -- the insight by which others learned to see. One passage in "Savonarola Moriturus" is especially self-revealing, and that for a reason it is now no breach of decorum to set forth. A year or two before his death he talked with a neophyte on the sacrifices one might have to make for the Faith. "And are you sure you would make them all?" he was asked. His reply was that he would like to say "Yes," but that he dare not answer for what he might be made to yield under bodily torture. The first four lines of the second stanza of the Savonarola poem are the more poignant for this modesty of the author's own estimate of his powers of endurance, powers which he thenceforth put to sharp apprenticeship and test, passing out, not vanquished, but victor.

He then passes over Benson's novels with some comments:

Of his novels I do not here attempt an appreciation. As a ruthless writer, where ruthlessness comes into the scheme of a man's salvation, as it had been in that of his own, let him be ranked. In the spiritual warfare he gave no quarter. Whether he was cruel, besides, in the burning of The Coward, who makes indeed cowards of us all; whether he views woman as no more than an adjunct of man, an accident for the hindering or the helping of his salvation; whether Dorothy is properly killed so that Roger Mallock may prove his vocation; these, and many more, are the problems that palpitate in his pages, and that men and women, according to their varied experiences, will variously adjudge. Of his historical novels in general he was inclined to say very much what he said of "Come Rack, Come Rope": "I fear it is the kind of book which anyone acquainted with the history, manners, and customs of the Elizabethan age should find no difficulty in writing." If in this class, the author proved conspicuously his industry and his facility -- uncommon but not rare faculties -- then in "Initiation" and other studies of current life he was nothing if not individual. In these he was of his age and no other; he was himself and no other. Nor were the sensitivenesses of these books without their effect on the whole of his productions. When in historical romance he described a martyrdom, we have also his own comment on it: "It seems to me, who have never been on the rack, that I have succeeded pretty well in writing down what the rack must have felt like, and the mental states it must have induced. When I had finished writing that scene, I was conscious or very distinct, even slightly painful, sensations in my own wrists and ankles." Obviously there was an apprehension, necessary for one class of book, which greatly benefited the other; and the experience of the hero in "Initiation" could not have been conveyed, had not the author himself gone under an anaesthetic in a nursing home; and again endured another ordeal without an opiate, "to learn what pain really was" -- a sharp lesson of sixty hours. Similarly the description of the headaches of the hero (how real a hero!) in "Initiation," the most vivid description of its class in all English literature, could only have been written by one who had himself suffered them, and suffered them with a sensibility that is fortunately the iron crown conferred upon only the very elect.

Read the rest of the introduction here. You may peruse the poetry here, but here are a couple of samples:

AT HIGH MASS

Who hast made this world so wondrous fair; --
  The pomp of clouds; the glory of the sea;
  Music of water; song-birds' melody;
The organ of Thy thunder in the air;
Breath of the rose; and beauty everywhere --
  Lord, take this stately service done to Thee,
  The grave enactment of Thy Calvary
In jewelled pomp and splendour pictured there!

Lord, take the sounds and sights; the silk and gold;
  The white and scarlet; take the reverent grace
  Of ordered step; window and glowing wall --
Prophet and Prelate, holy men of old;
  And teach us children of the Holy Place
Who love Thy Courts, to love Thee best of all.

O DEUS EGO AMO TE

O God, I love Thee mightily,
Not only for Thy saving me,
Nor yet because who love not Thee
Must burn throughout eternity.
Thou, Thou, my Jesu, once didst me
Embrace upon the bitter Tree.
For me the nails, the soldier's spear,
With injury and insult, bear --
In pain all pain exceeding,
In sweating and in bleeding,
Yea, very death, and that for me
    A sinner all unheeding!
O Jesu, should I not love Thee
Who thus hast dealt so lovingly --
Not hoping some reward to see,
Nor lest I my damnation be
But, as Thyself hast lovèd me,
So love I now and always Thee,
Because my King alone Thou art,
Because, O God, mine own Thou art!

November 22, 1963: Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell

The mainstream media has been recalling the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, fifty years ago with specials showing the news reporting that day--all the images of men and women, all formally dressed with hats and suits and ties and nice coats, and all the cigarettes! Nearly all of the news anchors have a smoking cigarette between their fingers and an ashtray on their desk. All the conspiracy theories are being described and detailed--did Lee Harvey Oswald really act alone?

Catholic media organizations are also remembering the assassination of John F. Kennedy with analysis of what it meant that he was the first and only Catholic elected President of the United States. Was it good for Catholics, especially since Kennedy had to promise the Houston Ministerial Association that his Catholic faith would never influence his presidential decisions? Thank you, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale! As Russell Shaw commented:

Houston, September 12, 1960. John F. Kennedy is addressing the Houston Ministerial Association. Kennedy, the Democratic candidate for the presidency, has been buffeted for months by nativist anti-Catholicism. He and his advisors have concluded that he must address the problem head-on.

JFK's address to the ministers in Houston was the result. It's said to have been the work of John Cogley, Commonweal editor and later religion writer for the New York Times, who eventually quit the Catholic Church, became an Episcopalian, and was an Episcopal deacon when he died.

Although the speech's reasoning doesn't stand up under close examination, Kennedy's Houston text is a superficially skillful piece of work. There's hardly a statement in it to which, taken in isolation, a reasonable person could object. But the speech as a whole is a sustained exercise in privatizing religion. Declaring his faith to be his business and no one else's, Kennedy puts daylight between himself and his Church and pledges that, if he's elected, religion won't influence his performance. The Houston speech did the trick: Kennedy was elected. But the text stands as a landmark in the process of excluding religion from the public square that's still underway.

Shaw also analyzed the Kennedy candidacy and election and their influence on Catholic assimilation and secularization in his book, American Church.

I remember that my grandmother had a "funeral card" of President Kennedy in her prayerbook: a picture of JFK with prayers for the repose of his soul and another card with a poem (written by Kennedy in heaven!) expressing his love for his family and especially his pride when his little boy saluted the cassion during his funeral procession.

But on November 22, 1963, two other prominent men died--C.S. Lewis and Aldous Huxley. Peter Kreeft wrote a book (Between Heaven and Hell: A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death with John F. Kennedy, C. S. Lewis & Aldous Huxley) that depicts a Platonic style dialog among the men after they've died:

On November 22, 1963, three great men died within a few hours of each other: C. S. Lewis, John F. Kennedy and Aldous Huxley. All three believed, in different ways, that death is not the end of human life. Suppose they were right, and suppose they met after death. How might the conversation go?

Peter Kreeft imagines their discussion as a part of The Great Conversation that has been going on for centuries. Does human life have meaning? Is it possible to know about life after death? What if one could prove that Jesus was God? With Kennedy taking the role of a modern humanist, Lewis representing Christian theism and Huxley advocating Eastern pantheism, the dialogue is lively and informative. Here's an excerpt:

Kennedy: That's just what I can't buy: that old-fashioned theology of God descending from heaven like a meteor.
Lewis: All right, then, let's be very specific. Who is Jesus, according to your faith?
Kennedy: The ideal man, the man so perfect and wise that his followers called him divine. Not God become man but man become God.
Lewis: A very nicely put summary of humanist Christology; but do you think this is Christianity?
Kennedy: Old Christianity, no; New Christianity, yes. The only form of it a modern man can believe without giving up his intellectual honesty. I heard a preacher put it this way: you can be honest, or intelligent, or a medieval-style Christian, or any two of the three, but not all three. Work that out for yourself.
Lewis: Very clever, but the same barb can be used to sting anyone. I can say you can be honest, or intelligent, or a modernist, or any two of the three, but not all three. The substantive point, as distinct from the debater's nicety, is the identity of Jesus. Let's zero in on that issue.
Kennedy: Fine. Who is Jesus?
Lewis: God become man.
Kennedy: Literally?
Lewis: Yes.
Kennedy: How can you as an educated twentieth-century man take such an outdated position?
Lewis: As distinct from your new, modern one?
Kennedy: Yes.
Lewis: Because for one thing, your new position is as old as the hills. Or, at least, as old as Arius.
Kennedy: Who?
Lewis: Arius, a fourth-century heretic who carried half the church with him even after the Council of Nicea addressed the issue by clearly and strongly affirming Jesus' divinity. The same thing is happening again today with modernism and humanism. Your so-called new Christianity is nothing but the old Arian heresy in new dress.
Kennedy: Really, now, there's no need to call each other names.
Lewis: I didn't call you a name; I just labeled your position accurately.
Kennedy: I wish you would avoid using labels like heretic.
Read more here.

Celebrating 25 Years of/at Eighth Day Books

Before my husband and I went on vacation to the Ozarks, we celebrated the 25th Anniversary of Eighth Day Books with a reading and party and sale at that great bookstore. I read from my submission to the festschrift for Warren Farha and his store, along with 13 other customers and friends to whom Eighth Day Books is more than a bookstore. Some of the presentations and essays were deeply moving, some were funny, but all showed what a special person Warren Farha is and what a special place Eighth Day Books is, as a bricks-and-mortar bookstore, as an on-line presence, and as a travelling book seller.

More about Timely . . . Timeless from the Eighth Day Books website:

Conceived as a way to honor the store’s place in the world, Timely…Timeless serves the equally important purpose of honoring Eighth Day’s loyal and enthusiastic customers—friends we’ve been honored to know and serve. The book’s essays, poems, and photographs celebrate this mutual affection.

Named “one of the best religious bookstores in the country” by Publisher’s Weekly, Eighth Day was founded in 1988 by Warren Farha, whose essay on the store’s founding joins the work of other notable contributors including: Kansas Poet Laureate Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, University of Missouri professor Scott Cairns, Newbery award-winner Clare Vanderpool, and Wichita writers Stephanie Mann, Roy Beckemeyer, Bo Bonner, and Arlice Davenport.

Carolyn Ballinger of Kingman, KS, calls the store “a haven of peace in a world of sensory overload.” Notre Dame’s Joshua Seachris likens Eighth Day to “a sanctuary filled with cloth and paper treasures,” while John Traffas, Atchison, KS, describes the “happy combination of a pub and a chapel.”

Eighth Day is even extending the opportunity to celebrate the anniversary by posting additional reflections on its blog:

In the coming weeks, we will be posting micro-essays submitted by you—our friends and customers—about what Eighth Day Books means to you.

Our published collection (Timely…Timeless) is available online, but for those of you who missed the submission deadline, we would like to extend our invitation through the end of the year. Everyone who has crossed paths with Eighth Day—whether in Wichita, on the road, or in virtual fashion via the internet or telephone—is invited to contribute. Share reminiscences, humorous moments, epic sagas, paens (sic), poetic waxings and/or love letters.

The Next English Coronation: Ecumenical and Diverse?

As The Telegraph proclaims: it will be "A coronation for OUR Times":

There are some things you just don’t talk about, and the crowning of the next king is one of them. It would be “impolite” to start planning a coronation while the existing monarch is still alive, I was told last week by one of those who may be involved when the time comes. Quite right, too. As the Queen prepares to celebrate the 60th anniversary of her Coronation on June 2 1953, it is to be hoped that she will go on and on. But that’s not to say that those concerned have neglected to think about what might come next. . . .

[Talking about the next coronation, to Henry VIII especially, could be thought of as the same thing as talking about the death of the monarch--sometimes in bad taste, sometimes liable to get your head separated from the rest of your body.]

The Sunday Telegraph has learned of a major shift in attitude within the leadership of the Church, towards allowing the representatives of other faiths to participate in a coronation service for the first time. This would be a dramatic break with tradition, as the coronation has been an exclusively Christian event for 1,000 years. In the past, any such move was strongly opposed by the Church of England. There is now, however, a recognition that the next coronation will have to reflect the spiritual diversity of modern Britain in some way.

The ethnic and cultural make-up of the country has changed greatly since 1953, when the ceremony reflected the long-established notion of Britain as a nation under one God. Sixty years later, Her Majesty reigns over a nation with many gods. There are still 33 million people who call themselves Christian (including Roman Catholics, who were not represented in the service in 1953). There are also 2.7 million Muslims, 817,000 Hindus and 263,000 Jews, and many others. . . .

Dr Robert Morris of the Constitution Unit at University College, London said that:

“Essentially, the last Coronation was a straight rerun of what had gone before, over the centuries. It was an Anglican Christian service. No Popery allowed, etc. The only alteration was that the Moderator of the Church of Scotland was allowed to come on and present a Bible to the Queen. That was a big thing in 1953. The Archbishop of Canterbury refused to give space to any of the other churches, let alone faiths. So they have a long way to go.”

Some of the language of the ceremony is laid down in law, such as the Coronation Oath Act of 1689, which says the monarch must swear to uphold the Protestant faith. However, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s website says “the form and order of the service are ancient in origin but not immutable”.

The new Archbishop, the Most Rev Justin Welby, showed his willingness to tweak tradition in March when he changed his enthronement at Canterbury Cathedral into an inauguration without many people noticing. He will write the service when the time comes, but not without help.

The recent changes in the Succession, allowing those in line to marry a Catholic, and the first born female to succeed ahead of any brothers born later, were earth-shattering enough to the Anglican establishment. These proposals are producing Lisbon-like earthquakes:

There will be, says Dr Morris, a case for simplifying the Christian ceremony and supplementing it with other events. “There is a question of how the monarch should be seen to relate ceremonially, not only to his Anglican subjects, but also the rest of the population. There is a case for considering a series of essentially secular ceremonies, in which the monarch shows himself for acclamation to the rest of the population.”

It would also put great strain on the ties between Church, State and Crown, some of which have snapped or are snapping already. To the Church, however, there is another precious dimension to the coronation. One senior figure described it to me this week as an ordination, an act of setting someone apart for a sacred purpose.

Unusually, perhaps, in terms of her predecessors, Queen Elizabeth came to her Coronation as a woman of deep personal faith. That continues to be the case, although she is certainly not uncomfortable in multi-faith services. It was Her Majesty who reminded the Church of England in a remarkable speech last year that it is not just there to serve Christians.

“Its role is not to defend Anglicanism to the exclusion of other religions,” she said. “Instead, the Church has a duty to protect the free practice of all faiths in this country.”
(Image source: wikipedia commons.)

Just a Year Ago Today . . .

. . . Pope Benedict landed in Scotland to begin his state visit to Great Britain, which included the beatification of John Henry Newman. The official website has updated information for the anniversary. One big change is that the bishops of England and Wales have proclaimed Fridays during the year days of Abstinence, starting today:

Friday is set aside as a special day of penitence, as it is the day of the suffering and death of the Lord. The Bishops of England and Wales believe it is important that all the faithful again be united in a common, identifiable act of Friday penance because they recognise that the virtue of penitence is best acquired as part of a common resolve and common witness. The Bishops have decided to re-establish the practice that this penance should be fulfilled simply by abstaining from meat and by uniting this to prayer. Those who cannot or choose not to eat meat as part of their normal diet should abstain from some other food of which they regularly partake. This comes into effect from Friday 16 September 2011 - the first day of the anniversary of the visit of the Holy Father.

Because:

The Visit of Pope Benedict XVI evoked for many people the spiritual reality of life and rekindled hope and faith: hope in the goodness that is within people and in our society, and faith in God. Even if it is not easily articulated, a spiritual yearning is to be found within most people. This yearning is found also among Catholics who have lost touch with their faith or whose faith was never deeply rooted in a personal relationship with Christ. Wishing to respond to this yearning but perhaps lacking in confidence in talking about their own spiritual life, many Catholics are asking how they can witness to their faith; what can they do to help introduce their faith in Christ to others in simple and straightforward ways?

The Bishops of England and Wales recognise that simple acts of witness, accompanied by sincere prayer, can be a powerful call to faith. Traditional Catholic devotions such as making the sign of the cross with care and reverence, praying the Angelus, saying a prayer before and after our meals, to name only a few, are straightforward actions which both dedicate certain moments in our daily lives to Almighty God and demonstrate our love and trust in His goodness and providence. If these devotions have been lost or even forgotten, particularly in our homes and schools, we have much to gain from learning and living them again.

The Bishops have looked again at the role of devotions and the practice of penance, both of which can help to weave the Catholic faith into the fabric of everyday life. Our regular worship at Holy Mass on Sunday, the day of the Lord’s resurrection, is the most powerful outward sign and witness of our faith in Jesus Christ to our family, friends and neighbours. Sunday must always remain at the heart of our lives as Catholics.

The Bishops also wish to remind us that every Friday is set aside as a special day of penitence, as it is the day of the suffering and death of the Lord. They believe it is important that all the faithful again be united in a common, identifiable act of Friday penance because they recognise that the virtue of penitence is best acquired as part of a common resolve and common witness.

The law of the Church requires Catholics on Fridays to abstain from meat, or some other form of food, or to observe some other form of penance laid down by the Bishops’ Conference. The Bishops have decided to re-establish the practice that this penance should be fulfilled simply by abstaining from meat and by uniting this to prayer. Those who cannot or choose not to eat meat as part of their normal diet should abstain from some other food of which they regularly partake.

Pope Benedict has been thinking about the visit too, as he welcomed the new British Ambassador to the Holy See:

The Holy See and the United Kingdom have enjoyed excellent relations in the thirty years that have passed since full diplomatic relations were established. The close bond between us was further strengthened last year during my Visit to your country, a unique occasion in the course of the shared history of the Holy See and the countries which today compose the United Kingdom. I would therefore like to begin my remarks by reiterating my gratitude to the British people for the warm welcome which I received during my stay. Her Majesty and His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh received me most graciously and I was pleased to meet the leaders of the three main political parties and to discuss with them matters of common concern. As you know, a particular motive for my Visit was the Beatification of John Henry Cardinal Newman, a great Englishman whom I have admired for many years and whose raising to the altars was a personal wish fulfilled. I remain convinced of the relevance of Newman’s insights regarding society, as the United Kingdom, Europe and the West in general today face challenges that he identified with remarkable prophetic clarity. It is my hope that a fresh awareness of his writings will bear new fruit among those searching for solutions to the political, economic and social questions of our age. . .

Read more here.