The Tudors and Renaissance England at the Met

I thought the Wall Street Journal review (might be behind a paywall!) was interesting, because it starts off by mentioning what's NOT in the Exhibition:

This is no stroll through the long gallery of Tudor-era celebrity. Sir Thomas More, the speaker of truth to power in Robert Bolt’s “A Man for All Seasons,” is here in Hans Holbein the Younger’s remorseless portrait of 1527, but More’s nemesis Thomas Cromwell, the manipulative meritocrat of Hilary Mantel’s “Wolf Hall,” is absent. Sea dogs such as Sir Francis Drake, the first man to circumnavigate the globe and survive, or lifelong diplomats like William Howard, who served four of the five Tudor monarchs, are nowhere at all. Of the all-rounders who exemplified the ideal of the Renaissance man, Sir Walter Raleigh appears only as the source of a set of porcelain and gilt “China dishes,” and Sir Philip Sidney, the soldier-poet who pioneered a theory of English literature, is missing in action. There are no portraits of Shakespeare, either.

That's because The Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England is not aimed a collecting lots of portraits from the Tudor era, but exploring the uses of art to display power and majesty, as reviewer Dominic Green explains:

Curated by the Metropolitan Museum’s Elizabeth Cleland and Adam Eaker, and gathering more than 100 objects from an impressive range of collections, this exhibition instead reframes the Tudors as patrons building a political myth. Its introductory gallery and five thematic zones (such as “Public and Private Faces,” “Languages of Ornament,” “Allegories and Icons”) catch the long arc of image projection.

Even if one can't go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the museum's website for the exhibit might be the next best thing to being there, as it provides 131-page booklet, the audio guide, and detailed visiting guide.

One more comment of Green's I cannot pass without my own reaction:

The imagery of power struggled to mask the political reality of dynastic weakness. His heir, the sickly boy-king Edward VI, died in 1553. Edward’s Catholic half-sister, Mary (reign 1553-1558), burned heretics as well as books, and preferred prayer to patronage.

Mary is the odd woman out in the Tudor lineup. The only Catholic among Henry VIII’s children, she risked England’s independence by marrying Philip II of Spain. Here, however, her familiar portrait by Hans Eworth emerges as a template of continuity, a source for the images of her half-sister, Elizabeth.

The second paragraph rather belies the first, doesn't it? It demonstrates that Mary I both understood her predecessor's use of portraiture to convey majesty, and provided Elizabeth I with a model for a female monarch. Also, his comment ignores the facts that Mary I was engaged, through her Archbishop of Canterbury and the surviving faithfully Catholic bishops, with restoring Catholic churches and teaching in the five years she reigned. While Green does mention that Henry VIII had that Catholic patrimony of art and books burned in the paragraph above, he doesn't mention that her father also burned--or hanged, drawn and quartered or mercifully beheaded--heretics, Catholic or Protestant. 

Preview: The Soul on the Way to Judgment in "The Dream of Gerontius"

On Monday, November 21, we'll continue our survey of highlights from Newman's The Dream of Gerontius on the Son Rise Morning Show. Anna Mitchell or Matt Swaim and I will discuss the Soul's progress to his judgment before God at about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern time. Please listen live here.

Since November is the month of prayers for the Holy Souls in Purgatory, I have heard at least two sermons on the Four Last Things, and two of them for sure have cited Saint Paul's promise in I Corinthians 2:9, quoting Isaiah 64:4:

But, as it is written: That eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love him. (Douai-Rheims translation)

And that verse seems an appropriate lens through which to view this next meditation on Newman's imaginative vision of the afterlife, as he describes Gerontius' Soul on the way to Judgement, already enjoying some of the peace and joy of Heaven.

The soul of Gerontius has just encountered his Guardian Angel, whose remaining duties are to lead him to the judgment-court, and to Purgatory and thence to Heaven.

Although Gerontius on his deathbed feared death and judgment, now his Soul does not:

Dear Angel, say,
Why have I now no fear at meeting Him?
Along my earthly life, the thought of death
And judgment was to me most terrible.
I had it aye before me, and I saw
The Judge severe e'en in the Crucifix.
Now that the hour is come, my fear is fled;
And at this balance of my destiny,
Now close upon me, I can forward look

With a serenest joy.

So his Guardian Angel explains that it was because Gerontius had feared death and judgement during his life, and therefore had repented of any of the sins he'd committed:

It is because
Then thou didst fear, that now thou dost not fear,
Thou hast forestall'd the agony, and so
For thee the bitterness of death is past.
Also, because already in thy soul
The judgment is begun. . . .

So now, too, ere thou comest to the Throne,
A presage falls upon thee, as a ray
Straight from the Judge, expressive of thy lot.
That calm and joy uprising in thy soul
Is first-fruit to thee of thy recompense,
And heaven begun.

At this point, I thought what if Newman had written a poem about an unrepentant soul, fearful on his deathbed, pleading for mercy, not really able to confess his sins, and with no time to make restitution for those sins? 

Would the un-Gerontius be greeted by his Guardian Angel singing Alleluia! and would that soul feel such calm and joy? I don't think so: It would be a completely different poem, filled with anguish and terror! 

But Newman did not want to wish anyone to go to Hell, not even a fictional character, because that's such a sin against charity, as our priest here in Wichita said at Mass last Sunday. No, Newman is giving us a model, even in a fictional character, of what a happy, holy death should be like--and what God has prepared for him because he loved Him.

Nevertheless, as his Guardian Angel leads the Soul to the Judgment Seat, he encounters some demons, who mock his humanity and striving for holiness. The angel explains that:

We are now arrived
Close on the judgment-court; that sullen howl
Is from the demons who assemble there.
It is the middle region, where of old
Satan appeared among the sons of God,
To cast his jibes and scoffs at holy Job.
So now his legions throng the vestibule,
Hungry and wild, to claim their property,
And gather souls for hell. Hist to their cry.

But this Soul is not going to Hell, even though he hears hints of what Hell is through the cacophony and impotence of the Demons' chant:

Virtue and vice,
A knave's pretence,
'Tis all the same;
Ha! ha!
Dread of hell-fire,
Of the venomous flame,
A coward's plea.
Give him his price,
Saint though he be,
Ha! ha!
From shrewd good sense
He'll slave for hire
Ha! ha!
And does but aspire
To the heaven above
With sordid aim,
And not from love.
Ha! ha!

In Newman's vision of the Four Last Things, Hell is represented by these demons, who mock salvation, the Church, the Sacraments, and all that is good. Although this Soul is bound for Heaven, he hears their horrible blasphemies on his way to the Judgment Seat.

Their voices, however, are soon replaced by the Choirs of Angelicals; from the chant of the Fifth Choir of Angelicals another hymn has been composed, "Praise to the Holiest in the Height":

Praise to the Holiest in the height,
and in the depth be praise:
in all his words most wonderful,
most sure in all his ways.

O loving wisdom of our God!
When all was sin and shame,
a second Adam to the fight
and to the rescue came.

O wisest love! that flesh and blood,
which did in Adam fail,
should strive afresh against the foe,
should strive and should prevail;

And that a higher gift than grace
should flesh and blood refine,
God's presence and his very self,
and essence all-divine.

O generous love! that he, who smote
in Man for man the foe,
the double agony in Man
for man should undergo;

And in the garden secretly,
and on the cross on high,
should teach his brethren, and inspire
to suffer and to die.

These five Choirs of Angelicals contradict entirely the rude chants of the demons, stressing human dignity based securely on the Incarnation and Paschal Mystery of Jesus, as the Angels have recounted the history of salvation, the reality the demons cannot accept. As Father Juan Velez explains:

The history of salvation reaches its climax with Christ’s redemptive suffering, which Newman wishes the reader to contemplate. Christology becomes the key to a proper reading of eschatology. As in his other works, the author has a Christological approach to the Holy Trinity, ecclesiology, sacramental theology and morality. In the Dream, the passion of Christ is the measure of God’s mercy. Newman shows Christ’s suffering in Gethsemane as the reference point from which man should realize the gravity of man’s sins and the need for forgiveness. The Incarnate God is the One who will be man’s judge. Christ is the second Adam who suffered in His flesh to obtain man’s recovery[ ].

In our concluding discussion on November 28, I'll highlight some themes from the Soul's Personal Judgment and his entry into Purgatory. In the few minutes we have each Monday, I can only give you glimpses of this great poem--you have to read it yourself and perhaps listen to Elgar's dramatic, semi-operatic work to appreciate it fully.

Saint John Henry Newman's prayer for a happy death:

O my Lord and Savior, support me in my last hour in the strong arms of Thy Sacraments and by the fresh fragrance of Thy consolations. Let the absolving words be said over me, and the holy oil sign and seal me; and let Thine own Body be my food, and Thy Blood my sprinkling; and let my sweet Mother, Mary, breathe on me, and my Angel whisper peace to me, and my glorious saints and my own dear patrons smile upon me, that, in them all and through them all, I may receive the gift of perseverance, and die as I desire to live, in Thy faith, in Thy Church, in Thy service, and in Thy love. Amen.

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Image Credit (Public Domain): Christ the Judge and Praying Angels by Giovanni da Milano

Image Credit (Public Domain): The angelic choirs circling the abode of God, from Dante's Paradiso, illustrated by Gustave Doré. Hint: Think of the two figures in the foreground as the Soul of Gerontius and his Guardian Angel!

Francis Young's Survey of English Reformation History Scholarship

I do not have access to this review article which Francis Young announced on his blog:

My review article ‘Surveying a Field Come of Age’ has just been published in the journal British Catholic History. The book is a review of Robert E. Scully and Angela Ellis’s Companion to Catholicism and Recusancy in Britain and Ireland, but also goes beyond that to take stock of the historiography of early modern British Catholicism and the field’s recent evolution. The appearance of summative companions like Scully and Ellis’s is an indication that the field is approaching, or has attained, maturity and is seeking ways to define its identity and communicate it to scholars in other disciplines as well as to the wider public.

Nevertheless, I just wanted to capture this great list of references I can see:

1. See Christopher Haigh, Reformation and Resistance in Tudor Lancashire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975); Christopher Haigh, The English Reformation Revised (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).

2. Alexandra Walsham, Church Papists: Catholicism, Conformity and Confessional Polemic in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Boydell, 1999).

3. See, for example, Michael Questier, Conversion, Politics and Religion in England, 1580–1625 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Michael Questier, Catholicism and Community in Early Modern England: Politics, Aristocratic Patronage and Religion, c. 1550–1640 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Peter Lake and Michael Questier, All Hail to the Archpriest: Confessional Conflict, Toleration, and the Politics of Publicity in Post-Reformation England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019).

4. John Bossy, The English Catholic Community 1570–1850 (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1975).

5. Eamon Duffy, Fires of Faith: Catholic England under Mary Tudor (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009).

6. Frederick Smith, ‘The Origins of Recusancy in Elizabethan England Reconsidered’, The Historical Journal 60:2 (2017): 301–32.

7. Ceri Law, Contested Reformations in the University of Cambridge, 1535–1584 (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2018).

8. Katy Gibbons, English Catholic Exiles in Late Sixteenth-Century Paris (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2011); Liesbeth Corens, Confessional Mobility and English Catholics in Counter-Reformation Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019).

9. Gabriel Glickman, The English Catholic Community, 1688–1745: Politics, Culture and Ideology (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2009); James Kelly, English Convents in Catholic Europe, c. 1600–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020).

10. R. Po-chia Hsia, The World of Catholic Renewal, 1540–1770 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Ulrich Lehner, The Catholic Enlightenment: The Forgotten History of a Global Movement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).

11. See, for example, James Kelly and Hannah Thomas, eds. Jesuit Intellectual and Physical Exchange between England and Mainland Europe, c. 1580–1789: ‘The World is our House’ (Leiden: Brill, 2018); Teresa Bela, Clarinda Calma and Jolanta Rzegocka, eds. Publishing Subversive Texts in Elizabethan England and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Leiden: Brill, 2018).

12. Richard P. Williams, ed. Mannock Strickland (1683 – 1744): Agent to English Convents in Flanders: Letters and Accounts from Exile (Woodbridge: Catholic Record Society, 2016); Philip Perry, Essay on the Life and Manners of Robert Grosseteste, ed. Jack Cunningham (Woodbridge: Catholic Record Society, 2022).

13. Victoria Moul, A Literary History of Latin and English Poetry: Bilingual Verse Culture in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022).

14. Emilie Murphy, ‘Adoramus te Christe: Music and Post-Reformation English Catholic Domestic Piety’, Studies in Church History 50 (2014): 240–53; Emilie Murphy, ‘Music and Catholic Culture in Post-Reformation Lancashire: Piety, Protest and Conversion’, British Catholic History 32:4 (2015): 492–525.

As Young indicates, the field of English Reformation and Early Modern Catholic history has come a long way from the days when Maurice Powicke's The Reformation in England and H. Outram Evennett's The Spirit of the Counter-Reformation were highlights of the academic, non-confessional study of that era. It's just too bad, for me at least, that so many of these resources are so expensive! The book that tops his review essay, for example, costs $299.00!

Professor Mary Katherine Tillman, RIP

While I learned of Father Ian Ker's death on the very day, I just found out about the death of another Newman Scholar, Professor Emerita Mary Katherine Tillman of the University of Notre Dame. She died on October 21 of complications associated with esophageal cancer and her funeral Mass was celebrated at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart at Notre Dame on Friday, October 28. Her obituary, posted by the University of Notre Dame is found here. The South Bend Tribune obituary adds the detail that she married another Professor Emeritus just 12 years ago and that she and her husband, Phillip Sloan, resided in Holy Cross Village at Notre Dame, a senior living community sponsored by the Holy Cross Brothers. 

The Notre Dame obituary highlights her study of Newman:

Tillman was a scholar of St. John Henry Cardinal Newman, writing a book and several extended commentaries on the works of the 19th-century English priest, as well as the history and philosophy of liberal education.

She published widely in scholarly journals and gave lectures throughout the U.S. and Europe, and in 2019 received the Gailliot Award for Lifetime Achievement in Newman Studies from the National Institute for Newman Studies.

According to my records, she visited Wichita twice to give presentations on Newman, focusing on university education and the relationship between faith and reason. In 1995 at the Newman School of Catholic Thought at the Newman Center at WSU, she provided a comprehensive explanation of the works Newman wrote during his "campaign in Ireland" to establish the Catholic University in Dublin, describing how they help us see how he realized his notional ideas of university education, thus demonstrating the "unity of idea and image" in his reflections on education. Tillman provided an overview of Newman's Idea of a University, and the Rise and Progress of Universities, the first presenting the idea, the second the image through descriptions of places of universal knowledge in Athens, Paris, and Oxford, among others. She also spoke on Faith and Reason at that 1995 Newman School of Catholic Thought, in which she compared Newman's Grammar of Assent and Fifteen University Sermons, noting of the latter that they sowed "the seeds of all Newman's future writings".

And she wrote the introductions for critical editions of the Fifteen Sermons and the Rise and Progress of Universities.

In 1998, she presented a lecture at Newman University on "Catholic Higher Education at the Millennium". I know that I attended that lecture but I have no surviving notes from it.

And in 2015, Marquette University Press published a collection of her works on Newman titled John Henry Newman: Man of Letters.

In this collection of essays spanning thirty years of her work in Newman Studies, Tillman elaborates the broad reach of Newman's philosophical, educational, historical and classical acumen. Attentive to his philosophical methodologies and to recent Newman scholarship, she compares Newman's views on a wide range of issues with those of other thinkers, classical and modern. Included in the essays are such topics as Newman's meaning of 'views', of relations between faith and reason, of imagination, on the college in relation to the university, on research, on whether virtue can be taught, on the development of ideas, on prepredicative experience and on phronesis, on 'the gentleman' in relation to the Oratorian, on human nature, and on worldly wisdom in relation to holy wisdom. Newman, Man of Letters, is seen as unique in his prolific and wide-ranging genius.

Eternal rest grant unto her O Lord and may her soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, rest in peace. And may she rest in peace.

Preview: "The Immortality of the Soul" and The Soul of Gerontius

On Monday, November 14, Matt Swaim or Anna Mitchell of the Son Rise Morning Show and I will continue our series on Saint John Henry Newman's The Dream of Gerontius. I'll be on the air about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern. Please listen live here.

In one of his Parochial and Plain Sermons, "The Immortality of the Soul", Newman spoke to his Anglican congregation on the reality of the immortality of the soul. As he so often did in these sermons, he remonstrated with them that although Christians in his day paid lip service to the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, they lived as if they did not have immortal souls that would live beyond the life of their bodies after death:

And yet, in spite of our being able to speak about it and our "form of knowledge" [Rom. ii. 20.] (as St. Paul terms it), there seems scarcely room to doubt, that the greater number of those who are called Christians in no true sense realize it in their own minds at all. Indeed, it is a very difficult thing to bring home to us, and to feel, that we have souls; and there cannot be a more fatal mistake than to suppose we see what the doctrine means, as soon as we can use the words which signify it. So great a thing is it to understand that we have souls, that the knowing it, taken in connection with its results, is all one with being serious, i.e., truly religious. . . . Yet to this state of mind, and therefore to this true knowledge, the multitude of men called Christians are certainly strangers; a thick veil is drawn over their eyes; and in spite of their being able to talk of the doctrine, they are as if they never had heard of it. They go on just as the heathen did of old: they eat, they drink; or they amuse themselves in vanities, and live in the world, without fear and without sorrow, just as if God had not declared that their conduct in this life would decide their destiny in the next; just as if they either had no souls, or had nothing or little to do with the saving of them, which was the creed of the heathen.

And Newman thinks he knows why we have trouble discerning this truth in our every day lives--we are surrounded and enmeshed in a world of things, of objects, even of ourselves as objects. As he says, a child can grow up with this view and seldom think of any different sort of life:  "He views himself merely in his connection with this world, which is his all; he looks to this world for his good, as to an idol; and when he tries to look beyond this life, he is able to discern nothing in prospect, because he has no idea of any thing, nor can fancy any thing, but this life."

To comprehend what it means that we have immortal souls, we have to separate ourselves from this world: 

To understand that we have souls, is to feel our separation from things visible, our independence of them, our distinct existence in ourselves, our individuality, our power of acting for ourselves this way or that way, our accountableness for what we do. These are the great truths which lie wrapped up indeed even in a child's mind, and which God's grace can unfold there in spite of the influence of the external world; but at first this outward world prevails.

We have to be attentive to God's Providence in our lives, as He shows us how little we can depend on what we see and think so important in our lives:

And when He visits us, then in a little while there is a stirring within us. The unprofitableness and feebleness of the things of this world are forced upon our minds; they promise but cannot {20} perform, they disappoint us. Or, if they do perform what they promise, still (so it is) they do not satisfy us. We still crave for something, we do not well know what; but we are sure it is something which the world has not given us. And then its changes are so many, so sudden, so silent, so continual. It never leaves changing; it goes on to change, till we are quite sick at heart:—then it is that our reliance on it is broken. . . .

In our response to God's Grace, we hear the call to prepare for Eternal Life, for the immortality of our soul is more real to us:

And thus a man is drawn forward by all manner of powerful influences to turn from things temporal to things eternal, to deny himself, to take up his cross and follow Christ. For there are Christ's awful threats and warnings to make him serious, His precepts to attract and elevate him, His promises to cheer him, His gracious deeds and sufferings to humble him to the dust, and to bind his heart once and for ever in gratitude to Him who is so surpassing in mercy.

According to the Newman Reader, Newman offered this sermon in 1833. Thirty-two (32) years later, in The Dream of Gerontius, Newman depicts the result of such awareness of his immortality in the "Soul" of Gerontius, as he is named throughout the rest of the poem:

I went to sleep; and now I am refresh'd,
A strange refreshment: for I feel in me
An inexpressive lightness, and a sense {332}
Of freedom, as I were at length myself,
And ne'er had been before. How still it is!
I hear no more the busy beat of time,
No, nor my fluttering breath, nor struggling pulse;
Nor does one moment differ from the next.

The Soul knows he is alive, but does not understand what has happened to his body as he seems still to be in it yet not as he was before:

Am I alive or dead? I am not dead, {333}
But in the body still; for I possess
A sort of confidence which clings to me,
That each particular organ holds its place
As heretofore, combining with the rest
Into one symmetry, that wraps me round,
And makes me man; and surely I could move,
Did I but will it, every part of me. . . .

So much I know, not knowing how I know,
That the vast universe, where I have dwelt,
Is quitting me, or I am quitting it.
Or I or it is rushing on the wings
Of light or lightning on an onward course,
And we e'en now are million miles apart.

Then the Soul notices the presence of another: his Guardian Angel, who rejoices at the change in its responsibilities to its charge. Its work is done, as it rejoices that it helped guide this Soul throughout his life on earth to this moment. It had led Gerontius on the narrow way from earth to heaven, fighting a long fight against sin and corruption and weakness.

So the Soul comprehends what has happened and his transition from life on earth to Eternal Life is clear:

Now know I surely that I am at length
Out of the body; had I part with earth,
I never could have drunk those accents in,
And not have worshipp'd as a god the voice
That was so musical; but now I am
So whole of heart, so calm, so self-possess'd,
With such a full content, and with a sense
So apprehensive and discriminant,
As no temptation can intoxicate.
Nor have I even terror at the thought
That I am clasp'd by such a saintliness.

So I think it's valid to read these passages from The Dream in the context of that Sermon when as an Anglican he had moved away from the Calvinist doctrine of salvation and was reading the Fathers of the Church but not yet come to the fullness of Christianity (as +Father Ian Ker would title one of his books on Newman): Newman's embrace of the Catholic Faith has deepened through his years as a Catholic priest. As Father Juan Velez comments in a 2001 article for New Blackfriars, "Theological Themes in Newman's Dream of Gerontius":

In those first years as a Catholic he began to understand the important role of the sacraments in a Christian’s preparation for death [ ] and of the Sacrifice of the Mass as atonement for the lives of the faithful departed. Finally, the Dream of Gerontius constitutes Newman’s mature reflection on the Catholic doctrine of purgatory as purification of souls who die in a state of grace, a deeper awareness of the communion of saints, and his own understanding of the nature of purgatorial fire. 

When Newman composed his poem, made famous by Elgar’s musical arrangement [ ], he had reached a refined doctrinal and spiritual understanding of the Christian belief in life after death. In effect he had overcome various problems and interpretations of Calvinist and Anglican theology, and of Roman Catholic piety. [Please see the linked article for the bracketed lacuna (end notes).]

When I taught the "Newman and the New Evangelization" course at Newman University this summer, the priest who had designed the course wanted me to emphasize how Saint John Henry Newman used the imagination to help us more deeply grasp the crucial teachings of Jesus and His Church. He wants the students, preparing to be catechists in Catholic schools, parish OCIA/RCIA or CCD programs, etc, to adapt Newman's appeal to the imagination to their own efforts. 

While they--or I, or you--may not receive the inspiration to write a poem nor have the talent to compose it, the comparison of Newman's 1833 sermon and 1865 poem is illustrative. It shows that Newman not only continued to grow in his comprehension of the fullness of Catholic life, but he also continued to help his congregation, whether in the pews at the University Church of St. Mary's in Oxford or in the pages of The Month, comprehend these great Christian teachings, like the Immortality of Our Souls and the Eternal Life to come, more immediately, more intensely, and live as if--because--we believe they are True and Real and consequential in our lives, here on earth and in the life to come.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord,
and let Your perpetual light shine upon them.
May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed
rest in peace. Amen.

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Saint Martin of Tours, pray for us!

Image credit (Public Domain): "The Death of the Good Old Man" by William Blake

Image credit (Public Domain): "Ascent of the Blessed" Detail from Visions of the Hereafter, polyptych by Hieronymus Bosch in the Palazzo Grimani, Venice, Italy

Father Ian Ker, RIP

Yesterday, Saturday, November 5, I attended the First Saturday Mass and devotions to the Immaculate Heart of Mary at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, meeting a couple of friends. We went to brunch after Mass and then I came home and checked my email for the first time that day. 

My inbox was full of notices of Father Ian Ker's death that morning in England. Father Juan Velez published this notice on his Saint John Henry Newman website:

Fr. Ian Ker (1942-2022) died in London, this morning November 5, 2022. A former Anglican, he became Roman Catholic and was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Birmingham. He was a world authority on St. John Henry Newman on whom he published more than twenty books.

Fr. Ker taught theology at Oxford University and was a senior research fellow at Blackfriars, Oxford and a member of the faculty of theology.

We mourn the loss of Fr. Ker and pray that Our Lord reward him with “the vision of peace” of which St. John Henry Newman wrote. In the coming days, Fr. Peter J. Conley of the Archdiocese of Birmingham will write more about Fr. Ker’s contribution to Newman scholarship and his influence on his own (Fr. Conley’s) work.

Requiescat in pace!

Fr. Ker’s publications included:

John Henry Newman: A Biography (1988); The Catholic Revival in English Literature 1845-1961 (2003); G.K. Chesterton: A Biography (2011); and Newman on Vatican II (2014); Newman, Councils and Vatican II in Newman and Faith (2004); and Mere Catholicism (2006).

He was also co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to Newman (2009), contributing the chapter ‘The Church as Communion’.

I had the great pleasure of meeting Father Ian Ker twice when he visited Wichita for presentations: He was the keynote speaker at a Newman School of Catholic Thought at St. Paul's Parish-Newman Center at Wichita State University in February, 1992 based on his book Newman and the Fullness of Christianity and he led a day of recollection at the Spiritual Life Center on Newman's spirituality based on his book Healing the Wound of Humanity in October, 1993.

And in 2013, he was scheduled to speak at Newman University on the "Genius of Newman" but had to cancel because of illness.

May he rest in the peace of Christ. As I continue my series on Newman's The Dream of Gerontius, I dedicate my efforts to his memory and I will pray for the repose of his soul throughout the month of November.

Memory Eternal!

UPDATE: I asked Warren Farha at Eighth Day Books to special order this for me, from Gracewing Publishers in the UK:

I look forward to purchasing it and reading it as soon as possible!

Preview: The Deathbed of Gerontius: "Go forth, Christian Soul"!

During this month of devotions for the Holy Souls in Purgatory--who are indeed holy and bound for Heaven--Anna Mitchell or Matt Swaim and I will discuss themes and imagery from St. John Henry Newman's poem, The Dream of Gerontius on the Son Rise Morning Show each Monday in November.

So on Monday, November 7, at about 6:50 a.m. Central Time/7:50 a.m. Eastern Time (don't forget to Fall Back this weekend!), we'll start the series. Please listen live here, and remember that you may subscribe to the Son Rise Morning Show website for a reminder of the daily broadcasts here.

First, some background on the poem:

The plot of Newman's poem The Dream of Gerontius is simple:

1) Gerontius is on his deathbed and receives Last Rites and prays before he dies
2) Gerontius dies and experiences the afterlife as a disembodied Soul
3) Gerontius' Soul meets his Guardian Angel
4) His Soul encounters the demons of Hell on his way to Judgment
5) The Soul hears the choirs of heavenly Angels on his way to Judgment
5) The Soul is judged and sent to Purgatory
6) The Soul's Guardian Angel deposits him in Purgatory and promises to come back to convey him to Heaven

Newman wrote this poem, the longest he'd ever written, on 52 scraps of paper between January 17 and February 7, 1865. One of his biographers, Wilfrid Ward, describes its composition:

Now, after the abandonment of the Oxford scheme* gave him leisure for it, he set down in dramatic form the vision of a Christian's death on which his imagination had been dwelling. The writing of it was a sudden inspiration, and his work was begun in January and completed in February 1865. "On the 17th of January last," he writes to Mr. Allies in October, "it came into my head to write it, I really can't tell how. And I wrote on till it was finished on small bits of paper, and I could no more write anything else by willing it than I could fly." . . .

*The Oxford Scheme mentioned by Ward (son of William George Ward, the ultramontanist) was the plan to found an Oratory in Oxford to serve Catholic men attending one of the Colleges of the University of Oxford.

The Dream of Gerontius was then published in The Month, a periodical founded in 1864 by the convert Frances Margaret Taylor (Mother Magdalen of the Sacred Heart, Poor Servants of the Mother of God). The Jesuits in England bought The Month in 1865 and Father Henry James Coleridge, another convert (great nephew of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge), became the publisher and editor. Read more about the rather surprising response to the poem here, as Anglicans like Charles Kingsley, William Gladstone, and General George Gordon admired it greatly!

But the focus in our discussion Monday is on the content of the poem itself, not that background!

The first part of the poem juxtaposes the protagonist's preparation for death with those at deathbed praying for him, according to Catholic ritual.

Gerontius is an old man, a faithful and practicing Catholic, and he is experiencing both the dread of death and the promise of eternal life:

JESU, MARIA—I am near to death,
And Thou art calling me; I know it now.
Not by the token of this faltering breath,
This chill at heart, this dampness on my brow,—
(Jesu, have mercy! Mary, pray for me!)
'Tis this new feeling, never felt before,
(Be with me, Lord, in my extremity!)
That I am going, that I am no more.
'Tis this strange innermost abandonment,
(Lover of souls! great God! I look to Thee,)
This emptying out of each constituent
And natural force, by which I come to be.

He asks for his friends and the priest with him to pray for him and they do, beginning with the Litany of the Saints:

Kyrie eleïson, Christe eleïson, Kyrie eleïson.
Holy Mary, pray for him.
All holy Angels, pray for him.
Choirs of the righteous, pray for him. 
Holy Abraham, pray for him.
St. John Baptist, St. Joseph, pray for him.
St. Peter, St. Paul, St Andrew, St. John,
All Apostles, all Evangelists, pray for him.
All holy Disciples of the Lord, pray for him.
All holy Innocents, pray for him.
All holy Martyrs, all holy Confessors,
All holy Hermits, all holy Virgins . . .

Hearing their prayers, he can pray as he thought he could not:

Rouse thee, my fainting soul, and play the man;
And through such waning span
Of life and thought as still has to be trod,
Prepare to meet thy God.
And while the storm of that bewilderment
Is for a season spent,
And, ere afresh the ruin on me fall,
Use well the interval.

Gerontius then prays what will become one of the popular hymns taken from this poem, "Firmly I believe and truly" as he confesses and professes a summary of Catholic belief:

Sanctus fortis, Sanctus Deus,
De profundis oro te,
Miserere, Judex meus,
Parce mihi, Domine. 
Firmly I believe and truly
God is three, and God is One;
And I next acknowledge duly
Manhood taken by the Son. . . .

But then he weakens again ("I can no more") and indeed, he senses and fears the presence of something evil:

Some bodily form of ill
Floats on the wind, with many a loathsome curse
Tainting the hallow'd air, and laughs, and flaps
Its hideous wings,
And makes me wild with horror and dismay.
O Jesu, help! pray for me, Mary, pray!
Some Angel, Jesu! such as came to Thee
In Thine own agony …
Mary, pray for me. Joseph, pray for me. Mary,
pray for me.

So the attendants intercede for him again ("Rescue this Thy servant in his evil hour") and after he dies, the priest intones the traditional prayer as I find it in my 1962 Roman Missal (or you may find it here):

Proficiscere, anima Christiana, de hoc mundo!
Go forth upon thy journey, Christian soul!
Go from this world! Go, in the Name of God
The Omnipotent Father, who created thee!
Go, in the Name of Jesus Christ, our Lord,
Son of the living God, who bled for thee!
Go, in the Name of the Holy Spirit, who
Hath been pour'd out on thee!

So what Newman has accomplished in this section is to convey even a faithful Catholic's human fear of death, describing both the physical and spiritual weakness that comes upon Gerontius. He cannot pray for himself as he wishes, so he asks others to do it for him. Gerontius faces the great mystery of death--he does not know what it is to not be alive and so he faces it with trepidation, even as he has faith in God and in the Church's prayers for him. 

And these prayers are both on earth and in heaven, as the "assistants" at his deathbed and the priest call upon Jesus Christ our Lord to have mercy on Gerontius, and implore the angels and saints to pray with them for him. Since Newman poetically adapted prayers that many a Catholic had heard while at a loved one's deathbed, this was familiar scene to them. They had made the responses in the Litany of the Saints and watched their mother or father, brother or sister, die; seen the Sacrament of Anointing, and heard the priest's commending prayers for their loved one:

Receive, Lord, Thy servant (handmaid) into the place of salvation, which he (she) hopes to obtain through Thy mercy.R.Amen. Deliver, Lord, the soul of Thy servant (handmaid) from all danger of Hell; and from all pain and tribulation.R.Amen . . . Let the heavens be opened to him (her), and the angels rejoice with him (her). Let the archangel St. Michael, whom Thou didst appoint the chief of the heavenly host, conduct him (her). Let the holy angels come out to meet him (her), and carry him (her) to the city of heavenly Jerusalem. Let blessed Peter the apostle, to whom God gave the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, receive him (her). Let St. Paul the apostle, who was a vessel of election, assist him (her). Let St. John the beloved disciple, to whom the secrets of Heaven were revealed, intercede for him (her). Let all the holy apostles, who received from Jesus Christ the power of binding and loosing, pray for him (her). Let all the saints and elect of God, who in this world have suffered torments in the name of Christ, intercede for him (her); that being freed from the prison of his (her) body, he (she) may be admitted into the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who with Thee and the Holy Ghost, lives and reigns, world without end. Amen.

Newman had dramatized it and brought to their imaginations afresh. In next week's highlight from The Death of Gerontius, we''ll see how Newman imagined the Soul of Gerontius after death and its meeting with its Guardian Angel!

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Image Source (Public Domain): Deathbed Scene from a 16th century Office of the Dead.

Preview of a Preview: November Series on the Son Rise Morning Show

As we end our series on the Son Rise Morning Show with Anna Mitchell or Matt Swaim and I discussing St. Thomas More's Treatise to Receive the Blessed Body of Our Lord this morning (although it will probably be rebroadcast on Thursday, November 3 during the first EWTN hour), I wanted to post a link to these prayers of St Thomas More.

They include prayers from his Treatise upon the Passion, among them this one for Devotion to the Eucharist:

Our most dear Savior Christ, who after finishing the old Paschal sacrifice instituted the new sacrament of Your own Blessed Body and Blood for a memorial of Your bitter Passion: give us such true faith therein and such fervent devotion thereto that our souls may take fruitful spiritual food thereby.

Amen!

On this All Hallows Eve, as we prepare to celebrate All Saints and All Souls, I also want to announce that we'll begin a new series next Monday, November 7, with highlights every Monday morning in November from Saint John Henry Newman's poem about the Four Last Things (Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell), The Dream of Gerontius.

It seems like an appropriate series to air during the month of Prayers for the Faithful Departed, the Holy Souls in Purgatory! If you've followed my blog at all you know, dear reader, that I've commented often on this mini-epic poem: epic in scope if not in length, that is!

Please look for the first preview post in this series on Friday, November 4th!

Preview: St. Thomas More on Zacchaeus's House and Holy Communion

On Monday, October 31 (All Hallow's Eve), we'll conclude our discussion of Saint Thomas More's Treatise to Receive the Blessed Body of Our Lord on the Son Rise Morning Show. 

So I'll be on about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern in the last segment of the second EWTN hour (there's a local hour after that just on Sacred Heart Radio). You may listen live here.

After the string of examples from the Gospels of Luke and Matthew of those who either begged Jesus for some healing (the father with the mute son and the Centurion) or whom Jesus used as an example of contrition and humility (the Publican in the Temple in contrast to the self-righteous Pharisee), More concludes this brief treatise with the reminder of our own need for contrition and humility, especially as we remind ourselves of all that Jesus suffered in His Passion for our redemption:

 . . . And yet with all this remembrance of our own unworthiness, and therefore with great reverence, fear and dread for our own part, let us not forget on the other side to consider His inestimable goodness, which disdaineth not for all our unworthiness to come unto us, and to be received of us, but likewise as at the sight or receiving of this excellent memorial of His death (for in the remembrance thereof doth He thus consecrate and give His own Blessed Flesh and Blood unto us) we must with tender compassion remember and call to mind the bitter pains of His most painful Passion. And yet there-with-all rejoice and be glad in the consideration of His incomparable kindness, which in His so suffering for us, to our inestimable benefit, He showed and declared toward us. So must we be sore afraid of our own unworthiness, and yet therewith be right glad and in great hope at the consideration of His immeasurable goodness…

The last two paragraphs are an extended application of the story of Zacchaeus from the Gospel of Luke (19:1-10) to how we should receive Holy Communion:

And entering in, he walked through Jericho. And behold, there was a man named Zacheus, who was the chief of the publicans, and he was rich. And he sought to see Jesus who he was, and he could not for the crowd, because he was low of stature. And running before, he climbed up into a sycamore tree, that he might see him; for he was to pass that way. And when Jesus was come to the place, looking up, he saw him, and said to him: Zacheus, make haste and come down; for this day I must abide in thy house. And he made haste and came down; and received him with joy. And when all saw it, they murmured, saying, that he was gone to be a guest with a man that was a sinner. But Zacheus standing, said to the Lord: Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have wronged any man of any thing, I restore him fourfold. Jesus said to him: This day is salvation come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. (Douai-Rheims translation)

Very appropriate timing, since the story of Zaccheus is the Gospel reading for the 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time October 30th!

More uses the story not only to encourage us to imitate Zacchaeus's repentance and penance, but to demonstrate the rewards we will receive from bringing Jesus into our bodies and souls (our own houses):

Let us (good Christian readers) receive Him in such wise, as did the good publican, Zacchaeus, which when he longed to see Christ, and because he was but low of stature, did climb up into a tree, our Lord seeing his devotion called unto him, and said: "Zacchaeus, come off and come down: for this day must I dwell with thee." (19:5) And he made haste and came down, and very gladly received Him into his house. But not only received Him with a joy of a light and fond feeling affection, but that it might well appear that he received Him with a sure, earnest, virtuous mind, he proved it by his virtuous works. For he forthwith was contented to make recompense to all men that he had wronged, and that in a large manner; for every penny a groat; and yet offered to give out also forthwith the one half of all his substance unto poor men, and that forthwith also; by and by, without any longer delay. And therefore he said not: Thou shalt hear, that I shall give it: but he said: "Ecce dimidium bonorum meorum de pauperibus. Lo, look, good Lord, the one half of my goods I do give unto poor men." (19:8)

More is emphasizing that Zacchaeus didn't just promise that he would do it: he did do it!

With such alacrity, with such quickness of spirit, with such gladness and such spiritual rejoicing, as this man received our Lord into his house, our Lord give us the Grace to receive His Blessed Body and Blood, His Holy Soul and His Almighty Godhead both, into our bodies and into our souls, that the fruit of our good works may bear witness unto our conscience, that we receive Him worthily and in such a full Faith, and such a stable purpose of good living, as we be bounden to owe. And then shall God give a gracious sentence, and say upon our soul as He said upon Zacheus: "Hodie salus facta est huic domui,:This day is health and salvation come unto this house" (19:9): which that Holy Blessed Person of Christ which we verily in the Blessed Sacrament receive, through the merit of His Bitter Passion (whereof He hath ordained His own Blessed Body in that Blessed Sacrament to be the memorial) vouchsafe, good Christian readers, to grant unto us all.

That's where More ended his Treatise to Receive the Blessed Body of Our Lord, but he did not stop wanting to receive Holy Communion worthily himself. After his trial and condemnation on July 1, he wrote a long prayer in preparation for his execution, which as far as he knew at that time, was going to be the brutal torture of hanging, drawing, and quartering. In that prayer, he demonstrates that he was of the same mind as he urged his readers to be:

. . . And pardon me, good Lord, that I am so bold to ask so high petitions, being so vile a sinful wretch, and so unworthy to attain the lowest. But yet, good Lord, such they be as I am bounden to wish, and should be nearer the effectual desire of them if my manifold sins were not the let. From which, O glorious Trinity, vouchsafe, of Thy goodness to wash me with that blessed blood that issued out of Thy tender body, O sweet Saviour Christ, in the divers torments of Thy most bitter passion.

Take from me, good Lord, this lukewarm fashion, or rather key-cold manner of meditation, and this dulness in praying unto Thee. And give me warmth, delight, and quickness in thinking upon Thee. And give me Thy grace to long for Thine holy sacraments, and specially to rejoice in the presence of Thy very blessed body, sweet Saviour Christ, in the holy sacrament of the altar, and duly to thank Thee for Thy gracious visitation therewith, and at that high memorial with tender compassion to remember and consider Thy most bitter passion.

Make us all, good Lord, virtually participant of that holy sacrament this day, and every day. Make us all lively members, sweet Saviour Christ, of Thine holy mystical body, Thy Catholic Church. . . .

I don't know if Saint Thomas More was allowed to prepare spiritually for his execution with a visit by a priest to hear his last Confession or receive Holy Communion. I've never read that detail in any biography.

Saint Thomas More, pray for us.

Image credit: (Public Domain) James Tissot's Zacchaeus in the Sycamore Awaiting the Passage of Jesus

Image credit: (Public Domain) Zacchaeus by Niels Larsen Stevns. Jesus calls Zacchaeus down from his height in the tree.

October 26 in English and English Church History

Not only is today the 493rd anniversary of Sir Thomas More becoming Lord Chancellor of England, but it's also the 1,123rd anniversary of King Alfred the Great's death, and the 1,262nd anniversary of the death of Saint Cuthbert of Canterbury, and the 1,358th anniversary of the death of St. Cedd. 

I hope that's far enough back for you.

Here's what the Catholic Encyclopedia tells us about Saint Cedd, based on Saint Bede the Venerable's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, demonstrating all the links between Cedd and other seventh century saints:

Bishop of the East Saxons, the brother of St. Ceadda; died 26 Oct. 664. There were two other brothers also priests, Cynibill and Caelin, all born of an Angle family settled in Northumbria. With his younger brother Ceadda, he was brought up at Lindisfarne under St. Aidan. In 653 he was one of four priests sent by Oswiu, King of Northumbria, to evangelize the Middle Angles at the request of their ealdorman, Peada. Shortly after, however, he was recalled and sent on the same missionary errand to Essex to help Sigeberht, King of the East Saxons, to convert his people to Christ. Here he was consecrated bishop and was very active in founding churches, and established monasteries at Tilbury and Ithancester. Occasionally he revisited his native Northumbria, and there, at the request of Aethelwald, founded the monastery of Laestingaeu, now Lastingham, in Yorkshire. Of this house he became the first abbot, notwithstanding his episcopal responsibilities. At the Synod of Whitby, like St. Cuthbert, he, though Celtic in his upbringing, adopted the Roman Easter. Immediately after the synod he paid a visit to Laestingaeu, where he fell a victim to the prevalent plague. Florence of Worcester and William of Malmesbury in later times counted him as the second Bishop of London, but St. Bede, almost a contemporary, never gives him that title.

Saint Cedd is on the calendar of the Orthodox Church in America, but his feast is on January 7th.

The St. Cuthbert noted above is not today's Saint Cuthbert of Canterbury, who

was a medieval Anglo-Saxon Archbishop of Canterbury in England. Prior to his elevation to Canterbury, he was abbot of a monastic house, and perhaps may have been Bishop of Hereford also, but evidence for his holding Hereford mainly dates from after the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. While Archbishop, he held church councils and built a new church in Canterbury. It was during Cuthbert's archbishopric that the Diocese of York was raised to an archbishopric. Cuthbert died in 760 and was later regarded as a saint. 

Saint Boniface (Winfred), the English Apostle to the Germans, corresponded with Cuthbert.

King Alfred the Great is the hero of G.K. Chesterton's The Ballad of the White Horse. Chesterton's introduction ("Prefatory Note") to his epic poem:

This ballad needs no historical notes, for the simple reason that it does not profess to be historical. All of it that is not frankly fictitious, as in any prose romance about the past, is meant to emphasize tradition rather than history. King Alfred is not a legend in the sense that King Arthur may be a legend; that is, in the sense that he may possibly be a lie. But King Alfred is a legend in this broader and more human sense, that the legends are the most important things about him.

The cult of Alfred was a popular cult, from the darkness of the ninth century to the deepening twilight of the twentieth. It is wholly as a popular legend that I deal with him here. I write as one ignorant of everything, except that I have found the legend of a King of Wessex still alive in the land. I will give three curt cases of what I mean. A tradition connects the ultimate victory of Alfred with the valley in Berkshire called the Vale of the White Horse. I have seen doubts of the tradition, which may be valid doubts. I do not know when or where the story started; it is enough that it started somewhere and ended with me; for I only seek to write upon a hearsay, as the old balladists did. For the second case, there is a popular tale that Alfred played the harp and sang in the Danish camp; I select it because it is a popular tale, at whatever time it arose. For the third case, there is a popular tale that Alfred came in contact with a woman and cakes; I select it because it is a popular tale, because it is a vulgar one. It has been disputed by grave historians, who were, I think, a little too grave to be good judges of it. The two chief charges against the story are that it was first recorded long after Alfred's death, and that (as Mr. Oman urges) Alfred never really wandered all alone without any thanes or soldiers. Both these objections might possibly be met. It has taken us nearly as long to learn the whole truth about Byron, and perhaps longer to learn the whole truth about Pepys, than elapsed between Alfred and the first writing of such tales. And as for the other objection, do the historians really think that Alfred after Wilton, or Napoleon after Leipsic, never walked about in a wood by himself for the matter of an hour or two? Ten minutes might be made sufficient for the essence of the story. But I am not concerned to prove the truth of these popular traditions. It is enough for me to maintain two things: that they are popular traditions; and that without these popular traditions we should have bothered about Alfred about as much as we bother about Eadwig.

One other consideration needs a note. Alfred has come down to us in the best way (that is, by national legends) solely for the same reason as Arthur and Roland and the other giants of that darkness, because he fought for the Christian civilization against the heathen nihilism. But since this work was really done by generation after generation, by the Romans before they withdrew, and by the Britons while they remained, I have summarised this first crusade in a triple symbol, and given to a fictitious Roman, Celt, and Saxon, a part in the glory of Ethandune. I fancy that in fact Alfred's Wessex was of very mixed bloods; but in any case, it is the chief value of legend to mix up the centuries while preserving the sentiment; to see all ages in a sort of splendid foreshortening. That is the use of tradition: it telescopes history.

He is also venerated as a saint in both the Church of England and the Catholic Church.

Encyclopedia Britannica offers these notes on Thomas More's term in office as Lord Chancellor:

On November 3, 1529, More opened the Parliament that was later to forge the legal instruments for his death. As the king’s mouthpiece, More indicted Wolsey in his opening speech and, in 1531, proclaimed the opinions of universities favourable to the divorce; but he did not sign the letter of 1530 in which England’s nobles and prelates, including Wolsey, pressured the pope to declare the first marriage void, and he tried to resign in 1531, when the clergy acknowledged the king as their supreme head, albeit with the clause “as far as the law of Christ allows.” [St. John Fisher's effort.]

More’s longest book, The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, in two volumes (1532 and 1533), centres on “what the church is.” To the stress of stooping for hours over his manuscript More ascribed the sharp pain in his chest, perhaps angina, which he invoked when begging Henry to free him from the yoke of office. This was on May 16, 1532, the day when the governing body (synod) of the church in England delivered to the crown the document by which they promised never to legislate or so much as convene without royal assent, thus placing a layperson at the head of the spiritual order.

This article was written by Father Germain P. Marc'hadour, founder of Moreana, and editor of Volume Seven in the Yale Edition of the Complete Works of St. Thomas More, The Supplication of Souls, and co-editor of Volume Six, A Dialogue Concerning Heresies, with Thomas M.C. Lawler and Richard C. Marius. 

Most intriguing to me, in light of my study of St. Thomas More's Tower Works, is that he wrote Thomas More et la Bible: La place des livres saints dans son apologétique et sa spiritualité (in English: The Bible in the Works of Thomas More). 

He died on February 22, 2022, at the age of 100! May he rest in the peace of Christ. Amen.

Saint Thomas More, pray for us!

Saint Alfred the Great, pray for us!

Saint Cuthbert of Canterbury, pray for us!

Saint Cedd, pray for us!

Image Credit (Public Domain): Miniature d'Alfred le Grand dans une généalogie royale du XIVe siècle.