April 14-15, 1912: The Sinking of the Titanic

After being struck by an iceberg on April 14, the R.M.S. Titanic sank on April 15, 1912. Gareth Russell has written a new book about this legendary disaster, which has been published in U.K. and Ireland and will be published in the U.S.A. later this year.

There are two different titles for the book. In the U.K. and Ireland it's titled The Darksome Bounds of a Failing World: The Sinking of the Titanic and the End of the Edwardian Era.

From the publisher, HarperCollins:

When the ship of dreams sank, so did the Edwardian era.
In this original and meticulously-researched narrative history, Gareth Russell considers the real story of the Titanic, and the seismic shift of modernity the 1910s have come to mark in the West.
Had she survived her first voyage, The Titanic probably would have dated like other ocean liners. Instead, within a week of setting sail on 10th April 1912, the disaster of her sinking had turned her into one of the biggest news stories of the century. Writing in his signature prose, Gareth Russell peers through the portholes of six first-class travellers to immerse us into the Edwardian era while demonstrating how modernity shook up the class system of the age.

Lucy Leslie, Countess of Rothes; “son” of the British Empire, Tommy Andrews; captain of the industry John Thayer and his son Jack; Jewish immigrant Ida Straus; and model and movie star Dorothy Gibson. Each subject’s unique story offers insights into the established hierarchy during the fin de siècle of pre-war Britain and America, the Titanic’s respective spiritual and economic homelands. Through these entwining lives, Russell investigates social class – its mores, its foibles, its accents, its etiquette, its benefits, its casual or intentional cruelties, its potential nobility. Those nuances also invite analyses of the shipping trade, the birth of the movie industry, the aristocracy, the American Gilded Age, the Irish Home Rule crisis, and Jewish-American communities.

The Titanic is the vessel in which we can extrapolate lessons on hubris, folly, greed, love, class, magnificent courage and pitiable weakness. She carried thousands of people and, in that way, she still has thousands of stories to tell. Drawing on brand new and unpublished materials, journal entries and film archives from the time, The Darksome Bounds of a Failing World focuses on the symbolism of the Titanic as the floating symbol of Anglo-American success, its clientele an apt illustration of the limitless – technological, financial – possibilities of its time.

In the USA, the title is The Ship of Dreams (with the same subtitle). The publisher, Simon and Schuster, offers a variation on the theme:

In this original and meticulously researched narrative history, the author of the “stunning” (The Sunday Times) Young and Damned and Fair uses the sinking of the Titanic as a prism through which to examine the end of the Edwardian era and the seismic shift modernity brought to the Anglo-American world.

In April 1912, six notable people were among those privileged to experience the height of luxury—first class passage on “the ship of dreams,” the RMS Titanic: Lucy Leslie, Countess of Rothes; son of the British Empire, Tommy Andrews; American captain of industry John Thayer and his son Jack; Jewish-American immigrant Ida Straus; and American model and movie star Dorothy Gibson. Within a week of setting sail, they were all caught up in the horrifying disaster of the Titanic’s sinking, one of the biggest news stories of the century. Today, we can see their stories and the Titanic’s voyage as the beginning of the end of the established hierarchy of the Edwardian era.

Writing in his elegant signature prose and using previously unpublished sources, deck plans, journal entries, and surviving artifacts, Gareth Russell peers through the portholes of these first-class travelers to immerse us in a time of unprecedented change in British and American history. Through their intertwining lives, he examines social, technological, political, and economic forces such as the nuances of the British class system, the explosion of competition in the shipping trade, the birth of the movie industry, the Irish Home Rule Crisis, and the Jewish-American immigrant experience while also recounting their intimate stories of bravery, tragedy, and selflessness.

Masterful in its superb grasp of the forces of history, gripping in its moment-by-moment account of the sinking, revelatory in discounting long-held myths, and lavishly illustrated with color and black and white photographs, this absorbing, accessible, and authoritative account of the Titanic’s life and death is destined to become the definitive book on the subject.

I know the publishers have their wisdom in packaging and titling these books, but I'm almost always surprised that I like the U.K. titles better than the ones chosen for the USA! Seems to me that the subtitle should have been changed for the USA version: what does the "Edwardian Era" mean to U.S. readers? "The End of the Gilded Age" instead?

Gareth Russell contributed this article to the Belfast Telegraph in which he describes his personal connection to the legend of the RMS Titanic:

I was raised on stories of the Titanic. My great-grandfather, Tommy Hutton, used to perch me on his knee to tell me about the Belfast of his childhood.

Later, I would sit on the rug by his fireplace and he would perform the song he remembered his father and other workers in the shipyard singing when they heard the news of the disaster - "I lost the best friend that ever I had, when the great ship Titanic went down".

It was a very happy moment for me when I was able to include those words in one of the book's final chapters; it felt like I was preserving something and giving a voice to those men who had laboured in the construction and then suffered such grief when news broke in Belfast that the Titanic had sunk four days into her first commercial voyage.

I was enthralled and horrified by the Titanic as a child, and it was to Papa that I brought the first in a coming avalanche of Titanic books. It started with colouring books and moved to children's novels. To each and every one, Papa was encouraging, even though he himself could not read, because in 1912, he had snuck out of school to try to earn money for his family.

He knew the Bible better than nearly any man I ever knew; he memorised it at church and through sermons. It was a towering testimony to his faith.

As we so often say, "I can't wait!" but I'll have to because the US edition doesn't come out until this December!

Blessed John Henry Newman and the Passion of Christ

On the Monday of Holy Week, April 15, Anna Mitchell of the Son Rise Morning Show and I will talk about Newman's Parochial and Plain Sermon, "The Crucifixion" in which he encouraged his congregation to meditate on the suffering, crucifixion, and death of Jesus. We'll talk at the usual time--about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. He urges them to have some feeling--not just for the sake of some superficial feeling--for their Savior. If we love Him, we should feel pain at His pain:

ST. PETER makes it almost a description of a Christian, that he loves Him whom he has not seen; speaking of Christ, he says, "whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." Again he speaks of "tasting that the Lord is gracious." [1 Pet. i. 8; ii. 3.] Unless we have a true love of Christ, we are not His true disciples; and we cannot love Him unless we have heartfelt gratitude to Him; and we cannot duly feel gratitude, unless we feel keenly what He suffered for us. I say it seems to us impossible, under the circumstances of the case, that any one can have attained to the love of Christ, who feels no distress, no misery, at the thought of His bitter pains, and no self-reproach at having through his own sins had a share in causing them.

I know quite well, and wish you, my brethren, never to forget, that feeling is not enough; that it is not enough merely to feel and nothing more; that to feel grief for Christ's sufferings, and yet not to go on to obey him, is not true love, but a mockery. True love both feels right, and acts right; but at the same time as warm feelings without religious conduct are a kind of hypocrisy, so, on the other hand, right conduct, when unattended with deep feelings, is at best a very imperfect sort of religion. And at this time of year especially are we called upon to raise our hearts to Christ, and to have keen feelings and piercing thoughts of sorrow and shame, of compunction and of gratitude, of love and tender affection and horror and anguish, at the review of those awful sufferings whereby our salvation has been purchased.

You will ask, how are we to learn to feel pain and anguish at the thought of Christ's sufferings? I answer, by thinking of them, that is, by dwelling on the thought. This, through God's mercy, is in the power of every one. No one who will but solemnly think over the history of those sufferings, as drawn out for us in the Gospels, but will gradually gain, through God's grace, a sense of them, will in a measure realize them, will in a measure be as if he saw them, will feel towards them as being not merely a tale written in a book, but as a true history, as a series of events which took place. It is indeed a great mercy that this duty which I speak of, though so high, is notwithstanding so level with the powers of all classes of persons, learned and unlearned, if they wish to perform it. Any one can think of Christ's sufferings, if he will; and knows well what to think about. "It is not in heaven that thou shouldst say, Who shall go up for us to heaven and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it? Neither is it beyond the sea that thou shouldst say, Who shall go over the sea for us? ... but the word is very nigh unto thee;" very nigh, for it is in the four Gospels, which, at this day at least, are open to all men. All men may read or hear the Gospels, and in knowing them, they will know all that is necessary to be known in order to feel aright; they will know all that any one knows, all that has been told us, all that the greatest saints have ever had to make them full of love and sacred fear.

This sermon demonstrates Newman's zeal to have his congregation recognize the reality of their faith, or renew their sense of that reality so that it had some palpable influence in their lives, changing their hearts, chastening their religious duty, demonstrating their love for Jesus by having compassion upon Him in His sufferings. As Matthias Grünewald used his artistic technique as a painter to inspire compassion for Jesus's sufferings in "The Small Crucifixion" which Elizabeth Lev calls a "vivid, visual homily" in this month's Magnificat, Blessed John Henry Newman used his artistic technique as a writer to inspire the same depth of feelings, particularly by asking his congregation to think about how they'd feel seeing an animal, a child, an elderly man treated as Jesus was treated.

Other sermons on this theme are "Christ's Privations a Meditation for Christians" in which Newman asks: 

Why is it, my brethren, that we have so little feeling on the matter as we commonly have? Why is it that we are used to let the season come and go just like any other season, not thinking more of Christ than at other times, or, at least, not feeling more? Am I not right in saying that this is the case? and if so, have I not cause for asking why it is the case? We are not moved when we hear of the bitter passion of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, for us. We neither bewail our sins which caused it, nor have any sympathy with it. We do not suffer with Him. If we come to Church, we hear, and then we go away again; not distressed at all; or if distressed, only for the moment. 

and "The Incarnate Son, a Sufferer and Sacrifice":

We are now approaching that most sacred day when we commemorate Christ's passion and death. Let us try to fix our minds upon this great thought. Let us try, what is so very difficult, to put off other thoughts, to clear our minds of things transitory, temporal, and earthly, and to occupy them with the contemplation of the Eternal Priest and His one ever-enduring Sacrifice;—that Sacrifice which, though completed once for all on Calvary, yet ever abideth, and, in its power and its grace, is ever present among us, and is at all times gratefully and awfully to be commemorated, but now especially, when the time of year is come at which it was made. Let us look upon Him who was lifted up that He might draw us to Him; and, by being drawn one and all to Him, let us be drawn to each other, so that we may understand and feel that He has redeemed us one and all, and that, unless we love one another, we cannot really have love to Him who laid down His life for us.

As you might expect, he continued that theme as a Catholic priest and homilist: more on that Monday. 

Images: Top: picture taken in St. Ambroise, Paris, by Mark U. Mann in 2014; Middle: Crucifixion from the Vaux Passional, published in the public domain under a Creative Commons License.

April 11: A Decollation, A Burning, and A Coronation

On April 11, 1554, Thomas Wyatt the Younger was executed on Tower Hill for leading his eponymous rebellion against Mary I. I have to post on this event for three reasons: using the words "eponymous" and "decollation" and using this great profile portrait.

The Wyatt Rebellion, as this site notes, failed completely:

The plan itself involved too many ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ if it was to succeed. The noble conspirators planned to remove Mary, instate Elizabeth as Queen and arrange for her to marry Edward Courtenay – a man Mary had already rejected as a husband. [It sounds like the Gunpowder Plot!]

The plan was for three rebellions to take place in separate parts of the country. They would occur at the same time – in the Midlands, the West Country and Kent. The plan was that the government would not know which one to put down first and each would blossom as a result of their localised success and attract more and more supporters among the common people.

The French Navy would blockade the English Channel with eighty ships so that the Habsburgs would not be able to help Mary.

The plan failed miserably. The Imperial Ambassador, Simon Renard, had heard rumours that such a plot existed and informed the Lord Chancellor, Stephen Gardner [sic], of his concerns. Gardner brought in Courtenay for questioning as Renard had mentioned his name. The records stated that Gardner’s questioning was ‘robust’ and Courtenay was not a man who could stand up to this. Edward Courtenay told Gardner all that he knew about the plot so that the government knew about the plot even before it had begun – even if Courtenay would not have known about the details.

The ‘uprisings’ in the Midlands and the West Country were a failure as few of the people there gave Carew and the Duke of Suffolk the support they needed for success. It seems that though there was concern about Mary marrying a foreigner, loyalty to the Queen took precedence. Those in the Midlands did not want to commit treason (Suffolk raised a force of just 140 men) while many in the West were Catholic. . . .

Only two of the leaders were executed for their treason – Wyatt and the Duke of Suffolk. Other minor nobles were also executed but some – guilty of treason – were spared. In total about 90 rebels were executed but many of the common people who had joined Wyatt and survived were spared. Two other casualties were Lady Jane Grey and her husband Guildford Dudley. Both had been in prison since the failed attempt to put Lady Jane on the throne and had nothing to do with Wyatt’s rebellion. However Mary felt that she could no longer risk anyone rallying to Lady Jane’s cause – hence her execution – especially as her father, the Duke of Suffolk, had been involved in this plot and had been executed for treason.

I find it interesting that the website does not mention that Queen Mary had rallied her people to defend her and their city. Even John Foxe, who had no reason to present Mary in a good light, recounted her bravery, her devotion, and her resolve in her speech at Guildhall:

I am your Queen, to whom at my coronation, when I was wedded to the realm and laws of the same (the spousal ring whereof I have on my finger, which never hitherto was, not hereafter shall be, left off), you promised your allegiance and obedience to me…. And I say to you, on the word of a Prince, I cannot tell how naturally the mother loveth the child, for I was never the mother of any; but certainly, if a Prince and Governor may as naturally and earnestly love her subjects as the mother doth love the child, then assure yourselves that I, being your lady and mistress, do as earnestly and tenderly love and favour you. And I, thus loving you, cannot but think that ye as heartily and faithfully love me; and then I doubt not but we shall give these rebels a short and speedy overthrow.

Some details about Wyatt's execution for treason; although he was beheaded and therefore did not endure the full agony of being hanged, drawn, and quartered, his remains were eviscerated and quartered as a the body of a traitor would be:

After he was beheaded, his body was subjected to all the barbarities that formed part of punishment for treason. Next day his head was hung to a gallows on ‘Hay Hill beside Hyde Park,’ and subsequently his limbs were distributed among gibbets in various quarters of the town (Machyn, Diary, p. 60). His head was stolen on 17 April.

On April 11, 1612 the last execution for heresy took place in England, during the reign of James I. Edward Wightman was actually burned at the stake twice:

Wightman seems to have denied the doctrine of the Trinity, denied that Jesus Christ was God, denied the Resurrection and the legitimacy of Holy Communion and maintained that he himself was both the Holy Spirit and, though not himself divine, the Messiah appointed by God as the saviour of the world. From a modern perspective it seems clear that he had gone completely insane.

Wightman was eventually put on trial in the diocesan court in Lichfield, which in December pronounced him guilty of blasphemy and of promoting the heresies of figures ranging from Simon Magus to the Arians, the Manicheans and the Anabaptists. He was sent to the stake in the square in Lichfield in March 1612. When the flames began to scorch him he cried out in pain and it was thought he wanted to recant. Some of the crowd of spectators rushed to rescue him, though getting burned themselves. He was taken back to prison to recover, but when he was brought before the court again he refused to sign a formal recantation and on Easter Saturday in April he was sent back to the stake and was this time burned to death.

Finally, on April 11, 1689, William of Orange and Mary his wife and the daughter of the overthrown and deposed James II were crowned together in Westminster Abbey. A few notes from this blog, which indicate that we don't have all the details about the regalia used at this double coronation:

As we know, Mary and William were crowned as joint-monarchs in a ceremony at Westminster Abbey on 11 April 1689. An interesting note, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who typically presides over the coronation, refused to do so because he continued to support James II. So for this coronation, the bishop of London crowned the new queen and king (things like this happened several times in the Middle Ages, but there would often be a second coronation done with the AB of Canterbury for sake of continuity and because of fears over the illegitimacy of the ceremony).  . . 

King Edward’s Chair (or St. Edward’s Chair or the Coronation Chair) has been used for the coronation of English (and British later on) since Edward II, with the exceptions of Edward V and Edward VIII, both of whom were not crowned. Oddly enough, Mary II was not crowned in the chair as well. A second chair was constructed before the coronation for Mary to sit in. . . .

For the coronation of Mary and William there is no mention of the use of St. Edward’s Crown. Instead, some of the sources state that they wore their pair of imperial state crowns. A second crown, then, was either used from a previous queen (perhaps the consort of James II?) or a new crown imperial state crown was made for one or both of the new monarchs. 

Blessed John Henry Newman and the Liturgy

In our continuing series preparing for the canonization of Blessed John Henry Newman, Matt Swaim (I presume) and I will talk about Newman and the Liturgy this morning around 7:50 Eastern DST/6:50 Central DST on the Son Rise Morning Show.

Newman and the Oratorians made several contributions to the revived liturgical life of Catholics in 19th century England and the Oratorians in Birmingham, London, Oxford, etc, continue those traditions today:

After becoming a Catholic, Newman soon went to Rome for education and ordination as a Catholic priest, returning to England to establish St. Philip Neri’s Oratory in Birmingham and in London--and hoping for one in Oxford. While the Church of England had experienced many changes and controversies in liturgical practice since its founding in the sixteenth century, Catholics had not been able to practice their faith or worship freely from the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth I until Emancipation in 1829.

The Catholic Mass had been illegal; it was a felony to attend Mass; it was an act of treason for a Catholic priest to be in England and a felony for a layman or woman to assist a Catholic priest in any way—there are more than a hundred canonized or beatified martyrs to testify to the dangers of being a Catholic in England from 1559 to 1829. With the re-establishment of the hierarchy in England in 1850, Catholics began building cathedrals, churches and chapels and worshipping freely again.

Newman’s Oratories contributed to this renewal of Catholicism in England—in both London and Birmingham they began the tradition of sung High Mass on Sunday with excellent choirs and musicians and of sung Vespers on Sunday evenings—traditions that are observed now also at the Oxford Oratory. Newman favored classical styles of architecture and music. In this he stands in opposition to one of the great architects of the nineteenth century, Augustus Welby Pugin who favored, nay required, the Gothic style of architecture and Gregorian chant.

Newman believed that the classical (or Byzantine revival) style of building for a church was more appropriate for the preaching of the Gospel and line of sight for the congregation to the Altar and the Tabernacle. The oratory churches of London and Birmingham are both in the Baroque style but were built after Newman’s death (the Birmingham Oratory is called the Little Rome)—but in the church for the Catholic University in Dublin, Our Lady Seat of Wisdom, we can see what Newman desired in church architecture—the church is in the basilica style and was designed under Newman’s direction by John Hungerford Pollen, Senior. (Image Credit) 

Notice that the line of sight to the Altar and the Tabernacle are clear and direct; the pulpit is placed above the congregation for ease of sight and hearing.

He favored the Mass settings written by Mozart, Haydn, Cherubini, Hummel, and his favorite Beethoven—we should remember that Newman was a talented musician himself, playing the violin. Of course, this was before Pope St. Pius X revived Gregorian chant and polyphony in Tra le sollecitudini.

Newman and his fellow Oratorians, particularly Edward Caswall and Frederick Faber, wrote and translated hymns for congregational singing. We sing Faber’s “Faith of Our Fathers” and “There’s Wideness in God’s Mercy”, while Edward Caswall’s translations of St. Thomas Aquinas’ O Salutoris Hostia and Tantum Ergo are often used today at Benediction and Caswall’s translation of the Stabat Mater is sung at Stations of the Cross. . . .From Newman’s poem The Dream of Gerontius, two great hymns are excerpted: “Praise to the Holiest in the Height” and “Firmly I Believe and Truly”. He translated many of the hymns of the Roman Breviary for congregational singing (Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, and Vespers).

Toward the end of his life, Newman started losing his eyesight and in preparation for not being able to read the words of the Mass, he memorized two votive Masses (the antiphons, collects, prayers, and readings in addition to the Ordinary of the Mass); he celebrated Mass for the last time on Christmas Day, 1889. Instead of reading the Breviary, he prayed the Rosary.

As a preacher in the Church of England, he was famous for the quiet power of presentation, without any rhetorical flourish or emphasis, beyond the pause. Father John McCloskey describes his written Anglican sermons as meditations for a retreat—and he wrote 1,000 of them during those 20 years.

Newman changed his method of delivering homilies as a Catholic priest: instead of written sermons to be read, he prepared notes for more extemporaneous homilies (the Brothers of the Oratory published his sermon notes after his death).

What Newman found in the Catholic Church, the one true fold of Christ, as he called her after his conversion, was the fullness of what he and his Oxford Movement companions had sought to establish in the Church of England. What he had to defend—the ritual form of public worship, and the liturgical and sanctoral year, etc—before, Newman could celebrate fully now. . . .

Next Monday, the Monday of Holy Week, we'll discuss one of Newman's great Parochial and Plain Sermons, in which he urged his congregation "to raise [their] hearts to Christ, and to have keen feelings and piercing thoughts of sorrow and shame, of compunction and of gratitude, of love and tender affection and horror and anguish, at the review of those awful sufferings whereby our salvation has been purchased."

Preview: Newman and the Liturgy

As we come near the holiest week of the liturgical year and the holiest three days of the holiest week of the liturgical year, it seems appropriate that we discuss Newman and the Liturgy this coming Monday on the Son Rise Morning Show. It is Matt Swaim's turn on Monday, April 8, to continue our series a little after 7:50 a.m. Eastern DST/6:50 a.m. Central DST. I'm citing a lecture I offered at Newman University in February 2016 for their Cardinal Newman/Founders celebrations. First, some notes on Newman and the Liturgy as an Anglican:

Because of his deserved reputation as a controversialist, intellectual, and author, we sometimes forget—and Pope Benedict XVI reminded us when he presided at Newman’s beatification during his September 2010 visit to England—that Newman was, for most of his life, a pastor. As both an Anglican minister and then as a Catholic priest, Newman celebrated a liturgy, prayed in accord with the liturgical year, and preached sermons and homilies urging his congregations to do so too.

We should also note, since we are celebrating his birthday on February 21, in 1801, that he was born in a devout Church of England family and experienced the liturgy throughout his childhood. He bought a copy of the Book of Common Prayer for himself so that he could receive it as a gift from his mother!

For 20 years as a minister of the Church of England, Newman celebrated the Anglican liturgy according to the Book of Common Prayer with careful attention to the rubrics of the rite. During his Oxford Movement period, he began to use the Roman (Catholic) Breviary (the Liturgy of the Hours) for his personal devotions. After his conversion in 1845, he studied for the priesthood, and thus celebrated Mass and the Sacraments according to the Roman Missal, etc—while continuing to pray the Breviary.

In 1959, Father Frank O’Malley wrote that, “the spirit of Newman moved within the spirit of the liturgy; the liturgy thought of in its most significant sense as the very rhythm of Christian existence, stirred and centered by the life of Christ. Newman absorbed the liturgical character of existence. He lived by the liturgy.”

He celebrated the services of the Church of England with care, solemnity, and devotion and he emphasized how essential religious worship was to the life of a Christian. This view and this liturgical emphasis was not without controversy in Newman’s time—and the celebration of the liturgy in the Church of England would become more controversial after he became a Catholic—because there were different parties in the Church of England, with different views of liturgy.

We can identify, as Aidan Nichols summarizes them in his book The Panther and Hind, three basic parties in the Church of England and their liturgical views:

• The High Church or Anglo Catholic party: liturgical beauty, including candles, incense, vestments; emphasis on doctrine; importance of Tradition; using Catholic devotions (I visited St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Providence, RI—it’s known as a Tractarian church—the vestibule was filled with pamphlets on praying the Rosary, praying the Stations of the Cross, litanies, novenas, etc.) Adherents of this party followed the example of the Anglican Divines of the Stuart era: Lancelot Andrewes, William Laud, etc

• The Low Church or Evangelical party: emphasizing the Holy Bible and simplicity of worship and church architecture. Rejection of some religious imagery and church decoration; Puritan and Wesleyan background

• The Broad Church or Latitudinarian party: emphasizing moral behavior and reason in religious matters and sermons about the same—downplaying doctrinal or liturgical differences; 18th century background

Newman answered both Low Church and Broad Church objections to liturgical worship as “the essence of the life of the Church”, “supplying all our spiritual need”.

To Broad Church objections he replied in Parochial and Plain Sermon “Worship, A Preparation for Christ’s Coming” (an Advent sermon), starting with their questions:

Men sometimes ask, Why need they profess religion? Why need they go to church? Why need they observe certain rites and ceremonies? Why need they watch, pray, fast, and meditate? Why is it not enough to be just, honest, sober, benevolent, and otherwise virtuous? Is not this the true and real worship of God? Is not activity in mind and conduct the most acceptable way of approaching Him? How can they please Him by submitting to certain religious forms, and taking part in certain religious acts?

Even if religious worship is necessary, they object:

why may they not choose their own? Why must they come to church for them? Why must they be partakers in what the Church calls Sacraments?

Newman’s first answer is, because God tells them to do so! He tells them that liturgical worship prepares them for the sight of God:

They are not to be here for ever. Direct intercourse with God on their part now, prayer and the like, may be necessary to their meeting Him suitably hereafter: and direct intercourse on His part with them, or what we call sacramental communion, may be necessary in some incomprehensible way, even for preparing their very nature to bear the sight of Him.

Let us then take this view of religious service; it is "going out to meet the Bridegroom," who, if not seen "in His beauty," will appear in consuming fire. Besides its other momentous reasons, it is a preparation for an awful event, which shall one day be.

Not that Newman ignores good works and moral conduct, for he concludes this sermon urging his congregation to both moral conduct and liturgical worship:

Let us go out to meet Him with contrite and expectant hearts; and though He delays His coming, let us watch for Him in the cold and dreariness which must one day have an end. Let us wait for Him solemnly, fearfully, hopefully, patiently, obediently; let us be resigned to His will, while active in good works.

Newman answers Evangelical objections to liturgical worship in “Ceremonies of the Church” in which he uses Jesus’s reply to John the Baptist when John thought he should not baptize Our Savior: “Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15)

He uses the same question and answer method:

We sometimes meet with men, who ask why we observe these or those ceremonies or practices; why, for example, we use Forms of prayer so cautiously and strictly? or why we persist in kneeling at the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper? why in bowing at the name of Jesus? or why in celebrating the public worship of God only in consecrated places? why we lay such stress upon these things? These, and many such questions may be asked, and all with this argument: "They are indifferent matters; we do not read of them in the Bible."

Newman’s response is first that the Bible

does not set about telling us what to do, but chiefly what to believe

For example:

there is no prohibition of suicide, dueling, gaming, in Scripture; yet we know them to be great sins; and it would be no excuse in a man to say that he does not find them forbidden in Scripture, because he may discover God's will in this matter independently of Scripture. . . .

This, I say, is the proper answer to the question, "Why do you observe rites and forms which are not enjoined in Scripture?" though, to speak the truth, our chief ordinances are to be found there, as the Sacraments, Public Worship, the Observance of the Lord's day, Ordination, Marriage, and the like. But I shall make another answer, which is suggested by the event commemorated this day, our Lord's conforming to the Jewish Law in the rite of circumcision; and my answer is this.

Scripture tells us what to believe, and what to aim at and maintain, but it does not tell us how to do it; and as we cannot do it at all unless we do it in this manner, or that, in fact we must add something to what Scripture tells us. For example, Scripture tells us to meet together for prayer, and has connected the grant of the Christian blessings on God's part, with the observance of union on ours; but since it does not tell us the times and places of prayer, the Church must complete that which Scripture has but enjoined generally.

He warns that

There is no such thing as abstract religion. When persons attempt to worship in this (what they call) more spiritual manner, they end, in fact, in not worshipping at all. This frequently happens. Every one may know it from his own experience of himself. Youths, for instance (and perhaps those who should know better than they), sometimes argue with themselves, "What is the need of praying statedly morning and evening? why use a form of words? why kneel? why cannot I pray in bed, or walking, or dressing?" they end in not praying at all.

But Newman goes beyond insisting that Christians should pray according to the Church’s forms of worship to emphasizing how important the liturgical year—and the sanctoral year—are in the life of a Christian.

In one of the Tracts for the Times, number 34, “Rites and Customs of the Church” Newman tried to convince his readers that the liturgy and the liturgical year were apostolic traditions, handed down from the Apostles to the Fathers of the Church and expressed in the Book of Common Prayer to impress the “great revealed verities of the Christian faith in the imagination of the faithful”. This, of course, was the aim of the Oxford Movement—to claim apostolic succession for the Anglican Church—to demonstrate that it was not just a Church formed by the State, but a true Church, a branch of the (lower case c) catholic Church. He was claiming an authority for the Church of England to, as he said above, give its members the order and form to fulfill what the Bible enjoined on them—through the liturgy and the liturgical year. And when he discusses the cult of the saints and the calendar of saints—Newman was speaking of something Englishmen associated with the Catholic Church—he was running the risk of being too “Papist” or “Popish”—Catholics and Catholic devotions were considered foreign and un-English (and to some extent, still are today in Great Britain).

Newman’s attempt, along with the other leaders of the Oxford Movement, to encourage both the clergy—especially the bishops—and the laity to live and pray as though the Church of England was part of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, as we know, failed. The Church of England—especially the bishops—rejected the argument because it meant they had to acknowledge the teachings of the Catholic Church. Newman wrote Tract 90 in 1841, the last Tract for the Times, arguing that only the teachings of the Catholic Church give an authoritative and effective meaning and interpretation of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England. It was soundly rejected by the University of Oxford and the Church of England. He was almost soundly rejected by the University of Oxford and the Church of England. He resigned his livings at the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin and the little church in Littlemore outside Oxford that he had founded (St. Mary’s-St. Nicholas) and was on his death-bed as an Anglican.

Studying and praying in Littlemore, Newman finally resigned all his ties to Oxford and joined the Catholic Church on October 9, 1845, confessing his sins and receiving the sacraments from Father Dominic Barberi, a Passionist priest serving the newly emancipated Catholics of England. Newman received his first Holy Communion on October 10, 1845. . . .

More on Monday from the lecture about Newman and the Liturgy as a Catholic priest.

Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales: RIP

On April 2, 1502, Arthur Tudor, the Prince of Wales, died at Ludlow Castle in Wales. He and his bride, Katherine of Aragon, the Princess of Wales, had become ill from some sweating sickness in March of 1502: she recovered; he did not.

Sean Cunningham discusses the repercussions of Arthur's death on his widow and his younger brother Henry, the Duke of York, for the BBC History Magazine:

The five months that Catherine and Arthur spent together in 1501–02 must have created intense memories for Catherine. For Henry VII’s other surviving son, Henry, Prince Arthur perhaps stirred different recollections. Henry VIII’s divorce of Catherine was secured without the truth of events in his brother’s marriage-bed being established. By 1530, the need to know the intimate details of Catherine’s first marriage forced Henry VIII to think deeply about his dead brother.

Arthur and Henry were alive together for only 11 years. As duke of York, Prince Henry was mindful that all of his father’s attention was diverted towards preparing Arthur to rule. Prince Henry stayed around the royal household and during Arthur’s life he received little training for a role as a loyal supporter of his brother’s future reign. Arthur’s residence at Ludlow meant that they met only at state occasions and probably a few other unrecorded times. Arthur seems to have shouldered the burdens of personal rule from an early age, whereas Henry used his charm and attractiveness to master the social side of courtly life. That trained Henry to be a political manipulator, but did little to involve him in the mechanics of government before his brother’s death. By then, Henry’s love of the good things about court and household was deeply engrained. Yet, as Prince Henry entered his teenage years, his father had to force him into a new role as Prince of Wales, with all the responsibilities that went with it. Arthur’s death came as the king’s old friends were also beginning to die off. These personal losses created the pressure to expand the Tudor royal family – something that led directly to the death of Queen Elizabeth in childbirth on her 37th birthday, 11 February 1503.

We cannot know if the 11-year-old child Henry somehow blamed Arthur for the change in his circumstances or for the death of their mother. A manuscript illustration recently identified in the National Library of Wales (Vaux Passional, Peniarth MS 482D) shows the court in mourning for the queen, with a young Prince Henry sobbing separately in the background. A few years later, Henry would have realised that he could not have become king had his brother lived a healthy adult life; so his feelings, eventually, must have been mixed. Henry kept Arthur’s portrait and some of his books and clothes but also maintained a lifelong fear of infectious disease. He seems to have loved Arthur deeply, but more as a memory of princely virtue than as an elder sibling with whom he had shared any childhood time. The nature of Arthur’s sudden death preyed on Henry’s mind the longer he went without a male heir. That failure was a major factor in the annulment of Henry’s marriage to Queen Catherine.

Cunningham, author of Prince Arthur: The Tudor King Who Never Was (Stroud, Gloucestershire: Amberley, 2017), concludes:

Henry had followed in Arthur’s footsteps as second son, second Prince of Wales, and from 11 June 1509, second husband to Catherine of Aragon. Whatever he learned about Arthur’s character surely came through conversations after 1502 with Catherine and others who had known Arthur in the Welsh Marches. His own memories of his brother must have been limited and idealised. Arthur probably remained a mysterious figure to the second Tudor king, but he was a prince whose short life had a profound impact upon England’s subsequent history.

Sweeney on St. Robert Southwell, Poet

I'm reading this book because of another book I've received to review; the author of that other book referred to the late Anne Sweeney's work on St. Robert Southwell's poetry and its place in the English poetic milieu of the sixteenth century. According to Oxford University Press which distributes the book published by Manchester University Press:

It has traditionally been held that Robert Southwell's poetry offers a curious view of Elizabethan England, one that is from the restricted perspective of a priest-hole. This book dismantles that idea by examining the poetry, word by word, discovering layers of new meanings, hidden emblems, and sharp critiques of Elizabeth's courtiers, and even of the ageing queen herself.

Using both the most recent edition of Southwell's poetry and manuscript materials, it addresses both poetry and private writings including letters and diary material to give dramatic context to the radicalisation of a generation of Southwell's countrymen and women, showing how the young Jesuit harnessed both drama and literature to give new poetic poignancy to their experience.

Bringing a rigorously forensic approach to Southwell's 'lighter' pieces, Sweeney can now show to what extent Southwell engaged exclusively through them in direct artistic debate with Spenser, Sidney, and Shakespeare, placing the poetry firmly in the English landscape familiar to Southwell's generation. Those interested in early modern and Elizabethan culture will find much of interest, including new insights into the function of the arts in the private Catholic milieu touched by Southwell in so many ways and places.

I'm just a couple of chapters in and Sweeney provides an insight connected to Elizabeth Lev's book about Catholic Restoration art: the poetry Southwell wrote was inspired by the art he was seeing in the churches of Rome during his studies. Sweeney even notes the painting that may have inspired his best known poem, "The Burning Babe": The Vision of St. Ignatius at La Storta.

Part of her thesis on St. Robert Southwell's poetic method is that his shorter poems are filled with visual imagery, not Petrarchan repetition and elaboration. Therefore, the art that he lived with in Counter-Reformation Rome, especially the art in the Jesuit churches of Il Gesu, Sant'Andrea al Quirinale, and others influenced his poetry.  He transferred the impact of clear and expressive visual representations of sacred and spiritual things on the viewer to descriptive, concrete language.

As Sweeney notes, her book began because she wondered why Ben Jonson admired "The Burning Babe" so much. She believes it's the imagery, the sense of seeing something as you read the poem that elicited Jonson's admiration:

As I in hoary winter’s night stood shivering in the snow,
Surpris’d I was with sudden heat which made my heart to glow;
And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near,
A pretty Babe all burning bright did in the air appear;
Who, scorched with excessive heat, such floods of tears did shed
As though his floods should quench his flames which with his tears were fed.
“Alas!” quoth he, “but newly born, in fiery heats I fry,
Yet none approach to warm their hearts or feel my fire but I!
My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns,
Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns;
The fuel Justice layeth on, and Mercy blows the coals,
The metal in this furnace wrought are men’s defiled souls,
For which, as now on fire I am to work them to their good,
So will I melt into a bath to wash them in my blood.”
With this he vanish’d out of sight and swiftly shrunk away,
And straight I called unto mind that it was Christmas day.

It's not just the image that comes to mind of a man standing in the cold and dark, the sudden appearance of a burning baby suspended in the air, the tears, the message of the baby (with its images of furnace, fire, smoke, ashes, coals, metal, etc), and his sudden disappearance, but also the feeling of shivering cold and blazing heat, and then the sudden realization of the date. The viewer has seen a vision of the infant Jesus already experiencing the suffering of His Passion and it is Christmas Day. This revelation came about not just by repetition and elaboration of abstract ideas, but by seeing something, describing it, and making the connection between the Incarnation and those abstract ideas of Love, Justice, and Mercy: the Paschal Mystery of the Passion, Crucifixion, and Resurrection: Jesus Christ Himself, whether Babe or Man.

Newman's Defense of Marian Doctrine and Devotion

Matt Swaim--or perhaps Anna Mitchell as it should be her turn--and I will talk about Newman and Mary, the Mother of God this morning on the Son Rise Morning Show in our continuing series on soon-to-canonized Cardinal Newman. (About 7:50 a.m. Eastern DST;6:50 a.m. Central DST.)

As promised, here's more insight into the Marian devotion Blessed John Henry Newman developed as a Catholic, starting with his defense of the doctrine of her Immaculate Conception:

Two years after the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, Reverend Doctor E.B. Pusey wrote a public letter to the other great survivor of Newman's "defection" from the Oxford Movement and the Church of England, John Keble: An Eirenicon, responding to then Archdeacon Henry Manning's public letter to Pusey, The Workings of the Holy Spirit in the Church of England", in which Manning denied that the Church of England was protected from error the way the Catholic Church is. Pusey mentions the recently proclaimed doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary (declared by Pope Pius IX in 1854: "We declare, pronounce and define that the doctrine which holds that the Blessed Virgin Mary, at the first instant of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace of the Omnipotent God, in virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of mankind, was preserved immaculate from all stain of original sin, has been revealed by God, and therefore should firmly and constantly be believed by all the faithful.") and examines it in a historical context.

Father John Henry Newman then answered Pusey with A Letter Addressed to the Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D. on Occasion of his Eirenicon, in which he defended the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, starting with the commonly held doctrine that our first parents, Adam and Eve, were without Original Sin, filled with supernatural grace. Mary, the Mother of God is the Second Eve: her obedience and cooperation with God undoes Eve's disobedience:

She holds, as the Fathers teach us, that office in our restoration which Eve held in our fall:—now, in the first place, what were Eve's endowments to enable her to enter upon her trial? She could not have stood against the wiles of the devil, though she was innocent and sinless, without the grant of a large grace. And this she had;—a heavenly gift, which was over and above and additional to that nature of hers, which she received from Adam, a gift which had been given to Adam also before her, at the very time (as it is commonly held) of his original formation. This is Anglican doctrine, as well as Catholic; it is the doctrine of Bishop Bull. He has written a dissertation on the point. He speaks of the doctrine which "many of the Schoolmen affirm, that Adam was created in grace, that is, received a principle of grace and divine life from his very creation, or in the moment of the infusion of his soul; of which," he says, "for my own part I have little doubt." Again, he says, "It is abundantly manifest from the many testimonies alleged, that the ancient doctors of the Church did, with a general consent, acknowledge, that our first parents in the state of integrity, had in them something more than nature, that is, were endowed with the divine principle of the Spirit, in order to a supernatural felicity."

Now, taking this for granted, because I know that you and those who agree with you maintain it as well as we do, I ask you, have you any intention to deny that Mary was as fully endowed as Eve? is it any violent inference, that she, who was to co-operate in the redemption of the world, at least was not less endowed with power from on high, than she who, given as a help-mate to her husband, did in the event but cooperate with him for its ruin? If Eve was raised above human nature by that indwelling moral gift which we call grace, is it rash to say that Mary had even a greater grace? And this consideration gives significance to the Angel's salutation of her as "full of grace,"—an interpretation of the original word which is undoubtedly the right one, as soon as we resist the common Protestant assumption that grace is a mere external approbation or acceptance, answering to the word "favour," whereas it is, as the Fathers teach, a real inward condition or superadded quality of soul. And if Eve had this supernatural inward gift given her from the first moment of her personal existence, is it possible to deny that Mary too had this gift from the very first moment of her personal existence? I do not know how to resist this inference:—well, this is simply and literally the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. I say the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is in its substance this, and nothing more or less than this (putting aside the question of degrees of grace); and it really does seem to me bound up in the doctrine of the Fathers, that Mary is the second Eve.

It is indeed to me a most strange phenomenon that so many learned and devout men stumble at this doctrine; and I can only account for it by supposing that in matter of fact they do not know what we mean by the Immaculate Conception; and your Volume (may I say it?) bears out my suspicion. It is a great consolation to have reason for thinking so,—reason for believing that in some sort the persons in question are in the position of those great Saints in former times, who are said to have hesitated about the doctrine, when they would not have hesitated at all, if the word "Conception" had been clearly explained in that sense in which now it is universally received. I do not see how any one who holds with Bull the Catholic doctrine of the supernatural endowments of our first parents, has fair reason for doubting our doctrine about the Blessed Virgin. It has no reference whatever to her parents, but simply to her own person; it does but affirm that, together with the nature which she inherited from her parents, that is, her own nature, she had a superadded fulness of grace, and that from the first moment of her existence. Suppose Eve had stood the trial, and not lost her first grace; and suppose she had eventually had children, those children from the first moment of their existence would, through divine bounty, have received the same privilege that she had ever had; that is, as she was taken from Adam's side, in a garment, so to say, of grace, so they in turn would have received what may be called an immaculate conception. They would have then been conceived in grace, as in fact they are conceived in sin. What is there difficult in this doctrine? What is there unnatural? Mary may be called, as it were, a daughter of Eve unfallen. You believe with us that St. John Baptist had grace given to him three months before his birth, at the time that the Blessed Virgin visited his mother. He accordingly was not immaculately conceived, because he was alive before grace came to him; but our Lady's case only differs from his in this respect, that to her the grace of God came, not three months merely before her birth, but from the first moment of her being, as it had been given to Eve.

But it may be said, How does this enable us to say that she was conceived without original sin? If Anglicans knew what we mean by original sin, they would not ask the question. Our doctrine of original sin is not the same as the Protestant doctrine. "Original sin," with us, cannot be called sin, in the mere ordinary sense of the word "sin;" it is a term denoting Adam's sin as transferred to us, or the state to which Adam's sin reduces his children; but by Protestants it seems to be understood as sin, in much the same sense as actual sin. We, with the Fathers, think of it as something negative, Protestants as something positive. Protestants hold that it is a disease, a radical change of nature, an active poison internally corrupting the soul, infecting its primary elements, and disorganizing it; and they fancy that we ascribe a different nature from ours to the Blessed Virgin, different from that of her parents, and from that of fallen Adam. We hold nothing of the kind; we consider that in Adam she died, as others; that she was included, together with the whole race, in Adam's sentence; that she incurred his debt, as we do; but that, for the sake of Him who was to redeem her and us upon the Cross, to her the debt was remitted by anticipation, on her the sentence was not carried out, except indeed as regards her natural death, for she died when her time came, as others [Note 5]. All this we teach, but we deny that she had original sin; for by original sin we mean, as I have already said, something negative, viz., this only, the deprivation of that supernatural unmerited grace which Adam and Eve had on their first formation,—deprivation and the consequences of deprivation. Mary could not merit, any more than they, the restoration of that grace; but it was restored to her by God's free bounty, from the very first moment of her existence, and thereby, in fact, she never came under the original curse, which consisted in the loss of it. And she had this special privilege, in order to fit her to become the Mother of her and our Redeemer, to fit her mentally, spiritually for it; so that, by the aid of the first grace, she might so grow in grace, that, when the Angel came and her Lord was at hand, she might be "full of grace," prepared as far as a creature could be prepared, to receive Him into her bosom.

Regarding Newman's devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remember that he included praying the Rosary everyday in his short guide to perfection:

If you ask me what you are to do in order to be perfect, I say, first—Do not lie in bed beyond the due time of rising; give your first thoughts to God; make a good visit to the Blessed Sacrament; say the Angelus devoutly; eat and drink to God’s glory; say the Rosary well; be recollected; keep out bad thoughts; make your evening meditation well; examine yourself daily; go to bed in good time, and you are already perfect.

He also wrote a series of "Meditations on the Litany of Loreto" for the month of May, dividing the titles of Mary in that litany according to her Immaculate Conception, the Annunciation, her Dolours or Sorrows, and her Assumption. In a "Short Service for Rosary Sunday" Newman demonstrated his love for the Blessed Virgin Mary:

IN Jesus Christ is the fullness of the Godhead with all its infinite sanctity. In Mary is reflected the sanctity of Jesus, as by His grace it could be found in a creature.

Mary, as the pattern both of maidenhood and maternity, has exalted woman’s state and nature, and made the Christian virgin and the Christian mother understand the sacredness of their duties in the sight of God.

Her very image is as a book in which we may read at a glance the mystery of the Incarnation, and the mercy of the Redemption; and withal her own gracious perfections also, who was made by her Divine Son the very type of humility, gentleness, fortitude, purity, patience, love.

What Christian mother can look upon her image and not be moved to pray for gentleness, watchfulness, and obedience like Mary’s? What Christian maiden can look upon her without praying for the gifts of simplicity, modesty, purity, recollection, gentleness such as hers?

Who can repeat her very name without finding in it a music which goes to the heart, and brings before him thoughts of God and Jesus Christ, and heaven above, and fills him with the desire of those graces by which heaven is gained?

Hail then, great Mother of God, Queen of Saints, Royal Lady clothed with the sun and crowned with the stars of heaven, whom all generations have called and shall call blessed. We will take our part in praising thee in our own time and place with all the redeemed of our Lord, and will exalt thee in the full assembly of the saints and glorify thee in the Heavenly Jerusalem.

Amen.

St. Aelred of Rievaulx and His Sister

St. Aelred of Rievaulx, the Cistercian monk and abbot who wrote about Spiritual Friendship, had a younger sister who was an anchoress, living in a cell attached to a church, praying in close proximity to the Blessed Sacrament, participating in Mass and other liturgical services, etc. She asked him to write her with some advice on how to live thus, a Rule, which he did after she had already been an anchoress for some time, according to the text of De Institutione Inclusarum, which I've just read in the translation published in Mowbray's Fleur de Lys edition, edited by Geoffrey Webb and Adrian Walker (1957). Mowbrays Fleur de Lys Series included, as listed in the paperback book I bought at Eighth Day Books a couple of years ago, another work of St. Aelred, On Jesus at Twelve Years Old, works by William of St. Thierry, and others.

His instructions to her are very clear about when she is to rise and when to go to bed (depending on the season); what and when she is to eat (depending on the season), and how she is to pray; how much she should interact with those who come to the church to speak with her; what her servant is to do for her; and how much she should speak in general. Aelred explains that she has really taken on the role of Mary of Bethany, not Martha, and that therefore, she should be happy to sit at the feet of Jesus and learn from Him. If she gives any alms to the poor, she should do so through another: her main form of almsgiving should be her intercessory prayer for pilgrims, nuns, monks, fatherless and motherless children, prelates, widows, and all those who labor.

But the better part of the short book, and the part that is applicable to any Christian, anchorite or not, is St. Aelred's outline of what his sister should think about while she is in her cell: the truths of the Christian life, past, present, and to come. 

The past is all about the life of Jesus from His Incarnation to His Resurrection and Ascension; the present is a meditation on the mercies and the goodness of God in our life today (how He forgives sin and offers hope for effective repentance); the future is death and judgement: the Doom of the end of the world and the beginning of the Eternal kingdom.

In his description of events from the Gospels, Aelred advises his sister to imagine that she is there, that she sees the events as a worshipping and awestruck bystander, entering into the emotions of the events. He offers a beautiful "Prayer at the Passion":

Sweet and kind Jesus, behold me here at Thy feet, a simple and devout worshipper of Thy majesty, who does not scorn They infirmity and weakness; an adorer of Thy piteous death; an acknowledger of Thy great mercy, and not a despiser of the suffering body that Thous has taken from mankind. And therefore I pray and beg Thee that  They sweet blessed manhood might pray for me, and that Thy wonderful pity might commend me to Thy Father. Sweet Jesus, say for me, who worship Thy passion and Thy death with a heart full of meekness and humility, those words which Thou didst say for them who put Thee to death. Merciful Lord, say once for me to Thy Father, 'Father, forgive him!'

Then he continues with details from the Gospels about Jesus on the Cross, Mary and St. John at the foot of the Cross, His death and His wounds, urging his sister to have compassion for these sufferings and to love Jesus.

In the chapters on God's mercy, he speaks of his own sinful past and his efforts to atone. He praises her for her purity and chastity and foretells her easier entrance into Heaven while he still prays that he will be forgiven and his sin atoned for on earth.

In describing the Last Judgment and eternal life in Heaven, Aelred again rejoices at his sister's innocence compared to his own previous lack of virtue. She will surely know the joys of Heaven and union with her Holy Spouse. 

It is a beautiful little book, filled with a spirit of faith, hope and love in Jesus, God's mercy, and the promises of Heaven. We don't know Aelred's sister's name or where she was an anchoress, but her request for him to write her a Rule has given us a wonderful letter, including what the editors rightfully call "one of the most moving [meditations on the life of Our Lord] ever written. . . . To remember the life of Christ is to be brought into His real and living presence as in liturgical prayer. . . . One can see how profoundly Aelred himself lived the gospel . . ." I am very thankful that she asked him to write to her. I plan to reread the chapters on Holy Thursday and the Passion (10, 11, and 12) during Holy Week.

More about the Mowbrays Fleur de Lys Series of spiritual classics--"A paper bound series intended to make available at popular prices some of the shorter devotional works which have come down from past ages of the Christian Church"-- here.