Preview: Saint John Henry Newman on the Paraclete

In this Eastertide/Ascensiontide season, we are celebrating many youthful, incipient, and transitional things: Weddings (none/few during Lent!), graduations, First Holy Communions, Confirmations, Ordinations, First Holy Masses, etc. And, the celebrations of the anniversaries of those events in the past. 

So when I looked at Saint John Henry Newman's section in his Meditations on Christian Doctrine for The Paraclete (XIV), I noted his thoughts about how the Holy Spirit guided him in his youth, in the fullness of his adult life, and in his daily life. So Matt Swaim or Anna Mitchell and I will discuss some of his insights on the Son Rise Morning Show on Monday, May 18:

From (1) The Paraclete, the Life of all Things:

3. O my dear Lord, how merciful Thou hast been to me. When I was young, Thou didst put into my heart a special devotion to Thee. Thou hast taken me up in my youth, and in my age Thou wilt not forsake me. Not for my merit, but from Thy free and bountiful love Thou didst put good resolutions into me when I was young, and didst turn me to Thee. Thou wilt never forsake me. I do earnestly trust so—never certainly without fearful provocation on my part. Yet I trust and pray, that Thou wilt keep me from that provocation. O keep me from the provocation of lukewarmness and sloth. O my dear Lord, lead me forward from strength to strength, gently, sweetly, tenderly, lovingly, powerfully, effectually, remembering my fretfulness and feebleness, till Thou bringest me into Thy heaven.

From (2) The Paraclete, the Life of the Church:

3. And then, in course of time, slowly but infallibly did Thy grace bring me on into Thy Church. Now then give me this further grace, Lord, to use all this grace well, and to turn it to my salvation. Teach me, make me, to come to the fountains of mercy continually with an awakened, eager mind, and with lively devotion. Give me a love of Thy Sacraments and Ordinances. Teach me to value as I ought, to prize as the inestimable pearl, that pardon which again and again Thou givest me, and the great and heavenly gift of the Presence of Him whose Spirit Thou art, upon the Altar. Without Thee I can do nothing, and Thou art there where Thy Church is and Thy Sacraments. Give me grace to rest in them for ever, till they are lost in the glory of Thy manifestation in the world to come.

From (3) The Paraclete, the Life of my Soul:

3. O my God, can I sin when Thou art so intimately with me? Can I forget who is with me, who {402} is in me? Can I expel a Divine Inhabitant by that which He abhors more than anything else, which is the one thing in the whole world which is offensive to Him, the only thing which is not His? Would not this be a kind of sin against the Holy Ghost? My God, I have a double security against sinning; first the dread of such a profanation of all Thou art to me in Thy very Presence; and next because I do trust that that Presence will preserve me from sin. My God, Thou wilt go from me, if I sin; and I shall be left to my own miserable self. God forbid! I will use what Thou hast given me; I will call on Thee when tried and tempted. I will guard against the sloth and carelessness into which I am continually falling. Through Thee I will never forsake Thee.

From (4) The Paraclete, the Fount of Love:

3. My most Holy Lord and Sanctifier, whatever there is of good in me is Thine. Without Thee, I {404} should but get worse and worse as years went on, and should tend to be a devil. If I differ at all from the world, it is because Thou hast chosen me out of the world, and hast lit up the love of God in my heart. If I differ from Thy Saints, it is because I do not ask earnestly enough for Thy grace, and for enough of it, and because I do not diligently improve what Thou hast given me. Increase in me this grace of love, in spite of all my unworthiness. It is more precious than anything else in the world. I accept it in place of all the world can give me. O give it to me! It is my life.

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful
and kindle in them the fire of your love.

Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created,
and you shall renew the face of the earth.

Let us pray.
O God, who have taught the hearts of the faithful
by the light of the Holy Spirit,
grant that in the same Spirit we may be truly wise
and ever rejoice in his consolation.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen. 

"Waugh is me!": Reading Evelyn Waugh on Dante Gabriel Rossetti

"By birth, Mrs [sic] Rossetti was half Italian and wholly pedagogic." (p. 10)*

"He learned some Latin and a little Greek." (p. 13)

". . . while [Benjamin] Hayden was dying of neglected vanity." (p. 19)

*when the family had financial troubles: "Maria Francesca reverted to the family trade of governess" (p. 55)

The OUP Complete Works of Evelyn Waugh describes Rossetti: His Life and Works thus:

This, Waugh's first published book [the second book was his first novel, Decline and Fall], marked the centenary of the birth of the painter and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882). Waugh was fascinated by the bohemian lives of the Pre-Raphaelite painters, and by his own family connection with them (William Holman Hunt had married, successively, two cousins of his grandfather). Rossetti is both compassionate towards its subject and critical of his self-destructive nature. The incisive analysis of Rossetti's painterly techniques contributed to the resurgence of public interest in Rossetti's art and poetry. The biography was also an early expression of Waugh's lifelong interest in narrative art, and laid the foundations for his own belief in the importance of the spiritual as well as the aesthetic vision of the artist. Although Rossetti was hastily compiled, it is nevertheless elegant and witty.

And how! 

I purchased and read the Penguin edition, which I wish had more and color plates of his artwork. While I found some of Waugh's wit distracting (like the examples above), he does analyze Rossetti's art, life, trials, poetry, character, achievement, and difficulties both judiciously and sympathetically. One of the more surprising comments Waugh often makes is that Rossetti did not really know how to paint: he had not acquired the proper techniques of preparing a canvas--when he and other Pre-Raphaelites worked on some frescoes for the Oxford Debating club for example, they did not begin with fresh lime plaster, and thus the works soon deteriorated. Rossetti used water color brushes for oil paint, Waugh tells us; he did not master the rules of perspective, etc.

Part of Waugh's effort in the book--the part that I didn't track that well with--is the analysis of how art criticism developed in the age of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Art criticism seems to have been so personal, addressing the character (indeed the morality) of the artist as the basis for praising or denigrating the work.

One of the saddest passages is when Rossetti, who had buried manuscripts of his early poems with his wife, Elizabeth Siddal, decided he wanted to review, revise, and publish them. He doesn't go to the grave; he waits for the papers to be delivered to him; then he must wait until the "poems had been dried and disinfected" and piece "together his work from among the stains and worm-holes of seven and a half years in the grave." (p. 205) (This reminded me of a line from Dominick Argento's opera The Aspern Papers when the Lodger is shocked that he might be thought capable of "desecrating a grave" to retrieve a lost opera by the composer.)

As for Waugh's analysis of Rossetti's art and poetry, I found it fascinating. There is one quibble I have with a comment about reading Rossetti's poetry: Waugh says it should be/must be read aloud (p. 210). I think all poetry must be read aloud, unless the author really didn't want us to hear the sounds of the words in our ears as we discerned the meaning and the music of her expression. (And then, has she really written a poem?)

One fun passage in chapter four, "The Good Years, 1862-1867", lists all the animals and bric-a-brac he collected in Tudor House. One of his obsessions was fine china. Fortunately, he had collected enough and it was valuable enough that when he desperately needed money (in chapter six, 'The Fleshly School') it could be sold for £650.00! (£650.00 in 1872 is worth £98,250.98 in 2025 with a "Purchasing Power Decrease: 99.34%"!)

Rossetti's life story is, like all of ours, a mixture of good and bad, but one of aspects Waugh constantly highlights is that he had a circle of friends who helped him over and over again as he suffered depression, ill health, mourning his wife, etc--in spite of how often, over and over again he subverted their attempts to help him or demonstrated a lack of gratitude. But they came back to help him anyway, knowing that illness, and addiction (to a prescribed medication, Chloral) and his absolute need moved them to great sacrifice and difficulty. He recovered from several crises, but entered his last illness on Good Friday, April 7 and died on Easter Sunday, April 9, 1882.

One musical note: Dante Gabriel Rossetti wrote "The Blessed Damozel", which Claude Debussy, among other composers, set to music ("La damoiselle élue") and submitted to the Académie des beaux-arts as an entry for the Prix de Rome in 1892. And of course, Rossetti depicted the blessed Damozel, leaning out "From the gold bar of Heaven" with "three lilies in her hand," and seven stars in her hair.

An entertaining and enlightening read.

Image credit (Public Domain): An illustration of Rossetti's poem

Preview: Saint John Henry's Meditation on the Ascension of Our Lord

On Monday, May 11, we'll look at some excerpts from Saint John Henry Newman's "Meditations on Christian Doctrine" on the Son Rise Morning Show. There are several sections in which Newman comments on the blessings the Apostles and disciples received during the "Forty Days Teaching" with the constant theme that even as they rejoice in His Presence, they don't understand why He is going to leave them--and why it's better for them if He does! From "Our Lord's Parting with His Apostles":

So blessed was the time, so calm, so undisturbed from without, that it was good to be there with Thee, and when it was over, they could hardly believe that it was more than begun. How quickly must that first {383} Tempus Paschale have flown! and they perhaps hardly knew when it was to end. At least, they did not like to anticipate its ending, but were engrossed with the joy of the present moment. O what a time of consolation! What a contrast to what had lately taken place! It was their happy time on earth—the foretaste of heaven; not noticed, not interfered with, by man. They passed it in wonder, in musing, in adoration, rejoicing in Thy light, O my risen God!

No surprise, of course:

2. But Thou, O my dear Lord, didst know better than they! They hoped and desired, perhaps fancied, that that resting time, that refrigerium, never would end till it was superseded by something better; but Thou didst know, in Thy eternal wisdom, that, in order to arrive at what was higher than any blessing which they were then enjoying, it was fitting, it was necessary, that they should sustain conflict and suffering.

But then, Newman turns to why "God's Ways Are Not Our Ways" as Jesus tells the disciples it is better for them that He leaves them now so the Paraclete can come--and consoles them with the promise that He will be their Advocate in Heaven (note the use of the word "fitting"):

2. But Thou, O my dear Lord, didst know better than they! They hoped and desired, perhaps fancied, that that resting time, that refrigerium, never would end till it was superseded by something better; but Thou didst know, in Thy eternal wisdom, that, in order to arrive at what was higher than any blessing which they were then enjoying, it was fitting, it was necessary, that they should sustain conflict and suffering. Thou knewest well, that unless Thou hadst departed, the Paraclete could not have come to them; and therefore Thou didst go, that they might gain more by Thy sorrowful absence than by Thy sensible visitations. I adore Thee, O Father, for sending the Son and the Holy Ghost! I adore Thee, O Son, and Thee, O Holy Ghost, for vouchsafing to be sent to us!

As for Newman's celebration of Our Lord's Ascension, he rejoices (as some will on Thursday, May 14 and others on Sunday, May 17, depending on the local liturgical calendar): 

1. MY Lord is gone up into heaven. I adore Thee, Son of Mary, Jesu Emmanuel, my God and my Saviour. I am allowed to adore Thee, my Saviour and my own Brother, for Thou art God. I follow Thee in my thoughts, O Thou First fruits of our race, as I hope one day by Thy grace to follow Thee in my person. To go to heaven is to go to God. God is there and God alone: for perfect bliss is there and nothing else, and none can be blessed who is not bathed and hidden and absorbed in the glory of the Divine Nature. . . .

. . . My Lord Jesu, I confess and know that Thou only art the True, the Beautiful, and the Good. Thou alone canst make me bright and glorious, and canst lead me up after Thee. Thou art the way, the truth, and the life, and none but Thou. Earth will never lead me to heaven. Thou alone art the Way; Thou alone. . . .

Newman concludes with a meditation of what this means for his own life:

3. My God, shall I for one moment doubt where my path lies? Shall I not at once take Thee for my {391} portion? To whom should I go? Thou hast the words of Eternal Life. Thou camest down for the very purpose of doing that which no one here below could do for me. None but He who is in heaven can bring me to heaven. What strength have I to scale the high mountain? Though I served the world ever so well, though I did my duty in it (as men speak), what could the world do for me, however hard it tried? Though I filled my station well, did good to my fellows, had a fair name or a wide reputation, though I did great deeds and was celebrated, though I had the praise of history, how would all this bring me to heaven? I choose Thee then for my One Portion, because Thou livest and diest not. I cast away all idols. I give myself to Thee. I pray Thee to teach me, guide me, enable me, and receive me to Thee.

I have an old prayer card with this saying from Saint John Henry Newman:

    Teach me Dear Lord, frequently and attentively to consider this truth: 

        That if I gain the whole world and lose Thee, in the end I have lost everything:

            Whereas if I lose the world and gain Thee, in the end I have lost nothing.

Amen.

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us! 

Learning Something New Every Single Day!

Earlier this week, recovering from an allergic reaction with a rash and swelling all over my face--two trips to the Immediate Care and ER; pills and potions, etc, etc.--I found out that Igor Stravinsky composed a Catholic Mass between 1944 and 1948. According to some quotations in a Wikipedia article:

"My Mass was partly provoked by some Masses of Mozart that I found at a secondhand store in Los Angeles in 1942 or 1943. As I played through these rococo-operatic sweets-of-sin, I knew I had to write a Mass of my own, but a real one."
— Igor Stravinsky to Robert Craft[1]

And although he was a Russian Orthodox Christian, he had to write a Catholic Mass if he wanted to have orchestral accompaniment, so:

I wanted my Mass to be used liturgically, an outright impossibility as far as the Russian Church was concerned, as Orthodox tradition proscribes musical instruments in its services- and as I can endure unaccompanied singing in only the most harmonically primitive music.[4]

I don't appreciate his comments about Mozart's Masses ("these rococo-operatic sweets-of-sin"!), but I appreciated his setting of the Mass, especially the Credo.

One composes a march to facilitate marching men, so with my Credo I hope to provide an aid to the text. The Credo is the longest movement. There is much to believe.[4]

You may find several performances on YouTube and on CD (perhaps available used?)

Stravinsky's comment about Mozart's "rococo-operatic" Masses reminded me of Kenneth Clark's description in Civilisation of how listening to the G minor Quintet changed his mind about that characterization of him:

And yet to pronounce the name of Mozart in the Amahenburg is dangerous . It gives colour -- very pretty colour -- to the notion that Mozart was merely a Rococo composer. Fifty years ago this was what most people thought about him, and the notion was supported by horrible little plaster busts which made him look the perfect eighteenth-century dummy. I bought one of these busts when I was at school, but when I first heard the G minor Quintet I realised that it couldn't have been written by the smooth, white character on my mantelpiece and threw the bust into the wastepaper basket. I afterwards discovered the Lange portrait [169] which, although no masterpiece, does convey the single-mindedness of genius. Of course a lot of Mozart's music is in the current eighteenth-century style. He was so much at home in this golden age of music, and so completely the master of its forms, that he didn't feel it necessary to destroy them. Indeed he loved the clarity and the precision that had been brought to perfection in the music of his time. I like the story of Mozart sitting at table absentmindedly folding and refolding his napkin into more and more elaborate patterns, as fresh musical ideas passed through his mind. But this formal perfection was used to express two characteristics which were very far from the Rococo style. One of them was that peculiar kind of melancholy, a melancholy amounting almost to panic, which so often haunts the isolation of genius. Mozart felt it quite young. The other characteristic was almost the opposite: a passionate interest in human beings, and in the drama of human relationships. How often in Mozart's orchestral pieces - concertos or quartets - we find our- selves participating in a drama or dialogue; and of course this feeling reaches its natural conclusion in opera.

I love to listen to Mozart's operas! Le Nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, Idomeneo, La Clemenza di Tito, Cosi fan Tutte, and Die Zauberflöte! Especially Le Nozze di Figaro!! 

And I enjoy listening to lots of Mozart's music in general, as often demonstrated on this blog. 

Finally, I'm not sure how settings of the Catholic Mass--especially by a composer like Mozart--could ever be considered "sweets-of-sin"!

Nevertheless, I recommend you listen to Stravinsky's Catholic Mass!

Image Credit (Public Domain) Photoportrait of Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. Taken by George Grantham Bain's news picture agency.

Image Credit (Public Domain): Act 1: Cherubino hides behind Susanna's chair as the count arrives.

Preview: St. John Henry Newman and "The Forty Days' Teaching" on the Son Rise Morning Show

On Monday, May 4, we'll start a new series on the Son Rise Morning Show, looking at some Eastertide meditations by Saint John Henry Newman. I'll be on at my usual time a little after 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central.

As a Catholic priest, Newman was the founder of the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri in England and the founder of the Birmingham Oratory school for boys. He taught the boys, kept the parents informed, and planned to write a devotional for the school, according to Father William Neville. Some of the work Newman had completed for that work was gathered into a posthumous collection called Meditations and Devotions.

One of the sections of that work is titled "Meditations on Christian Doctrine" which begins with a short visit to the Blessed Sacrament before meditation:

I place myself in the presence of Him, in whose Incarnate Presence I am before I place myself there.

I adore Thee, O my Saviour, present here as God and man, in soul and body, in true flesh and blood.

I acknowledge and confess that I kneel before that Sacred Humanity, which was conceived in Mary's womb, and lay in Mary's bosom; which grew up to man's estate, and by the Sea of Galilee called the Twelve, wrought miracles, and spoke words of wisdom and peace; which in due season hung on the cross, lay in the tomb, rose from the dead, and now reigns in heaven.

I praise, and bless, and give myself wholly to Him, who is the true Bread of my soul, and my everlasting joy.

Among those meditations, Saint John Henry reflects on "The Forty Days Teaching" (between the Resurrection and the Ascension), starting with "The Kingdom of God":

1. MY Lord Jesus, how wonderful were those conversations which Thou didst hold from time to time with Thy disciples after Thy resurrection. When Thou wentest with two of them to Emmaus, Thou didst explain all the prophecies which related to Thyself. And Thou didst commit to the Apostles the Sacraments in fulness, and the truths which it was Thy will to reveal, and the principles and maxims by which Thy Church was to be maintained and governed. And thus Thou didst prepare them against the day of Pentecost (as the risen bodies were put into shape for the Spirit in the Prophet's Vision), when life and illumination was to be infused into them. 

If you are used to reading Newman's Anglican Parochial and Plain Sermons and his more controversial, theological, or philosophical works, these meditations can be surprising. The direct address to Our Lord; the use of Thy and Thou; the archaic usage of "wentest", "didst" and "dost" are all different to (or from) his more discursive, exploratory writing, where he takes an idea apart and puts it back together. 

Here he's summarizing the appearances of Jesus to the Apostles and the disciples and how He prepared them for their mission after His Ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit. Several of the Gospel passages we've heard read at Mass since Easter are wrapped up in that brief sketch--and Newman expects the reader to know them.

Then he moves swiftly to applying these truths to meditation and action and what they should mean to him (and his readers), especially as they apply to the Catholic Church:

I will think over all Thou didst say to them with a true and simple faith. The "kingdom of God" was Thy sacred subject. Let me never for an instant forget that Thou hast established on earth a kingdom of Thy own, that the Church is Thy work, Thy establishment, Thy instrument; that we are under Thy rule, Thy laws and Thy eye—that when the {379} Church speaks Thou dost speak. Let not familiarity with this wonderful truth lead me to be insensible to it—let not the weakness of Thy human representatives lead me to forget that it is Thou who dost speak and act through them. . . .

Newman makes the connection between his meditation on these truths and his adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, in the Presence of His Savior, with intense contemplation:

It was just when Thou wast going away, that then Thou didst leave this kingdom of Thine to take Thy place on to the end of the world, to speak for Thee, as Thy visible form, when Thy Personal Presence, sensible to man, was departing. I will in true loving faith bring Thee before me, teaching all the truths and laws of this kingdom to Thy Apostles, and I will adore Thee, while in my thoughts I gaze upon Thee and listen to Thy words.

He goes on in another section of this meditation to emphasize how much he needs Jesus to teach him these truths, "to give me that true Divine instinct about revealed matters that, knowing one part, I may be able to anticipate or to approve of others. I need that understanding of the truths about Thyself which may prepare me for all Thy other truths . . ." so that he can avoid error or even "an originality {380} of thought, which is not true if it leads away from Thee."

Finally, Newman asks for the development of a good conscience and the virtues of wisdom and discernment:

3. And, for that end, give me, O my Lord, that purity of conscience which alone can receive, which alone can improve** Thy inspirations. My ears are dull, so that I cannot hear Thy voice. My eyes are dim, so that I cannot see Thy tokens. Thou alone canst quicken my hearing, and purge my sight, and cleanse and renew my heart. Teach me, like Mary, to sit at Thy feet, and to hear Thy word. Give me that true wisdom, which seeks Thy will by prayer and meditation, by direct intercourse with Thee, more than by reading and reasoning. Give me the discernment to know Thy voice from the voice of strangers, and to rest upon it and to seek it in the first place, as something external to myself; and answer me through my own mind, if I worship and rely on Thee as above and beyond it.

**I think that Newman is using the archaic meaning of improve as to "use" or "employ", as in "to use to good purpose".

It's rather startling to see a great intellectual demonstrate his submission to realities external to himself in these terms--but I think it's what Saint John Henry tried to convey to his congregations in Oxford and Birmingham throughout his ministry, and why he is so obviously relevant to us today.

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Holy Catholic Martyrs of England and Wales, pray for us!

Preview: "Christ Our Friend Vindicated" and Us

Last we ended our discussion of Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson's The Friendship of Christ on the Son Rise Morning Show, Anna Mitchell and I commented:

After this imaginative narration of Saint Mary Magdalene's encounters with Our Friend Jesus, Benson applies these lessons to us--but that will have to wait for another discussion on Monday, April 20!

I don't think you'll be surprised at how Benson applies the lessons Saint Mary Magdalene learned to us, because they echo the examples he offered before: Our Friend Christ in the Eucharist, in the Church, in the priest, in Our Lady and the Saints, etc. In each lesson he outlines how Christ is Present to us after His Resurrection and Ascension:

First, then, He lives in the Sacrament of His Love -- as our Friend, our Sacrifice and our Food -- and all three for friendship's sake.

Then, in another mode He lives in His Church on earth; in such a sense that the soul that hears Her hears Him, and the soul that despises Her despises Him; since she is His Body of which He is the Soul; since she has "the Mind of Christ," speaks (as He did) as "one having authority," and does "greater works" than did He "because He is gone to His Father" and therefore can live in her. It is to the lips of her Head, then, that His Friends listen, for this human Head is He to whom the Good Shepherd committed the pastorate of His Flock, to whom the "Door" entrusted "the keys"; whom the "One Foundation" named "the Rock."

Then, in yet another mode He lives in His Saints and supremely in His Blessed Mother. It is to these chosen Friends of God that we go to learn what is Friendship; to His Mother that we go to learn about her Son; to the Queen of Heaven, to learn the dispositions of the King.

And he lives, too, in His own dear sinners; in those who from their darkness teach us what light must be in those who, Crying in the wilderness in sin, make us keen-sighted in our despair on their behalf to seek the Shepherd who comes to seek them.

His conclusion is that we will find Christ everywhere we look if we look for Him, even in our unfaithfulness, our troubles, and our joys:

So, little by little as we go through life, following with a hundred infidelities and a thousand blunders, with open defiances and secret sins, yet following, as Peter followed through the glare of the High Priest's fire to the gloom of penitence where Christ's Eyes could shine -- as we go, blinded by our own sorrow, to the ecstasy of His Joy, thinking to find Him dead, hoping to live on a memory, instead of confident that He is living and looking to the "to-day" in which He is even more than yesterday -- little by little we find that there is no garden where He does not walk, no doors that can shut Him out, no country road where our hearts cannot burn in His company.

And, as we find Him ever more and more without us, in the eyes of those we love, in the Voice that rebukes us, the spear that pierces us, the friends that betray us, and the grave that waits for us: as we find Him in His Sacraments, in His Saints -- in all those august things which He Himself designed as trysting-places with Himself; at once we find Him more and more within us, enwound in every fibre of our lives, fragrant in every dear association and memory, deep buried in the depths of that heart of ours that seems most wholly neglectful of Him.

So, then, He asserts His dominion from strength to strength; claiming one by one those powers that we had thought to be most our own. To our knowledge He is the Most Perfect; to our imagination He is. our dream; to our hopes their Reward.

Until at last, following His grace towards glory, we pass to be utterly His. No thought is ours unsanctioned by the Divine Wisdom; no love is ours save that of the Sacred Heart; no will save His. "To me . . . then, "to live is Christ; and to die is gain."{3} For "I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me."{4}

My Friend is mine at last. And I am His. . . .

Christ is Risen: He is Risen Indeed!

Preview: Benson on "Our Friend Vindicated" and Saint Mary Magdalene

As we pick up our series on Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson's The Friendship of Christ on the Son Rise Morning Show during the Easter Season, we'll explore how Benson explores the Resurrection encounter of Saint Mary Magdalene and Our Savior, Our Friend Vindicated.

Benson begins with a brief consideration of what this vindication meant to Saint Mary Magdalene--whom he considers as being the woman who washed Christ's feet at the Pharisee's banquet in Luke 7:36-50 and the woman who stood at the foot of the Cross with Our Lady and Saint John--she is the special friend reunited with her Absolver, King, and Friend:

Our affair to-day is not with the putting of Christ's enemies under His feet, but with the restoring of Christ to His friends' arms; with the vindication of Christ as our Divine Friend in whom we trusted and have not been disappointed; not with His final forcible manifestation to the world. . . .

Let us watch that process, then, through the eyes of the humblest of His friends -- one who was far from possessing the serene clear-sightedness of Mary His mother, or the desperately quiet confidence of the disciple whom He loved -- but one who at least had to her credit, in spite of her sins against the Interior Voice and even against the decency of the world, that she "loved much," and "did what she could" -- two simple virtues to which even the lowest of His lovers can aspire.

So, first, Benson relates the story of the penitent public sinner, doing more than the host to welcome Jesus:

A silence falls as, unconscious of all except herself and Him, she droops her head so low that the tears drip on to His feet; and as, shocked at her own defilement of those sacred feet, she first wipes them frantically with her long hair, and then, as if to compensate for the touch of her tears, wrenches open the pot of perfume and dashes out the nard -- the world's whispering begins, up there in the places of honour.

Jesus lifts His Head; and then, in a sentence or two, all is done.

"Thou seest this woman . . . She at least has done what thou, my host, didst leave undone . . . She loved much. She loved much . . . And therefore her sins are forgiven. Go, my daughter, and my friend. Sin no more."

Then, Benson envisions her going to see Jesus on the way to Calvary and at the Cross:

Then she has followed Him again, through the streets, out through the gate, and up the little steep ascent. And, at last, when all is done, and He hangs there, stripped and shamed and tormented, and the soldiers have broken the line and fallen out into the crowd, she has pushed her way through, fought even to the foot of the quivering tree, and once more has "done what she could" . . . Once more she has washed those feet with her tears; and there, running down together on to the ground, there has flowed a sweeter stream than any that waters Paradise -- the tears of the pardoned sinner and the Blood of the Saviour. . . .

Surely at last that Power will vindicate itself, even at the eleventh hour; and the nails will burst into gems and the cross into flower, and He, her Friend, radiant again, will come down from His throne to receive a world's adoration! Is it possible that she herself, standing there, looking to Mary and John for encouragement, and then back again at Himself, whispered in her agony, "Since Thou art the Christ, save Thyself -- and me?"

. . . "And Jesus cried with a loud voice and gave up the ghost. . . ."

At last, describes her encounter with the Angels and the Risen Christ, her Friend:

As she throws herself forward, speechless with love and desire, to grasp His Feet -- to assure herself even by touch that it is these same feet indeed which she kissed in the Pharisee's house, and on the Cross of Calvary -- that it is Himself, and no phantom -- He moves back from her.

"Do not touch me, for I am not yet ascended to my Father. Do not touch me." . . . That Friendship is not what it used to be: it is infinitely higher. It is not what it used to be, since the limitations of that Sacred Humanity are gone -- those limitations by which It was here and not there; by which It could suffer and grow weary and hunger and weep -- limitations that endeared It to Its lovers, since they could indeed minister to It, comfort It, and hold It up. And Its expansion in Glory is not yet consummated -- "I am not yet ascended to my Father" -- that expansion of the Ascension and the Nine Days' Journey through the Heavenly Hierarchy, from the position "a little lower than the angels" to the Session and Coronation at the right Hand of the Majesty on high -- that expansion of which the Descent of the Holy Ghost is the expression, and the Sacramental Presence of that same Humanity on a hundred altars the result.

After this imaginative narration of Saint Mary Magdalene's encounters with Our Friend Jesus, Benson applies these lessons to us--but that will have to wait for another discussion on Monday, April 20!

Saint Mary Magdalene, pray for us!

Christ Is Risen; He is Risen Indeed! West and East Rejoice!

Image Sources (Public Domain): Christ's Appearance to Mary Magdalene after the Resurrection (1835) by Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov; Jules Joseph Lefebvre - El Dolor de María Magdalena; Giotto di Bondone - Scenes from the Life of Mary Magdalene - Noli me tangere

Good Friday: Joseph Haydn's "Seven Last Words of Christ"

As readers know, the hosts of the Son Rise Morning Show and I have been going through Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson's meditations on the Seven Last Words of Christ from his The Friendship of Christ. (On Easter Monday, the Son Rise Morning Show will air a "best of" episode, but we will continue our series on Benson with his meditations on "Christ Our Friend Vindicated" on Monday, April 13).

At the same time as I've been reading Benson's meditations on the Seven Last Words of Christ, I've also been listening to Franz Joseph Haydn's "Die sieben letzten Worte unseres Erlösers am Kreuze." As Haydn explained in 1801, he wrote it for a Lenten service of meditation on those Words :

Some fifteen years ago I was requested by a canon of Cádiz to compose instrumental music on the Seven Last Words of Our Savior On the Cross. It was customary at the Cathedral of Cádiz to produce an oratorio every year during Lent, the effect of the performance being not a little enhanced by the following circumstances. The walls, windows, and pillars of the church were hung with black cloth, and only one large lamp hanging from the center of the roof broke the solemn darkness. At midday, the doors were closed and the ceremony began. After a short service the bishop ascended the pulpit, pronounced the first of the seven words (or sentences) and delivered a discourse thereon. This ended, he left the pulpit and fell to his knees before the altar. The interval was filled by music. The bishop then in like manner pronounced the second word, then the third, and so on, the orchestra following on the conclusion of each discourse. My composition was subject to these conditions, and it was no easy task to compose seven adagios lasting ten minutes each, and to succeed one another without fatiguing the listeners; indeed, I found it quite impossible to confine myself to the appointed limits.[2]

So in 1786, Haydn had composed the orchestral version; in 1787, a version for string quartet and another for piano; then in 1796, a choral version with meditations--inspired by hearing someone else's adaptation of his work with meditations (no copyright disputes!--but Haydn thought he could improve upon it). So there's an extensive Hoboken catalog of works.

I have been listening to a choral version and a string quartet version. The string quartet version is by the Juilliard String Quartet, at that time comprised of Robert Mann and Joel Smirnoff, violin; Samuel Rhodes, viola, and Thomas Paul, bass. The soloists are Benita Valente (great Handel and Mozart soprano in her day), Jan DeGaetani (mezzo soprano renowned for premiering many contemporary works, and for medieval/renaissance works!), John Humphrey, Tenor, and Thomas Paul, Bass; Warren Jones was the Musical Advisor.

From what I read in the CD booklet, this is yet another version of Haydn's composition:

The Seven Last Words has long been a favorite of the Juilliard Quartet. Aware that all the reworkings had not disturbed the length and tenor of the original version, they gathered four famous vocal soloists and a prominent music advisor, and worked out among themselves a version for string quarter and vocal quartet that incorporates the strings quartet version in toto, plus as much of the oratorio version as would include its text and emotional impact.

The other version I've been listening to was recommended on The Ultimate Classical Music Guide by Dave Hurwitz YouTube channel, conducted by Nicholas Harnoncourt with the Concentus musicus Wien, Arnold Schoenberg Choir with Inga Nielsen, soprano, Margareta Hintermeier, alto, Anthony-Rolfe-Johnson, tenor, and Robert Hall, bass.

These are, of course, solemn and moving works. And because the meditations are in German, one has to pay attention to the CD playing (or at least this one does!). I can't be reading anything but the texts while listening to the CDs. I found the Juilliard's string quartet version more vibrant and moving--even in the concluding "Terremoto".

Haydn was born on March 31, 1732 and he died on May 31, 1809.

Preview: The Seventh Last Word: "Father, Into Your Hands . . ."

On the Monday of Holy Week, March 30, we'll consider Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson's meditation on the Seventh Last Word on the Cross, "Father, into Your hands I commend my Spirit" (Luke 23:46) on the Son Rise Morning Show.

Monsignor Benson highlights the first rest the Incarnate Son of God had experienced, especially since He began the public ministry:

Our Lord has just cried aloud that Sixth Word in which He proclaimed that there was finished at last that "Father's business" of which He had first spoken in the Temple. Now He droops His Head again little by little upon His Breast, and in the words that he had learned at Mary's knee -- words in which every Jewish child committed the care of his soul into God's care through the coming night -- He commits His spirit into His Father's hands. For the evening is drawing on and the Sabbath is near in which once more, God, having seen all that He has done, pronounces it "Very good" and rests from His labours.

I. The thought of this Peace of Death into which our Divine Friend is passing is one of the most moving considerations of the Passion. He has been about His work for thirty-three years; and not for one instant, since He first drew mortal breath in the frosty stable of Bethlehem, has He ever yet truly rested. Even while He slept His Heart waked.

How many times do we read in the Gospels how Jesus responded to the needs of His people, even when trying to get some rest, some time to go away from the crowds with the disciples, or have some time for prayer?!

How utterly then has He earned His Rest! And at last He is to find it. The Soul through which such strong agonies have passed, is to sink into that peaceful place of refreshment and light where the souls that have served God according to their graces are awaiting that First Advent of their Redeemer. The Body that has borne so great a burden and heat of the day, that has been wearied with labours, and bowed down by sorrows -- and, at last, has been beaten, pierced and broken by the hands of those for whom such labours were borne -- this Body of His is to be laid in the cool rock-tomb, with wrappings of soft linen, soaked in spices and myrrh, to await once more the inbreathing of the Divine Energy which again shall pass through every vein, sinew and muscle, transforming each utterly back again to the unmarred Divine Image, in which, once again, now no longer subject to any law of limitation or weariness and waste, the Soul that can never sorrow again, shall eternally rejoice. Our Friend sleeps at last.

Monsignor Benson applies this sleep of peace to our mortality:

It is this for which we look at death -- the one hope that reassures and reconciles us to that violent cessation of activities which is to an energetic and vital soul the chief imaginative horror of death. It is even sometimes (so great is its attraction) -- we might almost say that it must be -- for every soul that is really taking part in the conflict of life, the chief attraction of death. For life must become from time to time an all but intolerable strain -- not only is there that weariness of body which arises from its incapacity to rise always to the demands of the soul; but there is that further weariness of soul arising from its effort to respond always as it ought, to the excitations and demands of grace. . . .

In the midst of our struggles, Benson urges us to find peace, "the Peace of God that passes all understanding" (Philippians 4:7) in the only place it can be found:

And it must come from one thing and one thing only, namely, a perfect balance in the environment for which our souls were made -- not as of a bird sleeping on the water, but of a bird poised in the air -- a perfect response, that is to say, on the part of our loving and lovable nature to the one adorable Nature which alone can support and can understand us -- in a word, that Peace can alone be found in that of which we have been treating throughout, in an intimate, intelligent, affectionate and voluntary Friendship with Christ, who made us for Himself, and designed His own Incarnation that the union might be complete.

That's why in the midst of our solemn celebrations of Holy Week, as we participate in those liturgies, we can't be morbid or bleak. 

Death is no longer frightful; and Life is no longer burdensome.

Image Credit (Public Domain): Michelangelo's Pieta: The venerated image with its original canonical crown from 14 August 1637 by the Pontifical decree of Pope Urban VIII. Photo circa, 24 May 1888.

Another Chevrot: The Woman at the Well: "The Well of Life"

Scepter Publishers, which also published/sells my book Supremacy and Survival, publishes several works by Monsignor Georges Chevrot (1879-1958). He was pastor of Saint Francis Xavier from 1930 to 1958 (priests have long tenures there!) and preached during Lent at Notre Dame de Paris in 1938, 1939, and 1940 and received the Medaille de la Resistance Francaise for his efforts during German occupation of Paris during World War II. 

I've now purchased/read three of his works: The Beatitudes: How God Saves Us, The Easter Impact: How the Resurrection Restores and Strengthens Our Faith, and The Well of Life.

I recommended The Beatitudes for the Son Rise Morning Show's Summer reading lists in June last year, and mentioned The Easter Impact earlier this month!

In The Well of Life, Monsignor Chevrot goes through the story of the woman at well of Sychar verse by verse, offering commentary on the dialogue between Our Lord and Saint Photina. As Scepter describes it:

This book leads the reader to understand in a deeper way the meaning of the unusual encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at Jacobs’ well. It starts in a casual conversation between a thirsty traveler and a woman engaged in the ordinary work of drawing water from the town well. From her questions about the “living water” that the Lord tries to explain, her soul’s blind and ignorant condition is only penetrated by Jesus’ straightforward questioning about her married life. In her sincerity she freely admits the truth. In short order she enthusiastically reaches out to her entire village, bringing them rushing to the feet of Christ and to their conversion to his message of universal salvation.

Chevrot adds further commentary and details which show that something extraordinarily new is taking place. Sinful but repentant people, not only the faithful and justified, are now also entrusted with spreading the new kingdom of Christ. In other words, everyone is called to holiness. Salvation is not only for the just, but also for the world’s low lifes. The book’s 24 chapters tackle prejudice, of what use is religion, not being scandalized, confession of sins, Christian obedience, optimism, witnessing in ordinary circumstances to Christ, and the experience of faith and how it changes peoples and societies.

Originally translated from French and published in English by Scepter in the 1950s. This book is newly edited and released again after an absence of 60 years.

Table of Contents, including chapters, subheads, and quotations:

Introduction

1. Tired (John 4:6)

    A School of Humility

2. Providential Meetings (John 4:7)

    Freeing Ourselves from Evil

3. The First Steps (John 4:7)

    Penetrating Souls

4. Prejudice (4:9)

5. The Gift of God (4:10)

6. Who It Is (4:10):

    In Jesus Christ, the two natures form a single person in such a unity that the solder which joins them cannot be seen. Jesus is fully God and also fully man. He teaches us both the human knowledge of God, and the divine knowledge of man, in showing man as God conceives him and wishes him to be. Christ is our brother without sin, you will object. Yes, without sin, because it is not essential to sin in order to be a man. . . . As man, he can reveal to us what we are, not because he was a good and just man whom the admiration of his fellows later defined but because he is God made man. . . .

    How consoling it is to consider our humanity through him!

(cf. Pope St. Leo the Great on the Incarnation)

    The Duty of the Normal Man

    Knowing Our True Selves

7. Our Need for God (4:11-14)

8. What Good is Religion? (4:15)

    Source of Progress

    Cooperation with God's Gifts

9. The Knowledge of Sin (4:16-19)

     Advancing Toward Sanctity

10. The New Worship (4:20-22)

    Photina points to Mount Gerizim on which the temple of Manassas had been built. Even after the Jewish high priest John Hyrcanus had destroyed it, the Samaritans had continued to come to this place to offer ritual sacrifice.

11. Unity in Truth (4:22)

    No compromise

12. Adoration in Spirit and in Truth (4:23-24)

13. The Messiah's Work (4:25-26)

    Apostolate is Not Optional

14. Do Not Be Shocked (4:27)

15. God's Pardon (4:28-30)

16. Confession of Our Sins (4:29)

    Confession . . . satisfies man's nature and God's rights at the same time. . . . This is why Jesus brought the forgiveness of heaven to earth and left it there.  

    Proof of Regret

    Perfection is a drawn-out business.    
17. Our Reason for Living (4:31-34)

    Principle of Unity

18. Christian Obedience (4:34)

    A Higher Plane

19. Christian Optimism (4:35)

    Apostles in the World

20. Sowers and Reapers (4:36-38)

    God Chooses Us to Help Him

21. Witnesses to Christ (4:39)

    The unexpected conversion of the village of Sichar made an unforgettable impression on the disciples.

22. Prayer and Faith (4:40-41)

23. Experience of the Faith (4:42)

    Personal Influence of Jesus

24. The Savior of the World (4:42)

    Interior Reform

    Personal Sin

Epilogue: The Supreme Testimony

    (the martyrdom of St. Photina and her sons Joseph and Victor celebrated on March 20)

    

I finished the book on March 20! I recommend The Well of Life highly: it offers scriptural exegesis, doctrinal instruction, and spiritual counsel.