Preview: John Keble on Saint John the Baptist

Monday, June 22 is the feast of Saints John Fisher and Thomas More (and Saint Paulinus; both are optional memorials in the USA; the Anglican Ordinariate celebrates Fisher and More with a Liturgical Feast). It's no surprise that the Anglican minister John Keble DID NOT write a poem celebrating them, but he did write a poem about another great martyr, Saint John the Baptist. The Feast of the Nativity of the Saint John the Baptist is celebrated on June 24, so we'll discuss this poem on the Son Rise Morning Show on Monday, June 22.

As I noted six years ago on the National Catholic Register blog, Henry VIII had two decisions to make: first, would he commute the death sentence to the less brutal beheading, instead of what had been pronounced after he'd been found guilty of treason?:

John Cardinal Fisher, the former Bishop of Rochester — Henry VIII had stripped him of that title — was sentenced to death on June 17, 1535. The sentence pronounced against him brought a flush of color to his sunken cheeks, eyewitnesses remarked. As a traitor, he would be drawn to the place of execution on a hurdle, hanged, cut down still alive and then endure vivisection. Finally his head would be cut off and his body would be divided into four parts: Henry VIII would decide where his head and his quarters would be displayed. In other words, he would be hanged, drawn, and quartered.

Henry VIII did commute that sentence: the Cardinal Bishop would merely suffer beheading.

The second decision: when to carry out the sentence?:

Henry VIII faced a dilemma with the selection of Fisher’s execution date as the great feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist was approaching on June 24; the Vigil of his Feast was celebrated solemnly too. Since Bishop Fisher had once cited St. John the Baptist as his model in the defense of marriage, beheading him on that that day wouldn’t do.

So Saint John Fisher was beheaded on June 22, the feast of the first English martyr, St. Alban.

In this poem, John Keble focuses on the link between Elijah the Prophet and Saint John the Baptist and the Church's constant need for prophets to proclaim the truth, inspired by verses from the Book of the Prophet Malachi:

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers. Malachi iv. 5, 6.

As the Angel told Zechariah in the Temple, his son John would "convert many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias; that he may turn the hearts of the fathers unto the children, and the incredulous to the wisdom of the just, to prepare unto the Lord a perfect people." (Luke 1:16-17) Then Zechariah repeated that promise in the "Benedictus": "And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways: To give knowledge of salvation to his people, unto the remission of their sins . . ." (Luke 1:76-77) 

That's what Keble is praying for in this poem for "Saint John Baptist's Day" as he weaves together the stories of St. Elijah and St. John, appealing to pastors in the Church through these nine stanzas:

Twice in her season of decay
The fallen Church hath felt Elijah’s eye
Dart from the wild its piercing ray:
Not keener burns, in the chill morning sky,
The herald star,
Whose torch afar
Shadows and boding night-birds fly.

Methinks we need him once again,
That favoured seer—but where shall he be found?
By Cherith’s side we seek in vain,
In vain on Carmel’s green and lonely mound:
Angels no more
From Sinai soar,
On his celestial errands bound.

But wafted to her glorious place
By harmless fire, among the ethereal thrones,
His spirit with a dear embrace
Thee the loved harbinger of Jesus owns,
Well-pleased to view
Her likeness true,
And trace, in thine, her own deep tones.

Deathless himself, he joys with thee
To commune how a faithful martyr dies,
And in the blest could envy be,
He would behold thy wounds with envious eyes,
Star of our morn,
Who yet unborn
Didst guide our hope, where Christ should rise.

Now resting from your jealous care
For sinners, such as Eden cannot know,
Ye pour for us your mingled prayer,
No anxious fear to damp Affection’s glow,
Love draws a cloud
From you to shroud
Rebellion’s mystery here below.

And since we see, and not afar,
The twilight of the great and dreadful day,
Why linger, till Elijah’s car
Stoop from the clouds? Why sleep ye? Rise and pray,
Ye heralds sealed
In camp or field
Your Saviour’s banner to display.

Where is the lore the Baptist taught,
The soul unswerving and the fearless tongue?
The much-enduring wisdom, sought
By lonely prayer the haunted rocks among?
Who counts it gain
His light should wane,
So the whole world to Jesus throng?

Thou Spirit, who the Church didst lend
Her eagle wings, to shelter in the wild,
We pray Thee, ere the Judge descend,
With flames like these, all bright and undefiled,
Her watch-fires light,
To guide aright
Our weary souls by earth beguiled.

So glorious let thy Pastors shine,
That by their speaking lives the world may learn
First filial duty, then divine,
That sons to parents, all to Thee may turn;
And ready prove
In fires of love,
At sight of Thee, for aye to burn.

As Wordsworth wrote in "London, 1802"--"Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:/England hath need of thee: . . .We are selfish men;/Oh! raise us up, return to us again;", Keble looks for someone like Saint Elijah or Saint John to revive the religious and moral spirit of the Church. I'm not sure what Keble means by the "season of decay" of the "fallen Church" or what two events he has in mind in the first stanza. Keble's pastoral concern is that the Church needs new prophets to encourage greater Christian love and fervor today.

As Keble traces the connections between the two saints in Heaven, he notes the contrast between them: Elijah was taken to Heaven in the whirlwind and chariot of fire, while John was imprisoned and martyred by beheading. He does refer to the scene of the Visitation, when John leapt in Elizabeth's womb at the presence of the Savior in His Mother's womb (Star of our morn,/Who yet unborn/Didst guide our hope . . .).

Keble wants Saint John to inspire a greater missionary fervor among Christians, to raise the "Saviour’s banner" and lead "the whole world to Jesus"--and he looks to the Holy Spirit to inspire the Pastors of the Church through "their speaking lives" (through example not just words) to guide families in greater duty and love, even in "fires of love" burning forever.

I think that Keble has too many images and parallels to balance throughout the poem with fires and eagles and clouds, but his zeal is obvious.

The zeal of Saints John Fisher and Thomas More was just as obvious in 1535! May they intercede for us on their feast and and every day to be as true and faithful! 

Surprised by Beauty: Fanny Price and Anne Elliot

From an article by Dr. Kathleen Sullivan on the Benedictine College Media & Culture website, discussing Jane Austen's Mansfield Park:

[When Henry Crawford has set himself the challenge of making Fanny Price, the novel's heroine fall in love with him just for the fun of it and is startled by the good sense of one of her remarks,] "he begins to see her in a new light.":

This light shines more brightly when Fanny’s older brother William, on leave from the Navy, visits Mansfield Park. Animated by affection for her brother, “the glow of Fanny’s cheek, the brightness of her eye, the deep interest, the absorbed attention … was a picture which Henry Crawford had moral taste enough to value. … [He] was as much struck with it as any” (Austen 159). Henry is struck by the beauty of a sister’s selfless love for her brother; he is moved by Fanny’s fitting and right admiration of William’s courage and other virtues. At this moment, Henry realizes that Fanny’s beauty resides not in her physical traits but in her character and heart. An epiphany occurs to Henry; Austen’s narrator writes of his realization: “She had feeling, genuine feeling. It would something to be loved by such a girl. … She interested him more than he had foreseen” (159). The more he observes her, the more he respects her “steadiness and regularity of conduct,” her “high notion of honour,” her “observance of decorum,” and her “faith and integrity” (199). This encounter with beauty – the visible form of the good[6] – moves Henry’s heart in a surprising way; soon enough, he realizes he has fallen in love with her. Tony Tanner writes that Henry “finds he is seriously attracted to [Fanny], drawn … by a quality and depth of sincerity he has never known” (Tanner 154). Although initially aiming to wound Fanny’s heart in a temporary acting role as amusement for himself, Henry Crawford surprisingly chooses to take on a permanent role: he decides to propose marriage to her.[7]

This reminded me of a passage in Chapter XII from Persuasion, in which a transformation has taken place in Anne Elliot, and her erstwhile suitor, Captain Wentworth, notices:

When they came to the steps, leading upwards from the beach, a gentleman, at the same moment preparing to come down, politely drew back, and stopped to give them way. They ascended and passed him; and as they passed, Anne’s face caught his eye, and he looked at her with a degree of earnest admiration, which she could not be insensible of. She was looking remarkably well; her very regular, very pretty features, having the bloom and freshness of youth restored by the fine wind which had been blowing on her complexion, and by the animation of eye which it had also produced. It was evident that the gentleman, (completely a gentleman in manner) admired her exceedingly. Captain Wentworth looked round at her instantly in a way which shewed his noticing of it. He gave her a momentary glance, a glance of brightness, which seemed to say, “That man is struck with you, and even I, at this moment, see something like Anne Elliot again.”

Please note that I wrote my Master's Thesis on Persuasion so this parallel came to my mind immediately. 

Notice that in both cases, it is through the encounter with other men that Crawford and Wentworth see something different in Fanny and Anne: in both cases, it is in their eyes, animated and bright. Fanny and Anne are Austen's "dullest" heroines according to some critics: they don't have the sparkle of Elizabeth Bennet, Emma Woodhouse, or even the Dashwood sisters. Sullivan refers to Tony Tanner's discussion of Fanny in her essay, as he considers her too goody-goody in a way.

Of course, the parallel ends when the heroine finds happiness with her hero: Crawford is still not worthy of Fanny. Anne and Captain Wentworth are reconciled and marry happily after he is persuaded that she still loves him after having broken off their engagement so many years ago!

Image Source (Public Domain): Watercolour of Jane Austen by her sister Cassandra, 1804

Preview: Keble on the Angels of God and "One Sinner that Repenteth"

On Monday, June 15, we'll continue our summer series on the Son Rise Morning Show as we examine and explicate the liturgical poetry of John Keble, the Anglican minister and friend of Saint John Henry Newman. I selected this poem from The Christian Year for the Third Sunday After Trinity because Keble and Newman shared this devotion to the Angels of God, and particularly, each Christian's Guardian Angel.

The Verse that inspired the poem: "There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth." (St. Luke 15:10)

The first six stanzas describe the general effects of sin on Christian souls, as thoughts of past sins can be oppressive and divisive. Their consciences will not let them find rest anywhere, because their angels urge them to acknowledge their sins and repent:

O hateful spell of Sin! when friends are nigh,
To make stern Memory tell her tale unsought,
And raise accusing shades of hours gone by,
To come between us and all kindly thought!

Chilled at her touch, the self-reproaching soul
Flies from the heart and home she dearest loves,
To where lone mountains tower, or billows roll,
Or to your endless depth, ye solemn groves.

In vain: the averted cheek in loneliest dell
Is conscious of a gaze it cannot bear,
The leaves that rustle near us seem to tell
Our heart’s sad secret to the silent air.

Nor is the dream untrue; for all around
The heavens are watching with their thousand eyes,
We cannot pass our guardian angel’s bound,
Resigned or sullen, he will hear our sighs.

He in the mazes of the budding wood
Is near, and mourns to see our thankless glance
Dwell coldly, where the fresh green earth is strewed
With the first flowers that lead the vernal dance.

In wasteful bounty showered, they smile unseen,
Unseen by man—but what if purer sprights
By moonlight o’er their dewy bosoms lean
To adore the Father of all gentle lights?

Then Keble addresses an individual sinner, perhaps reading this verse from Saint Luke, to urge her to repent for the sake of relieving God's angel's "grief and shame" and because, once she has repented, she will "be turned" and she will be "fearless" and won't have to "shudder at the Eye that saw" her sin but receive a "dearest welcome" from "the angels of God" as her heart changes:

If such there be, O grief and shame to think
That sight of thee should overcloud their joy,
A new-born soul, just waiting on the brink
Of endless life, yet wrapt in earth’s annoy!

O turn, and be thou turned! the selfish tear,
In bitter thoughts of low-born care begun,
Let it flow on, but flow refined and clear,
The turbid waters brightening as they run.

Let it flow on, till all thine earthly heart
In penitential drops have ebbed away,
Then fearless turn where Heaven hath set thy part,
Nor shudder at the Eye that saw thee stray.

O lost and found! all gentle souls below
Their dearest welcome shall prepare, and prove
Such joy o’er thee, as raptured seraphs know,
Who learn their lesson at the Throne of Love.

As an Anglican, Newman wrote a poem about Angels too, not doubting their existence, but wondering about how well he can perceive their influence on his life, sinful and fallen as he is:

31. Angelic Guidance

{73} ARE these the tracks of some unearthly Friend,

His foot prints, and his vesture-skirts of light,

Who, as I talk with men, conforms aright

Their sympathetic words, or deeds that blend

With my hid thought;—or stoops him to attend

My doubtful-pleading grief;—or blunts the might

Of ill I see not;—or in dreams of night

Figures the scope, in which what is will end?

Were I Christ's own, then fitly might I call

That vision real; for to the thoughtful mind

That walks with Him, He half unveils His face;

But, when on earth-stain'd souls such tokens fall,

These dare not claim as theirs what there they find,

Yet, not all hopeless, eye His boundless grace.

Whitchurch (in Shropshire). December 8, 1832.

Also among his Verses on Various Occasions, Saint John Henry Newman wrote a personal reflection on his "Guardian Angel", reflecting on how he'd been accompanied throughout his life, from his baptism, through his youthful rebellion, during his conversion to Catholicism ("To place me under Mary's smile,/And Peter's royal feet!")--with the hope that his Angel will be there on his deathbed. The last two stanzas definitely anticipate The Dream of Gerontius (1865)!

{300} MY oldest friend, mine from the hour

When first I drew my breath;

My faithful friend, that shall be mine,

Unfailing, till my death;

Thou hast been ever at my side;

My Maker to thy trust

Consign'd my soul, what time He framed

The infant child of dust.

No beating heart in holy prayer,

No faith, inform'd aright,

Gave me to Joseph's tutelage,

Or Michael's conquering might.

Nor patron Saint, nor Mary's love,

The dearest and the best,

Has known my being, as thou hast known,

And blest, as thou hast blest. {301}

Thou wast my sponsor at the font;

And thou, each budding year,

Didst whisper elements of truth

Into my childish ear.

And when, ere boyhood yet was gone,

My rebel spirit fell,

Ah! thou didst see, and shudder too,

Yet bear each deed of Hell.

And then in turn, when judgments came,

And scared me back again,

Thy quick soft breath was near to soothe

And hallow every pain.

Oh! who of all thy toils and cares

Can tell the tale complete,

To place me under Mary's smile,

And Peter's royal feet!

And thou wilt hang about my bed,

When life is ebbing low;

Of doubt, impatience, and of gloom,

The jealous sleepless foe. {302}

Mine, when I stand before the Judge;

And mine, if spared to stay

Within the golden furnace, till

My sin is burn'd away.

And mine, O Brother of my soul,

When my release shall come;

Thy gentle arms shall lift me then,

Thy wings shall waft me home.

The Oratory. 1853.

Learning Something New, Again: The Origins of a Famous Hymn

Pope Pius XI instituted the Solemnity of Christ the King in 1925 (we covered it last year during the Son Rise Morning Show survey of anniversaries). In the last paragraphs of Quas Primas, he outlined the fruits of the celebration of this new feast and devotion:

30. We would now, Venerable Brethren, in closing this letter, briefly enumerate the blessings which We hope and pray may accrue to the Church, to society, and to each one of the faithful, as a result of the public veneration of the Kingship of Christ.

31. When we pay honor to the princely dignity of Christ, men will doubtless be reminded that the Church, founded by Christ as a perfect society, has a natural and inalienable right to perfect freedom and immunity from the power of the state; and that in fulfilling the task committed to her by God of teaching, ruling, and guiding to eternal bliss those who belong to the kingdom of Christ, she cannot be subject to any external power. The State is bound to extend similar freedom to the orders and communities of religious of either sex, who give most valuable help to the Bishops of the Church by laboring for the extension and the establishment of the kingdom of Christ. By their sacred vows they fight against the threefold concupiscence of the world; by making profession of a more perfect life they render the holiness which her divine Founder willed should be a mark and characteristic of his Church more striking and more conspicuous in the eyes of all.

32. Nations will be reminded by the annual celebration of this feast that not only private individuals but also rulers and princes are bound to give public honor and obedience to Christ. It will call to their minds the thought of the last judgment, wherein Christ, who has been cast out of public life, despised, neglected and ignored, will most severely avenge these insults; for his kingly dignity demands that the State should take account of the commandments of God and of Christian principles, both in making laws and in administering justice, and also in providing for the young a sound moral education.

33. The faithful, moreover, by meditating upon these truths, will gain much strength and courage, enabling them to form their lives after the true Christian ideal. If to Christ our Lord is given all power in heaven and on earth; if all men, purchased by his precious blood, are by a new right subjected to his dominion; if this power embraces all men, it must be clear that not one of our faculties is exempt from his empire. He must reign in our minds, which should assent with perfect submission and firm belief to revealed truths and to the doctrines of Christ. He must reign in our wills, which should obey the laws and precepts of God. He must reign in our hearts, which should spurn natural desires and love God above all things, and cleave to him alone. He must reign in our bodies and in our members, which should serve as instruments for the interior sanctification of our souls, or to use the words of the Apostle Paul, as instruments of justice unto God. (Romans 6:13) If all these truths are presented to the faithful for their consideration, they will prove a powerful incentive to perfection. It is Our fervent desire, Venerable Brethren, that those who are without the fold may seek after and accept the sweet yoke of Christ, and that we, who by the mercy of God are of the household of the faith, may bear that yoke, not as a burden but with joy, with love, with devotion; that having lived our lives in accordance with the laws of God's kingdom, we may receive full measure of good fruit, and counted by Christ good and faithful servants, we may be rendered partakers of eternal bliss and glory with him in his heavenly kingdom.

What I remember most about the celebration of this feast when I was growing up here in the USA is homilies starting with the idea that we US citizens might have trouble understanding the concept of kingship, used as we are to an elected, not hereditary, executive, etc. But reading this article from the Adoremus bulletin by John William Davis demonstrated a far greater insight from a German-born priest in Saint Louis, Missouri in the lates 1930's/early 1940's. As Davis explains, it was another encyclical by Pope Pius XI that inspired Father Martin B. Hellriegel (1890-1981):

Far away in the little Baden neighborhood of St. Loius (sic), MO, an American community settled by Germans on the banks of the Mississippi, a parish priest was composing a song that would strike the Nazi a blow from which they would never recover. Father Martin Hellriegel, a German immigrant and pastor to several communities in the St. Louis, MO area, considered the rise of racial nationalism in his former homeland. As Hellriegel read in the 1937 papal encyclical of Pius XI, Mit brennender Sorge (With Burning Anxiety), the only Encyclical ever issued in the German language, the Pope outlined how Germans had lost their way. . . . The new German paganism maintained “revelation” was not God’s word to man, but suggested rather the triumph of a master race over lesser peoples. The Pope further noted that to suggest—as the Nazi did of Hitler—that even the greatest of men was on a par with Christ, our Savior from sin and death, would be to make that man a “Prophet of Nothingness.”

As the rest of the article explains Father Hellriegel brilliantly chose a familiar hymn tune, ICH GLAUB AN GOTT, and wrote clear, simple lyrics to remind his German congregations to Whom they owed true loyalty and fidelity:

To Jesus Christ, our Sov'reign King,

Who is the world's salvation,
All praise and homage do we bring,
And thanks and adoration.

Refrain:
Christ Jesus Victor, Christ Jesus Ruler!
Christ Jesus, Lord and Redeemer!

2. Thy reign extend, O King benign,
To ev'ry land and nation,
For in Thy kingdom, Lord divine,
Alone we find salvation.
(Refrain)

3. To Thee and to Thy Church, great King,
We pledge our hearts' oblation,
Until before Thy throne we sing,
In endless jubilation.
(Refrain)

Please read the rest of the article there. It seems to me that Father Hellriegel applied paragraphs 31 through 33 of Quas Primas very well to his hymn.

Preview: Keble's Poem on Trinity Sunday

On June 1 Anna Mitchell and I started our series on John Keble's The Christian Year, commenting on how much Saint John Henry Newman appreciated Keble's humility, simplicity, and purity. Newman also remarked on how Keble's poetry elucidated "the Sacramental system; that is, the doctrine that material phenomena are both the types and the instruments of real things unseen" which I think we can see in this poem on the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity. So on Monday, June 8, Anna or Matt and I will discuss this poem and how Keble deals with this great theological mystery on the Son Rise Morning Show near the end of the show's national broadcast.

As the Reverend William G. Most wrote:

Perhaps the deepest, the most profound of all mysteries is the mystery of the Trinity. The Church teaches us that although there is only one God, yet, somehow, there are three Persons in God. The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, yet we do not speak of three Gods, but only one God. They have the same nature, substance, and being. 

Keble begins by praying to the Holy Trinity as he celebrates this Sunday after the seasons of Lent and Easter:

Creator, Saviour, strengthening Guide,
Now on Thy mercy’s ocean wide
Far out of sight we seem to glide.

Help us, each hour, with steadier eye
To search the deepening mystery,
The wonders of Thy sea and sky.

The blessèd Angels look and long
To praise Thee with a worthier song,
And yet our silence does Thee wrong.—

Along the Church’s central space
The sacred weeks, with unfelt pace,
Hath borne us on from grace to grace.

He turns from the mysteries of the Passion, Resurrection, Ascension, and Pentecost celebrated during those "sacred weeks" to the experience of Nature as an entrance to a hidden shrine: those mysteries lead to this one:

As travellers on some woodland height,
When wintry suns are gleaming bright,
Lose in arched glades their tangled sight;—

By glimpses such as dreamers love
Through her grey veil the leafless grove
Shows where the distant shadows rove;—

Such trembling joy the soul o’er-awes
As nearer to Thy shrine she draws:—
And now before the choir we pause.

The door is closed—but soft and deep
Around the awful arches sweep,
Such airs as soothe a hermit’s sleep.

From each carved nook and fretted bend
Cornice and gallery seem to send
Tones that with seraphs hymns might blend.

Keble suggests an analogy in the structure of the shrine:

Three solemn parts together twine
In harmony’s mysterious line;
Three solemn aisles approach the shrine:

Yet all are One—together all,
In thoughts that awe but not appall,
Teach the adoring heart to fall.

But there's a problem: some travellers don't even seek the shrine but are too busy to notice the "flowers . . . showers . . . bowers" that would guide them to the shrine:

Within these walls each fluttering guest
Is gently lured to one safe nest—
Without, ’tis moaning and unrest.

The busy world a thousand ways
Is hurrying by, nor ever stays
To catch a note of Thy dear praise.

Why tarries not her chariot wheel,
That o’er her with no vain appeal
One gust of heavenly song might steal?

Alas! for her Thy opening flowers
Unheeded breathe to summer showers,
Unheard the music of Thy bowers.

What echoes from the sacred dome
The selfish spirit may o’ercome
That will not hear of love or home!

Keble laments the sins and faults that keep us from loving God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit:

The heart that scorned a father’s care,
How can it rise in filial prayer?
How an all-seeing Guardian bear?

Or how shall envious brethren own
A Brother on the eternal throne,
Their Father’s joy, their hopes alone?

How shall Thy Spirit’s gracious wile
The sullen brow of gloom beguile,
That frowns on sweet Affection’s smile?

And the poem ends with prayer:

Eternal One, Almighty Trine!
(Since Thou art ours, and we are Thine,)
By all Thy love did once resign,

By all the grace Thy heavens still hide,
We pray Thee, keep us at Thy side,
Creator, Saviour, strengthening Guide!

As ever with poetry, it's important to read this out loud to hear the rhymes and rhythms, the alliteration and patterns of repetition, even the pauses designated by dashes and periods, etc. You might note a slight echo of Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" ("Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near") in stanza 14: "Why tarries not her chariot wheel", and that there are 21 stanzas of rhymed triplets--you can do the math.

From "The New Criterion": Shakespeare's Plays and His Creed (?)

It may be behind a paywall for non-subscribers, so I apologize, but I found this archived article (a review by Paul Dean of A Will to Believe: Shakespeare and Religion by David Scott Kastan) at The New Criterion fascinating because of this paragraph:

The law compelled Shakespeare to be ingenious and allusive, even if he had not been so by nature. The representation of liturgical services onstage was forbidden; indeed, the reformers routinely denounced the Mass as a species of play-acting. Such condemnations looked back to the medieval cycle plays with their medley of scriptural, patristic, legendary, and folkloric traditions, their range of tones and moods welcoming everything from the exalted to the scatological and farcical. It was these plays that Shakespeare experienced as a live theatrical tradition when he saw them at Coventry as a teenager; his use of the Bible and the prayer book is colored by this more eclectic heritage. The plays are equally distorted by those who seek a Protestant or Catholic bias, for there were many varieties of each, and drama thrives on dialectical debate. “Whether the Reformation was motivated from above or below,” Kastan comments, “it was, in either case, incomplete.” Arguably it was complete only with the expulsion of the Catholic James II in 1688 and his replacement, at the invitation of Parliament, by the Dutch Protestants William and Mary.

Arguably? Since other changes in the Book of Common Prayer and Church of England doctrine and liturgy (both and after the Tractarian movement) continued to occur, I think one could argue about that.

And this comment, offering a perfect example of litotes:

Elizabeth I’s religious temper was famously enigmatic; candles burned on the altar in her private chapel, to the scandal of many, and she kept her most Puritan Archbishop of Canterbury, Edmund Grindal, under virtual house-arrest, yet she was no friend to Roman Catholics.

The abstract of the book from Oxford Academic describes A Will to Believe thus:

On 19 December 1601, John Croke, then Speaker of the House of Commons, addressed his colleagues: “If a question should be asked, What is the first and chief thing in a Commonwealth to be regarded? I should say, religion. If, What is the second? I should say, religion. If, What the third? I should still say, religion.” But if religion was recognized as the “chief thing in a Commonwealth,” we have been less certain what it does in Shakespeare’s plays. Written and performed in a culture in which religion was indeed inescapable, the plays have usually been seen either as evidence of Shakespeare’s own disinterested secularism or, more recently, as coded signposts to his own sectarian commitments. Based upon the inaugural series of the Oxford-Wells Shakespeare Lectures in 2008, this book offers a thoughtful, surprising, and often moving consideration of how religion actually functions in them: not as keys to Shakespeare’s own faith but as remarkably sensitive registers of the various ways in which religion charged the world in which he lived. The book shows what we know and can’t know about Shakespeare’s own beliefs, and demonstrates, in a series of wonderfully alert and agile readings, how the often fraught and vertiginous religious environment of Post-Reformation England gets refracted by the lens of Shakespeare’s imagination.

Within the review of Kastan's book, Dean also refers to two other books also from Oxford University Press: The Bible in Shakespeare by Hannibal Hamlin and Shakespeare's Common Prayers: The Book of Common Prayer and the Elizabethan Age by Daniel Swift.

Image Credit (Public Domain): The Plays of William Shakespeare, a painting containing scenes and characters from several plays of Shakespeare; by Sir John Gilbert, c. 1849.(Notice that Henry VIII is the most dominating and entirely portrayed figure! Compare it to the Apotheosis of Shakespeare's Characters, 1871 from the Yale Center for British Art by the same artist: Henry VIII is in in the upper left, much less dominating!)

Preview: John Keble's "The Christian Year" on the Son Rise Morning Show

Anna Mitchell of the Son Rise Morning Show suggested we start a series on a work by a man who influenced Saint John Henry Newman in his "religious opinions" (as he called them in his Apologia) before he became a Catholic: John Keble, Anglican minister, holder of the Poetry Professorship at Oxford from 1831 to 1841, and preacher of the "National Apostasy" sermon that launched the Oxford Movement in 1833. 

So we'll start on Monday, June 1 to explore the text of The Christian Year, Keble's book of verse reflecting on the liturgical year of the Church of England.

The Book of Common Prayer, in its various iterations from the time Thomas Cranmer first composed and arranged it, maintained a liturgical calendar of seasons (Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter, etc.) based on Catholic tradition. Our current "Ordinary Time" is called "Trinity" with numbered Sundays until Advent. Certain feast days, like St. Stephen, St. John, and the Holy Innocents after Christmas were maintained; commemorations like the Gunpowder Treason, King Charles the Martyr, Restoration of the Royal Family, were added. There are also poems about Anglican sacraments (Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Communion, etc), reflecting the High Church aspects of the Oxford Movement as its leaders understood them.

We'll start with his Dedication:

When in my silent solitary walk,
   I sought a strain not all unworthy Thee,
My heart, still ringing with wild worldly talk,
   Gave forth no note of holier minstrelsy.

Prayer is the secret, to myself I said,
   Strong supplication must call down the charm,
And thus with untuned heart I feebly prayed,
   Knocking at Heaven’s gate with earth-palsied arm.

Fountain of Harmony!  Thou Spirit blest,
   By whom the troubled waves of earthly sound
Are gathered into order, such as best
   Some high-souled bard in his enchanted round

May compass, Power divine!  Oh, spread Thy wing,
   Thy dovelike wing that makes confusion fly,
Over my dark, void spirit, summoning
   New worlds of music, strains that may not die.

Oh, happiest who before thine altar wait,
   With pure hands ever holding up on high
The guiding Star of all who seek Thy gate,
   The undying lamp of heavenly Poesy.

Too weak, too wavering, for such holy task
   Is my frail arm, O Lord; but I would fain
Track to its source the brightness, I would bask
   In the clear ray that makes Thy pathway plain.

I dare not hope with David’s harp to chase
   The evil spirit from the troubled breast;
Enough for me if I can find such grace
   To listen to the strain, and be at rest.

I think that we can see what Saint John Henry Newman appreciated in Professor John Keble's person and character--not just that he inspired that work in England that Newman believed he was saved for when he was so ill in Sicily--but that:

Keble was young in years, when he became a University celebrity, and younger in mind. He had the purity and simplicity of a child. He had few sympathies with the intellectual party, who sincerely welcomed him as a brilliant {290} specimen of young Oxford. He instinctively shut up before literary display, and pomp and donnishness of manner, faults which always will beset academical notabilities. He did not respond to their advances. . . . He went into the country, but his instance serves to prove that men need not, in the event, lose that influence which is rightly theirs, because they happen to be thwarted in the use of the channels natural and proper to its exercise. He did not lose his place in the minds of men because he was out of their sight.

Keble was a man who guided himself and formed his judgments, not by processes of reason, by inquiry or by argument, but, to use the word in a broad sense, by authority. Conscience is an authority; the Bible is an authority; such is the Church; such is Antiquity; such are the words of the wise; such are hereditary lessens; such are ethical truths; such are historical memories, such are legal saws and state maxims; such are proverbs; such are sentiments, presages, and prepossessions. It seemed to me as if he ever felt happier, when he could speak or act under some such primary or external sanction; and could use argument mainly as a means of recommending or explaining what had claims on his reception prior to proof. (from the Note on "Liberalism" in the Apologia pro Vita Sua)

When Newman comments on The Christian Year in chapter one of the same work, he notes:

The Christian Year made its appearance in 1827. It is not necessary, and scarcely becoming, to praise a book which has already become one of the classics of the language. When the general tone of religious literature was so nerveless and impotent, as it was at that time, Keble struck an original note and woke up in the hearts of thousands a new music, the music of a school, long unknown in England. Nor can I pretend to analyze, in my own instance, the effect of religious teaching so deep, so pure, so beautiful. I have never till now tried to do so; yet I think I am not wrong in saying, that the two main intellectual truths which it brought home to me, were the same two, which I had learned from Butler, though recast in the creative mind of my new master. The first of these was what may be called, in a large sense of the word, the Sacramental system; that is, the doctrine that material phenomena are both the types and the instruments of real things unseen,—a doctrine, which embraces in its fulness, not only what Anglicans, as well as Catholics, believe about Sacraments properly so called; but also the article of "the Communion of Saints;" and likewise the Mysteries of the faith.

Image Credit (Public Domain): Portrait of John Keble (1792-1866) by George Richmond (1809–1896)

Saint Phillip Neri and Saint John Henry Newman

This has been quite a week and a day--from Monday, May 18, when I heard, while attending my godson's promotion dinner (to high school), that Warren Farha, my friend and former boss at Eighth Day Books was seriously ill in hospital--to hearing that he had died on the eve of the Orthodox Ascension on May 20/21--to Pentecost Sunday when I attended the first Mass of Thanksgiving offered by Father Luke Meyerhoff, the first priest from Blessed Sacrament to be ordained since 1989! 

On Monday, May 25, I attended a 25th anniversary party for our pastor and this evening, on the feast of St. Philip Neri, I'm attending an evening Mass celebrating that occasion. So there's definitely been a mixture of joy and sorrow these eight days with confidence in the Resurrection!

But my topic today, the eighth day of these momentous events, is Saint Philip Neri, Saint John Henry Newman's patron as an Oratorian. Newman wrote several works about his patron: two sermons (numbers 12 and 13 in Sermons Preached on Various Occasions), a litany and a novena in Part II of his Meditations and Devotions, and five poems or verses included in his 1867 collection of Verses on Various Occasions. Of the five poems, I chose number 164, "St. Philip Neri in his Mission" (the others are 165. "St. Philip in himself", 166. St. Philip in his God", 171. "St. Philip in his School", and 172. "St. Philip in his Disciples"). 

I chose this one because it highlights his whole holy life from his time praying in the catacombs, the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, his mission to Rome, and the day of his death on May 26, 1595.

164. St. Philip Neri in his Mission
{293} (A song.)

IN the far North our lot is cast,
Where faithful hearts are few;
Still are we Philip's children dear,
And Peter's soldiers true.

Founder and Sire! to mighty Rome,
Beneath St. Peter's shade,
Early thy vow of loyal love
And ministry was paid.

The solemn porch, and portal high,
Of Peter was thy home;
The world's Apostle he, and thou
Apostle of his Rome.

And first in the old catacombs,
In galleries long and deep,
Where martyr Popes had ruled the flock,
And slept their glorious sleep, {294}

There didst thou pass the nights in prayer,
Until at length there came,
Down on thy breast, new lit for thee,
The Pentecostal flame;—

Then, in that heart-consuming love,
Didst walk the city wide,
And lure the noble and the young
From Babel's pomp and pride;

And, gathering them within thy cell,
Unveil the lustre bright,
And beauty of thy inner soul,
And gain them by the sight.

And thus to Rome, for Peter's faith
Far known, thou didst impart
Thy lessons of the hidden life,
And discipline of heart.

And as the Apostle, on the hill
Facing the Imperial Town,
First gazed upon his fair domain,
Then on the cross lay down, {295}

So thou, from out the streets of Rome
Didst turn thy failing eye
Unto that mount of martyrdom,
Take leave of it, and die. [Note]

The Oratory.
1850.

The note provides these details about the day of St. Philip's death:

On the day of his death, Philip, "at the beginning of his Mass, remained for some time looking fixedly at the hill of St. Onofrio, which was visible from the chapel, just as if he saw some great vision. On coming to the Gloria in Excelsis, he began to sing, which was a very unusual thing for him, and he sang the whole of it with the greatest joy and devotion," &c.—Bacci's Life.

More about Saints Philip Neri and John Henry Newman and the Oratory here.

Saint Philip Neri, pray for us!

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

BTW: If you do a search on Warren's name, you will find many, many great recollections from people around the world!

O God of spirits and of all flesh, Who hast trampled down death and overthrown the Devil, and given life to Thy world, do Thou, the same Lord, give rest to the souls of Thy departed servants in a place of brightness, a place of refreshment, a place of repose, where all sickness, sighing, and sorrow have fled away. Pardon every transgression which they have committed, whether by word or deed or thought. For Thou art a good God and lovest mankind; because there is no man who lives yet does not sin, for Thou only art without sin, Thy righteousness is to all eternity, and Thy word is truth.

For Thou are the Resurrection, the Life, and the Repose of Thy servants who have fallen asleep, O Christ our God, and unto Thee we ascribe glory, together with Thy Father, who is from everlasting, and Thine all-holy, good, and life-creating Spirit, now and ever unto ages of ages. Amen.

Eternal rest grant unto him O Lord, and may Warren's soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, rest in peace. May Warren rest in peace. Amen.

Learning Something New Every Day! What, Yet Again? Queen Victoria's Neutrality!

The Son Rise Morning Show will be airing a "best-of" program on Monday, May 25, Memorial Day, so I've moved my "Learning Something New Every Day" post up. On Tuesday, May 26, I'll post on Saint Philip Neri and Saint John Henry Newman. 

On Monday, June 1, we'll start a new series on the Son Rise Morning Show, with a topic Anna Mitchell suggested to me. More to come on that next week!

I saw a story about Queen Victoria's government not taking any side the U.S. Civil War and looked into the topic further. There is a connection to my second "Learning Something New Every Day" story because the U.S. Minister to the Court of Saint James in the United Kingdom during the Civil War era was Henry Adams's father, Charles Francis Adams, Sr. Henry was with his father in England.

Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman's "A Dangerous Neutrality" begins where Susan Hanssen's article about Henry Adams in 1912 began, with plans for a trans-Atlantic journey:

Charles Francis Adams, distinguished scion of Boston and son of John Quincy Adams, had heard the stories since childhood about his father’s and grandfather’s long, frightening trip to France in 1778. The surging, implacable Atlantic had tried to drown the emissaries even before their mission began. Now, in May 1861, it took little more than a week to cross the pond, and it was Charles’s turn to duel England as his country’s representative in London.

He had little time to lose; a major diplomatic crisis was unfolding. After the fall of Fort Sumter, President Lincoln blockaded the 3,000-mile coastline between Virginia and Texas. Foreign ships could no longer enter any port in the South, upon penalty of forfeiting both ships and cargo if caught. Yet Lincoln had not anticipated what to do if the Europeans objected to this interference of their profitable trade. And they did.

While Adams was en route, the United Kingdom declared neutrality with the result that the nation would trade with both the United States of America and the Southern states, under the name of the Confederate States of America:

Queen Victoria proclaimed neutrality in the American Civil War on the advice of her ministers. At a stroke, she granted parity to the Confederacy and the United States. Each belligerent could contract for munitions in English ports, sell goods confiscated from their enemy and purchase ships as long as they were not obviously outfitted for war.

The rest of article recounts different reactions to this neutrality in newspapers. Many in the United States of America were more than a little angry with the UK and accused it of hypocrisy over the issue of slavery. Hoffman describes Adams's reaction once he had arrived in England:

Charles Francis Adams reacted to England’s Neutrality Proclamation with uncanny calm. Renowned for his polite, stiffly formal manners, he adopted the cool tone set by Lord John Russell. It allowed him to relay unpleasant tidings, Adams observed, in “the most indifferent, businesslike, mechanical way, as if it was a matter of course and not particularly important.”

The unrecognized Confederate States of America nevertheless sent envoys seeking more than trade, according to this "story of diplomacy" from The National Museum of American Diplomacy, "The Trent Affair: Diplomacy, Britain, and the American Civil War":

Confederates, however, rejoiced in the news. The declaration was an opening to lobby European powers for full recognition. Recognition would allow the Confederates to borrow from international lenders to fund the war. Because of this, sending diplomatic envoys to Britain and France became a top priority for southern ambitions.

This particular diplomatic crisis for Charles Francis Adams came when a ship of the United States fired upon a British ship ("two shots across the bow") to seize two envoys from the CSA. Queen Victoria's government was not amused:

The British were furious at the United States for blatantly disrespecting their sovereignty. Prime Minister Palmerston and Foreign Secretary Earl Russell erupted in a fury at a cabinet meeting. Palmerston shouted, “I don’t know whether you are going to stand this, but I’ll be damned if I do!”

All Charles Francis Adams could do was send letters to Secretary Seward, letting him know of the hot temperature in London. Unable to speak on behalf of the U.S. government without instructions from Seward, Adams could only wait, watch, and avoid meetings with Lord Russell.

With counsel from the deathly-ill Prince Consort, the British demanded an apology and that the two envoys from the South, James Mason and John Slidell, be released to a British ship and allowed to proceed to England. While the apology the Queen's government received was couched mostly as disavowing Wilkes's actions, Mason and Slidell did proceed to England. 

As for Wilkes, he was placed on the retirement list at the end of the year, but later returned to service. While he was known as "a distinguished explorer, author, and naval officer"[33], "he also had a reputation as a stubborn, overzealous, impulsive, and sometimes insubordinate officer".[34] Treasury officer George Harrington had warned [Secretary of State] Seward about Wilkes: "He will give us trouble. He has a superabundance of self-esteem and a deficiency of judgment. When he commanded his great exploring mission he court-martialed nearly all his officers; he alone was right, everybody else was wrong."[35] He had taken a decision--entirely on his own--in this case that provoked a diplomatic, financial, and almost a military crisis (the British had troops in Canada, of course).

Cooler heads like Adams and even Prince Albert prevailed, however. 

Image Credit (Public Domain): Charles Francis Adams, 1861

Image Credit (Public Domain): Queen Victoria, 1860

Learning Something New Every Single Day! Again!

Something I did not know, or don't think I've ever known: Henry Adams, the author of Mount Saint Michel and Chartres and The Education of Henry Adams, thought about becoming a Roman Catholic. He admired the thought and theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas and developed great devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, but he wanted someone to go with him to Rome. Not just cross the Atlantic to disembark in Italy, but to go to Rome, to join the Roman Catholic Church.

I learned this because at our monthly G.K. Chesterton meeting at Eighth Day Books, the annual American Chesterton Society meeting was highlighted. Someone at the meeting mentioned Susan Hanssen of the University of Dallas -- and someone else said she knew her work.

So I looked her up and found her faculty page and then found this article, '“Shall We Go to Rome?”—The Last Days of Henry Adams' in The New England Quarterly, Volume 86, Issue 1, March 2013.

The article is well-written and was fun to read aloud because of the quotations from Adams' letters, so clearly in his familiar voice, speaking to friends. 

Of course, I read his famous books years ago, but I did not know about this story of his last months.

One of the best passages comes when Hanssen describes how 

Adams wrote: “I’ve a mind to go back to Rome and renew our youth. To die in Rome is not so swell a thing as it used to be but it is a decent thing to do, still. . . . If I get abroad again, I hope to see you. Why not at Rome as of yore?”11 Going to Rome to renew one’s youth was something of a euphemism for conversion, an echo of the traditional entrance prayer with which the Tridentine liturgy of the Mass began: “Introibo ad altare Dei / Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam” (I shall go up to the altar of God / To God, who renews my youth). Rome evidently struck Adams as youthful compared to the sickly, dying civilization of America . . . (pp. 8-9)

Adams had suffered three blows in succession before this crisis: the sinking the Titanic (he was ticketed to go on its return voyage); the defeat the Republican Party in the 1912 Presidential election, bringing Woodrow Wilson to the White House, and a massive stroke. He recovered best from the latter, it seems.

He met Father Cyril Sigourney Fay, a famous priest but didn't really take instruction from him. As I read the article, it seemed to me that Adams had certain devotional leanings, and really wanted company along the way, but also wanted an intellectual path into the Catholic Church that accepted his Augustinian/Thomist philosophy:

Adams’s letters to Elizabeth Cameron, in particular, show him longing for a companion on his journey. He lists among his “remedies for insomnia” aspirin, songs to the Virgin, stoicism, contrition, tears and howls, and discussing the Trinity. (p. 15)

He couldn’t even get the Catholics, not even the Catholic theology professors, to read and understand his chapter on Thomas Aquinas in Chartres. Modern Catholics were Bergsonians, Pragmatists, Kantians, Modernists, Americanists. (p. 16)

Adams sought some coherence:

In their project to convert Adams, Father Fay and the Chanlers did more harm than good by enlisting their intellectual heroes to visit him. Among them were Arthur Balfour, who had just published Theism and Humanism, a work that influenced C. S. Lewis; Henri Bergson, whose Creative Evolution was the rage among young converts like Jacques Maritain; Cecil Chesterton, who had converted in advance of his more famous brother; and Shane Leslie, editor of the Dublin Review. 63

But Adams the Thomist was too much of a troglodyte to be handed across the chasm of faith by this chain gang of assistants. Years before, he had written to Margaret Chanler that he preferred Thomas Aquinas to all his contemporaries who were attempting to combine Catholicism with varieties of modern philosophy. “St Thomas said all there was to say. . . .” (p.24)

You'll need to read the rest there as Professor Hansen narrates the books he was reading, his comments upon them, and his delay in making a decision.

Henry Adams died on March 27, 1918.

I had one thought: did he ever read The Roman Catechism (The Catechism of the Council of Trent)?

Image Credit (Public Domain): 1885 photograph of Adams by William Notman