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

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.