Friday, November 1, 2024

For November: Father Frederick Faber on "Holy Gratitude"

Anna Mitchell asked me to discuss and bring out highlights from a book published by Sophia Institute Press by Father Frederick Faber, The Little Book of Holy Gratitude, on the Son Rise Morning Show throughout November. We'll start our discussion with some biographical information about Father Faber on Monday, November 4. I'll be on the air at my usual time! about 7:50 a.m. EDT/6:50 a.m. CDT. Please listen live here or listen to the podcast later.

Father Frederick Faber was born and raised according to the religion of the Church of England; he was a convert and an Oratorian like Saint John Henry Newman. He and Newman, indeed, have much in common, although they did not always see eye-to-eye on certain matters, even as Catholics and Oratorians. Faber was born on June 28, 1814 and died on September 26, 1863 after suffering from Bright's disease. Like Newman, Faber had Huguenot ancestors and for a time he held Calvinist views of salvation; like Newman, Faber endured some setbacks in his academic career at Oxford, not quite achieving his goals. Like Newman, he was ordained a deacon and then a minister in the Church of England; like Newman, when he travelled on the Continent, he was at first disturbed by Catholic piety and worship.

Then he began to follow Newman, inspired by the Parochial and Plain Sermons, and became a follower of the Tractarian Movement. He vacationed in the Lake District, wrote poetry, and was befriended by William Wordsworth!

This 2013 tribute Faber posted on the New Liturgical Movement website describes what happened next:

In 1843 Faber was inducted into the University College living of Elton in Huntingdonshire. During the years 1839-43 he made two continental tours, and his letters give striking poetic descriptions of the scenes he visited; they glow with enthusiasm for Catholic rites and devotion. [Notice the change in attitude!] In Rome he was received in audience by Pope Gregory XVI and acquired a devotion to St Philip Neri [!], whose life he translated at Elton, where he turned his household servants into a brotherhood. He established the practice of confessions, preached Catholic doctrine, and wrote the life of St Wilfrid, controversially openly advocating the claims and supremacy of Rome. He was greatly loved by his people. It was only Newman’s influence that prevented him from entering the Church.

But on 9 October 1845, Newman was received into the Church at Littlemore. In November, with Francis Knox and ten other friends and servants, Faber was received into the Church at Northampton by Bishop William Wareing, vicar apostolic of the eastern district. They settled in Birmingham, where they informally organized themselves as a religious community, calling themselves the Brothers of the Will of God, or ‘Wilfridians’ (as they were mischievously called by St [Blessed] Dominic Barberi) from St Wilfrid, their patron, at Cotton Hall, near Cheadle, Staffordshire, the gift of the Earl of Shrewsbury.

Given that devotion to Saint Philip Neri, it makes sense that once Newman brought the Oratory to England, Faber and his followers were interested. Newman established the London (Brompton) Oratory (the Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary) in 1849, and Faber was named its Provost. The Brompton Oratory posts these comments about Father Faber:
Faber the preacher, Faber the hymn-writer, Faber the spiritual author, must all give way to Faber the founder and first Provost of the London Oratory. Father Faber became an influential figure in the London of his day. His enthusiastic and, some might say, faintly flamboyant personality might lend itself to unsympathetic treatment by those who do not understand him, and by those who do not read his books. In the words of his early biographer, Fr. John Bowden [Father Henry Sebastian Bowden's brother], Faber's life was "from first to last religious". His character was not something fixed or static. His letters display a growing maturity of outlook. In this he may be fairly said to exemplify the wise insight of Newman himself who said that to be human is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often. Faber described Newman as "the greatest scholar since St. Augustine" and referred to Newman as the one "who taught me all the good I know". 

Father Faber never enjoyed very good health and sometimes travelled to warmer climates (Malta or Italy) at his doctor's advice; he died at the rather young age of 49. He wrote many books of devotion and like Newman and other Oratorians (for example Edward Caswall), wrote and translated hymns for congregational singing at Mass and Vespers, so commonly celebrated on Sundays with Benediction at the Oratory. Among his famous hymns are "Faith of Our Fathers" (with its tribute to the Catholic martyrs of the English Reformation), "There's a Wideness in God's Mercy", "Jesus, My Lord, My God, My All"--

Jesus, my Lord, my God, my All,
How can I love thee as I ought?
And how revere this wondrous gift,
So far surpassing hope or thought?
Sweet Sacrament, we thee adore;
Oh, make us love thee more and more.
Oh, make us love thee more and more.

Had I but Mary's sinless heart
To love thee with, my dearest King,
Oh, with what bursts of fervent praise
Thy goodness, Jesus, would I sing.
Sweet Sacrament, we thee adore;
Oh, make us love thee more and more.
Oh, make us love thee more and more.

Thy Body, Soul, and Godhead, all,
O mystery of love divine.
I cannot compass all I have,
For all thou hast and art are mine.
Sweet Sacrament, we thee adore;
Oh, make us love thee more and more.
Oh, make us love thee more and more.

--and several hymns praising the Mother of God and St. Joseph.

The chapters in The Little Book of Holy Gratitude are drawn from chapter seven "Offer Thanks to God", of one of Father Faber's most popular books, All for Jesus: The Easy Way of Divine Love. He also translated St. Louis de Montfort's famous True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and wrote several other devotional works.

In just the two pages of one chapter, "Thankful Souls Are Happy" from the Sophia edition, Father Faber weaves a tapestry of virtue for us to examine. 

He begins with the models of the virtue of gratitude: the Blessed Virgin Mary, the patriarch Jacob, and King David. They remembered the blessings they'd received, meditated upon them, and, in the case of David, sang "of old mercies and [made] much of them" in the Psalms.

He also highlights the connection between our awareness of God's mercy in forgiving our sins and our thanksgiving: "a very grateful man is also a deeply penitent man".

Faber outlines the many virtues of gratitude to God and how they make us happy, because as we practice gratitude we begin to look for reasons to be grateful, even when they're not immediately apparent!, like seeing some slight delay as providential because we therefore weren't on the site of an accident when it happened, or we were blessed to see a friend we wouldn't have if we'd arrived earlier at our destination! 

The virtues expressed in holy gratitude: "promptitude of obedience, heroic effort, joyful perseverance". Holy Gratitude is "loyalty to God".

"Happy the man whose life is one long Te Deum"! he writes--constantly praising and thanking God with the Angels, the Cherubim, the Seraphim, the Apostles, the Prophets, and the Martyrs.

Faber says when we show this gratitude and rejoice in God's blessings, it's apostolic (evangelistic) because "it wins souls", and it "preaches God unconsciously".

"Joy is not a solitary thing!". he proclaims, as we share it.

There's much in these pages to meditation upon and discuss.