Newman, Wu, and Stapleton

I'm juggling three books right now: one by Father Marvin O'Connell, Thomas Stapleton and the Counter-Reformation; John H.C. Wu's Chinese Humanism and Christian Spirituality, and Edward Short's collection of essays, presentations, and reviews, Newman and History. I'll provide reviews soon.

I'm reading the book on Thomas Stapleton because I just read Father O'Connell's history of the Counter Reformation and because of this comment in his obituary:

Nevertheless, about his own artistic accomplishments he was humble. He particularly liked to tell a story about proudly presenting his mother with his first published book, on the 16th-century English Catholic theologian Thomas Stapleton. His mother told him that she planned to read it during Lent. “After finishing the first chapter,” Father O’Connell said, “she let me know that she had changed her mind. She’d decided not to read my book and to give up chocolate instead.”

So far, it's as excellent as I expected--but I haven't had any chocolate lately anyway.

Father John Hardon, SJ included John C.H. Wu in his Catholic Lifetime Reading Plan so when I saw that Angelico Press had published his book comparing Chinese philosophy to St. Therese of Lisieux and other aspects of Catholic Christian spirituality, I asked Warren at Eighth Day Books to get a copy for me:

In the essays collected here, John C. H. Wu (1899–1986), the prominent 20th-century scholar of both Chinese and western law, philosophy, literature, and spirituality, illustrates with striking originality the harmonious synthesis of Chinese humanism (especially the wisdom of the ancient sages) with Christian spirituality as articulated in the Bible and the writings of the saints, mystics, and such modern spiritual writers as Thérèse of Lisieux. They display the depth and breadth of Wu’s thought, which led him to the conclusion that the wisdom in all of China’s traditions—especially Confucian thought, Taoism, and Buddhism—points to universal truths that originate from, and are fulfilled in, Christ, and that the “marriage” of the East and the West in Christ is the key to a future concordant understanding.

More about John C.H. Wu's fascinating life here.

One question I have as I read about the spirit of Chinese humanism is what has so many decades of Communism and totalitarianism--including forced abortions and other horrors--done to this spirit? 

Following the advice of Professor J.J. Scarisbrick in his introduction, I'm dipping into Newman and History by reading some of the shorter entries. The one so far that has been most fascinating is a discussion of the conversions of Blessed John Henry Newman and C.S. Lewis (and why Lewis did not become a Catholic). The key is the definition of "conversion".

What are you reading, readers?

Party Like Its Christmas Until February?!?

In the UK Catholic Herald magazine, Melanie McDonagh promotes celebrating/observing the Christmas season until Candlemas (February 2), bringing the season to the biblical 40 days:

One of the downsides of starting Christmas so soon is that it finishes too soon. Obviously, if the season starts commercially just after Halloween, and the Christmas lights go on at the beginning of November, and the party season gets going in early December, you’re over the celebrations by St Stephen’s, or Boxing Day, with one last hurrah on New Year’s Eve. As an uncle of mine used to say dolefully, after tea on Christmas Day: “That’s Christmas over for another year.” Wrong, obviously. Christmas goes on for Twelve Days, Christmas Eve to Epiphany, a feast we do not keep by putting the bald Christmas trees out.

In fact, I’d say myself that we shouldn’t give up on Christmas until Candlemas, February 2. That was the way the Church’s calendar intended it: the Christmas season extended right through the second most dispiriting month of the year, right into the most depressing one. January without Christmas can be a downbeat month, but if we think of it as a modified extension of the Christmas season, it has an altogether different character.

There couldn’t be a worse time for the New Year, New You thing of giving up starchy carbs; this is exactly the time we should be eating them, having our friends round. It’s still the time for filling your house with candles and greenery, and entertaining. Candlemas Eve, not Epiphany, used to be the time when people took down their sprays of greenery, holly and ivy. As Robert Herrick put it in his poem for the Eve: “Down with the Rosemary and Bayes, down with the Mistletoe; Instead of Holly now up-raise the greener Box, for show…” And so on, with all the green stuff of Christmas being replaced with their springtime equivalents, to celebrate Whitsun or Easter.

The article is illustrated with a picture of Christmas trees being thrown away. Of course, if you've had a "live" tree up since Thanksgiving, you might need to dispose of it (we recycle ours) well before February 2! But she's right that we need to keep Christmas going. I find the calendar of the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Rite to help, because instead of jumping right into a short portion of Ordinary Time after the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord, it continues with the Season after Epiphany. Just seeing that term Epiphany for each Sunday between January 6 and February 2 reminds me that we are still celebrating Christmas, at least liturgically.

But for now we are celebrating the Nativity of Jesus in the Octave of the Christmas Feast. Happy Feast of St. John, the beloved disciple! Happy second day of Christmas, 2016-2017! Merry Christmas!

Martyrs and Their Witness

When St. Edmund Campion suffered execution on December 1, 1581, drops of his blood fell on Henry Walpole. Walpole then left England to study for the priesthood and thus returned as a missionary like Campion. Just like Campion--but only more quickly--he was captured, then imprisoned, tortured, and executed. In the same way, on January 21, 1586, Blesseds Edward Stransham and Nicholas Wheeler (or Woodfen) were executed at Tyburn; Blessed William Freeman, who would suffer their fate nine years later, witnessed their hanging, drawing, and quartering and yet was inspired to follow their path to exile, study, ordination, and return as a missionary priest.

~Blessed Edward Stransham, priest and martyr--A native of Oxford, born about 1554, earning his BA from St. John's College in 1575-76. Then he went to Douai in 1577 and Reims in 1578. Because he was ill he returned to England to recuperate; then went back to Reims in 1579; ordained in 1580. In 1581 he returned to England as a missionary priest, but was still suffering from consumption; he left England in 1583, bringing 12 Oxford converts with him to Reims. After a stay in Paris, he returned to England and was arrested while saying Mass in Bishopsgate Street Without, London, 17 July, 1585 and held for trial.
~Blessed Nicholas Wheeler (or Woodfen), priest and martyr--Born at Leominster in 1550, he studied for the priesthood in Reims, after ordination he returned to England with Edward Stransham, and was executed with him at Tyburn in 1586. Dressed like a lawyer, he had lived near the Inns of Court, one of the legal training schools in London, serving covert Catholics studying there.

Blessed William Freeman witnessed the executions of Stransham and Wheeler. He became a Catholic, went to Reims, was ordained and returned to England as a missionary priest. He was hung, drawn, and quartered for that crime on 13 August 1595 in Warwick, after spending some time in Stratford-on-Avon.

Although Blesseds Stransham and Wheeler were martyred first, Blessed William Freeman was beatified before they were, by Pope Pius XI in 1929. Today's martyrs were named Venerable on November 10, 1986 and then beatified November 22, 1987 by Pope Saint John Paul II.