Preview: Pope Leo XIII to English Catholics in 1895

On Monday, June 23 we'll discuss another great anniversary on the Son Rise Rise Morning Show: the 130th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII's Apostolic Letter to England, "Amantissima Voluntatis" ("Most Loving Will") dated on April 27, 1895. You could listen to the letter here.

As usual, I'll be on the air about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Please listen live here or catch the podcast later here.

As the old Catholic Encyclopedia summarizes Pope Leo XIII's activities re: the British Isles (and indeed, the Empire):

Among the acts of Leo XIII that affected in a particular way the English-speaking world may be mentioned: for England, the elevation of John Henry Newman to the cardinalate (1879), the "Romanos Pontifices" of 1881 concerning the relations of the hierarchy and the regular clergy, the beatification (1886) of fifty [sic] English martyrs, the celebration of the thirteenth centenary of St. Gregory the Great, Apostle of England (1891), the Encyclicals "Ad Anglos" of 1895, on the return to Catholic unity, and the "Apostolicæ Curæ" of 1896, on the non-validity of the Anglican orders. He restored the Scotch hierarchy in 1878, and in 1898 addressed to the Scotch a very touching letter. In English India Pope Leo established the hierarchy in 1886, and regulated there long-standing conflicts with the Portuguese authorities. In 1903 King Edward VII paid him a visit at the Vatican. The Irish Church experienced his pastoral solicitude on many occasions. His letter to Archbishop McCabe of Dublin (1881), the elevation of the same prelate to the cardinalate in 1882, the calling of the Irish bishops to Rome in 1885, the decree of the Holy Office (13 April, 1888) on the plan of campaign and boycotting, and the subsequent Encyclical of 24 June, 1888, to the Irish hierarchy represent in part his fatherly concern for the Irish people, however diverse the feelings they aroused at the height of the land agitation.

And he named Saint Bede the Venerable a Doctor of the Church in 1889. And Pope Leo XIII declared many Catholic Martyrs of England and Wales blessed or venerable: 

• In 1886, Pope Leo XIII beatified 54 martyrs, including Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher and 11 others who were canonized in 1970 by Pope Paul VI;
• In 1886, Pope Leo also declared 29 English Catholic martyrs to be Venerable (several of these martyrs had died in chains, that is, is prison or because of their treatment in prison);
• In 1895, Pope Leo XIII beatified nine more martyrs

So it's clear that he had many connections to the Catholics of England; in the letter he mentions one English Catholic he'd met, the now-Venerable Servant of God Father Ignatius (Spenser) of St. Paul, who led a Crusade of Prayer for the reunion of all Christians in England with the Catholic Church.

Antonia Moffat writes about this letter for EWTN Britain:

On April 27, 1895, Pope Leo XIII wrote a deeply moving letter to the English people, reminding them of their rich Christian heritage and calling for prayer and unity with the Apostolic See. More than 130 years later, his words continue to inspire hope and faith in England today.

The letter was written to remind the English of their Christian heritage, of England’s privileged title as the Dowry of Mary, of the courageous faith of their forefathers and foremothers, and of the historic unity of faith with the Apostolic See of Peter.

How beautiful that a pope should write such a loving letter to the English people – a letter of encouragement, fatherly compassion and deep affection. In many ways, he poured out his heart in love, care and lament before the Living God. And we, the English Catholics and peoples, are the esteemed recipients of this legacy.

In his letter Pope Leo XIII traces the history of the relationship between the universal Catholic Church, especially the Papacy, and the English people from Pope St. Gregory the Great and St. Augustine of Canterbury to the schism and Protestant Reformation and its aftermath (from an unofficial translation):

That the English race was in those days devoted to this centre of Christian unity divinely constituted in the Roman Bishops, and that in the course of ages men of all ranks were bound to them by ties of loyalty, are facts too abundantly and plainly testified by the pages of history to admit of doubt or question. But, in the storms which devastated Catholicity throughout Europe in the sixteenth century, England, too, received a grievous wound; for it was first unhappily wrenched from communication with the Apostolic See, and then was bereft of that holy faith in which for long centuries it had rejoiced and found liberty. It was a sad defection; and Our predecessors, while lamenting it in their earnest love, made every prudent effort to put an end to it, and to mitigate the many evils consequent upon it. It would take long, and it is not necessary, to detail the sedulous and increasing care taken by Our predecessors in those circumstances.

He rejoiced, with some reservations, that Catholics were more able to practice their faith and be active participants in the political and legislative life of England:

We do not doubt that the united and humble supplications of so many to God are hastening the time of further manifestations of His merciful designs towards the English people when the Word of the Lord may run and be glorified. Our confidence is strengthened by observing the legislative and other measures which, if they do not perhaps directly, still do indirectly help forward the end We have in view by ameliorating the condition of the people at large, and by giving effect to the laws of justice and charity.

He commended the Catholics of England and the English people in general, for their concern for "the social issues" he'd highlighted in Rerum Novarum, but urged them to keep in mind the true means of their success:

For the labors of man, whether public or private, will not attain to their full efficacy without appeal to God in prayer and without the divine blessing. For happy is that people whose God is the Lord. For the mind of the Christian should be so turned and fixed that he places and rests the chief hope of his undertakings in the divine help obtained by prayer, whereby human effort is super-naturalized and the desire of doing good, as though quickened by a heavenly fire, manifests itself in vigorous and serviceable actions. In this power of prayer God has not merely dignified man, but with infinite mercy has given him a protector and help in the time of need, ready at hand to all, easy and void of effect to no one who has resolute recourse to it. "Prayer is our powerful weapon, our great protection, our storehouse, our port of refuge, our place of safety."

Finally, Pope Leo offered a prayer after invoking the beautiful legacy of England at the "Dowry of Mary" for the reunion of all Christians:

O Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and our most gentle Queen and Mother, look down in mercy upon England thy "Dowry" and upon us all who greatly hope and trust in thee. By thee it was that Jesus our Saviour and our hope was given unto the world ; and He has given thee to us that we might hope still more. Plead for us thy children, whom thou didst receive and accept at the foot of the cross. O sorrowful Mother! intercede for our separated brethren, that with us in the one true fold they may be united to the supreme Shepherd, the Vicar of thy Son. Pray for us all, dear Mother, that by faith fruitful in good works we may all deserve to see and praise God, together with thee, in our heavenly home. Amen.

“When England goes back to Walsingham, Our Lady will come back to England" quoth Pope Leo XIII two years later.

Richard II had dedicated England as a Dowry to the Blessed Virgin Mary on June 15, 1381, in the midst of the Peasants Revolt. He knelt before the shrine of Our Lady of Pew in Westminster Abbey and "solemnly declared in Latin: 'Dos tua Virgo pia haec est. Quare rege, Maria.' Which translates as: 'This is your Dowry, O Holy Virgin. Mary, do thou rule in it.'" This action is depicted in the famous and beautiful Wilton Diptych.

Our Lady of Walsingham, pray for us!

Image Credit (Public Domain): Pope Leo XIII (April 11, 1878)

The Wilton Diptych and "Popular Medieval Piety"

The Catholic Herald (UK) features an introduction to the week ahead in the UK version of the Magnificat monthly prayer magazine. Leonie Caldecott introduces the Wilton Diptych in this week's column:

This week I have been looking at the Wilton Diptych with our summer school students. It is remarkable that such a powerful pre-Reformation image should have survived, with its connotations of England as Our Lady’s Dowry. But the mysterious painting is much more than a symbolic exercise. The portrayal of the mother of Christ is one of the most beautiful and tender I have ever seen: her face has a marvellous spiritual maternity about it.

Apart from her face, the eye is also drawn inexorably toward her left hand, painted disproportionately larger than the rest of her body. This hand, like a human monstrance, holds out the Christ child’s foot for us to venerate.

According to England's National Gallery of Art:

The 'Wilton Diptych' was painted as a portable altarpiece for the private devotion of King Richard II, who ruled England from 1377 to 1399. The diptych is thought to have been made in the last five years of Richard's reign, although its artist remains unknown. It is called The Wilton Diptych because it came from Wilton House in Wiltshire, the seat of the Earls of Pembroke.

A diptych is a painting, carving or piece of metalwork on two panels, usually hinged like a book. The panels of the Wilton Diptych are made of North European oak, but have been transformed by immaculate painting and gilding, into a heavenly vision. On the inside, Richard II is presented by three saints to the Virgin and Child and a company of eleven angels. Nearest to Richard is his patron saint John the Baptist. Behind are Saint Edward the Confessor and Saint Edmund, earlier English kings who came to be venerated as saints.

The outside bears Richard's arms and his personal emblem of a white hart chained with a crown around its neck.

In 1993 the National Gallery held a special exhibition on the Diptych, resulting in a book and noted in this article from The Independent:

The Wilton Diptych has been a mystery for centuries. The painting's blend of naturalism and otherworldliness is both subtle and slightly puzzling: its most famous figures, those faintly insouciant long-necked angels with the most famous angels' wings in art, are a strange and compelling hybrid of real people and real birds, supernatural beings formed from a blend of observation and imagination. But they are just one part of an intricate symbolic scheme that has never been satisfactorily deciphered.

What, exactly, is the nature of the encounter which the picture depicts? What is the relationship between the kneeling King Richard II, flanked by three saints in a wild and wooded landscape, and the Madonna and Child in a paradise garden crowded with angels? Some momentous event appears to be taking place: that much is clear from the busy gesticulation of four of the angels, who are pointing at the figure of Richard; and also from the strange, open-handed gesture of the king, who appears to be waiting for some sign (approval? benediction?) from the Virgin and Child. Something is happening, some kind of transaction that bridges the two abutting hinged panels, worldly and heavenly, of which the diptych is made - but just what that might be has escaped us, separated as we are from the picture by a distance of six centuries.

The National Gallery exhibition (and its superb catalogue) may, however, mark a watershed in the history of the painting's interpretation. Recent cleaning of the picture has revealed a tiny detail, no more than a couple of centimetres across and previously obscured by dirt. The stave of the red and white banner held by the angel on the extreme left of the right-hand panel is crowned by a minute orb, previously thought to be blank. Restoration has revealed a tiny picture within the circumference of this orb: the image of a green island with trees on its horizon and a turreted white castle at its centre, floating in a dark sea which - according to the National Gallery's team of restorers - was originally painted silver but is now permanently tarnished.

This image, discovered in the greatest surviving painting of Richard II, inevitably calls to mind lines in the greatest piece of literature about him: John of Gaunt's description of England, in Shakespeare's Richard II, as 'this little world, / This precious stone set in a silver sea'. This suggests that Shakespeare may well have known the Wilton Diptych, or at least an image of an island very like the one that has been found in the picture. It may also provide the key to unlock the meaning of the painting.

The article by Andrew Graham-Dixon goes on to discuss the connection between the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 and sums up the different, pre-Reformation piety it depicts:

This image of royal piety contains within it an entire world of popular medieval piety that has long sunk from view in this country, submerged by the great tide of the English Protestant Reformation: a world where people believed, fervently, in the power of prayer to incite divine intercession in the affairs of men; a world where not only kings but common people would plead with images of saints or of the Virgin to deliver them from their troubles.

Of course, what the author does not realize is that such a world still does exist: I was part of it this past weekend on Saturday, when a large group of Catholics processed behind the Holy Eucharist around the Century II Exhibition complex on a hot, steamy summer evening and knelt on concrete and grass to adore and worship Jesus Christ present on the Altar, singing hymns and walking on rose petals. It may be a small world, but we still believe, "fervently, in the power of prayer to incite divine intercession in the affairs of men . . ." We demonstrated that belief on the sidewalks of Wichita, Kansas at the Midwest Catholic Family Conference, chanting ancient hymns and modern psalms, with banners and incense, sweat and tears.