St. John Henry Newman's "Re-Imagining" of Purgatory

On Monday, October 26, I watched Professor Kenneth Parker's Journey Home episode on EWTN. He is currently the Ryan Endowed Chair for Newman Studies, Professor of Historical Theology and soon will be the Chairman of the newly formed Department of Catholic Studies both at Duquesne University. 

He grew up in a Christian community I'd never heard of before, the Pilgrim Holiness Church. He studied Historical Theology at the University of Cambridge, became a Catholic in 1982 and discerned a  vocation as a Benedictine monk in California before returning to the academic world. As he says on his page at Duquesne:

My original area of scholarship focused on early modern English theology, and I have published on English sabbatarianism, Richard Greenham, and Elizabethan pastoral care. In the late 1980s my research interests expanded to include John Henry Newman and Christian historiographical traditions. In the early 2000s, I began exploring the papal infallibility debates of the 1860s and how history was employed by key theologians. This research has drawn me into studies of two Irish American archepiscopal brothers, Francis and Peter Kenrick, who profoundly influenced the discourse on papal authority in the 19th-century North Atlantic Catholic world. Their Irish background has led to research on the Irish gallican tradition and its impact on Catholicism in the United States.

In the course of his interview, some viewers sent emails and one of them asked about a neglected or relatively unknown aspect of Saint John Henry Newman's works and thought. Professor Parker suggested that how Newman "re-imagined our understanding of Purgatory" in The Dream of Gerontius was one thing, continuing with the thought that Newman often regretted "from his first book" [The Arians of the Fourth Century] that doctrines celebrated doxologically through worship had to be defended through intellectual argument, removing them from their proper place. 

What I interpreted him to mean is that the Divinity of Jesus was celebrated in the liturgy of the Church, but the attack on that Divinity by Arius meant that orthodox believers had to provide technical exegesis and theological arguments to defend and codify it. 

Furthermore, I conclude that Professor Parker was saying that in The Dream of Gerontius, with its earthly and heavenly liturgies of prayer and praise, Newman was providing a fresh vision of Purgatory in its proper context--worship and awe of the Holy Trinity; the justice and mercy of God; the reality of sin, repentance, and expiation--all in the experience of a man dying in the state of grace, absolved of sin, and prepared for judgment by the traditions of the Church.

When Gerontius's Soul approaches particular judgment, he hears those at his deathbed praying for him, and his Guardian Angel explains:

It is the voice of friends around thy bed,
Who say the "Subvenite" with the priest.
Hither the echoes come; before the Throne
Stands the great Angel of the Agony,
The same who strengthen'd Him, what time He knelt
Lone in that garden shade, bedew'd with blood.
That Angel best can plead with Him for all
Tormented souls, the dying and the dead.

The Subvenite is the responsory prayed immediately after the Christian has died:

R. Subveníte, Sancti Dei, occúrrite, Angeli Dómini, Suscipiéntes ániman ejus, Offeréntes eam in conspéctu Altíssimi. Suscípiat te Christus, qui vocávit te, et in sinum Abrahae Angeli dedúcant te. Suscipiéntes ánimam ejus, Offeréntes eam in conspéctu Altíssimi. 

V. Réquiem aetérnam dona ei, Dómine, et lux perpétua lúceat ei. Offeréntes eam in conspéctu Altìssimi. 

R. Come to his assistance, all you Saints of God: meet him, all you Angels of God: receiving his soul, offering it in the sight of the Most High. May Christ receive you, who hath called you, and may the Angels conduct you to Abraham's bosom. Receiving his (her) soul and offering it in the sight of the Most High.

V. Eternal rest give to him (her), Lord: and let perpetual light shine upon him (her). Offering it in the sight of the Most High.

This is what has been happening to Gerontius's Soul; the Angels of God have received it and are offering it "in the sight of the Most High" as the Soul goes to face God and Judgment. And after the Soul has received Judgment, Newman places a poem of great subtlety mixing joy and pain, longing and peace as the Soul is "happy in [his] pain", "Lone, not forlorn--" and will sing to "soothe [his] stricken breast":

Take me away, and in the lowest deep
There let me be,
And there in hope the lone night-watches keep,
Told out for me.
There, motionless, and happy in my pain,
Lone, not forlorn –
There will I sing my sad perpetual strain,
Until the morn,
There will I sing, and soothe my stricken breast,
Which ne’er can cease
To throb, and pine, and languish, till possest
Of its Sole Peace.
There will I sing my absent Lord and Love: –
Take me away,
That sooner I may rise, and go above,
And see Him in the truth of everlasting day.

[His Guardian Angel had warned his Soul that he would feel this way:

When then—if such thy lot—thou seest thy Judge,
The sight of Him will kindle in thy heart,
All tender, gracious, reverential thoughts.
Thou wilt be sick with love, and yearn for Him,
And feel as though thou couldst but pity Him,
That one so sweet should e’er have placed Himself
At disadvantage such, as to be used
So vilely by a being so vile as thee.
There is a pleading in His pensive eyes
Will pierce thee to the quick, and trouble thee.
And thou wilt hate and loathe thyself; for, though
Now sinless, thou wilt feel that thou hast sinned,
As never thou didst feel; and wilt desire
To slink away, and hide thee from His sight;
And yet wilt have a longing aye to dwell
Within the beauty of His countenance.
And these two pains, so counter and so keen,—
The longing for Him, when thou seest Him not;
The shame of self at thought of seeing Him,—
Will be thy veriest, sharpest purgatory.]

Sir Edward Elgar left that passage out of the libretto of his oratorio, but that image of the Soul seeing with spiritual eyes the love God has for him and how much the Soul has failed to receive that love worthily--and that moment "will be thy veriest, sharpest purgatory" is a re-imagining of the moment of Judgment and Purgatory, and even the immortal soul's reaction to its fate. It is ready for Purgatory now; it wants to be purified and prepared to enter that Presence again.

This is the passage that even Charles Kingsley, Newman's defeated opponent of the Apologia pro Vita Sua crisis could accept, as cited in this article by Robert Carballo:

I read the Dream with awe and admiration. However utterly I may differ from the entourage in which Dr. Newman’s present creed surrounds the central idea, I must feel that the central idea is as true, as it is noble, and it, as I suppose, is this: The longing of the soul to behold the Deity … that the soul is ready, even glad, to be hurled back to any depth, to endure any pain, from the moment it becomes aware of God’s actual perfection and its own impurity and meanness.

The Guardian Angel's description of Purgatory echoes a poem Newman wrote in 1853, "The Golden Prison", promising the presence of Angels even there--the Soul will not suffer alone.

Now let the golden prison open its gates,
Making sweet music, as each fold revolves
Upon its ready hinge. And ye great powers,
Angels of Purgatory, receive from me
My charge, a precious soul, until the day,
When, from all bond and forfeiture released,
I shall reclaim it for the courts of light.

And then the Guardian Angel's final words refer to "penal waters", a lake, and "bed of sorrows", as the Angels of Purgatory tend, nurse, and lull the penitent soul and prayers and Masses on earth make the time pass swiftly until she returns to convey his Soul to Heaven:

Softly and gently, dearly ransomed soul,
In my most loving arms I now enfold thee,
And o’er the penal waters, as they roll,
I poise thee, and I lower thee, and hold thee.
And carefully I dip thee in the lake,
And thou, without a sob or a resistance,
Dost through the flood thy rapid passage take,
Sinking deep, deeper, into the dim distance.
Angels, to whom the willing task is given,
Shall tend, and nurse, and lull thee, as thou liest;
And Masses on the earth, and prayers in heaven,
Shall aid thee at the Throne of the Most Highest.
Farewell, but not for ever brother dear,
Be brave and patient on thy bed of sorrow;
Swiftly shall pass thy night of trial here,
And I will come and wake thee on the morrow. 

Newman emphasizes that the sufferings of the Soul are outside of earthly time; it is not earthly days or weeks or months or years that pass but merely a "night", and the Guardian Angel will return "on the morrow".

Professor Parker mentioned Elgar's oratorio based upon Newman's poem: Dame Janet Baker's performance of this final aria is the perfect conclusion. Elgar's brilliance of weaving the prayers of the other Souls in Purgatory reciting Psalm 90 as the Angelicals sing "Praise to the Holiest in the Height" lead us to a peaceful Amen. 

Farewell, but not forever.

Halloween and Grave Thoughts

On Tuesday, October 10, 2017, I started this reflection:

By the end of the first week in October the graveyards were popping up in lawns in our neighborhood—complete with “humerous” rhyming epitaphs and skeletons escaping the sod, while ghosts waved from the trees and jack-o-lanterns smiled on the porches—25 days before Halloween.

That's as far as I got.

That afternoon, my sister visited our mother in the nursing home and reported to my brother and me later that Mother was still very anxious and uncomfortable. She had some outpatient surgery a few weeks before with some anesthetic and although the surgery had been successful, she had not been doing well.

The next morning (Wednesday), the nursing home called me and said they were transporting Mother to the emergency room. By Friday evening, she was back at the nursing home and under hospice care. My brother, sister, niece, and I visited her several times, especially when called by the hospice nurse on Sunday and Monday. At the same time my husband was ill and I had to take him to the emergency room for admission to the hospital, so I wasn’t with her when she died on Monday, October 16.

Planning her funeral, cleaning out her room at the nursing home, and getting my husband home from the hospital took all my attention for the next couple of weeks, so I never returned to this theme.

By the end of the first week of October this year the faux graveyards were displayed in front yards, grocery stores were selling Halloween candy and statues of skeletal cats and dogs—death seems to be all around us.

As the co-owner of two very lively dogs (terriers) I really don't like statues of skeletal dogs, especially the ones depicting a dog with a ball in his mouth!

I know that every year there is a debate in the Catholic media about whether Catholics should celebrate Halloween. I think it’s clear that Catholics should not celebrate Halloween the way the secular world wants us to celebrate it—all month long—or with an occult or spiritualistic view.

We should not separate Halloween from its true purpose as the vigil of All Saints Day, the month of November, and prayer for all the Poor Souls in Purgatory, but, as usual, that can be difficult when these Holy Days have been so corrupted by commerce.

The front yards full of graveyards are meant to create a creepy and eerie atmosphere with appropriate lighting and sound effects especially on Halloween night when the trick or treaters come around.

But the image of the skeletons half in and half out of their graves has a Christian significance the creators may not recognize. We do think often of the dead and we often think of them overcoming death in some way. Christians believe that those who die in grace do overcome death.

In the Catholic Church, we dedicate a month to remembering the dead and praying for them. As we remember the dead, we think of what they have faced--and what we will face: the Four Last Things.

From All Hallows Eve, through All Saints Day, and then on All Souls Day, the Catholic Church is focused on the Four Last Things on these three days.

October 31, All Hallows Eve, is the vigil of All Saints Day and the reminder of Death, the first Four Last Thing. The ghosts and ghouls and phantoms of Halloween also remind us of Hell, which we fear, or should fear, even more than we fear Death.

November 1, All Hallows or All Saints, honors all the saints, known and unknown, those beatified and canonized and those who haven't been vetted and honored explicitly by the Church. That day is focused on Heaven.

November 2, All Souls Day, is focused on Judgment AND Heaven. Souls who have faced God's Judgment and are in need of purification prepare for Heaven in Purgatory. They have achieved salvation, but are not perfect or completely ready for Heaven. We pray for them and hope that others will pray for us when we are dead.

Prayer for the dead was a crucial issue in the religious debate before the English Reformation. As Eamon Duffy and other historians of the religious practices of the late Middle Ages in England have shown, it was an integral part of English life. They prayed for their dead and hoped their families would pray for them after they died. St. Thomas More saw this connection between the living and the dead under attack and responded in its defense, hoping that Henry VIII would defend and protect this Catholic practice as he had the Seven Sacraments.

In the The Supplication of Souls, St. Thomas More answered Simon Fish's Supplication of Beggars, in which Fish told Henry VIII that he was not in control of his country which is filled with poor beggars because of the priests whose demand for alms to pray and say Masses for the dead--a classic zero-sum view of salvation economy. According to Fish, if people are giving alms for prayers they aren't giving alms for the poor. More writes his answer representing the Poor Souls in Purgatory, who beg for prayers and penance from the living as they suffer for the effects of their sins on earth after death. 

Neither More nor Fish can prove their statistical points (I have not read Fish's Supplication)--Fish thinks that there have been more poor in England since people started praying for the dead while More contends that "the poor you will always have with you" and that the poor on earth as well as the poor in purgatory benefit from the alms given to the Church as well as to the poor, arguing that the economy, both temporal and spiritual, is more complex and interconnected than Fish thinks.

More notes that Fish is using subterfuge, attacking the doctrine of Purgatory and prayer for the dead as a way to attack the entire sacramental system. He cites Fish's complaint about Henry VIII's one error--The Defense of the Seven Sacraments--and Fish's hatred of the priesthood as the real reasons for this attack on the Poor Souls in Purgatory. 

Fish wants all the priests in England to be tied to carts, dragged through the streets, beaten, forced to marry, and get jobs. More asks, on behalf of the Poor Souls, how is this to be enforced, even if Henry would issue such commands. Are women to be forced to marry former priests? What jobs will they do? How will Fish prevent this sudden influx of unemployed priests from increasing the number of the poor? Has Fish really figured out the financial situation? What about all the poor the clergy and the Church assist everyday? What about the people the clergy employ--the builders, carpenters, laborers, etc? Where will they find employment?

Fish promises that the lame, the leprous, and the deaf, dumb, and blind will be healed, that Henry VIII's power and authority will be strengthened, and that the true gospel will at last be preached. Aha! say the Poor Souls: the supplicant for beggars must be as great as God in Genesis for he speaks and it IS. 

More takes each point of Fish's argument and counters it, several times revealing More's experience of legislation and his knowledge of the courts and the law to expose Fish's errors. There is none of the personal invective so often highlighted in discussions of More's apologetic or polemic works. More does employ exaggeration, mockery of Fish's ignorance, irony, and sarcasm. He offers scriptural examples and arguments from the Fathers, appealing to the authority of the Church through the centuries against these new views of Christian doctrine from Luther and Tyndale.

He ends the Supplication with pleas from the Poor Souls for prayers. They also advise the living on how to prepare for death by recounting their own regrets. They warn against preparing more for the funeral arrangements and less for death and judgment. They regret that they relied so much on comforts and luxuries in this life and did not do penance for their sins to expiate the temporal punishments that remained even after they repented and confessed their sins. They beg for our prayers and promise theirs for us once they are in heaven.

The Poor Souls regret that they forgot to pray for so many of their loved ones when they were living:

Know well, dear friends, that among the many great and grievous pains that one suffers here—of which God send you the grace to suffer either none or few—the uneasiness of one’s conscience in the consideration of one’s uncharitable forgetfulness is not the least of them all.

Therefore, dear friends, let our folly teach you wisdom. Send here your prayer, send here your alms before you. . . .

We wish to God we ourselves had done as we now counsel you to do.

More's Poor Souls beg all on earth to remember them:

And in all your almsgiving, somewhat remember us. Our wives there, remember your husbands here. Our children there, remember your parents here. Our parents there, remember your children here. Our husbands there, remember your wives here. 

On their part, the Poor Souls promise to greet the living someday in heaven:

So may God keep you out of here, or not long here, and bring you shortly to that bliss to which, for the love of Our Lord, you help bring us. And we will set hand to help you join us there. 

Image at the top: Hans Memling, The Last Judgement.

Shakespeare's Henry V's Prayers for Richard II

In Shakespeare's historical play Henry V, the king leaves his headquarters to mingle with his soldiers on the eve of the battle of Agincourt. After some discussion of the relationship between the justice of the king's cause and his subject's responsibility for doing the right thing, Henry V reflects upon his father Henry IV's role in the death of the deposed Richard II.

Richard II died in Pontefract Castle--probably of starvation--on February 14, 1400 (the usually accepted date). He had surrendered to Henry IV at Flint Castle on August 19, 1399, on promises that his life would be spared. He was held in the Tower of London and abdicated on September 30 that year. Parliament formally deposed him on October 1 and Henry IV was crowned on October 13. Richard was moved to Pontefract Castle. After the discovery of the Epiphany Plot, in which several noblemen planned to kidnap Henry IV at Windsor on Epiphany (January 6, 1400), kill him, and restore Richard II to the throne. Richard was not allowed to remain alive, a target for conspiracy--Mary, Queen of Scots' situation during Elizabeth I's reign comes to mind--even though he might have known nothing of the plot, which also called the Revolt of the Three Earls.

In terms that defied the Church of England's rejection of the doctrine of Purgatory and the practice of prayer for the dead, Henry V describes how he has tried to demonstrate his repentance for the death of Richard at the hands of his father. He has founded chantries, those chapels set aside for praying the dead, which had be suppressed by Edward VI; he has paid poor men and women, as Henry VIII had done in his will, to pray. He prays and promises to do more:

O God of battles! steel my soldiers' hearts;
Possess them not with fear; take from them now
The sense of reckoning, if the opposed numbers
Pluck their hearts from them. Not to-day, O Lord,
O, not to-day, think not upon the fault
My father made in compassing the crown!
I Richard's body have interred anew;
And on it have bestow'd more contrite tears
Than from it issued forced drops of blood:
Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay,
Who twice a-day their wither'd hands hold up
Toward heaven, to pardon blood; and I have built
Two chantries, where the sad and solemn priests
Sing still for Richard's soul. More will I do;
Though all that I can do is nothing worth,
Since that my penitence comes after all,
Imploring pardon.

I've always wondered how post-Reformation audiences responded to these words? Henry offers these prayers not for his father's sins, but for Richard II's soul. Henry V's repentance for his father's sins recalls Catholic teaching and piety and would have reminded them that at one time--not so long ago--English kings and queens were Catholics, as the gloriously gorgeous Wilton Diptych attests.

The word chantry might have reminded some in the audience of the celebration of the Catholic Mass, which of course had been declared illegal. It might have reminded them of ordained Catholic priests, who were now traitors, hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn. Recusant Catholics or Church Papists in the audience would have definitely known what Shakespeare was describing.

Happy St. Valentine's Day! Best wishes for a holy and spiritually beneficial Ash Wednesday and Lent! I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show Friday morning to continue my discussion with Anna Mitchell on Hilaire Belloc's Characters of the Reformation--preview to come tomorrow!

General Charles George Gordon and Gerontius

General Charles George Gordon died at the siege of Khartoum on January 26, 1885.

Before his death, he had given a copy of Newman's Dream of Gerontius to a newspaper correspondent who brought it back to England. Newman, who had been following the news reports of the efforts of reach Khartoum, was impressed when he learned of Gordon's appreciation of his poem and saw his copy of it:

The Cardinal, in his reply, wrote: "Your letter and its contents took away my breath. I was deeply moved to find that a book of mine had been in General Gordon's hands, and that the description of a soul preparing for death." 

According to this edition of the Dream of Gerontius:

The story of General Charles George Gordon,"Chinese Gordon," one of the heroes of the nineteenth century, has passed into history, and every enthusiastic boy or girl ought to know it by heart. Gordon was the type of the valiant soldier who carried the love and fear of God everywhere. He, besieged by pagan hordes, died, in 1884, the death of a martyr to duty. This man was only one of those who found consolation in "The Dream of Gerontius" at the very hour of death. General Gordon's copy of the poem—a small duodecimo—was presented to the late Mr. Frank Power, correspondent of the London Times. The latter sent it home to his sister in Dublin. Deep pencil-marks had been drawn under lines all bearing on death and prayer. For instance: "Pray for me, O my friends"; "'Tis death, O loving friends, your prayers,—'tis he"; "So pray for me, my friends, who have not strength to pray"; "Use well the interval"; "Prepare to meet thy God"; "Now that the hour is come, my fear is fled." Later Power met the fate of a hero. The last words that Gordon underlined before he gave him the book were:

"Farewell, but not forever, brother dear;
Be brave and patient on thy bed of sorrow."

I wonder how General Gordon would have reacted to hearing Dame Janet Baker singing that farewell to the Soul of Gerontius in Elgar's oratorio!

It's fascinating how many people in his own time appreciated this poem--including Gladstone, who was blamed by both Queen Victoria and many in England for not sending reinforcements to Gordon earlier--even though their Protestant/Anglican doctrines rejected the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory and prayer for the dead!

Happy Martinmas!

Today is the feast of St. Martin of Tours, one of the first non-martyr saints, a confessor for Christ. He is best known and most frequently depicted as a soldier mounted on a horse, handing half of his cloak to a beggar. I've chosen a different image: St Martin leaves the life of chivalry and renounces the army (fresco by Simone Martini). After his conversion, brought about by a visit from Jesus revealing Himself to have been that beggar, Martin left the Roman army, became a hermit, and eventually was ordained priest and bishop. We have an early life written by Sulpicius Severus, who knew him!

More about Martinmas, one of those feasts that anchored the Medieval year in custom and liturgical observance:

Famous for his generosity towards a drunken beggar, with whom he shared his cloak, St Martin is the patron saint of beggars, drunkards and the poor. As his feast day falls during the wine harvest in Europe, he is also the patron saint of wine growers and innkeepers.

As Martinmas coincided with the gathering in of the harvest, during the Middle Ages it was a time for feasting, to celebrate the end of autumn and the start of preparations for winter. Martlemass beef, salted to preserve it for the winter, was produced from cattle slaughtered at this time. Traditionally, goose and beef were the meats of choice for the celebrations, along with foods such as black pudding and haggis.

Martinmas is also a Scottish term day. The Scottish legal year is divided into four term and quarter days: Candlemas, Whitsunday, Lammas and Martinmas. On these days servants would be hired, rent would be due and contracts would begin or end. Traditionally therefore, Martinmas was also the time of hiring fairs, at which agricultural labourers and farm hands would seek employment.

Liturgically, the feast of St. Martin of Tours ended the Octave of All Souls Day, an intense period of prayer for our beloved dead. Today, I'll be attending the funeral of the sister of a high school classmate. He is a priest and will be officiating at her Funeral Mass. Her parents serve as lector and sacristan at our home parish--he was the lector at my mother's funeral while she prepared the Altar that day. In your kindness, please pray for the repose of the soul of Karen. 

Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and let the perpetual light shine upon her. 

May her soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, rest in peace.

Amen.

In the USA, today is Veterans Day. In Europe, today is Armistice Day: at the 11th hour on the 11th day in the 11th month of 1918, the War to End All Wars ended--and as we know, probably sowed the seeds that blossomed into World War II. Peace!

"A Morbid, Fantasising England"

The Daily Mail has a great photographic story on the murals that John Shakespeare, William Shakespeare's father, had to paint over in the Chapel of the Guild of the Holy Cross in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1563. The paintings depict, according to the Stratford Town Trust, "the legend of St George and the Dragon, the Martyrdom of St Thomas Beckett and the Dance of Death."(Note that there are various problems with the text of the story. Henry VIII was dead by 1563; one of the restorers does not know the meaning of "iconoclastic", etc--but the pictures of the "Dance of Death", the first mural to be restored are great.)

In The Guardian, Jonathan Jones comments on what he sees as a morbid fascination with death and the devil in medieval England:

The paintings restored in the Guild Chapel reveal the powerful dream-world that was visible to ordinary townspeople 500 years ago. Devils and death loomed up on painted walls. Whether they were painted simply, as in Stratford, or done with the genius of a Bosch, these were collective fantasies of spectacular power.

The project that has saved Stratford’s murals deserves to be imitated wherever there are traces of medieval art still surviving in Britain. It does not matter if these images are fine art. They are something more important: a reminder of what it is to be human in a world shadowed by death and the devil.

He must fantasizing today if he does not think the world is not shadowed by death--we all will die--and the devil--there is evil in the world today--and that neither should be acknowledged or feared. But he forgets that those medieval people also had Faith in their Redeemer, Hope for salvation, and Love for God and neighbor. Only one of the three murals has been restored. St. George and the Dragon would have reminded them that God conquers the Devil and St. Thomas a Becket would have reminded them that they had great intercessors in Heaven. Jones has overemphasized one aspect of medieval piety.

The Guild of the Holy Cross (their seal is pictured above) was essential to Stratford, according to this site:

Established in the 13th century, it became the heart of Stratford's commercial, civic, social and religious life. The Guild helped its members to network, strike business deals, and even (so it was claimed) get into heaven faster.

Both men and women could become Guild members by paying a small fee. Joining was a good idea if you wanted to meet influential people and widen your network of contacts. Most members were prosperous local tradesmen, craftsmen and their families. But local clergy, gentry and even nobility joined too. Some members came from other towns like Coventry, London and Bristol.

The Guild provided 'social services' in medieval Stratford. It helped its members when they were ill, and supported their families if they died. It also gave 'alms' (charity) to poor and vulnerable local people, building a range of almshouses (sheltered accommodation) next to the Guildhall in about 1500.

It also looked after local infrastructure like bridges, and founded the first school in Stratford. In 1295 it appointed a schoolmaster called Richard as 'rector scholarum' to teach members' sons Latin, music and the principles of Christian faith. 

The Guild survived the reign of Henry VIII but not that of Edward VI (and there might not have been time for its restoration under Mary I). The lay members of the Guild had wealth and power, the site comments, and "this wealth and power was its undoing". What was its undoing was prayer for the dead as Edward VI's Protectors destroyed the last vestiges of remembering the Poor Souls in Purgatory in England. 

Justice Scalia and St. Thomas More

Father Paul Scalia celebrated his father's funeral Mass at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC. Video of his homily is readily available on several media outlets. He began with a trap, setting us up to think his homily would be a eulogy for Antonin Scalia:

We are gathered here because of one man. A man known personally to many of us, known only by reputation to even more. A man loved by many, scorned by others. A man known for great controversy, and for great compassion. That man, of course, is Jesus of Nazareth.

It is He whom we proclaim. Jesus Christ, son of the father, born of the Virgin Mary, crucified, buried, risen, seated at the right hand of the Father. It is because of him. because of his life, death and resurrection that we do not mourn as those who have no hope, but in confidence we commend Antonin Scalia to the mercy of God.

Scripture says Jesus Christ is the same yesterday today and forever. And that sets a good course for our thoughts and our prayers here today. In effect, we look in three directions. To yesterday, in thanksgiving. To today, in petition. And into eternity, with hope.

If you've heard the homily, you should have caught the reference to St. Thomas More, whom Justice Scalia admired and revered:

God blessed Dad, as is well known, with a love for his country. He knew well what a close-run thing the founding of our nation was. And he saw in that founding, as did the founders themselves, a blessing, a blessing quickly lost when faith is banned form the public square, or when we refuse to bring it there. So he understood that there is no conflict between loving God and loving one’s country, between one’s faith and one’s public service. Dad understood that the deeper he went in his Catholic faith, the better a citizen and public servant he became. God blessed him with the desire to be the country’s good servant because he was God’s first.

This blog post discusses how Scalia admired St. Thomas More:

Justice Antonin Scalia’s veneration of St. Thomas More was well known. His chambers included a replica of Hans Holbein’s portrait of Thomas More. At Barack Obama’s second presidential inauguration, Antonin Scalia wore a replica of the round black hat More wears in that portrait.

Scalia revered Thomas More for his conscientious and principled loyalty to Catholic teaching. Scalia scorned the image promoted in Robert Bolt’s Man for All Seasons of More as being some free-thinking individualist who happened to find himself in disagreement with King Henry VIII over his second marriage to Ann (sic) Boleyn. Instead, Scalia honored Thomas More as the loyal Catholic he was in historical fact.

On the Theophilus Blog, in association with the Catholic Theological Union, Gerald E. Nora goes on to recount an example of Scalia citing St. Thomas More at a meeting of the Catholic Lawyers Guild of Chicago. More about that hat here.

As I listened to the homily on Saturday, I thought of the other St. Thomas More connection as Father Paul reminded us, as More did in his Supplication of Souls, not to canonize the dead immediately, but to pray for the Poor Souls in Purgatory:

So we look to the past, to Jesus Christ yesterday. We call to mind all of these blessings, and we give our Lord the honor and glory for them, for they are His work. We look to Jesus today, in petition, to the present moment, here and now, as we mourn the one we love and admire, the one whose absence pains us. Today we pray for him. We pray for the repose of his soul. We thank God for his goodness to Dad as is right and just. But we also know that although dad believed, he did so imperfectly, like the rest of us. He tried to love God and neighbor, but like the rest of us did so imperfectly.

He was a practicing Catholic, “practicing” in the sense that he hadn’t perfected it yet. Or rather, Christ was not yet perfected in him. And only those in whom Christ is brought to perfection can enter heaven. We are here, then, to lend our prayers to that perfecting, to that final work of God’s grace, in freeing Dad from every encumbrance of sin.

But don’t take my word for it. Dad himself, not surprisingly, had something to say on the matter. Writing years ago to a Presbyterian minister whose funeral service he admired, he summarized quite nicely the pitfalls of funerals and why he didn’t like eulogies.

He wrote: “Even when the deceased was an admirable person, indeed especially when the deceased was an admirable person, praise for his virtues can cause us to forget that we are praying for and giving thanks for God’s inexplicable mercy to a sinner.”

Now he would not have exempted himself from that. We are here then, as he would want, to pray for God’s inexplicable mercy to a sinner. To this sinner, Antonin Scalia. Let us not show him a false love and allow our admiration to deprive him of our prayers. We continue to show affection for him and do good for him by praying for him: That all stain of sin be washed away, that all wounds be healed, that he be purified of all that is not Christ. That he rest in peace.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord and let perpetual light shine upon him. May the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace. Amen. 

St. Catherine of Alexandria in England

According to this site, today's saint was very popular in medieval England:

The main center of Katherine's cult in the Middle Ages was an Orthodox monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai, which claimed to have acquired her tomb and her relics by miraculous means. Since Katherine's tomb exuded an oil with healing powers that could be sold to pilgrims, it became a major source of fame and revenue for the monastery - aided by the advertisements for this pilgrimage site that ended many retellings of her legend. Some medieval readers were skeptical about the miracles that supposedly occurred at Mount Sinai (see Mirk's account, for example), but the rest of Katherine's legend was widely accepted, and by the end of the Middle Ages she had become one of the most popular saints in Europe. The main impetus for her cult in the west came not from Sinai itself, but from the abbey of the Holy Trinity and Saint Katherine at Rouen, in Normandy, which had acquired some of her relics by the end of the eleventh century. From Normandy, of course, her cult easily spread across the English Channel. Her great subsequent popularity in England is suggested by such facts as these: her name appears in the dedications of 62 medieval English churches, countless side altars, and many parish guilds; at least 56 churches had wall paintings with scenes from her life; and over 170 bells with inscriptions in her honor have survived until recent times. She was also one of the saints most frequently portrayed on church screens, in stained glass windows, and in small works of art for private use.

Katherine's appeal was even broader than Margaret's because her legend cast her in a wide range of roles, inviting different kinds of people to take her as their patron saint. For example, she was considered a suitable patron for aristocratic women because she was a princess who had been brought up to rule a kingdom. She was a good patron for nuns and other women with religious vocations because, like them, she was a consecrated virgin, a faithful bride of Christ. Her courage and outspokenness were clearly important to some exceptional women, including Catherine of Siena and Margery Kempe, who emulated her example when they spoke out against abuses of power in their own society. More surprisingly, she was a favorite patron and role model for (male) university students and preachers, since she was such a brilliant scholar and debater that she had once defeated the arguments of fifty pagan philosophers at once. Her legend also made her an advocate for women with evil husbands, a patron for nursing mothers (because milk flowed from her neck when she was beheaded), and a powerful intercessor for those who invoke her when they are dying or in great need (because of her final prayer and its answer). Since the climactic instrument of torture devised by her persecutor was a diabolical set of wheels, she was often portrayed with a wheel as her emblem - with the paradoxical result that she even became the patron saint of wheelwrights, millers, and other craftsmen who worked with wheels.

One church or chapel dedicated to St. Catherine of Alexandria was a pilgrimage site founded by the Benedictine monks of abbey of St Peter at Abbotsbury. As the English Heritage site for the chapel notes:

Its isolated setting allowed the monks to withdraw from the monastery during Lent for private prayer and meditation. . . .

Although no records survive of its building, the chapel can be dated in style to the late 14th century. It is a sturdy rectangular structure, built entirely of the local golden buff limestone. The walls are high and heavily buttressed to take the stone vaulted roof; rainwater drains off the roof through holes in the parapet wall between the buttresses.

At the north-east corner a stair turret, octagonal on the outside, rises above the roof and gives access to the parapet. It also contains a tiny oratory at roof level. Originally the buttresses and the stair turret were crowned with pinnacles. There are porches on both north and south walls.

The overall effect of the chapel is of a structure far larger than it actually is. The high walls and tall parapets are designed to impress, while the sense of grandeur is further enhanced by the chapel’s lofty position.

Inside, the effect in medieval times would have been just as rich, with stained glass in the windows, and details of the roof picked out in bright colours. At the intersections of the vaulting are bosses carved with foliage, figure subjects and animals. A large triple window lights the east wall, and there are smaller windows on the other walls.

The walk up to the chapel provides excellent views down over Abbotsbury village and the abbey site.

The chapel survived the suppression of the abbey in 1539 because it was used as a beacon, being on the southern coast of England. Sir Giles Strangways received the abbey's property from Henry VIII. Sir Giles, like many, could not know what was going to happen in England after the Reformation. Strangway's will "bequeathed £6 13s.4d. a year for two years for a priest to say mass for the repose of his soul and the souls of his wife and son"--he died in 1546, a year before Henry VIII died in 1547: those Masses may or may not have been said during the reign of Edward VI.

Forgetting and Remembering in November

Yesterday I posted the comments from British publications about it being time to forgive and forget the Gunpowder plotters, especially Guy Fawkes, who is still burned in effigy. It does seem from the mainstream media reports in England that many don't know why they are celebrating with bonfires and fireworks--at least this story starts with the questions. It does seem silly to continue the celebrations on the Fifth of November if no one knows why. Clearly we can't forget the conflict and desperation that provoked the Gunpowder Plotters, who wanted the freedom to practice their Catholic faith and believed the only way to obtain that freedom was violence and power: murder the reigning monarch and take over the government.

November is the month for remembering. In the United States, we remember the living Veterans who have served our country on November 11 (Memorial Day is the holiday for remember those who died in the service and defense of the USA; Armed Forces Day is for celebrating current military service members). In the United Kingdom, November 11 is Remembrance Day to mark the end of WWI and signing of the Armistice--the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. In France and other Allied countries, it's Armistice Day.

On Thanksgiving Day in the USA we remember all the people and things we should be thankful for. We recall the history of our founding as colonies of England, the risks and dangers the colonists and pilgrims faced, and the freedom of religion and worship they sought.

Throughout the month of November, Catholics remember the Poor Souls in Purgatory. As Father Alexander Lucie-Smith comments in The Catholic Herald, this remembrance of the dead, praying for God's mercy on those who loved Him but are not ready to be with Him in Heaven, this Catholic doctrine and practice is comforting and charitable:

The Reformation was a revolt against many things, but one thing in particular, the doctrine of Purgatory. Henry VIII destroyed the monasteries, which were communities charged with praying for the dead; he also suppressed the chantries, which were endowments for secular clergy to pray for the dead. There are still chantry chapels in England, but these are places where no Masses are now sung. I find these empty chantries inexpressibly sad, and a poignant reminder of our national apostasy. In the nineteenth century several great Catholics tried to restore this tradition, such as AW Pugin. The greatest modern chantry in the land is that built over the tombs of the Emperor Napoleon III, the Empress Eugenie and the Prince Imperial, at Farnborough.**

In trying to eradicate the doctrine of Purgatory, the Protestant reformers took from ordinary people what must have been their greatest comfort. When someone dies, you can no longer do anything for them, and you may very well regret all the things you should have done but failed to do for them while they were alive. If you can pray for their soul, this means that you have the comfort of helping them after their death, which is a huge aid to those who mourn.

The other comfort about Purgatory is this. We have to be perfect to see God, and we know full well we are not. Purgatory means that we can be purified and purged after death, and thus come to see God. We cannot be sure of salvation, but we can be sure of the mercy of God.

**The former Emperor Louis Napoleon and Empress Eugenie (and their son the Prince Imperial who died in the Anglo-Zulu war, lived in exile in England after France lost the Franco-Prussian War. She had the mausoleum and monastery of St. Benedict's Abbey built, with monks from the Abbey of Solesmes in France. More info here.

Today particularly I am remembering my father who died five years ago this summer--today is his birthday. May he rest in the peace of Christ with all the souls of the faithful departed!

"Gravity", the Octave of Easter, and Mystagogy

My husband bought me the DVD set of Gravity for me as an Easter present and we watched it together Easter Monday evening. I readily admit that my viewing of movie, beyond appreciating the plot, excellent acting, and special effects is influenced by this week of Easter celebration. But from the special features on the second DVD in this package, I know that the creators meant for this to be a story about rebirth and redemption; it's a space adventure that helps even the viewer overcome her fears. Warned by George Clooney's character Matt Kowalski (as he jokes) that he has a bad feeling about this mission, at first I did not think I could watch the disaster that was about to occur.

At the end of the movie, Ryan Stone, the neophyte, stumbles to her feet after her rebirth and baptism, experiencing gravity after being weightless, and murmurs, "Thank you". Who is she thanking? She has emerged from the womb of a tiny capsule and plunged into death before rising to a new life. How will she live from now on? At the beginning of the movie, while she feared being in space as a scientist-cum-astronaut, she enjoyed the silence and isolation. Facing her fears and overcoming one danger after another, she has to accept both letting go and deciding to go on. When she thinks she is going to die and prepares to give up and die, she regrets that there is really no one to mourn for her, no one to pray for her--and that she does not know how to pray, because nobody ever taught her how. Once she decides to try to survive, she does pray: she talks to a person she believes is in some happy afterlife so that he can give a message to someone she loves. And then she says her prayer of gratitude once back on earth.

In the early Church, this Octave week of Easter, each day celebrating the Solemnity of Solemnities, Easter Sunday, was dedicated to the neophytes, those who had been brought into the Church at the Easter Vigil. As they attended Mass during the week they wore their baptismal white robes until Low or Quasimodo* Sunday (From the Introit: Quasi modo geniti infantes, rationabile, sine dolo lac concupiscite ut in eo crescatis in salutem si gustastis quoniam dulcis Dominus--I Peter 2:2). After that Mass, they put aside their white albs and joined the community without distinction--but they continue their mystagogic catechesis, learning more about the mysteries they had only heard about during their long catechumenate.

The movie, of course, ends with Ryan Stone on the beach, waiting for her rescuers. The movie is over, but the story hasn't ended. If she is to continue to grow in her new life, she will need some mystagogy: perhaps someone to teach her more about prayer; a community to give and receive help and support; some way to live out the change (the conversion) she's just experienced. She may have escaped the dangers of carbon dioxide, space debris, fire, freezing, and hopelessness by herself, but she wasn't alone. Kowalski was somehow there with her even after he sacrificed his life for her, and the simple Inuit fisherman Aningaaq, with his barking dogs and crying baby, comforts her. Those who trained her had prepared her; Houston awaited her and would track her once her capsule entered the atmosphere of Earth, sending someone to bring her home. Perhaps now home will be something more than going to work and driving aimlessly.

Even if you don't make connections like I have, Gravity is an exciting movie about resilience and survival. Sandra Bullock should have won the award for best actress of the year for this performance!

*Quasimodo, the bell-ringer from Victor Hugo's novel Notre Dame de Paris, is found as an infant at the cathedral on Low Sunday and is thus given his name from the Introit. More about Low Sunday here.

A Judge and Judgement: the Tomb of Sir Thomas Fleming

The main reason for this post today is the tomb of Thomas Fleming, who died on August 7, 1613: he was judge in the trial of Guy Fawkes in 1606. He and his wife are entombed in the church of St Nicholas, North Stoneham in Hampshire. According to the wikipedia article, the inscription reads:

In most Assvred Hope of A Blessed Resvrection, Here Lyeth Interred ye Bodie of Sir Thomas Flemyng, Knight, Lord Chief Jvstice of England; Great Was His Learning, Many Were His Virtves. He Always Feared God & God Still Blessed Him & ye Love & Favour Both of God & Man Was Daylie Upon Him. He Was In Especiall Grace & Favour With 2 Most Worthie & Virtvovs Princes Q. Elizabeth & King James. Many Offices and Dygnities Were Conferred Upon Him. He Was First Sargeant At Law, Then Recorder of London; Then Solicitor Generall to Both ye Said Princes. Then Lo: Chief Baron of ye Exchequer & after Lo: Chief Jvstice of England. All Which Places He Did Execvte With So Great Integrity, Justice & Discretion that Hys Lyfe Was Of All Good Men Desired, His Death Of All Lamented. He Was Borne at Newporte In ye Isle Of Wight, Brough Up In Learning & ye Studie Of ye Lawe. In ye 26 Yeare Of His Age He Was coopled in ye Blessed State of Matrimony To His Virtvovs Wife, ye La: Mary Fleming, With whom He Lived & Continewed In that Blessed Estate By ye Space Of 43 Yeares. Having By Her In that Tyme 15 Children, 8 Sonnes & 7 Davghters, Of Whom 2 Sonnes & 5 Davghters Died In His Life Time. And Afterwards In Ripeness of Age and Fulness of Happie yeares yt Is to Saie ye 7th Day of Avgvst 1613 in ye 69 Yeare Of His Age, He Left This Life For a Better, Leaving Also Behind Him Livinge Together With His Virtvovs Wife 6 Soones & 2 Davghters.

The memorial is called "the floating Flemings" as Thomas and Mary are depicting resting on their bent elbows. Their surviving children are depicted kneeling and praying beneath their parents--but we know they are not praying for the souls of their departed parents! More on the judge and his judgement of Fawkes here, from the parish website. The image is sourced from wikipedia commons under a Creative Commons Attribution license.