Tradition and the Doctrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The University of Dayton has some excellent background on the Tradition and the Doctrine that the Blessed Virgin Mary was Assumed Body and Soul into Heaven:

Belief that Mary has been taken up and is now in heaven with both her body and her soul has been part of the teaching of the Catholic Church since the earliest centuries of Christianity. The strongest evidence for the belief of the early Christians is found in ancient liturgies and in homilies in honor of Mary's passing. A second source, widely spread in the Middle Ages is known as the Transitus writings. Today, the renewed discussion about the location of the tomb of Mary indicates interest about Mary's Assumption into heaven.

By the end of the Middle Ages, belief in Mary's Assumption into heaven was well established theologically and part of the devotional expressions of the people. The word Assumption comes from the Latin verb assumere, meaning "to take to oneself." Our Lord, Jesus Christ took Mary home to himself where he is.

For Martin Luther, Mary's Assumption was an understood fact, as his homily of 1522 indicates, in spite of the fact that Mary's Assumption is not expressly reported in Sacred Scripture. For Protestant reformer, Martin Butzer (1545), there was no reason to doubt about the Assumption of the Virgin into heavenly glory. "Indeed, no Christian doubts that the most worthy Mother of the Lord lives with her beloved Son in heavenly joy." (Marienlexikon, vol 3, 200)

H. Bullinger (1590), also a Protestant reformer, sought for a theological foundation for the Assumption in Scripture. He showed that the Old Testament tells of Elias, taken to heaven bodily to teach us about our immortality, and – because of our immortal soul – to respectfully honor the bodies of the saints. Against this backdrop he states, "Because of this, we believe that the pure immaculate chamber of the God-bearer, the Virgin Mary, is a temple of the Holy Spirit, that is her holy body, borne by angels into heaven." (Marienlexikon, vol 3, 200)

In the light of a long history of Christian belief since patristic times, in 1950, Pope Pius XII defined Mary's Assumption into Heaven as a dogma of Roman Catholicism:

"the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heaven."

The proclamation of this dogma is found in the encyclical (sic): Munificentissimus Deus.

In Munificentissimus Deus, which is actually not an encyclical but an Apostolic Constitution, a more authoritative papal document, Pope Pius XII pointed out that the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary had been celebrated in art, music, and liturgy for centuries.

Blessed John Henry Newman at the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in Birmingham preached on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary just about one hundred years before Pope Pius XII proclaimed the doctrine:

It was surely fitting then, it was becoming, that she should be taken up into heaven and not lie in the grave till Christ's second coming, who had passed a life of sanctity and of miracle such as hers. All the works of God are in a beautiful harmony; they are carried on to the end as they begin. This is the difficulty which men of the world find in believing miracles at all; they think these break the order and consistency of God's visible word, not knowing that they do but subserve a higher order of things, and introduce a supernatural perfection. But at least, my brethren, when one miracle is wrought, it may be expected to draw others after it for the completion of what is begun. Miracles must be wrought for some great end; and if the course of things fell back again into a natural order before its termination, how could we but feel a disappointment? and if we were told that this certainly was to be, how could we but judge the information improbable and difficult to believe? Now this applies to the history of our Lady. I say, it would be a greater miracle if, her life being what it was, her death was like that of other men, than if it were such as to correspond to her life. Who can conceive, my brethren, that God should so repay the debt, which He condescended to owe to His Mother, for the elements of His human body, as to allow the flesh and blood from which it was taken to moulder in the grave? Do the sons of men thus deal with their mothers? do they not nourish and sustain them in their feebleness, and keep them in life while they are able? Or who can conceive that that virginal frame, which never sinned, was to undergo the death of a sinner? Why should she share the curse of Adam, who had no share in his fall? "Dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return," was the sentence upon sin; she then, who was not a sinner, fitly never saw corruption. She died, then, as we hold, because even our Lord and Saviour died; she died, as she suffered, because she was in this world, because she was in a state of things in which suffering and death are the rule. She lived under their external sway; and, as she obeyed Caesar by coming for enrolment to Bethlehem, so did she, when God willed it, yield to the tyranny of death, and was dissolved into soul and body, as well as others. But though she died as well as others, she died not as others die; for, through the merits of her Son, by whom she was what she was, by the grace of Christ which in her had anticipated sin, which had filled her with light, which had purified her flesh from all defilement, she was also saved from disease and malady, and all that weakens and decays the bodily frame. Original sin had not been found in her, by the wear of her senses, and the waste of her frame, and the decrepitude of years, propagating death. She died, but her death was a mere fact, not an effect; and, when it was over, it ceased to be. She died that she might live, she died as a matter of form or (as I may call it) an observance, in order to fulfil, what is called, the debt of nature,—not primarily for herself or because of sin, but to submit herself to her condition, to glorify God, to do what her Son did; not however as her Son and Saviour, with any suffering for any special end; not with a martyr's death, for her martyrdom had been in living; not as an atonement, for man could not make it, and One had made it, and made it for all; but in order to finish her course, and to receive her crown.

And therefore she died in private. It became Him, who died for the world, to die in the world's sight; it became the Great Sacrifice to be lifted up on high, as a light that could not be hid. But she, the lily of Eden, who had always dwelt out of the sight of man, fittingly did she die in the garden's shade, and amid the sweet flowers in which she had lived. Her departure made no noise in the world. The Church went about her common duties, preaching, converting, suffering; there were persecutions, there was fleeing from place to place, there were martyrs, there were triumphs; at length the rumour spread abroad that the Mother of God was no longer upon earth. Pilgrims went to and fro; they sought for her relics, but they found them not; did she die at Ephesus? or did she die at Jerusalem? reports varied; but her tomb could not be pointed out, or if it was found, it was open; and instead of her pure and fragrant body, there was a growth of lilies from the earth which she had touched. So inquirers went home marvelling, and waiting for further light. And then it was said, how that when her dissolution was at hand, and her soul was to pass in triumph before the judgment-seat of her Son, the apostles were suddenly gathered together in the place, even in the Holy City, to bear part in the joyful ceremonial; how that they buried her with fitting rites; how that the third day, when they came to the tomb, they found it empty, and angelic choirs with their glad voices were heard singing day and night the glories of their risen Queen. But, however we feel towards the details of this history (nor is there anything in it which will be unwelcome or difficult to piety), so much cannot be doubted, from the consent of the whole Catholic world and the revelations made to holy souls, that, as is befitting, she is, soul and body, with her Son and God in heaven, and that we are enabled to celebrate, not only her death, but her Assumption.

Reginald Pole and Last Session of the Council of Trent

Found when looking for something else*: a presentation on Reginald Cardinal Pole's works published for the Council of Trent by the Aldine Press in 1562: De Concilio liber and Reformatio Angliae. 

Reginald Cardinal Pole, the last Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury, was dead of course (+11/27/1558) when Pope Pius IV convened the last session of Council of Trent. Pole had died under the cloud of suspicion of heresy during the reign of Pope Paul IV, who had stripped him of his title as Papal Legate. Mary I showed some of her father's spirit in responding to Papal authority and had not permitted Pole to leave England for Rome to face those charges. Others in Pole's circle, like Giovanni Cardinal Morone, suffered imprisonment and interrogation by the Roman Inquisition. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, he was vindicated after his arrest, imprisonment, and investigation:

[He] was arrested by the pontiff's order, confined in the Castle of Saint Angelo (31 May, 1557), and made the object of a formal prosecution for heresy, in which his views on justification, the invocation of saints, the veneration of relics and other matters were incriminated and submitted to rigid inquiry.

The cardinal strenuously repudiated these charges, but he was kept in confinement until the death of Paul IV. In 1560 his successor Pius IV authorized a revision of the process against Morone, and as a result the imprisonment of the cardinal and the whole procedure against him were declared to be entirely without justification; the judgment also recorded in the most formal terms that not the least suspicion rested upon his orthodoxy.

As H. George Fletcher comments in his presentation, publication of Pole's Book of the Council, written for the first session of the Council of Trent in 1542, 20 years earlier, and the records of Legatine Council he had held in England to begin the re-establishment and the reforms of the Catholic Church, was meant to offer a "posthumous vindication" of Pole's life and work for the Church.

In both Eamon Duffy's presentation on Cardinal Pole and H. George Fletcher's, Pope Paul IV does not come off well. Even the Catholic Encyclopedia calls his pontificate a great disappointment. 

Fletcher's presentation, made at the Grolier Club in 2015, offers some narrative on Pole's life and and works, but is mostly concerned with his acquisition of one of the books published by the Aldine Press in 1562 and whether it could be a copy sent to the last session of the Council of Trent and used by a peritus assisting one of the delegates there.

*Oh, what was I looking for? Some more information about this image.

The Witness of Martyrdom: Blessed William Freeman

Saints, both Confessors and Martyrs, provide us examples and models. We see the goodness of the Confessor Saints in how much they love God and neighbor and want to emulate them in our own lives. But Martyrs, while still providing the same model of love of God and neighbor through their service also offer a heroic pattern to follow: being willing to suffer and die for those same reasons. We may read about the suffering of the Confessors as they face obstacles and setbacks, but hearing about how the martyr endures torture and execution is more drastic. 

Witnessing the brutal execution of hanging, drawing, and quartering: the agony of being partially strangled,  eviscerated while still alive, and being beheaded and chopped up after death--and then deciding to take up the same mission and dangers that led to that horrific death is even more remarkable.

I've written before about how St. Edmund Campion's trial and passion influenced both St. Henry Walpole and St. Philip Howard--and how Walpole imitated Campion so completely that he endured torture, engaged in theological disputations, and suffered martyrdom just like his model. Today's martyr, Blessed William Freeman, witnessed the execution of Blessed Edward Stransham, and it changed his life.

He was born in East Riding, Yorkshire, he studied at Oxford and was converted to Catholicism in 1586 by the martyrdom of Blessed Edward Stransham at Tyburn. (His parents were recusant Catholics but he had conformed to the established church.) He went to Reims, France, where he was ordained in 1587. He went back to England the following year, and labored for the English mission in Worcestershire and Warwickshire until arrested in early 1595 in Stratford-on-Avon. Seven months later he was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Warwick on August 13. William was beatified in 1929. 

Blessed Edward Stransham was born at Oxford about 1554; suffered at Tyburn, 21 January, 1586. He was educated at St. John's College, Oxford, becoming B.A. in 1575-6; arrived at Douai in 1577, and went with the college to Reims in 1578, whence he came back to England owing to illness. In 1579, however, he returned to Reims, and was ordained priest at Soissons in Dec., 1580. He left for England, 30 June, 1581, with his fellow-martyr, Nicholas Woodfen, of London Diocese, ordained priest at Reims, 25 March, 1581. In 1583 Stransham came back to Reims with twelve Oxford converts. After five months there he went to Paris, where he remained about eighteen months at death's door from consumption. He was arrested in Bishopgate Street Without, London, 17 July, 1585, while saying Mass, and was condemned at the next assizes for being a priest. Stransham was also beatified in 1929 while Woodfen was in 1987.

Blessed William Freeman, pray for us!
Blessed Edward Stransham, pray for us!
Blessed Nicholas Woodfen, pray for us!

The Dies Natalis of Blessed John Henry Newman

John Henry Cardinal Newman died on August 11, 1890.  It was his "Dies Natalis", his birth into everlasting life.

The Times of London reported his death on August 12: 

We have to record, with feelings of the most sincere regret, the death of His Eminence Cardinal Newman. He died last evening at the Oratory, Edgbaston, in his 90th year, after less than three days' illness. The Cardinal has for many years manifested the feebleness of advanced age, although he has fully retained his mental faculties, and has rallied in a wonderful manner from more than one severe illness. . . . 

"The medical attendants have issued the following account of their patient's last illness. "The Oratory, August 11, 1890. His Eminence Cardinal Newman was seized with inflammation of the right lung at 2 o'clock a.m. on Sunday, August 10. He very rapidly became worse until this evening at 8:45, when he expired. His Eminence expressed himself as feeling quite well an hour before this attack occurred.—G. Vernon Blunt, M.D.; C. H. Jenner Hogg, M.R.C.S.E." The private prayers of the congregation were asked for the Cardinal at the Oratory Church on Sunday, and in the evening there were numerous and anxious inquiries respecting him. He will be buried at the little country retreat of the Oratorians, at Rednall, where there is a private cemetery and chapel. The body will be exposed in the Oratory Church from noon today until it is removed for burial. The date of the funeral is not yet fixed.

Of course, he was buried in Oratorian cemetery in Rednal with Ambrose St. John his great friend and aide in establishing the English Oratorian Congregations. Now his shrine is in the Birmingham Oratory. You might remember that when they exhumed his body in preparation for the shrine, the grave was nearly empty: there are no first class relics. 

Since St. Clare of Assisi's feast day is August 11 when Newman was beatified in 2010 the date of his conversion, October 9 (1845) was chosen as his feast day.

Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem--Out of shadows and imagination into truth! 

Two days before he died his niece Grace Longford, the only child of his estranged sister Harriett visited him. Newman had not seen her since she was three years old. More about his death here.

Cor ad Cor Loquitor--Heart Speaks unto Heart! 

From Elgar's setting of Newman's The Dream of Gerontius, "Sanctus fortis, Sanctus Deus" sung by Richard Lewis as Gerontius with the Hallé Orchestra conducted by Sir John Barbirolli (includes "Firmly I Believe in Truly"):

Firmly I believe and truly
God is Three and God is One;
and I next acknowledge duly
manhood taken by the Son.

And I trust and hope most fully
in that manhood crucified;
and each thought and deed unruly
do to death, as he has died.

Simply to his grace and wholly
light and life and strength belong,
and I love supremely, solely,
him the holy, him the strong.

And I hold in veneration,
for the love of him alone,
Holy Church as his creation,
and her teachings as his own.

Adoration ay be given,
with and through the angelic host,
to the God of earth and heaven,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Mark and I listened to this CD often: I think it is out of print, so to speak: Heart Speaks to Heart, A spiritual day with Blessed John Henry Newman in words and music! From Matins to Compline, featuring hymns and poems by Newman and narration by Archbishop Bernard Longley of the Birmingham Diocese, it's a beautiful compilation! (I will listen to it today--and one does have to listen because Archbishop Longley is soft spoken!)

Blessed John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Holyrood Abbey, One More Time

After describing the history of Holyrood Abbey yesterday, I added the story of how Felix Mendelssohn was inspired to write the Scottish Symphony after visiting the ruins:

Felix Mendelssohn was inspired by his visit to Holyrood Abbey's ruins to compose his third symphony, The Scottish Symphony. This website transcribes his impressions of the ruins:

It is clear from Mendelssohn’s letters even before their tour that he intended to write a symphony based on his Scottish experiences and the opening of the work came to him on the evening of 31st July 1829 when "In the evening twilight we went today to the palace where Queen Mary lived and loved; a little room is shown there with a winding staircase leading up to the door; up this way they came and found Rizzio in that little room, pulled him out, and three rooms off there is a dark corner, where they murdered him. The chapel close to it is now roofless; grass and ivy grow there, and at that broken altar Mary was crowned Queen of Scotland. Everything around is broken and mouldering, and the bright sky shines in. I believe I found today in that old chapel the beginning of my Scottish Symphony."

When I listen to the symphony thinking of Mary, Queen of Scots' life and adventures, joys and sorrows, controversies and sad end, it creates the most dramatic images in my mind. The same would apply to Margaret Tudor, married, widowed, remarried, etc!

The ruins of Holyrood Abbey also inspired the artist Louis Daguerre to create both a painting and diorama. The Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool describes these works:

Daguerre's fascination with dioramas stemmed from his interest in finding appropriate ways of capturing light and atmospheric effects in painting, as well as making perspective an expressive and dramatic medium. The increasing taste for travelling and particularly visiting ruins and picturesque sites in the 18th century made Daguerre's dioramas particularly popular among the people of his time. For those who did not have the chance to travel, dioramas offered an experience close to a real visit, while for the privileged it helped revive their memories and emotions.

'The Ruins of Holyrood Chapel' relates to the painting with the same title, which Daguerre exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1824. The only difference between the two was that the Paris Salon work included the figure of a comtess (sic), who was visiting the tomb of her former friend, the Duchesse de Grammont. She died in exile at Holyrood in 1803 and was buried in the royal vault in the south-east corner of Holyrood Chapel. Daguerre exhibited dioramas of the same subject in Paris from 1823 until 1824, in London from March 1825 and in Liverpool from 1825 until 1827. Between 1822 and 1839 Daguerre exhibited twenty dioramas in Paris and three of the scenes exhibited were related to Edinburgh ('Interior of Holyrood Chapel', Roslyn Chapel near Edinburgh and 'Edinburgh during the Fire of 15 November 1824'). There is no record of Daguerre's visit to the Chapel although the view by moonlight of the Holyrood Chapel was famous.

The diorama of this scene was exhibited in Regent's Park, London, in 1825 and inspired the poet Letitia Elizabeth Landon to compose this poem, "Holyrood":

The moonlight fell like pity o'er the walls
And broken arches, which the conqueror, Time
Had rode unto destruction; the grey moss,
A silver cloak, hung lightly o'er the ruins;
And nothing came upon the soul but soft,
Sad images. And this was once a palace,
Where the rich viol answered to the lute,
And maidens flung the flowers from their hair
Till the halls swam with perfume: here the dance
Kept time with light harps, and yet lighter feet;
And here the beautiful Mary kept her court,
Where sighs and smiles made her regality,
And dreamed not of the long and many years
When the heart was to waste itself away
In hope, whose anxiousness was as a curse:
Here, royal in her beauty and her power,
The prison and the scaffold, could they be
But things whose very name was not for her!
And this, now fallen sanctuary, how oft
Have hymns and incense made it holiness;
How oft, perhaps, at the low midnight hour,
lts once fair mistress may have stolen to pour
At its pure altar, thoughts which have no vent,
But deep and silent prayer; when the heart finds

That it may not suffice unto itself,

But seeks communion with that other state,

Whose mystery to it is as a shroud

In which it may conceal its strife of thought,

And find repose.⁠.⁠.⁠.⁠.⁠.⁠.

.⁠.⁠.⁠.⁠But it is utterly changed:

No incense rises, save some chance wild-flower

Breathes grateful to the air; no hymn is heard,

No sound, but the bat's melancholy wings;

And all is desolate, and solitude.

And thus it is with links of destiny:

Clay fastens on with gold—and none may tell

What the chain's next unravelling will be

Alas, the mockeries in which fate delights!

Alas, for time!—still more, alas, for change!

So now you can read the poem, look at the painting, and listen to the Scottish Symphony, and imagine "beautiful Mary" keeping her court, dancing and singing, praying in the chapel, all unaware of her fate.

The Marriage of Margaret Tudor and James IV of Scotland

Image Credit: the Ruins of the Holyrood Abbey Church 

(CC BY-SA 3.0 license)

On August 8, 1503, Margaret Tudor, Henry VII's eldest child, and King James IV of Scotland were married in Holyrood Abbey's church. History Today describes the preparations and the wedding:

Margaret’s train on the journey north by York, Durham, Newcastle and Berwick was headed by the Earl of Surrey, with his Countess as the princess’s chaperone. John Young, Somerset Herald, was sent along to make an official record. The ladies rode on palfreys or were drawn on litters, escorted by gentlemen, squires and pages, with trumpeters, drummers and minstrels. The party crossed the border into Scotland on August 1st, 1503, to be greeted by the Archbishop of Glasgow and a thousand Scottish lords and gentlemen ‘in rich jewels and massy chains’. At Dalkeith Castle on August 3rd, King James himself, in a crimson velvet jacket, rode in with a train of horsemen. Margaret curtsied deeply and he bowed low and they kissed in greeting. They talked together privately and sat together at supper and afterwards he played to her on the clavichord and the lute. Two nights later she played for him.

On Monday August 7th, they made a state entry into Edinburgh, both of them in cloth of gold trimmed with black velvet or black fur. To tremendous cheers and the clangour of bells they rode in on one horse, with Margaret riding pillion behind the King, escorted by two hundred knights and pausing to witness numerous pageants. The union of the thistle and the rose was celebrated next morning in the chapel of Holyrood-house. Margaret wore a gown trimmed in crimson and the Countess of Surrey bore her train, while James was magnificent in white damask with crimson satin sleeves. After the marriage ceremony conducted by the archbishops of Glasgow and York there was a nuptial mass and a short coronation ritual, with the King’s arm round his new queen’s waist much of the time. There followed a splendid feast of fifty or sixty dishes including roast crane and roast swan, and then dancing and supper until finally at last ‘the King had the Queen apart and they went together’. Edinburgh blazed with bonfires that night.

More about Margaret Tudor, who would bear James IV six children and serve as Regent for their only surviving child named James (the second son born given that name), after the king was killed at the battle of Flodden Field in 1513, here.

Holyrood Abbey has a fascinating history. It was an abbey of Augustinian Canons founded by King David I in the twelfth century. During the Scottish Reformation, a mob destroyed the altars and plundered the church and the abbey was suppressed. The abbey was restored for the coronation of Charles I in Scotland, rebuilt further during the reign of Charles II, and as the Catholic Encyclopedia explains, it was truly a royal abbey and church and is much associated with Mary, Queen of Scots:

From the middle of the fifteenth century the abbey was the usual residence of the Scottish kings, and James V spent considerable sums on its repair and enlargement. In 1547 the conventual buildings, as well as the choir, lady chapel, and transepts of the church were destroyed by the commissioners of the English Protector Somerset, and twenty years later Knox's"rascal multitude" sacked the interior of the church. Queen Mary's second and third marriages took place at Holyrood, as well as other tragic events of her reign. From the Reformation to the Restoration little was done to Holyrood, but about 1670 the adjoining palace was practically rebuilt by Charles II. His Catholic successor, James II, ordered the nave of the church to be restored for Catholic worship, and as a chapel for the Knights of the Thistle; but he had to abandon his kingdom a year later. The nave roof was vaulted in stone in 1758, but fell in shortly afterwards, and all that remains of the once famous abbey church is now the ruined and roofless nave, of the purest Early English architecture, with some remains of the earlier Norman work.

Felix Mendelssohn was inspired by his visit to Holyrood Abbey's ruins to compose his third symphony, The Scottish Symphony. This website transcribes his impressions of the ruins:

It is clear from Mendelssohn’s letters even before their tour that he intended to write a symphony based on his Scottish experiences and the opening of the work came to him on the evening of 31st July 1829 when "In the evening twilight we went today to the palace where Queen Mary lived and loved; a little room is shown there with a winding staircase leading up to the door; up this way they came and found Rizzio in that little room, pulled him out, and three rooms off there is a dark corner, where they murdered him. The chapel close to it is now roofless; grass and ivy grow there, and at that broken altar Mary was crowned Queen of Scotland. Everything around is broken and mouldering, and the bright sky shines in. I believe I found today in that old chapel the beginning of my Scottish Symphony."

When I listen to the symphony thinking of Mary, Queen of Scots' life and adventures, joys and sorrows, controversies and sad end, it creates the most dramatic images in my mind. The same would apply to Margaret Tudor, married, widowed, remarried, etc!

Saint Cajetan and the Sack of Rome

Today is the feast of Saint Cajetan, a saint of the Catholic Reformation and the co-founder of the Theatines. He was in Rome when the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V's troops sacked the city. As Father Alban Butler explains:

The army of the Emperor Charles V., which was commanded by the constable Bourbon, who had deserted from the French king to the emperor, marched from the Milanese to Rome, and took that city by assault on the 6th of May, 1527. This Duke of Bourbon, after having committed horrible outrages, was killed by a musket shot in mounting the wall; but Philibert of Challons, prince of Orange, took upon him the command of the army, which was composed in a great measure of Lutherans, and other enemies of the see of Rome. The pope and cardinals retired into the castle of St. Angelo; but the German army plundered the city, and were guilty of greater cruelties and excesses than had been committed by the Goths a thousand years before. The house of the Theatins (sic) was rifled, and almost demolished; and a soldier, who had known St. Cajetan at Vicenza before he renounced the world, falsely imagining he was then rich, gave an information to his officer against him to that effect; whereupon he was barbarously scourged and tortured to extort from him a treasure which he had not. Being at length discharged, though in a weak and maimed condition, he and his companions left Rome, with nothing but their breviaries under their arms, and with clothes barely to cover themselves. They repaired to Venice, where they were kindly received, and settled in the convent of St. Nicholas of Tolentino.

Saint Cajetan and the Theatines were dedicated to renewal and reform in the Catholic Church after the divisions of the Protestant Reformation, according to this biography from ETWN:

When his dream was about to be forged of bringing to ecclesial reform the figure of the cleric regular, knowing the important role of the priest, he wrote to his family: “For some time Christ has been calling me and inviting me, because of his kindness, to take part in his kingdom. And he makes me see more clearly every day that we cannot serve two masters, the world and Christ. I see Christ poor, and myself rich, He is mocked and I am a guest of honor, He is suffering, and I am delighting. I am dying to take a step towards meeting Him.” An insistent prayer arose from the depth of his being: that God would grant him the grace of finding three or four persons prepared to live the Gospel’s radicalism to introduce the reform the Church needed at that time. And he received the answer in the persons of Caraffa (later Pope Paul IV), Boniface of Colle and Paul Consiglieri. They were the first members of his foundation born with the evangelical spirit: “seek first of all the Kingdom of God and His justice, and all the rest will be given to you in great measure.” Approved by Clement VII in 1524, it had in Caraffa its first superior general.

After what he had endured in Rome during its Sack, he became superior general of the Theatines:

They were sent to Venice. In 1530 Cajetan was elected superior general, until three year later when Caraffa was again his superior and sent him to Verona, where he suffered the opposition of a great part of the clergy and the faithful. From there he went to Naples in 1533 and founded another House. His charity, fervor and apostolic ardor, sealed by his devotion to Mary worked countless conversions. He founded the Hills of Piety to help the poor, created hospices and opened hospitals. He was given the grace of working miracles. He died at Naples on August 7, 1547 and that same day the war ceased, which had been unleashed in the city. Urban VIII beatified him on October 8, 1629. Clement X canonized him on April 12, 1671.

The Theatines' church in Rome was Sant'Andrea della Valle, in which Puccini set the first act of Tosca, including the Te Deum to celebrate the supposed victory of Napoleon at Marengo. Scarpia says "Tosca, mi fai dimenticare Iddio!..." ("Tosca, you make me forget God!") before kneeling and praising God--Saint Cajetan would not have been happy to hear that!

Thomas Goldwell, the Bishop of Asaph, became a Theatine while in exile from England. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, he was:

the last survivor of the ancient hierarchy of England; b. probably at the family manor of Goldwell, in the parish of Great Chart, near Ashford, Kent, between 1501 and 1515; d. in Rome, 3 April, 1585. He was a member of a Kentish family of ancient lineage, long seated at Goldwell; and was educated at All Souls College, Oxford, where he graduated M. A. in 1531, and B. D. in 1534. While at Oxford he attained more eminence in mathematics, astronomy, and kindred sciences, than in divinity or the humanities, a point worth remembering in view of his future career. He stood out firmly against the innovations in religion brought about by Henry VIII. At an early date he became intimate with Reginald, afterwards Cardinal, Pole, a friendship which proved to be a long lasting one, and which had considerable influence on Goldwell's subsequent career. Soon after 1535, when the king had begun his drastic measures of ecclesiastical spoliation, Goldwell became Pole's chaplain and joined him in exile, being included in the same Act of Attainder "for casting off his duty to the King, and submitting to the Bishop of Rome". He reached Rome in 1538, and shortly afterwards he was appointed camerarius of the English Hospital of the Holy Trinity. In 1547 he became a novice in the Theatine House of St. Paul, at Naples. On the death of Paul III, Pole, now a cardinal, asked and obtained permission for Goldwell to accompany him to Rome, and thus he was present at the long conclave of 1549-50 in the capacity of Pole's personal attendant. After the election of Julius III, Goldwell returned to Naples, and made his profession as a Theatine.

Goldwell returned to England when Reginald Cardinal Pole was sent as Papal Legate. He was with Pole when he died and then left England again when Elizabeth I succeeded. Goldwell attended the last session of the Council of Trent.

Son Rise Morning Show: Newman and Friendship

As promised, I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show bright and early this morning at 6:50 a.m. Central Time/7:50 a.m. Eastern to talk about "Newman and Friendship" in our Santo Subito! Series.

As an example of how much Blessed John Henry Newman valued friendship, read this homily preached at the funeral of his good friend, James Hope-Scott on May 5, 1873 in London. First, Newman describes his own grief in losing Hope-Scott:

I only know what he was to me. I only know what his loss is to me. I only know that he is one of those whose departure hence has made the heavens dark to me. But I have never lived with him, or travelled with him; I have seen him from time to time; I have visited him; I have corresponded with him; I have had mutual confidences with him. Our lines of duty have lain in very different directions. I have known him as a friend knows friend in the tumult and the hurry of life. I have known him well enough to know how much more there was to know in him; and to look forward, alas! in vain, to a time when, in the evening and towards the close of life, I might know him more. I have known him enough to love him very much, and to sorrow very much, that here I shall not see him again. But then I reflect, if I, who do not know him as he might be known, suffer as I do, what must be their suffering who knew him so well?

Newman then gives a history of their friendship:

I knew him first, I suppose, in 1837 or 1838, thirty-five or six years ago, a few years after he had become Fellow of Merton College. He expressed a wish to know me. How our friendship grew I cannot tell; I must soon have been intimate with him, from the recollection I have of letters which passed between us; and by 1841 I had recourse to him, as a sort of natural adviser, when I was in difficulty. From that time I ever had recourse to him, when I needed advice, down to his last illness. On my first intimacy with him he had not reached the age of thirty. I was many years older; yet he had that about him, even when a young man, which invited and inspired confidence. It was difficult to resist his very presence. True, indeed, I can fancy those who saw him but once and at a distance, surprised and perplexed by that lofty fastidiousness and keen wit which were natural to him; but such a misapprehension of him would vanish forthwith when they drew near to him, and had actual trial of him; especially, as I have said, when they had to consult him, and had experience of the simplicity, seriousness, and (I can use no other word) the sweetness of his manner, as he threw himself at once into their ideas and feelings, listened patiently to them, and spoke out the clear judgment which he formed of the matters which they had put before him.

Newman then describes how Hope-Scott always displayed leadership and sympathy among his friends:

This is the first and the broad view I am led to take of him. He was, emphatically, a friend in need. And this same considerateness and sympathy with which he met those who asked the benefit of his opinion in matters of importance was, I believe, his characteristic in many other ways in his intercourse with those towards whom he stood in various relations. He was always prompt, clear, decided, and disinterested. He entered into their pursuits, though dissimilar to his own; he took an interest in their objects; he adapted himself to their dispositions and tastes; he brought a strong and calm good sense to bear upon their present or their future; he aided and furthered them in their doings by his cooperation. Thus he drew men around him . . .

One of the reasons that Newman valued friendship is that he believed that personal influence was essential in spreading the Good News, in calling others to Jesus, and persuading, where logic and arguments could not, others to accept the Truth. As he said in one of his Oxford sermons, "Personal Influence, the Means of Propagating the Truth":

we shall find it difficult to estimate the moral power which a single individual, trained to practise what he teaches, may acquire in his own circle, in the course of years. While the Scriptures are thrown upon the world, as if the common property of any who choose to appropriate them, he is, in fact, the legitimate interpreter of them, and none other; the Inspired Word being but a dead letter (ordinarily considered), except as transmitted from one mind to another. While he is unknown to the world, yet, within the range of those who see him, he will become the object of feelings different in kind from those which mere intellectual excellence excites. The men commonly held in popular estimation are greatest at a distance; they become small as they are approached; but the attraction, exerted by unconscious holiness, is of an urgent and irresistible nature; it persuades the weak, the timid, the wavering, and the inquiring; it draws forth the affection and loyalty of all who are in a measure like-minded; and over the thoughtless or perverse multitude it exercises a sovereign compulsory sway, bidding them fear and keep silence, on the ground of its own right divine to rule them,—its hereditary claim on their obedience, though they understand not the principles or counsels of that spirit, which is "born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." . . .

Will it be said, This is a fancy, which no experience confirms? First, no irreligious man can know any thing concerning the hidden saints. Next, no one, religious or not, can detect them without attentive study of them. But, after all, say they are few, such high Christians; and what follows? They are enough to carry on God's noiseless work. The Apostles were such men; others might be named, in their several generations, as successors to their holiness. These communicate their light to a number of lesser luminaries, by whom, in its turn, it is distributed through the world; the first sources of illumination being all the while unseen, even by the majority of sincere Christians,—unseen as is that Supreme Author of Light and Truth, from whom all good primarily proceeds. A few highly-endowed men will rescue the world for centuries to come. Before now even one man [St. Athanasius of Alexandria] has impressed an image on the Church, which, through God's mercy, shall not be effaced while time lasts. Such men, like the Prophet, are placed upon their watch-tower, and light their beacons on the heights. Each receives and transmits the sacred flame, trimming it in rivalry of his predecessor, and fully purposed to send it on as bright as it has reached him; and thus the self-same fire, once kindled on Moriah, though seeming at intervals to fail, has at length reached us in safety, and will in like manner, as we trust, be carried forward even to the end.

As Newman wrote in his meditation on "Jesus, the light of the soul":

Stay with me, and then I shall begin to shine as you shine: so to shine as to be a light to others. The light, O Jesus, will be all from you. None of it will be mine. No merit to me. It will be you who shines through me upon others. O let me thus praise you, in the way which you do love best, by shining on all those around me. Give light to them as well as to me; light them with me, through me. Teach me to show forth your praise, your truth, your will. Make me preach you without preaching-not by words, but by my example and by the catching force, the sympathetic influence, of what I do - by my visible resemblance to your saints, and the evident fullness of the love which my heart bears to you.

Preview: Blessed John Henry Newman and Friendship

Erasmus wrote of Thomas More that he seemed "born and framed for friendship, and is a most faithful and enduring friend." Something similar could be said of Blessed John Henry Newman. On Monday, August 5, we'll continue our Santo Subito! Series on the Son Rise Morning Show with a discussion of Newman and Friendship (at the usual time: 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern).

Father Juan Velez, author of Holiness in a Secular Age and other books about Newman, summarizes Newman's devotion to being a faithful friend:

During his long-life Newman exercised the natural and supernatural virtues that give life to friendship. His friendships arose naturally out of common interests. One of his first good friends was John William Bowden, whom he met at Oriel College, Oxford on his first day at the university. Their common interests were journalism and writing plays, which they did together.

Spiritual and religious concerns led him to develop a friendship with Richard Hurrell Froude, another Oxford student, and through Richard with John Keble, a former student and professor of poetry at Oxford. It was with them and a few other men that the influential Oxford Movement was started in 1833.

Friends learn from each other, for this is the nature of friendship; personal growth is never one-sided. Froude, who was one of the founding members of this movement, as well as a High Church Anglican, was one of the men who most challenged Newman’s misunderstandings about Catholicism, and the Middle Ages. From Keble, Newman learned about the depth and beauty of the liturgical seasons and feasts of the year.

Often friendship begins with acts of service rendered by a person to another. In these acts of service we discover and share in the goodness of others. Newman’s students, and readers, turned to him to ask questions about theology or just practical advice. They sought encouragement in difficult times, and consolation in bereavement.

Friendship often develops over time and good friendships withstand the test of time. This was the case with many of Newman’s friends. Frederick Rogers, later Lord Blanchford is an example of this. Newman was his tutor at Oxford. Over time teacher and student became friends. After Newman became Roman Catholic, he and Rogers did not see each other for some time, but they still corresponded. Many years later, Rogers and some other Anglican friends, gifting Newman with a carriage.

Newman had a passion for truth which enabled him to be sincere with his friends about his religious beliefs. He pursued religious truth, even when this meant painful discussions with friends, and even separation from them. Yet the love of friends never dies and is, in time, rekindled if that love is true. Towards the end of his life Newman and some of his former Anglican friends rekindled their friendship before heading off to see Him whom they loved together.

In addition to being a friend, Newman thought about friendship. In one of his Parochial and Plain Sermons ("Love of Relations and Friends"), he noted that we are all "born and framed for friendship" because it is a natural virtue; it even helps us become better Christians:

It has been the plan of Divine Providence to ground what is good and true in religion and morals, on the basis of our good natural feelings. What we are towards our earthly friends in the instincts and wishes of our infancy, such we are to become at length towards God and man in the extended field of our duties as accountable beings. To honour our parents is the first step towards honouring God; to love our brethren according to the flesh, the first step towards considering all men our brethren. Hence our Lord says, we must become as little children, if we would be saved; we must become in His Church, as men, what we were once in the small circle of our youthful homes.—Consider how many other virtues are grafted upon natural feelings. What is Christian high-mindedness, generous self-denial, contempt of wealth, endurance of suffering, and earnest striving after perfection, but an improvement and transformation, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, of that natural character of mind which we call romantic? On the other hand, what is the instinctive hatred and abomination of sin (which confirmed Christians possess), their dissatisfaction with themselves, their general refinement, discrimination, and caution, but an improvement, under the same Spirit, of their natural sensitiveness and delicacy, fear of pain, and sense of shame? They have been chastised into self-government, by a fitting discipline, and now associate an acute sense of discomfort and annoyance with the notion of sinning. And so of the love of our fellow Christians and of the world at large, it is the love of kindred and friends in a fresh shape; which has this use, if it had no other, that it is the natural branch on which a spiritual fruit is grafted.

But again, the love of our private friends is the only preparatory exercise for the love of all men. The love of God is not the same thing as the love of our parents, though parallel to it; but the love of mankind in general should be in the main the same habit as the love of our friends, only exercised towards different objects. The great difficulty in our religious duties is their extent. This frightens and perplexes men,—naturally; those especially, who have neglected religion for a while, and on whom its obligations disclose themselves all at once. This, for example, is the great misery of leaving repentance till a man is in weakness or sickness; he does not know how to set about it. Now God's merciful Providence has in the natural course of things narrowed for us at first this large field of duty; He has given us a clue. We are to begin with loving our friends about us, and gradually to enlarge the circle of our affections, till it reaches all Christians, and then all men. Besides, it is obviously impossible to love all men in any strict and true sense. What is meant by loving all men, is, to feel well-disposed to all men, to be ready to assist them, and to act towards those who come in our way, as if we loved them. We cannot love those about whom we know nothing; except indeed we view them in Christ, as the objects of His Atonement, that is, rather in faith than in love. And love, besides, is a habit, and cannot be attained without actual practice, which on so large a scale is impossible. We see then how absurd it is, when writers (as is the manner of some who slight the Gospel) talk magnificently about loving the whole human race with a comprehensive affection, of being the friends of all mankind, and the like. Such vaunting professions, what do they come to? that such men have certain benevolent feelings towards the world,—feelings and nothing more;—nothing more than unstable feelings, the mere offspring of an indulged imagination, which exist only when their minds are wrought upon, and are sure to fail them in the hour of need. This is not to love men, it is but to talk about love.—The real love of man must depend on practice, and therefore, must begin by exercising itself on our friends around us, otherwise it will have no existence. By trying to love our relations and friends, by submitting to their wishes, though contrary to our own, by bearing with their infirmities, by overcoming their occasional waywardness by kindness, by dwelling on their excellences, and trying to copy them, thus it is that we form in our hearts that root of charity, which, though small at first, may, like the mustard seed, at last even overshadow the earth. The vain talkers about philanthropy, just spoken of, usually show the emptiness of their profession, by being morose and cruel in the private relations of life, which they seem to account as subjects beneath their notice. Far different indeed, far different (unless it be a sort of irreverence to contrast such dreamers with the great Apostle, whose memory we are today celebrating), utterly the reverse of this fictitious benevolence was his elevated and enlightened sympathy for all men. We know he is celebrated for his declarations about Christian love. "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and His love is perfected in us. God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." [1 John iv. 7, 12, 16.] Now did he begin with some vast effort at loving on a large scale? Nay, he had the unspeakable privilege of being the friend of Christ. Thus he was taught to love others; first his affection was concentrated, then it was expanded. Next he had the solemn and comfortable charge of tending our Lord's Mother, the Blessed Virgin, after His departure. Do we not here discern the secret sources of his especial love of the brethren? Could he, who first was favoured with his Saviour's affection, then trusted with a son's office towards His Mother, could he be other than a memorial and pattern (as far as man can be), of love, deep, contemplative, fervent, unruffled, unbounded?

More on Newman and Friendship on Monday.

Queen Mary I's Psalter

This is an image depicting harvesting in August from the prayer book known as the Queen Mary Psalter. According to the British Library, which notes that images from the Psalter are public domain except in the UK (I am publishing in the USA):

The Queen Mary Psalter is one of the most extensively illustrated biblical manuscripts ever produced, containing over 1000 images. Prefacing, commenting on and embellishing the Psalms, the illustrations are famous for their artistic sophistication in both coloured drawings and paintings. Extraordinarily, it appears that all of the Psalter’s illustrations were completed by the same person, an artist who is now known as the ‘Queen Mary Master’ after this book.

The manuscript takes its name not from its original owner but from Queen Mary I (r. 1553–58), to whom it was presented in 1553 by a customs officer, Baldwin Smith, who had prevented its export from England. Although there is no heraldic or documentary evidence that the manuscript’s original patron was also royalty, the magnitude and quality of its illustrations makes an owner of such status very likely. . . .

The images begin on the second text page of the Psalms, and run continuously for 464 pages. Their subjects are extremely varied. They include the Miracles of the Virgin, portraits of martyred saints, and depictions of the lives of Sts Thomas Becket (b. c. 1119, d. 1170) and Mary Magdalene, as well as illustrations of animals and musicians and pursuits such as hunting and hawking. Collectively, the astonishing breadth and beauty of the drawings and paintings create a moving evocation of the world, both sacred and secular.

The Queen Mary Psalter has been digitized at the British Library. It was in the royal possession until King George II gave it to the British Museum in 1757.

The University of Arizona Library Special Collections, which has facsimiles of this Psalter, further notes:

Queen Mary Tudor owned the Psalter two centuries after it was made, but substantial contextual evidence suggests that its original owner was Isabelle of France, the queen of Edward II of England and mother of Edward III. The Psalter provided a rich experience in the reading of texts and images for viewing.

This document provides a great deal of detail about the Psalter and comments upon Queen Mary's appreciation of it, including the rebinding of the book with emblems of the pomegranate, her mother's badge.

Welcome to August!