Book Review: "Flannery O'Connor's 'Why Do the Heathen Rage?'"

Last Friday I watched the repeat of The World Over on EWTN (the 1/26/2024 episode; about the 41:26 mark) and saw Raymond Arroyo interview Jessica Hooten Wilson discussing this book and her efforts to understand what Flannery O'Connor was trying to write about in what would have been her third novel, Why Do the Heathen Rage?

So after attending Adoration and Mass at the Newman Center (St. Paul's University Parish) at Wichita State University, I went to Eighth Day Books to purchase one of the copies stacked on the table on the first floor. The book is published by Brazos Press of the Baker Publishing Group and the full title is: Flannery O'Connor's Why Do the Heathen Rage? A Behind-the-Scenes Look at a Work in Progress. The publisher provides the Table of Contents on their website: 

Introduction

Why Do the Heathen Rage? The Porch Scene
Koinonia
Sequel to "The Enduring Chill"
Why Do the Heathen Rage? Walter's Last Will and Testament
Why Do the Heathen Rage? Baptism
Why Do the Heathen Rage? Walter/Asbury's Childhood
Why Do the Heathen Rage? Walter Recites the Ten Commandments
Epistolary Blackface
Why Do the Heathen Rage? The Black Double
Maryat Lee and Oona Gibbs
Documenting "Real" Life
Why Do the Heathen Rage? Photo Journal
The Revolting Conversion
Why Do the Heathen Rage? Do Not Come, Oona Gibbs!
Introducing the Girl
Why Do the Heathen Rage? The Girl
Who Is Oona Gibbs? Mother, Daughter, Aunt, Cousin, or Lover
Why Do the Heathen Rage? Walter's Aunt
Burning Crosses
The Violent Bear It Away: The Burnt Cross

Why Do the Heathen Rage? 
One Potential Ending

The Other Half of the Story
Afterword by Steve Prince

So when the content follows the bold type Why Do the Heathen Rage?, that's from the drafts of O'Connor's work, scenes and fragments of the novel she wanted to write. Then Jessica Hooten Wilson (JHW) provides background and offers analysis. In "Why Do the Heathen Rage? One Potential Ending", JHW provides her own version of the main character's conversion, based on a scene from O'Connor's The Violent Bear it Away.

Just a reminder that I have read another of JHW's books, Giving the Devil His Due: Demonic Authority in the Fiction of Flannery O’Connor and Fyodor Dostoevsky, which I reviewed here. She has visited Wichita twice to speak at Eighth Day Institute events, once at the Inklings Festival and once at a Symposium. She is now the Fletcher Jones Endowed Chair at Pepperdine University.

This is a very personal book: there's quite a bit of JHW in the book: her first interest in Flannery O'Connor because she was encouraged to take her as a model for writing fiction as a Christian; her participation in the 2009 International Flannery O'Connor Conference in Rome; her visits to Milledgeville and the Georgia College & State University Special Collections; her familiarity with O'Connor's short stories; her efforts to understand O'Connor's last years and struggle to create this third novel. This is what she works to communicate to the reader. This book might be read as a follow-up to her defense of Flannery O'Connor after Paul Elie not only accused O'Connor of Racism, but even asked “How Racist Was Flannery O’Connor?” in a 2020 New Yorker essay. JHW even repeats her analysis of the short story "Revelation" in that First Things article on pages 172 through 174 in this book. 

The book is sympathetic to O'Connor's struggles and takes care to place her in her historical and cultural context: the post-Gone With the Wind South at the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. I use that historical marker because Margaret Mitchell's sentimental novel and David O. Selznick's even more sentimental movie of the novel (JHW highlights the movie's opening titles: "land of Cavalier and Cotton Fields" . . . "pretty world [where] Gallantry took its last bow" . . . "a Civilization gone with the wind") repulsed O'Connor: she did not want to write another book like that! See pages 157 through 161. Her oeuvre, which I think we should always grant to the writer, is to explore the eternal spiritual truths that infuse temporal, human, and fallen issues and actions.

I think this book succeeds in its purpose: to explore an artist's efforts to try something new (JHW emphasizes that O'Connor wanted to depict a different kind of revelation, of conversion and the change that comes over a person's life because of that conversion, in Why Do the Heathen Rage?) and even the issues of her own milieu and life (including a fatal illness) that hampered those efforts. As I read the book I thought of Arthur Hugh Clough's poem, usually titled "The Struggle":

Say not the struggle nought availeth,

     The labour and the wounds are vain,

The enemy faints not, nor faileth,

     And as things have been they remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;

     It may be, in yon smoke concealed,

Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,

     And, but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking

     Seem here no painful inch to gain,

Far back through creeks and inlets making,

     Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

And not by eastern windows only,

     When daylight comes, comes in the light,

In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,

     But westward, look, the land is bright.

Preview: "Catholics are . . . not papists but Christians" (Cardinal Müller)

On the Crisis Magazine website, I had to stop and read an opinion piece with the word "Papist" in the title. Since the word "Papist" rang my English Reformation bells, I asked Anna Mitchell on the Son Rise Morning Show if she'd like to use our Monday morning segment on January 29 to discuss the Cardinal's use of that word. She said yes, so we'll do it at our usual time, about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Listen live here or catch the podcast later.

The headline for an exclusive Q&A interview with Cardinal Gerhard Müller begins with the quotation "The Catholic Church is not the Pope’s Church and Catholics are therefore not papists but Christians" as an edited pull quote from a longer sentence in the Cardinal's response to the second question ("What has the Church traditionally taught on the limits of papal authority? ")

 . . . The approach to a Catholic ecclesiology is important. In Lumen Gentium, Vatican II did not begin with the Pope because, contrary to what traditional Protestant polemics believed, the Catholic Church is not the Pope’s Church and Catholics are therefore not papists but Christians. Christ is the head of the Church and from Him all divine grace and truth passes to the members of His body, which is the Church. This is also what Vatican II says with the highest authority in the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei verbum (Art. 10). (emphasis added0

Papist is a pejorative term for Catholics: it was commonly used through the long English Reformation and even used when Parliament began passing Acts allowing Catholics more religious freedom (cf ,The Papists Act of 1788,  18 Geo. 3. c. 60). Therefore, I found it interesting that Cardinal Müller used a term so associated in my mind at least with the English Reformation and the long-lasting fear of and prejudice against Catholics in England and her Colonies.

Cardinal Müller is denying that Catholics have ever been Papists. This pejorative term, traditionally used by Protestants against Catholics does not reflect true Catholic identity, according to his answer. We are Christians, not Papists. We should not let others define our identity, based on sixteenth century Protestant tradition handed down through the centuries.

Its first use as a noun in England occurred in 1528 (as in, "He is a Papist") according to Merriam-Webster; as an adjective in 1562 (as in, "He has Papist loyalties"). 

In 1528, William Tyndale had written and published The Obedience of the Christian Man, which advocated Caesorapapism (the monarch's control of the church in his realm) and the Divine Right of Kings. Anne Boleyn persuaded Henry VIII to read the book and he was influenced by it. In 1532, the Convocation of Bishops agreed to the Submission of the Clergy, abdicating their rights to make ecclesiastical laws to the king and Sir Thomas More resigned as Lord Chancellor, because he would be responsible for enforcing the laws Henry VIII made.

The opposition cited by this term by English Protestants was between the English monarch (Henry VIII, Edward VI, Elizabeth I, James I, Charles I, etc., etc.) and the pope at the time (many popes, from Clement VII, to Pope St. Pius V, to Gregory VIII, to Leo XI, to Blessed Innocent XI, etc., etc.): the issue was: what divided loyalty between secular ruler cum supreme governor of the Church of England and the Pope, the Vicar of Christ, could be allowed on either side?

When Pope St. Pius V excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I and took the further step of declaring English Catholics not bound to loyalty to their monarch (in belated support of the Northern Rebellion) in 1570 (Regnans in Excelsis), he merely intensified the conflict. His successor, Pope Gregory XIII tried to dial it back by separating loyalty and obedience to the Papacy and the Catholic Church in religious matters from loyalty to the monarch and country in civil matters. Although Queen Elizabeth stated that she wanted no window into men's souls, she still wanted their total loyalty, body and soul.

The Appellants late in Elizabeth I's reign tried to reach an agreement with the queen on the grounds of those separate loyalties, and James I also tried to craft a compromise, but the conflict of loyalties remained. An emblem of these failures would be the martyrdom of Blessed Robert Drury: he was one of the signers of the loyal address of 31 January 1603 which acknowledged the queen as lawful sovereign on earth, but maintained their loyalty in religious matters to the Pope. After the Gunpowder Plot discovery, James I required the Appellants to sign a new oath which acknowledged his authority over spiritual matters. Robert refused, and was arrested in 1606 for the crime of being a priest. He was offered his freedom if he would sign the oath; he declined. Martyred by being hanged, drawn, and quartered on 26 February 1607 at Tyburn, London England. He--and Blessed Roger Cadwallador, another former Appellant signatory, martyred on  27 August 1610--is one of the Eighty-five Martyrs of England and Wales beatified by Saint Pope John Paul II in 1987.

And a survey of the many martyrs of the long English Reformation shows that it was issue of authority and loyalty between the monarch and the pope at the time that mattered, especially during the early part of Queen Elizabeth's reign, because of Regnans in Excelsis. Nevertheless, most of the missionary priests considered martyrs were found guilty under laws that made it illegal for them to even be present in England, and the laity considered martyrs were found guilty either of assisting the priests, attending Mass, obdurate recusancy (refusal to attend Church of England services), converting to Catholicism, etc. That's why many of the martyrs made statements on the scaffold saying they were loyal to the monarch in all civil martyrs, but followed their consciences to practice the Catholic Faith, especially by celebrating and attending Holy Mass. It is, however, also true that some of these Catholic martyrs upheld the Pope's authority to depose a monarch, although how that would be actionable in sixteenth or seventeenth century England is difficult to see.

We should also note that the Catholic Church would not and has not beatified or canonized any of those priests and laity who were involved in any plot to kidnap, depose, or assassinate a monarch--or blow up Parliament.

Skipping a few centuries, Cardinal Müller also alludes to the Kulturkampf of Chancellor Bismarck in Prussia after the First Vatican Council in 1870:

The German bishops, with the approval of Pope Pius IX, declared to the German Chancellor Bismarck, who wanted to misuse Vatican I to justify the destruction of the Catholic Church in the “Kulturkampf”: “…the infallible magisterium of the Church is bound to the content of Holy Scripture and Tradition as well as to the doctrinal decisions already given by the ecclesiastical magisterium” (Denzinger-Hünermann no. 3116).

And we know that Saint John Henry Newman responded to William E. Gladstone's over-reaction to the doctrine of Papal Infallibility in his Letter to the Duke of Norfolk.
 

The term travelled across the Atlantic Ocean to the British American Colonies, of course, thus a couple of recent books including the term, Papist Patriots: The Making of American Catholic Identity by Maura Jane Farrelly and Papist Devils: Catholics in British America, 1574-1783 by Robert Emmett Curran. The fear of Papal authority influenced politics throughout the 19th century: the Know-Nothing Party, the State-by-State Constitutional Blaine Amendments, etc. 

In 1928, when Al Smith ran for President, he was called a Papist! and we know that in 1960 candidate John F. Kennedy faced, and mollified, to some extent, fears that he would obey the Pope instead of the U.S. Constitution.

It's fascinating to consider how this term "Papist" either as a noun or adjective, has a divisive tradition from the sixteen to the twentieth centuries.

All images public domain:

Top image: William Tyndale

Bottom image: An anti-Catholic cartoon shows Cardinal Francesco Satolli, who was appointed in 1893 as the first Papal Delegate to the United States, casting a shadow (looking a like Pope Leo XIII) across the country.

Preview: "Mass Under Penal Laws" on the SRMS

Since in the USA we are still in the midst of the nationwide Eucharistic Revival, I've chosen the entry for January 27 in Father Henry Sebastian Bowden's Mementoes of the English Martyrs and Confessors for Every Day in the Year for our next segment on the Son Rise Morning Show on Monday, January 22. I'll be on the air at my usual time, about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central with either Matt Swaim or Anna Mitchell. Please listen live here or catch the podcast later here.

From a Letter of a Missionary Priest:

When a priest comes to their houses, they first salute him as a stranger unknown to them, and then they take him to an inner chamber where an oratory is set up, when all fall on their knees and beg his blessing.

Once the priest reminds them that he will have to leave in morning because of the danger of staying longer, the letter continues:

they all prepare for Confession that evening. The next morning, they hear Mass and receive Holy Communion; then after preaching and giving his blessing the second time, the priest departs, conducted by one of the young gentlemen (that is, of the Catholic Association).

Mention of the Catholic Association helps us date this letter (for which I have not found Father Bowden's source) because this group was established by George Gilbert in the early 1580's when the Jesuit mission to England had begun. That group of young Catholic gentleman, according to Father Bowden's entry for George Gilbert, "was solemnly blessed by Pope Gregory XIII, on April 14, 1580. The members promised to imitate the lives of the Apostles, and to devote themselves wholly to the salvation of souls and the conversion of heretics. They were to be content with the necessaries of their state, and to bestow all the rest for the good of the Catholic cause. They supplied the priests with altar requisites, with horses, and various changes of apparel, and disguised themselves as grooms or servants and escorted the priests through the country from house to house."

The letter goes on:

No one is to be found to complain of the length of the services. If the Mass does not last nearly an hour many are discontented.

The Catholic recusant laity were hungry for the Mass, wanting more and more:

If six, eight, or more Masses are said [Mass was not concelebrated; each priest said Mass separately] in the same place, in the same day (as often happens when when there is a meeting priests), the same congregation will assist at all.

Obviously, the members of the congregation would receive Holy Communion at only one of the Masses, but they wanted to participate in the Sacrifice of the Mass as often as they could when they could.

When they can get priests, they confess every week.

These Catholic communities had to work together for their access to the Sacraments and to assure their mutual safety, so

Quarrels are scarcely known amongst them. Disputes are almost always left to the arbitration of the priests.

And they had to be careful with whom they interacted outside of their communities:

They do not willingly intermarry with heretics [that could mean they wouldn't be able to practice their Catholic faith], not will they pray with them [they were Recusants, not attending Anglican services], nor do they like to have any dealings with them [they probably had to, but that could be dangerous because their recusancy was already known].

The letter does not mention it, but the missionary priests also probably baptized babies and officiated at marriages during these visits too. The recusant laity had to take advantage of these rare and dangerous visits.

Thinking of the first audience for Father Bowden's book in 1910, some of the English Catholics--and many of the Irish Catholics in England--had heard tales of their ancestors during the Penal times. This letter would have revived those shared memories and made them grateful for their greater access to the Sacraments. 

In a much milder way, post-COVID lock downs, many of us can appreciate some of that recusant fervor (and some whose TLM opportunities have been repressed can too; I have attended a TLM "house Mass" at least once so far).

Father Bowden selected this verse from Psalm 22 (5): 

Thou hast prepared a table before me against them that afflict me. Thou hast anointed my head with oil; and my chalice which inebreatheth me, how goodly is it.

Image Source (Public Domain): Mass in a Connemara Cabin by Aloysius O'Kelly, 1883 (in Ireland)

Preview: "Disestablishment" on the Son Rise Morning Show

UPDATED because I've lost my voice: On Monday, January 15, I'll use my first segment of the year of Our Lord 2024 on the Son Rise Morning Show to discuss the Disestablishment Bill introduced in the House of Lords late last year. Either Matt Swaim or Anna Mitchell and I will talk about what this Bill proposes and what it means for England at my usual Son Rise Morning Show time on Mondays, about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern. Please listen live here or catch the podcast later here: remember you can also watch the hosts on the Son Rise Morning Show as they interview guests, etc, on Facebook and YouTube…!

According to the website of National Secular Society (NSS) on December 6, 2023:

A bill backed by the National Secular Society to disestablish the Church of England has been introduced in parliament.

The private member's bill, proposed by Liberal Democrat peer Paul Scriven with assistance from the NSS, was presented in the House of Lords today.

The bill makes provision for the separation of church and state by removing the Church of England's established status, abolishing the automatic right of bishops to seats in the Lords and removing the monarch's title "Defender of the Faith and Supreme Governor of the Church of England".

It would also give the Church full independence over its doctrine, liturgy, and clergy, while ecclesiastical law and courts would cease to have any legal jurisdiction. The regulation of notaries would also be transferred from the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Lord Chancellor.

Under the bill, the government would set up a committee to oversee these legal changes.

Please note that notaries in England are lawyers; they are not the same as the kind of notaries we have in the USA.

When I first posted about this news, I looked for any reaction from either the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury or the Catholic Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, but found none--and still don't find any now. The Humanist UK website--announcing their organization's support for the Bill--does cite a 2018 comment by Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury:

In an interview with the Guardian, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has said that disestablishment of the Church of England would not be ‘a disaster’ for the Church, and is ‘a decision for parliament and the people’. He also said that ‘I don’t think [disestablishment] would make it easier [for the Church], and I don’t think it would make it more difficult’.

The bill has a long way to go through its stages of reading, revision, passing back and forth between the Houses of Parliament (Lords and Commons), so perhaps that explains the silence so far now. The last step is Royal Assent by King Charles III. If you wish, you may the read the Bill, as introduced, here and track its progress through Parliament here.

This Religion News Service story ties the timing of the Bill's introduction to the Church of England's recent adoption of "Prayers of Love and Faith" for blessings of "same sex couples", which has provoked division in the worldwide Anglican Communion. For Parliament and the Nation, it suggests, that is too little, too late. It also comments that since the Bill wasn't introduced by the Government it has little chance to pass because there won't much action taken.

Re: the division in the worldwide Anglican Communion: 

The Kigali Commitment of April 21, 2023, was a shot heard around the world. Thirteen hundred Anglican leaders, dominated by bishops and clergy from the Global South, gathered in Kigali, Rwanda, to declare that they no longer recognized the Archbishop of Canterbury as their leader. Representing 85 percent of the Anglican Communion, they pronounced their determination to “reset the Communion on its biblical foundations.”  

So one side, the Archbishop of Canterbury faces, however unlikely, disestablishment, which includes losing his seat in the House of Lords, and on the other, definitely, a vote of no confidence from 85% of the Anglican Communion! What would Henry VIII and Archbishop Cranmer think! (pictured above on the title page of Gilbert Burnet's History of the Reformation of the Church of England.)

The statistics cited by Humanists UK to back the Bill are that:

The recent British Social Attitudes survey demonstrated how unrepresentative our current system is. Only 12% of people consider themselves Anglican. What’s more, 68% of 18-24 years old say they belong to no religion versus 18% saying they are Christian – including only 0.7% saying they are Anglican.

The backers of the Bill claim that England has become a more secular society and having an Established Church doesn't make sense.

I must admit that I view such issues through the eyes of Saint John Henry Newman.  He opposed the re-election of Robert Peel, representative for Oxford in the House of Commons, and Speaker of the House, after the passage of the 1829 Act for Catholic Emancipation. As Wilfred Ward explains in his biography of Newman, Volume 1, Chapter 2:

The occasion for formulating and expressing these views [that "Truths divinely revealed, developed, and explained by men of genius in the past, were preserved by that Church Catholic which was represented in our own country by the Church of England."] was Catholic Emancipation in 1829. Newman had no decided views on the measure itself. But he considered that it was proposed on principles of indifferentism. The Papist was to be tolerated, just as the Socinian was to be tolerated. He regarded it as 'one of the signs of the times,' a sign of the encroachment of philosophism and indifferentism in the Church. When Peel offered himself for re-election, Newman vigorously opposed him, and the opposition was successful. 'We have achieved a glorious victory,' he wrote to his mother on March 1; 'it is the first public event I have been concerned in, and I thank God from my heart both for my cause and its success. We have proved the independence of the Church and of Oxford ... We had the influence of government in unrelenting activity against us and the talent so-called of the University.'

Newman's concern at that time was that the Truth of Revelation be defended in English society and culture and his letters to family, like this one in March of 1829, indicate his ambivalence to the legislation and how it would affect that defense:

I am continuing in fact my letter to my Mother. Well, then, taking the state of parties in the country as it is, I look upon the granting of the Catholic claims not so much in itself as in the principle and sentiments of which it is an indication. It is carried by indifference, and by hostility to the Church. {181} I do not see how this can be denied. Not that it is not a momentous measure in itself; it is certainly an alteration in our Constitution, and, though I am used to think the country has not much to dread from Romanistic opinions (the danger seeming to be on the side of infidelity), yet there is a general impression, which Blanco White's book confirms, that infidelity and Romanism are compatible, or rather connected with each other. Moreover, it is agreed on all hands that the Emancipation will endanger the Irish Protestant Church; some even say it must ultimately fall.

All these things being considered, I am clearly in principle an anti-Catholic; and, if I do not oppose the Emancipation, it is only because I do not think it expedient, perhaps possible, so to do. I do not look for the settlement of difficulties by the measure; they are rather begun by it, and will be settled with the downfall of the Established Church. If, then, I am for Emancipation, it is only that I may take my stand against the foes of the Church on better ground, instead of fighting at a disadvantage.

Newman was already seeing the dangers of the Erastian control of the Church of England in 1829 and of course that would be one of the main themes of the Oxford Movement beginning in 1833, that the Church of England's bishops should be leading, not the Government.

After he had become a [Roman] Catholic and he spoke to "the Religious Movement of 1833" in his 1850 lectures on Anglican Difficulties with Catholic Doctrine, I think Newman had recognized the even greater dangers of that Erastianism to those of his friends who had remained in the Church of England. It was no firm or trustworthy foundation for them to stand upon: In the first lecture "On the Relation of the National Church to the Nation" he warned them:

I have said all this, my brethren, not in declamation, but to bring out clearly to you, why I cannot feel interest of any kind in the National Church, nor put any trust in it at all from its past history, as if it were, in however narrow a sense, a guardian of orthodoxy. It is as little bound by what it said or did formerly, as this morning's newspaper by its former numbers, except as it is bound by the Law; and while it is upheld by the Law, it will not be weakened by the subtraction of individuals, nor fortified by their continuance. Its life is an Act of Parliament. It will not be able to resist the Arian, Sabellian, or Unitarian heresies now, because Bull or Waterland resisted them a century or two before; nor on the other hand would it be unable to resist them, though its more orthodox theologians were presently to leave it. It will be able to resist them while the State gives the word; it would be unable, when the State forbids it. Elizabeth boasted that she "tuned her pulpits;" Charles forbade discussions on predestination; George on the Holy Trinity; Victoria allows differences on Holy Baptism. While the nation wishes an Establishment, it will remain, whatever individuals are for it or against it; and that which determines its existence will determine its voice. Of course {9} the presence or departure of individuals will be one out of various disturbing causes, which may delay or accelerate by a certain number of years a change in its teaching: but, after all, the change itself depends on events broader and deeper than these; it depends on changes in the nation. As the nation changes its political, so may it change its religious views; the causes which carried the Reform Bill and Free Trade may make short work with orthodoxy.

He was warning them that the Erastian Church of England would follow the spirit of the age and the interests of the establishment and that "changes in the nation" would be the source of church teaching, not those "Truths divinely revealed, developed, and explained by men of genius in the past . . ." And he was proved right as we have seen the last century (women priests; women bishops; abortion; contraception, etc). There have been departures in the last century and in this as the Church of England adopted those changes in doctrine and practice, culminating in Pope Benedict XVI's establishment of the Anglican Ordinariate.

Would anything change in the Church of England if this Disestablish Bill became law?

Next week, we'll resume our regular Monday morning segments on Mementoes of the English Martyrs and Confessors by Father Henry Sebastian Bowden, formerly a member of the Church of England before he became a Catholic and an Oratorian priest!

Richelieu's "Treatise on Perfection"

As any reader knows, one book leads not only to another, but to a new appreciation of connections and insights. So when I received an email from TAN Books about a new translation of Cardinal Richelieu's Treatise on Perfection, I immediately thought of Marie de Vignerot, whose biography I'd just read.

Bronwen McShea mentions this book first on page 21, recounting how the then Bishop of Luçon, Armand du Plessis, "labored intensively over a Catholic catechism to ground and fortify the faith of the clergy of Luçon. It would be published in 1621 under the title Instruction du Chretien and reissued in various editions thereafter."

The book is mentioned again on page 175, when McShea (citing a different first date of publication, 1620), describes how "the duchesse secured authorization to republish the work under a new title, Traitte de la Perfection du Chretien par l'Eminentissime Cardinal Duc de Richelieu" in 1646. The gentlemen Vignerot selected updated the spelling and syntax of the original to the current fashion so that readers "encountered, therefore, a deceased Richelieu who was reverent, scholarly, pastoral, even saintly--but not old-fashioned."!

McShea also highlights the frontispiece that Vignerot commissioned by Claude Mellan, which is in the Public Domain.

The TAN Books description:

For many people, the name of Cardinal Richelieu will immediately call to mind the ambitious and cynical villain of Alexander Dumas’s The Three Musketeers and its many cinematic adaptations. But the real Cardinal Armand Jean du Plessis, Duke of Richelieu (1585–1642), was a very different person than this fictional portrayal. A prelate of great sanctity, learning and wisdom, and an ardent devotee of the Mother of God, he lived in a profoundly turbulent era, when all of Europe (including France) was shaken by religious and political unrest. This man of God and servant of the people labored tirelessly to ensure the flourishing of the Catholic Church and the Kingdom of France, both of which he loved dearly.

Cardinal Richelieu, who was a close friend of Pope Urban VIII and a key proponent of the reforms of the Council of Trent, was also an extremely popular spiritual author in his day. His timeless but long-forgotten masterpiece the Treatise on Perfection, presented here in English for the first time, overflows with wise insights and helpful guidance for nourishing a fruitful and sustainable spiritual life, particularly for those who are trying to balance prayer and devotion with complex and demanding secular responsibilities (as he himself did so successfully.) Cardinal Richelieu believed that the humble and diligent fulfillment of one’s proper and legitimate duties in society is the single most important moral responsibility of the Christian, and also often the most effective form of prayer.

This work also outlines the nine tortures of hell according to Saint Augustine, the joys of heaven, distractions at prayer, twenty spiritual counsels, and much more. Here is a book that will stir your heart to love God above everything by cultivating piety, virtue, and moderation in whatever state of life you are called to. Here is a book that pulls wisdom from some of the greatest saints to help you become a saint.

According to the Translator's Introduction, Father Robert Nixon, OSB used primarily the Latin edition, Tractatus de Perfectione Christiani, published in 1651, with occasional reference to the 1646 French edition for clarification and nuance, so Richelieu's niece's efforts to promote his memory endure.

I'm thinking of adding this to my wish-list for the New Year!

A "Merry Christmas" from Saint John Fisher to Thomas Cromwell

I saw this letter cited on a Facebook post and wanted to research it more: On December 22, 1534, the great, deposed bishop of Rochester, John Fisher, wrote to Thomas Cromwell, begging for some clothing, food, and a Confessor. 

He had been in the Tower of London since April that year; Fisher was used to poverty and fasting, but since his serious illness in December of 1533, he had been much weaker. Fisher was arrested on April 26 and would not leave the Tower until his trial on June 17, 1535 in Westminster Hall and again on the day of his execution, June 22 on Tower Hill.

Here is a transcript from the letter, cited on the Tudor Society website from the Letters and Papers, Volume 7, page 583 ('Henry VIII: December 1534, 21-25', in Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 7, 1534, ed. James Gairdner (London, 1883), pp. 582-585. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/letters-papers-hen8/vol7/pp582-585 [accessed 2 January 2024].):

“John [Fisher] Bishop of Rochester to [Cromwell].

Does not wish to displease the King. When last before him and the other commissioners he swore to the part concerning the succession for the reason he then gave, but refused to swear to some other parts, because his conscience would not allow him to do so. “I beseech you to be good master unto me in my necessity, for I have neither shirt nor sheet nor yet other clothes that are necessary for me to wear, but that be ragged and rent too shamefully. Notwithstanding, I might easily suffer that if they would keep my body warm. But my diet also God knows how slender it is at many times. And now in mine age [he was 65 years old] my stomach may not away but with a few kind of meats, which if I want I decay forthwith, and fall into coughs and diseases of my body, and cannot keep myself in health.” His brother provides for him out of his own purse, to his great hindrance. Beseeches him to pity him, and move the King to take him into favor and release him from this cold and painful imprisonment. Desires to have a priest within the Tower to hear his confession “against this holy time;” and some books to stir his devotion more effectually. Wishes him a merry Christmas. At the Tower, 22 Dec.”

The OED (consulting my two volume tiny type edition) lists various meanings of the word merry, often using the word pleasant:

Of things: pleasant, agreeable

Of a place or country: pleasant, delightful in aspect or conditions: Merry England!

Of sound or music: pleasant, sweet

Of weather: pleasant, fine

Of dress: handsome, gay (original meaning!)

Of herbs or medicines: pleasant to taste or smell

Of a saying: amusing, diverting

Of looks: pleasant, agreeable, bright

Of persons: joyous, mirthful: The Merry Monarch (Charles II)

Of times or seasons: characterized by festivity or rejoicing

And in that last use of merry as an adjective, the OED uses the term Merry Christmas! but does not cite Saint John Fisher's letter to Cromwell but a couple of 17th century literary uses. 

The OED does cite Shakespeare's Henry IV, part 2, Act V, scene 3 when Falstaff and company are ready to receive the benefits of Henry V's accession to the throne after Henry IV's death: "And welcome merry Shrovetide." (line 35)! Since in Shrovetide, the period before Lent, Catholics would be both eating up all the meat and fats they could before Lent and going to Confession for the forgiveness of sins, it would be a festive time to rejoice (and a time the Church knew could be abused as at Carnival--Carne, Vale: Meat, Farewell!--when the partying could get out of hand). 

Bishop John Fisher certainly did not have a festive Christmas in the Tower of London, but with his great devotion to Jesus Christ, he rejoiced withal at the Savior's birth.

One more comment on the word merry, because it calls to mind the other English martyr saint in the Tower of London that December, Saint Thomas More and his use of the word "merrily":

He wished the members of the Court and the jury that condemned him that they "may yet hereafter in heaven merrily all meet together to our everlasting salvation" and he wrote his daughter Margaret in his last letter to her: "Farewell my dear child and pray for me, and I shall for you and all your friends that we may merrily meet in heaven."

And so may we all!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Devotion to Saint Thomas of Canterbury

I've grown in my spiritual devotion to the Catholic Martyrs of England and Wales of the Reformation era, and I'm also growing in devotion to Saint Thomas of Canterbury, thanks to this book of prayers asking his intercession and meditating on his life and martyrdom.

Saint Thomas has often been seen as an important figure in the conflicts between Church and State: defending the rights of the Church in England against Henry II's attempt to take away the bishops's authority over priests and clergy. But Father John S. Hogan, in this book from Gracewing, Devotions to St Thomas Becket, reminds us that devotion to the martyred saint began as people went on pilgrimage to pray for his intercession, seeking miraculous healings through his prayers.

Therefore, Father Hogan includes prayers to Saint Thomas of Canterbury for the sick, a Litany for the Sick, a Prayer for Miracles, etc.

Father Hogan also reminds us that Saint Thomas of Canterbury grew in his Christian faith, that we find a process of conversion in his life, not just from his secular life at Court with Henry II, but through his exile and other sufferings. Father Hogan declares, "As he slowly woke to the way of true Christian discipleship, his experiences, his mistakes, his trials and sufferings, progressively turned him completely to Christ". (p. x) So there are prayers for conversion, including a Novena for the Grace of Conversion. 

Because Saint Thomas of Canterbury was a priest and bishop Father Hogan includes prayers for priests, for bishops, and a "Eucharistic Prayer", emphasizing Becket's growth in devotion to the Eucharist and to celebrating Mass with great reverence.

Thomas  Becket was born on the 21st of December (in 1119/20) and died on the 29th of December (in 1170), so there's a novena to celebrate the martyr between those dates. Since Canterbury is still a site for pilgrimage, there's a "Seven Stations" series of prayers with landmarks like St. Dunstan's Church, where Henry II started his penitential pilgrimage to the Cathedral in reparation for the martyr's murder, the Cloister of the Cathedral through which both the saint and his killers walked to enter the north transept, the Crypt where his first tomb was located, and the parish church of Saint Thomas of Canterbury, the Catholic shrine to this great saint.

There's also a Litany to St Thomas Becket and other prayers for courage, in time of persecution, etc. Gracewing has also published Father Hogan's biography of the saint.

Saint Thomas of Canterbury, pray for us.

Book Review: "La Duchesse" by Bronwen McShea

From Pegasus Books with the double subtitle: The Life of Marie de Vigneron--Cardinal Richelieu's Forgotten Heiress Who Shaped the Fate of France:

A rich portrait of a compelling, complex woman who emerged from a sheltered rural childhood into the fraught, often deadly world of the French royal court and Parisian high society—and who would come to rule them both.

Married off at sixteen to a military officer she barely knew, Marie de Vignerot was intended to lead an ordinary aristocratic life, produce heirs, and quietly assist the men in her family rise to prominence. Instead, she became a widow at eighteen and rose to become the indispensable and highly visible right-hand of the most powerful figure in French politics—the ruthless Cardinal Richelieu.

Richelieu was her uncle and, as he lay dying, the Cardinal broke with tradition and entrusted her, above his male heirs, with his vast fortune. She would go on to shape her country’s political, religious, and cultural life as the unconventional and independent Duchesse d’Aiguillon in ways that reverberated across Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas.

Marie de Vignerot was respected, beloved, and feared by churchmen, statesmen, financiers, writers, artists, and even future canonized saints. Many would owe their careers and eventual historical legacies to her patronage and her enterprising labor and vision. Pope Alexander VII and even the Sun King, Louis XIV, would defer to her. She was one of the most intelligent, accomplished, and occasionally ruthless French leaders of the seventeenth century. Yet, as all too often happens to great women in history, she was all but forgotten by modern times.

La Duchesse is the first fully researched modern biography of Vignerot, putting her onto center stage in the histories of France and the globalizing Catholic Church where she belongs. In these pages, we see Marie navigate scandalous accusations and intrigue to creatively and tenaciously champion the people and causes she cared about. We also see her engage with fascinating personalities such as Queen Marie de Médici and influence French imperial ambitions and the Fronde Civil War. Filled with adventure and daring, art and politics, La Duchesse establishes Vignerot as a figure without whom France’s storied Golden Age cannot be fully understood.

While I'm not quite sure that the Duchesse d'Aiguillon "shaped the Fate of France", she certainly had a great impact on the Catholic Church in France, French Canada (Quebec), and missionary fields around the world. The impact of the French Revolution kind of limits how much her political and social efforts could shape France's fate/future. Slightly hyperbolic, but perhaps indirectly she did by supporting the monarchy against the Fronde and Mazarin so that King Louis XIV ruled absolutely, giving the later French revolutionists something to rebel against!

Nevertheless, McShea's biography of this forgotten and misunderstood (at least in Catholic circles) French peer provides enough evidence of her subject's impact on culture, literature, and religion in her lifetime that it does make the reader wonder why she has been forgotten. 

Marie de Vignerot influenced Catholic piety and charity in Paris and beyond not just by her charitable contributions but even more by her vision and goals in giving the money to support her causes. One example that struck me because I am devoted to Eucharistic Adoration with a weekly hour at my parish, and regularly attend First Friday Benediction and Adoration at our Cathedral, was her influence at her parish church of Saint Sulpice while Jean-Jacques Olier was pastor. She supported him in establishing "a Benediction service that would take place in the church on the first Sunday and first Thursday of every month." (p. 207) There was a procession with the Host in the Monstrance and adoration of the Host on the Altar, this in a time when "Benediction services were rare in France" and Marie regularly attended these services because her "devotion to Christ in the Blessed Sacrament . . . was deep and sincere." She provided the funds for the candles, vestments, and the other liturgical objects required (the Monstrance, the thurifer, incense, and bells, etc). But as McShea explains, Marie also attached certain conditions, including "organ music, the ringing of the church bells, and the singing of numerous Latin hymns and responses" and "a vocal prayer for the repose of the soul of the late Cardinal Richelieu." (p. 208) 

This example is emblematic of the Duchesse's involvement in her charitable causes: she didn't just give the money, she gave direction and encouraged certain goals. McShea emphasizes that as the patroness of Saint Vincent de Paul, she inspired--not always with his immediate agreement--the methods by which improvements in the lives of the poor in rural France and civic Paris would be carried out. She had vision and the will and means to achieve her goals. 

McShea notes one vision Marie could not achieve: she thought she had a vocation to the Carmelite order but her uncle Richelieu dissuaded her, even after her husband died, to pursue it. But she certainly balanced an active live with breaks for contemplation and prayer. For example, in the chapter on Saint Sulpice, McShea recounts a 1:00 a.m. visit Marie made to the Blessed Sacrament after a busy day: She wished to make her prayer where she could be "more returned and recollected" than at home. (p. 210)

The other goal that she did not achieve as she wished was to publish her uncle's works and a history of his era based on his memoirs and other documents. The death of the author of the history she commissioned thwarted that latter effort as "the Jesuit leadership in Paris for some reason confiscated [his manuscript]" instead of giving it to her as he instructed (p. 367). She did negotiate the completion of his tomb in the chapel of the Sorbonne, but she could not maintain the unity of the house of Richelieu because of constant demands for money from her nephew Armand-Jean. His lawsuits and other actions against her estate made her last months, as she suffered from breast cancer, harder. She died on April 17, 1675. 

The book is divided into two parts: the first when Cardinal Richelieu was alive and had taken such an interest in his niece, especially after her husband died (Part One--Princesse Niece), including chapters 1 through 31, and the second after his death, since he chose her rather than her younger brother as his heir and executrix (Part Two--Pair [Peer] de France, including chapters 32 through 58. There is also a charming "Author's Afterword" demonstrating the personal link between the author and her subject (as she comes as close as she can to Marie's grave site), Acknowledgements, Sources, Notes, and an Index. It is a well-researched and narrated book. I would have appreciated either a table of names or a couple of family trees as the names and titles can be a little confusing as the characters emerge, drop away and come back again.

If Marie de Vignerot did not "shape the fate of France", she was certainly alive at an exciting time in French history: the reigns of Kings Louis XIII and XIV, with motherly Regents to both young kings (Marie de Medici and Anne of Austria respectively), the chief ministries of Richelieu and Mazarin, the Thirty Years War, the Fronde revolution, the Jansenist controversy, even the English Civil War, as Henrietta Maria returned to France after King Charles I was imprisoned. Marie even hoped to do more to support English Catholics in exile or at home--and also Catholics in Ireland, ravaged by Oliver Cromwell. She was also interested and engaged in missionary efforts in Tunis, Algiers, Vietnam, and Madagascar, and supported the seminary in Paris training missionaries as part of the Société des Missions Étrangères de Paris.

Why was such an influential figure forgotten? McShea suggests that it is because one eulogy which emphasized her retirement from worldly pursuits was chosen as the template for understanding her life, rather than another, which demonstrated her energy and direction. The preacher at one memorial Mass, at the seminary cited above, on May 13, 1675, Father Jacques-Charles de Brisacier, credited her for "magnanimity, courage, and great negotiating skills" and praised her for ardor, leadership, and judicious governance. Father Brisacier offered a more dynamic appraisal of Marie de Vignerot's achievements. (Here's an article  by McShea discussing that eulogy and describing her "contributions to the colonial-era foundations of the American church while clarifying her role in spreading French Catholicism elsewhere in the world.")

On August 12 of the same year, Father Esprit Fléchier, at the Carmelite convent church on Rue Chapon, portrayed her as the victim of a frustrated religious vocation and much more conventionally as a pious, retiring, and charitable benefactress. (See pages 377 through 380 in chapter 58, "A Forgotten "Femme Forte""). Indeed, when one reads her biography in the old Catholic Encyclopedia, it is Fléchier's version that is cited while Brisacier's is ignored:

After the death of Richelieu, who made her his principal heir, she retired to the Petit-Luxembourg, published her uncle's works and continued her generous benefactions to all kinds of charities. She carried out the Cardinal's last request by having the church and the college of the Sorbonne completed, as well as the Hôtel Richelieu, which has since been converted into the Bibliothèque Nationale. The great Fléchier was charged with pronouncing her funeral oration, which is regarded as one of the masterpieces of eloquence of French pulpit oratory.

Highly recommended. Please note that I purchased my copy from Eighth Day Books. I look forward to reading her first book (Apostles of Empire: The Jesuits and the New Frontier) and to the publication next year of Women of the Church: What Every Catholic Should Know from Augustine Institute and Ignatius Press.

Bill Introduced to Disestablish the Church of England!

You might remember earlier this year that the Oaths that King Charles III took upholding the Church of England and his place as the Defender of the Faith were important issues during his Coronation on May 6: 

Archbishop of Canterbury: Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel?

Will you to the utmost of your power maintain in the United Kingdom the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law? Will you maintain and preserve inviolably the settlement of the Church of England, and the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government thereof, as by law established in England?

And will you preserve unto the Bishops and Clergy of England, and to the Churches there committed to their charge, all such rights and privileges as by law do or shall appertain to them or any of them?

The King: All this I promise to do. The things which I have here before promised I will perform and keep. So help me God.

Archbishop of Canterbury: Your Majesty, are you willing to make, subscribe and declare to the statutory Accession Declaration Oath?

The King: I am willing. The King: I Charles do solemnly and sincerely in the presence of God profess, testify, and declare that I am a faithful Protestant, and that I will, according to the true intent of the enactments which secure the Protestant succession to the Throne, uphold and maintain the said enactments to the best of my powers according to law.

But before making these promises and taking this Oath, King Charles heard the Archbishop of Canterbury add an important caveat, recognizing the sovereign's obligation to "seek to foster an environment in which people of all faiths and beliefs may live freely."

Just recently, on December 6 (St. Nicholas's Day!), however, a Bill has been proposed in Parliament that would change all that: 

A bill backed by the National Secular Society [NSS] to disestablish the Church of England has been introduced in parliament.

The private member's bill, proposed by Liberal Democrat peer Paul Scriven with assistance from the NSS, was presented in the House of Lords today.

The bill makes provision for the separation of church and state by removing the Church of England's established status, abolishing the automatic right of bishops to seats in the Lords and removing the monarch's title "Defender of the Faith and Supreme Governor of the Church of England".

It would also give the Church full independence over its doctrine, liturgy, and clergy, while ecclesiastical law and courts would cease to have any legal jurisdiction. The regulation of notaries would also be transferred from the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Lord Chancellor.

If you go to the official website, you can see the progress of the Bill as it moves through the House of Lords and the House of Commons to the final stages and Royal Assent. 

Will King Charles III give his Royal Assent? Can he refuse?

In 2017, PBS Masterpiece presented a film adaptation of Mark Bartlett's King Charles III in which the king considers opposing an Act of Parliament--he does not refuse his Royal Assent but he enters and Prorogues Parliament (out of turn)!

Here's an online conversation about whether or not a King can refuse Royal Assent and what it would mean.

As of this writing, I do not find any reaction or statement from the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, who visited the House of Lords on December 8 for a debate on "Love Matters", focused on support for families.

The real question is, of course, what would passage of such an Act, with Royal Assent, mean for Christianity in England? 

Also: What would it mean for the Catholic Church in England? and What will the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster say about this Bill? Vincent Cardinal Nichols attended the Coronation and the Catholic Bishops Conference issued a statement and official prayer for King Charles III. 

I did not see anything currently on the Westminster website, nor on The Tablet or Catholic Herald websites. 

Something to watch for!

Photo: The late Monsignor William Carr and I walking toward Westminster Abbey; my late husband Mark took the picture. (C) Stephanie A. Mann 2023; All Rights Reserved.

Preview: Saint John Roberts' "Last Supper"

In this shortest of Advents, our last discussion for 2023 of Father Henry Sebastian Bowden's Mementoes of the English Martyrs and Confessors on the Son Rise Morning Show will take place on Monday, December 18, at the usual time of 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern. Appropriately enough as we're all thinking of our Christmas gatherings just a week to the day later (!) we'll look at the feast shared by Saint John Roberts, OSB and Blessed Thomas Somers the night before their executions at Tyburn. You may listen live here or follow up with the podcast later here.

This feast was arranged by a Spanish lady, Luisa de Carvajal, who had come to England because of her great devotion to the Catholic missionary priests. Years ago Glyn Redworth wrote a biography of this noble woman, The She Apostle: The Extraordinary Life and Death of Luisa de Carvajal which I reviewed here. 

So why was she in England and why was she able to hold a dinner party, a "Last Supper" for two Catholic priests in an English prison the night before their executions? From book description:

In 1605 - the year of the Gunpowder Plot - she was secreted into England by the Jesuits, despite the fact that she spoke not a word of English. To everyone's surprise including her own, she steadily assumed a prominent role within London's underground Catholic community, setting up an unofficial nunnery, offering Roman priests a secure place to live, consoling prisoners awaiting execution, importing banned books, and helping persecuted Catholics to flee abroad. Throughout this time she ran the grave risk of imprisonment and execution, yet she miraculously managed to avoid this ultimate fate in spite of being arrested on a number of occasions. 

Father Bowden describes the dinner she arranged on December 9, 1610  in Newgate Prison for Saint John Roberts, OSB, one of the six Welsh martyrs included among the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales, and Blessed Thomas Somers, who was beatified in 1929 by Pope Pius XI. This memento is titled "The Last Supper" with the verse from Luke 22:11, "The Master saith to thee: Where is the guest chamber, where I may eat the pasch with My disciples?" 

Perhaps because she had the support of the Spanish Ambassador and King James I wanted to maintain peace with Spanish, "she obtained leave to prepare a supper for Frs. Roberts and Somers on the eve of their martyrdom, and for their fellow prisoners."

This was not a small gathering:

"They then sat down to support--twenty prisoners for conscience's sake; twenty confessors of the Faith--Luisa de Carvajal presiding at the head of the table. The meal was a devout and joyful one--heavenly the refreshment ministered to the guests, great the fervor and spiritual delight which our Lord bestowed on His valiant soldiers, giving them that peace which passeth all understanding."

Isn't this the kind of Christmas dinner we all hope for? Festivity, peace, joy, camaraderie, and fellowship? Yes, the food is delicious and fine! And yes, the spirit is peaceful and complete!

But in fact, these guests hardly thought of eating the feast Carvajal had prepared! In the midst of that joyous celebration, Father John Roberts, the Benedictine monk, had some misgivings:

"'Do you not think I may be causing disedification by my great glee? Would it not be better to retire into a corner and give myself up to prayer?'"

No, she replied, 'You cannot be better employed than by letting them all see with what cheerful courage you are about to die for Christ.'

The next day, December 10. 1610, the martyrs suffered at Tyburn. Their executions were unusual, however, because of their reputations among the spectators:

. . . the two Martyrs in the midst of the sixteen criminals were left hanging, and quietly rendered their souls into the hands of the Holy Angels. They were allowed to remain until they were quite dead, a special mercy which it was not usual to extend to Catholics. It was already late, and nearly an hour after mid-day when the executioner cut the rope and took down the body of Father Roberts; it was first disembowelled, and the bowels thrown into a large fire. Then he cut off the head, and divided the trunk into four quarters. The same thing was done to Mr. Somers. But here a remarkable thing happened. It is usual for the hangman when he disembowels those executed for high treason, to take out the heart, and holding it up, to say, “This is the heart of a traitor,” and the people answer, “ Long live the King.” In this case when the hangman said the words, not one person answered, but all remained silent as if struck dumb.

And John Hungerford Pollen, SJ in in his 1891 Acts of the English Martyrs Hitherto Unpublished also reports this jest among Saint John Roberts' last words: "Then he arose, and looking at the fire that was already burning to consume their bowels, said, 'Here’s a hot breakfast ready, despite the cold weather.'" (see pages 143 to 170 for the full account of their trial and execution).

Thus the joyful spirit of that Last Supper sustained him through the end of his life!

While Rowan Williams was the Archbishop of Canterbury, he spoke about Saint John Roberts with great admiration:

John Roberts went from London to Paris and then to Spain, and first to the monastery of Saint Martin in Valladolid – the centre of a severe and serious monastic family, in a context where many new things were going on in the life of prayer. The heritage that mattered here was the heritage of people like Ignatius Loyola, Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross; the emphasis of this monastic family, the Congregation of Valladolid, was on the inner life, the life of contemplation and self-knowledge. This was a 'renaissance' of prayer and contemplation, a kind of parallel to the cultural renaissance. In both, the human spirit was able to discover new depths and new possibilities. In Valladolid, John Roberts was encouraged towards these depths. And when he returned to England, he was able to speak and act out of these depths – in his ministry to the sick at the time of the plague in London, his compassion for all, his service to the poor of the city. And at the end, he was able also to face the appalling agony of his death out of those same depths, on the foundation of the silence and love of his monastic experience.

The martyr isn't a person who says 'No' to the world in any simple sense. The martyr sees the richness of the world, the wealth of mind and imagination, the wealth of culture and the beauty of the human spirit. And because he sees the whole as the gift and sign of God, he knows that the beauty of the Giver is infinitely more than the whole world itself. 'More treasures are found in your name than in the whole of India', in the unforgettable words of Williams Pantycelyn in the greatest Welsh hymn of the eighteenth century ('Iesu, Iesu rwyt ti'n ddigon' – 'Jesus, Jesus all-sufficient'). And so the martyr sets out on the journey to a heavenly 'India', a land of marvels, through his death.

Saint John Roberts, pray for us!

Blessed Thomas Somers, pray for us!