Blessed John Henry Newman, RIP

John Henry Cardinal Newman died on August 11, 1890. In 1990, Pope St. John Paul II wrote an official letter to the Archbishop of Birmingham, remarking on the centenary of Newman's death:

At the approach of the first Centenary of the death of John Henry Newman and in response to your kind invitation, I gladly associate myself with the celebrations that mark this event in England and indeed in many countries throughout the world. The memory of the great Cardinal’s noble life and his copious writings seem to touch the minds and hearts of many people today with a freshness and relevance that has scarcely faded with the passing of a century.

The Centenary year coincides with the beginning of a period of profound change in world events. This period has begun with new prospects for genuine freedom and signs of a renewed awareness of the need to build life, both individual and social, on the solid foundation of unfailing respect for the human person and his inalienable God-given dignity. To all searching minds in this present historical context, Newman’s voice speaks with a timely message.

Newman’s long life shows him to have been an ardent disciple of truth. The unfolding of his career confirms the single-heartedness of his aims as expressed in the following words which he made his own: "My desire hath been to have Truth for my chiefest friend, and no enemy but error" (J. H. Newman The Via Media, London 1911, vol. 1, pp. XII-XIII). In periods of trial and suffering he persevered with confidence, knowing that time was on the side of truth.

Newman’s quest for the truth led him to search for a voice that would speak to him the authority of the living Christ. His example holds a lasting appeal for all sincere scholars and disciples of truth. He urges them to keep asking the deeper, more basic questions about the meaning of life and of all human history; not to be content with a partial response to the great mystery that is man himself; to have the intellectual honesty and moral courage to accept the light of truth, no matter what personal sacrifice it may involve. Above all, Newman is a magnificent guide for all those who perceive that the key, the focal point and the goal of all human history is to be found in Christ (Cfr. Gaudium et Spes, 10) and in union with him in that community of faith, hope and charity, which is his holy Church, through which he communicates truth and grace to all (Cfr. Lumen Gentium, 8).

That same year, then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger made a presentation in Rome commenting on Newman's influence in his life and especially on Newman's presentation of conscience and authority:

Newman had become a convert as a man of conscience; it was his conscience that led him out of the old ties and securities into the world of Catholicism, which was difficult and strange for him. But this way of conscience is everything except a way of self-sufficient subjectivity: it is a way of obedience to objective truth.

The second step in Newman's lifelong journey of conversion was overcoming the subjective evangelical position in favour of an understanding of Christendom based on the objectivity of dogma. In this connection I find a formulation from one of his early sermons to be especially significant today:

"True Christendom is shown... in obedience and not through a state of consciousness. Thus, the whole duty and work of a Christian is made up of these two parts, Faith and Obedience; "looking unto Jesus' (Heb 2: 9)... and acting according to His will.... I conceive that we are in danger, in this day, of insisting on neither of these as we ought; regarding all true and careful consideration of the Object of faith as barren orthodoxy, technical subtlety... and... making the test of our being religious to consist in our having what is called a spiritual state of heart...".

In this context some sentences from The Arians of the Fourth Century, which may sound rather astonishing at first, seem important to me: "...to detect and to approve the principle on which... peace is grounded in Scripture; to submit to the dictation of truth, as such, as a primary authority in matters of political and private conduct; to understand... zeal to be prior in the succession of Christian graces to benevolence".

Newman had been in failing health since the end of 1889; he was nearly blind (having memorized two votive Masses so he could offer Mass privately without reading from the Roman Missal) and had indeed said Mass the last time on Christmas day that year. Unable to read the Breviary, he prayed the Rosary. 

Two days before Newman 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. 

Prayer for Canonization: 

ETERNAL Father, You led JOHN HENRY NEWMAN to follow the kindly light of Truth, and he obediently responded to your heavenly calls at any cost. As writer, preacher, counsellor and educator, as pastor, Oratorian, and servant of the poor he laboured to build up your Kingdom. 

Grant that through your Vicar on Earth we may hear the words, 'Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter into the company of the canonized saints.' 

May you manifest your Servant's power of intercession by even extraordinary answers to the prayers of the faithful throughout the world. We pray particularly for our intentions in his name and in the name of Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen.

Note that his feast, celebrated in England and Wales, is on October 9, the date of his acceptance into the Catholic Church in 1845, instead of being on the date of his death--of his entrance into eternal life. Since August 11 was already the feast day of St. Clare of Assisi, this alternate date was chosen when Pope Benedict XVI beatified Newman in 2010--perhaps looking forward to the day when he is proclaimed a saint and honored on the Roman Calendar throughout the world!

Jane Austen's Persuasion

Kathryn Davis discusses teaching and writing about my favorite Jane Austen novel, Persuasion, in The National Catholic Register:

What do your students enjoy about her writing?

I have taught two novels: Persuasion and Mansfield Park. Mansfield Park is tricky; its comedy is different from that of other novels with witty heroines like Lizzy Bennet [in Pride and Prejudice] or Emma [in Emma]. Here [in Mansfield Park], the heroine is quiet and humble, and the “light and bright and sparkling” character, Mary Crawford, is really more like a “villain.” Most of my students have read the other novels and are perplexed by this inversion: The humor is with the morally unprincipled character. Some love it — but see how interesting and instructive it is to see that the funny and interesting character lacks a moral sense.

Persuasion is my favorite — I can’t get enough. I wrote my dissertation on Persuasion.

You’re working on a book about Jane Austen. What will readers learn from your scholarship?

My forthcoming book, Liberty in Jane Austen’s Persuasion (Lehigh University Press), is about Persuasion and the theme of liberty of soul understood as self-governance. There are fine studies like After Virtue (1981) that have come out on Austen’s ethics and devout Christian sense. My study explores ways in which Austen’s Christian faith influenced and shaped her way of thinking about political questions. In Persuasion, the hero, Capt. Frederick Wentworth, has the qualities needed for engaging in practical political leadership beyond a ship. My book focuses on the moral sense required for individuals to govern well.

Rowman & Littlefield has this description of Professor Davis' forthcoming book:

Liberty in Jane Austen’s Persuasion is a meditation on Persuasion as a text in which Jane Austen, writing in the Age of Revolution, enters the conversation of her epoch. Poets, philosophers, theologians and political thinkers of the long eighteenth century, including William Cowper, George Gordon Byron, Samuel Johnson, Hugh Blair, Thomas Sherlock, Charles Pasley, and Edmund Burke, endeavored definitively to determine what it means for a human being to be free. Persuasion is Austen’s elegant, artful and complex addition to this conversation. In this study, Kathryn Davis proposes that Austen's last complete novel offers an apologia for human liberty primarily understood as self-governance. Austen’s characters struggle to attain liberty, not from an oppressive political regime or stifling social conventions, but for a type of excellence that is available to each human being. The novel's presentation of moral virtue has wider cultural significance as a force that shapes both the “little social commonwealth[s]” inhabited by characters of Austen’s own making and, possibly, the identity of the nation whose sovereign read Persuasion.

Of course I noticed that Davis includes Hugh Blair, whose sermons and Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles-Lettres Austen certainly knew. That's because I wrote my M.A. thesis at WSU on "Hugh Blair's Rhetoric and Jane Austen's Persuasion".

St. Thomas Aquinas on Mercy and Justice

Reverend Thomas Petri, OP, Vice President and Academic Dean and Instructor of Moral Theology and Pastoral Studies at The Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC, spoke at the Midwest Catholic Family Conference here in Wichita, Kansas this weekend. I attended his session titled “St. Thomas Aquinas: Mercy Flows from Being Loved” on Saturday morning.

Hearing the devout theology of St. Thomas Aquinas on any religious subject is always a great pleasure and joy. Father Petri provided the requisite clarity and application throughout this presentation. With St. Thomas Aquinas as our guide, we were reminded of how great and unlike us God is and yet how much He loves us, in spite of the fact that He does not need us or any of our response at all, since He is perfection. He does not owe us either justice or mercy, but He gives them to us--and they must be present and balanced together--simply because He created us, He loves us, and He wants us to be with Him forever. Father Petri demonstrated that this Thomistic precision in thinking about God and our relationship to Him is not esoteric or theoretical; it applies to our life and our relationship with God and with our neighbor.

This article from The Catholic World Report by Professor Thomas Heinrich Stark covers some of same material Father Petri explained:

Thomas adopts Augustine's definition of mercy as compassion in declaring, “Mercy is the compassion of our heart when considering the misery of another person”.

However, mercy is not confined to a mere sense or feeling of compassion. Rather someone is only merciful if he actively strives to avert the misery of others that touches his heart, in the same way that he tries to evert a misery that oppresses him himself. Because it is the distinctive feature of the affective compassion of mercy, that it—as Thomas expresses it—“moves us to do what we can do to help the other.” Only if the affective aspect of compassion is complemented by the effective aspect producing a truly helpful assistance can mercy manifest itself as that act of charity that recognizes the other—again, as Thomas puts it—as “another self”. Therefore only if the feeling of compassion is ordered according to the rules of reason, does it become the virtue of mercy. . . .

Now a specific feature of the ethics of St. Thomas is that it puts compassion and justice into the closest connection possible to each other. “Justice without mercy is cruel”, says Thomas. But, “Mercy without justice is the mother of dissolution"—and, one might add, therefore cruel as well. This close connection between justice and mercy is not sufficiently obvious in human life. The reason for this is not merely the fact that people are often merciless. Rather, it is much more due to the finite character of human existence, which makes all the virtues in the life of the soul appear to be separated from each other and their exercise separate as well. This of course also applies to the virtues of justice and charity, the juxtaposition of which may highlight this fact of separation with particular clarity, so that justice and mercy may sometimes appear to us as as downright opposing intentions.

The situation is different with God. “The work of divine justice always presupposes the work of mercy and it founded in it,” says Thomas. So if God is merciful, then He is not in opposition to justice. That is because in God, unlike in man, justice and mercy are not separated from one another according to their being, although due to our human means of knowing them we must continue to distinguish them by name, and thus speak of them with distinct terms. In short, we are not able to grasp the nature of God in its entirety and in its unity but always only from a certain, finite perspective. So we recognize God as love, as omnipotent, as omniscient, as merciful, and so forth, without being able adequately to imagine that all these attributions form an inseparable unity, because they are identical with each according to their being. That means we have a knowledge of God that overstrains our imagination.

Read the rest there. In the course of his presentation, Father Petri observed that we have to remember that the only way that we receive any grace is through grace; we cannot earn it by pious practices or other means. He brought up terms coined by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI: the Pelagianism of the pious and the Pelagianism of the bourgeois. Tracey Rowland explains these terms:

[Pelagianism is the heresy named for Pelagius, a Roman monk (not an ordained priest) who might have been born in England. He believed that we could save ourselves; that Original Sin had not weakened us so that we need a Savior!]

First: Pelagianism of the bourgeois:

The use of the word "bourgeois" in the first label has nothing to do with being a member of the middle class - at least, not necessarily. Rather, the bourgeois mentality is about fitting in with contemporary social norms and being practical and efficient in one's use of resources. The bourgeois temperament is calculating, pragmatic, focused on efficiency and predictable outcomes. It discourages moral heroism as unreasonable and gives priority to the goods of efficacy over the goods of excellence. . . .

Transferred to the spiritual plane, the problem Pope Benedict identifies with the bourgeois Pelagian is the attitude that God doesn't really expect people to be saints. Benedict diagnoses this mentality as evidence of the spiritual disease of acedia - a kind of anxious vertigo that overcomes people when they are presented with the idea that they have been made in the image of God to grow into the likeness of Christ.

Then: Pelagianism of the pious:

The alternative spiritual pathology is that of the pious Pelagian. This type of person seeks a relationship with God that is modelled on contemporary professional practices - in particular the practice of enhancing one's curriculum vitae. The pious Pelagian performs certain works and says certain prayers and expects to get a return on his spiritual investment. While the bourgeois Pelagian is guilty of the sin of despair, regarding sanctity as an impossible pursuit, the pious Pelagian is guilty of the sin of presumption, assuming that he can have a contractual relationship with God. The bourgeois Pelagian is particularly lacking in the theological virtue of hope, the pious Pelagian is quite anaemic in relation to the theological virtue of love. Both have a warped understanding of faith.

I do agree that, as Father Petri noted, we in the USA, with our can-do, individualistic, self-confident attitude, can easily fall prey to the Pelagianism of the pious-- thinking that we can earn our way to Heaven; God has give us our due. We can be too confident in our own power and lack humility. Citing St. Thomas Aquinas, he said that we have to acknowledge our failures and sins and develop the virtue of humility.

This seems an appropriate reflection on the feast of St. Dominic, the founder of the Dominican Order, which is celebrating its 800th anniversary this year. 

St. Dominic, pray for us!

St. Thomas Aquinas, pray for us!

All the Dominican saints and blesseds, pray for us!

Newman and the Poor of Littlemore

Sister Mary-Birgit Dechant, F.S.O. writes about how as the Anglican Vicar of St. Mary's the Virgin in Oxford, John Henry Newman also addressed the needs the people of Littlemore. She includes details about how his mother and sisters helped him:

In 1830, his mother, also called Jemima, and his two surviving sisters, Harriett and Jemima, moved to Rose Hill, close to Littlemore. They were happy to be near John Henry. They soon got involved in the various parish duties at Littlemore. Newman had a set of rooms in their house and it served as a kind of vicarage for Littlemore. His sisters gathered the children of Littlemore and ran a rudimentary school. They and their mother visited the sick and elderly. . . .

John Henry's brother Frank, sounding a little like either a Jane Austen character or Judas complaining about the expensive nard used to anoint Jesus, commented that it might be too expensive for their mother and sister to maintain a house and servants in Littlemore. Newman answered him that he needed their help and it was better for them to be able to help the poor in Littlemore than to do all the housework. Sister Dechant continues:

One thing was certain: the people of Littlemore were very grateful for all the Newman family did for them. Forty years later, Anne Mozley, Newman’s sister-in-law, found the memory of both the rector and his family alive in the parish. In 1875, she related to his sister Jemima that one parishioner (Martha K.), “still sees you and Harriett in green silk cloaks, in which you looked so nice. You were her ideals of goodness and taste. It had been an honour for her to help in the kitchen at Rose Bank (to which the family had moved from Rose Hill). [...] Also she was of Newman’s mother’s class, has most devoted recollections of her kindness to people, knows still her taste in needlework, and how particular she was.” 9 On one occasion Mrs. Newman, glad that there were so many candidates for Confirmation, rejoiced in “seeds of promise sown by yourself”. Summing up she wrote: “everyone is very grateful and I do hope the people are something better and happier than they were some time ago.”10 

They also helped him build a church in Littlemore:

In April 1835, Newman’s sisters collected signatures for a petition to Oriel College to build a church: practically all the inhabitants of Littlemore signed it.11 This time the request met with approval. With joy, Newman wrote to his friend Henry Wilberforce, “I am building a chapel at Littlemore. If you know any rich man furnished with ability, I have no objection to be indebted to him. I hope to do it for £500 or £600. The College give ground and £100. Population 470. I want it to hold 200.” 12 Mrs. Newman had the honour of laying the foundation stone of the church on 21st July 1835. In her diary, she wrote, “A gratifying day. I laid the first stone of the church at Littlemore. The whole village there … J.H. a nice address.”13 She calls the occasion “that day of triumph.” Sadly, she died suddenly on 17th May 1836. Newman commemorated her in the new church with a memorial plaque made by his good friend Richard Westmacott.  

Read the rest there.

Newman: Docentium at the Spiritual Life Center

Our diocesan newspaper, The Catholic Advance, features a story (page 11) about my presentation on Thursday, August 18 as part of the Spiritual Life Center's monthly Docentium series. The title is: "Blessed John Henry Newman: Faith, Family, and Friends":

When Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI beatified John Henry Newman in September 2010, local author Stephanie A. Mann says, “Something changed about the way Catholics should view this great nineteenth century writer and intellectual. Blessed John Henry Newman is an intercessor and a heavenly patron now, not just an academic interest and research project.”

In the decades after his death in the late nineteenth, his Cause for Canonization moved slowly, Mann notes, but one reason some Catholics believed Newman should be canonized was his influence on others to become Catholic , both in his lifetime and for more than a century after his death. “Some even thought those conversions should be considered the miracles needed for his canonization,” Mann commented.

While Newman has had tremendous influence among converts, his own family rejected Catholicism entirely, and his brothers might even be said to have rejected orthodox, Trinitarian Christianity, in spite of his efforts. His equals in the Oxford Movement, E.B. Pusey and John Keble, didn’t follow his example but remained Anglicans.

Why did someone so persuasive fail within his own close family and friends? What does Newman’s failure mean for those of us whose family and friends have fallen away from Jesus and His Church?

Stephanie A. Mann will explore this aspect of Newman’s life and legacy as part of the Docentium series at the Spiritual Life Center on Thursday, August 18. “Blessed John Henry Newman is a model for us of how to follow Jesus and to reach out to others to follow Him too, despite the cost, difficulty, or failure,” Mann concluded.

Contact the Spiritual Life Center at 316.744.0167 or register online to attend. The Docentium format includes a brief social gathering, buffet dinner, and presentation.

The Vicar of Bray

On August 4, 1543, three Protestant "heretics" according to Henry VIII's reckoning, were burned at the stake. They are known as the Windsor martyrs: Robert Testwood, chorister at Windsor College; Anthony Pearson, a Protestant preacher; and Henry Filmer, a church warden at St. John's in Windsor, who thought the parish priest was too Catholic. Two other men had been arrested, but were not executed.

The Royal Berkshire History website has this background on their trial and execution:

Testwood, Filmer, Pearson, Bennet and Marbeck were all committed to the Bishop of Winchester’s gaol in Southwark for trial under the terms of the Act of Six Articles. The 26th July 1543 was fixed for their trial at Windsor. Because twelve Papists could not be found in the town to fill the jury, Dr. London recommended that the Dean’s tenant farmers be summoned to attend. The accused were all found guilty, but only after William Simonds leaned on the jurers. The judges were John Capon, Bishop of Salisbury, Sir William Essex, Sir Thomas Brydges, Sir Humphrey Forster, William Franklin, Dean of Windsor and Thomas Vachell, but most of them were uncomfortable with the sentencing which was eventually left to Vachell, the most junior of the group. The prisoners were all condemned to be burnt at the stake. However, Bishop Gardiner obtained a pardon for Marbeck whose musical abilities he admired and Bennet’s execution was postponed due to ill-health. For old time’s sake, Simonds later obtained a pardon for him too.

It said that, all night long, the prisoners called on God for his aid and strength, and prayed for the forgiveness of their persecutors, until sleep finally overtook them. Their guards, and even the sheriff – Sir William Barentyne of Little Haseley (Oxfordshire) – were quite moved by their words. On 4th August, the small party was conducted from their prison, through the town, to a field below the castle walls, on the site of the Riverside Station. Having expressed, at the stake, their utmost confidence in their passage to heaven, the three meekly yielded to their fate amongst the flames.

Amongst those in watching crowds was the Vicar of Bray. So shocked was he by the spectacle before him that he swore to himself there and then that, no matter what the religious winds blowing through the nation, he would keep his head down so he might always remain ‘the Vicar of Bray still’. Thus the cleric entered history as the titular character of the famous English ballad. Some say he was William Simonds’ own brother, the Archdeacon of Suffolk.

Simon Aleyn, a canon at Windsor and vicar at several parishes, was also identified as the possible model for the Vicar of Bray, changing his religious practice with the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I. The famous or infamous ditty "The Vicar of Bray" with its chorus

And this is law, I will maintain
Unto my Dying Day, Sir.
That whatsoever King may reign,
I will be the Vicar of Bray, Sir!

recounts religious changes during the Stuart era from Charles II to George I:

In good King Charles's golden days,
When Loyalty no harm meant;
A Furious High-Church man I was,
And so I gain'd Preferment.
Unto my Flock I daily Preach'd,
Kings are by God appointed,
And Damn'd are those who dare resist,
Or touch the Lord's Anointed.

And this is law, I will maintain
Unto my Dying Day, Sir.
That whatsoever King may reign,
I will be the Vicar of Bray, Sir!

When Royal James possest the crown,
And popery grew in fashion;
The Penal Law I shouted down,
And read the Declaration:
The Church of Rome I found would fit
Full well my Constitution,
And I had been a Jesuit,
But for the Revolution. (Refrain)
When William our Deliverer came,
To heal the Nation's Grievance,
I turn'd the Cat in Pan again,
And swore to him Allegiance:
Old Principles I did revoke,
Set conscience at a distance,
Passive Obedience is a Joke,
A Jest is non-resistance. (Refrain)
When Royal Ann became our Queen,
Then Church of England's Glory,
Another face of things was seen,
And I became a Tory:
Occasional Conformists base
I Damn'd, and Moderation,
And thought the Church in danger was,
From such Prevarication. (Refrain)
When George in Pudding time came o'er,
And Moderate Men looked big, Sir,
My Principles I chang'd once more,
And so became a Whig, Sir.
And thus Preferment I procur'd,
From our Faith's great Defender,
And almost every day abjur'd
The Pope, and the Pretender. (Refrain)
The Illustrious House of Hannover,
And Protestant succession,
To these I lustily will swear,
Whilst they can keep possession:
For in my Faith, and Loyalty,
I never once will faulter,
But George, my lawful king shall be,
Except the Times shou'd alter. (Refrain)

More background here from the BBC History Magazine. Royal Doulton used to have a toby mug depicting a winking Vicar (illustrated above).

Absalom and Prince Henry; David and King James

This new recording by The Sixteen and Harry Christophers includes four versions of "When David Heard that Absalom was Slain" by Thomas Weelkes, Robert Ramsey, Michael East, and Thomas Tomkins. The lyrics:

When David heard that Absalom was slain, 
he went up to his chamber over the gate and wept; 
and thus he said: 

O my son, Absalom, my son, my son, Absalom, 
would God I had died for thee! 
O Absalom, Absalom, my son, O my son.

As the liner notes explain:

The verse in slightly modified form proved irresistible to a generation of English composers, yielding over a dozen settings of "When David heard that Absalom was slain". Scholars have conjectured that such an extraordinary proliferation of pieces was triggered by the death in 1612 of Henry Frederick Stuart, Prince of Wales and heir to his father’s kingdoms. While little direct evidence supports their theory, we know that contemporary authors often described James I as David and that a few, one of the king’s counsellors among them, associated his precocious eldest son with Absalom. Prince Henry was certainly critical of his austere father’s reign and, for a time before his premature death, displayed impressive leadership skills. The many poems and mourning songs written in Henry’s memory, including works by Sir Walter Ralegh, John Donne and Thomas Campion, contain more favourable biblical references to the prince, comparing him, for example, to Abner, the mighty cousin of Saul and eventual ally of David. And yet it is possible that 2 Samuel 18:33, with its unequivocal expression of grief, offered composers a strong rhetorical device to carry their reflections on Henry’s death.

The choral group Gallicantus released a CD of  many other compositions written upon Prince Henry's death:

In 1612, Prince Henry Frederick, son of James I and heir to the thrones of England and Scotland, died from a suspected bout of typhoid fever. His untimely death inspired a massive outpouring of artistic tributes in both verse and music, reflecting the mood of a nation mourning the loss of this popular future king at just 18 years of age. 

Prince Henry was James I's heir, but there was a rivalry between father and son. One reason for Prince Henry's popularity was that he was absolutely Protestant--he would not consider marriage to a Catholic princess; his court at St. James was more chivalrous, highly cultured, and the prince insisted on clean language and attendance at chapel services. The English people had high hopes of King Henry IX as he would reign upon his father's death, but Henry Frederick, the Prince of Wales died of typhoid fever on November 6, 1612. His younger brother Charles, took his place in the line of succession, but his uncertain health led to concerns that the Stuart Dynasty was in danger:

The unexpected death at the age of eighteen of the heir to the thrones of England and Scotland was a major blow to the Stuart dynasty, just as the equally sudden death of the fifteen year old Arthur, Prince of Wales in April 1502 had been to the first of the Tudors, Henry VII. James’s dynastic hopes now rested on the shoulders of a single surviving son, Charles, Duke of York, just as Henry VII’s focus had necessarily shifted to Arthur’s only brother. However, whereas the future Henry VIII had been a robust young man, Charles was a physically poor specimen: his legs and ankles were so weak that as an infant he preferred to crawl, and as a child he had been required to wear specially made reinforced iron boots. His condition was almost certainly hereditary, since his father had not learned to walk until he was five. Many contemporaries clearly expected that Charles, who was not quite eleven when his brother died, would not survive to reach manhood let alone marry and produce heirs of his own. . . .

In the wake of Henry’s death, the Stuart dynasty was faced with the frightening prospect of imminent extinction in the immediate male line. Were James and Charles to die within the next few years, the thrones of England and Scotland would pass to James’s sole surviving daughter Elizabeth, whose marriage at the age of sixteen in February 1613 to the Elector Palatine Frederick V raised the prospect of a foreign succession. . . .

Extinction in the immediate male line was not the only possibility which confronted James in the aftermath of the death of Prince Henry. There was also the possibility that James, who did not enjoy the best of health, would die while Charles was still a minor, necessitating the formation of a regency government.

Alternative history speculations include the conjecture that King Henry IX would have dealt more effectively with Parliament and thus averted the English Civil War.

Some More New Old Records

On Thursday last week we went to lunch at Hana Cafe in Old Town for a couple of bento boxes. Then we went to Spektrum Musik where we hit the jackpot on used classical LPs! All of them in good to very good shape. These are four of the nine we inspected and purchased.

Medieval Manuscripts Digitized at the Fitzwilliam

Whenever people ignorantly refer to the Middle Ages, the long period between the Fall of the Western Roman Empire and the Renaissance, as the Dark Ages, the colorful images of medieval prayerbooks, psalters, and Bibles, and of glorious brightly colored stained glass in Gothic cathedrals are two of the best ways to correct them. Of course I know that the Middle Ages had some dark times, but what era hasn't? Seeing the brightness and vividness of the Hours of Philip the Bold and the stained glass of  the Cathedral at Chartres indicates that there's more to learn, at least, about the Middle Ages.

The Fitzwilliam Museum at the University of Cambridge just opened this exhibit of medieval manuscripts to highlight the color/colour of these works:

This exhibition celebrates the Fitzwilliam’s 2016 bicentenary with a stunning display of 150 illuminated manuscripts from its rich collections. They range from the prayerbooks of European royalty and merchants to local treasures like the Macclesfield Psalter, from an alchemical scroll and a duchess’ wedding gift to the ABC of a five-year old princess.

Manuscripts were at the heart of Viscount Fitzwilliam’s collection with which the Museum was established in 1816. Many of them are displayed here for the first time. They can only be seen at the Museum due to a clause in Fitzwilliam’s bequest which prevents them from leaving the building and reveals the anxieties of the Founder who had assembled his treasures in the aftermath of the French Revolution.

The hundreds of images sheltered in volumes that were cherished in princely and religious libraries for centuries constitute the largest and best preserved repositories of medieval and Renaissance painting. With most panel and wall paintings destroyed by war, greed, puritanical zeal or time, illuminated manuscripts are the richest resources for the study of European painting between the sixth and the sixteenth century - the main focus of this exhibition. Highlights of Byzantine, Armenian, Persian and Sanskrit manuscripts are also included. Travel from eighth-century Northumbria to seventeenth-century Nepal via Oxford, Paris, Bruges, Cologne, Florence, Venice, Constantinople, Jerusalem and Kashmir.

Discover the secrets of original masterpieces and modern forgeries. Find out what cutting-edge technologies reveal about their painting materials, and the images’ meaning and value to their owners.

You may sample the digitized images here, and notice those English books that survived the Reformation, as well as those that survived the French Revolution.

The Beheading of Father Jacques

In the midst of recounting the stories of several priests martyred during the recusant or penal era in England here on my blog, I read early Tuesday morning about the martyrdom of Father Jacques Hamel, the 86 year old retired priest. He was decapitated on the altar while saying Mass in Sainte-Etienne-du-Rouvray in Normandy--a community and a church named for the first Christian martyr, St. Stephen the Deacon. Two radicalized jihadists took the small congregation hostage and brutalized the elderly priest. People have proclaimed him a martyr. He certainly suffered and died because he was a Catholic priest, but is he a martyr?

Jimmy Akin at Catholic Answers provides some background, citing a letter from Pope Benedict XVI to the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints in 2006:

It is of course necessary to find irrefutable proof of readiness for martyrdom, such as the outpouring of blood and of its acceptance by the victim. It is likewise necessary, directly or indirectly but always in a morally certain way, to ascertain the "odium Fidei" [hatred of the faith] of the persecutor. If this element is lacking there would be no true martyrdom according to the perennial theological and juridical doctrine of the Church. The concept of "martyrdom" as applied to the Saints and Blessed martyrs should be understood, in conformity with Benedict XIV's teaching, as "voluntaria mortis perpessio sive tolerantia propter Fidem Christi, vel alium virtutis actum in Deum relatum" (De Servorum Dei beatificatione et Beatorum canonizatione, Prato 1839-1841, Book III, chap. 11, 1). This is the constant teaching of the Church.

Akin provides a translation of the statement in Latin from Pope Benedict XIV ("The voluntary enduring or tolerating of death on account of the Faith of Christ or another act of virtue in reference to God.") As Akin analyzes our knowledge of the horrible attack:

As the most recent Benedict makes clear, it is necessary not only to ascertain the odium Fidei or hatred of the Faith on the part of the killer but also “irrefutable proof of readiness for martyrdom, such as the outpouring of blood and of its acceptance by the victim.”

This is what we do not yet appear to have regarding the death of Fr. Hamel.

That he was killed in hatred of the Faith may be regarded as certain. ISIS-linked killers entering a church and killing a priest while saying Mass is a clear sign of hatred of the Faith (barring a truly bizarre and improbable set of circumstances, such as the priest had somehow personally wronged them and they killed him for that reason).

What needs to be established for proof of martyrdom is that Fr. Hamel voluntarily endured or tolerated death on account of the Faith of Christ.

This could be done in a number of ways. For example, it could be done if witnesses in the church gave statements saying that Fr. Hamel faced death saying things like, “I accept my death at your hands for the love of Jesus Christ” or just telling the killers “I forgive you.”

Even apart from such statements, his acceptance of his death for the Faith could be established if he knew that his parish was likely to be targeted by terrorists and he went about his priestly duties anyway, braving the consequences in order to serve others spiritually.

The latter instance seems most likely: the church was on the list of churches targeted by the Islamic terrorists; if the French government hadn't told the pastor, that would be a great injustice. 

All the reports are that Father Hamel was a wonderful priest, ordained in 1958, serving his people with the Sacraments and through his compassion long beyond retirement age, urging them to holiness, according to this profile in The Catholic Herald. 

Eternal rest grant to him, O Lord, and may his soul and all the souls of the faithful departed, rest in peace. Amen.

The Catholic priests executed in England during the Recusant or Penal era knew the dangers they faced, as did the laity who assisted them, or became Catholic. They knew their own country's government and official church hated the Catholic faith and that they faced torture and death if they continued in their practice of the faith. They were often offered freedom and even honors if they renounced their faith and attended a Church of England service. 

Image: Paolo Uccello's "Stoning of St. Stephen".