Graham Greene on Peace & Despair

I'm finding that the Catholicism that makes me feel at peace is that of the English (and of what I can find, the Canadian) Tradition - as I've posted many times before on - and even more specifically, the Catholicism of novelists. Evelyn Waugh, Michael D. O'Brian, and Graham Greene. They called the period leading up to the First World War and all the way to the Second Vatican Council the Catholic Literary Revival. These authors (many of whom were converts) I find to be inspiring because they are so real. My favourite right now is Graham Greene, whose book I am reading "The Heart of the Matter". It was once said that while other religious novelists were writers of faith, that Greene was a writer of doubt.

I was talking with a Catholic friend who suffers from severe scruples (I on the other hand seem to just frequently commit serious sins, and thus don't have to worry about being scrupulous). Anyway, my friend and I both agreed that the main problem we have with Catholic faith is how idealistic it is. What we meant by that was: everything in Catholicism is measured by ideals, the real lives of everyday Catholics, repeated faillure, doubt, frustration, are not to be found in any of the 'official' sources of the Church. For this reason, authors like Greene who deal with these issues have a special place in my heart (and I hope in the Sacred Heart of Our Lord as well.)

Here is one passage I enjoyed from the novel I'm reading. It's about a police officer who is in a state of frustration and unease over the way his life is going. He is a Catholic convert and his wife is quite devout, but he no longer loves her and doesn't know how to resolve things, and she offers to just leave and go to South Africa.

"... she said, 'if I go away, you'll have your peace.'

'You haven't any conception,' he accused her, 'of what peace means.' It was as if she had spoken slightingly of a woman he loved. For he dreamed of peace by day and night. Once in sleep it had appeared to him... by day he tried to win a few moments of its company ... Peace seemed to him the most beautiful word in the language: My peace I give you, my peace I leave with you: O Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, grant us thy peace. In the Mass he pressed his fingers against his eyes to keep the tears of longing in.

...

He had always been prepared to accept the responsibility for his actions, and he had alwasy been half aware too, from the time he made his terrible private vow that she should be happy, how far this action might carry him. Despair is the price one pays for setting oneself an impossible aim. It is, one is told, the unforgivable sin, but it is a sin the corrupt or evil man never practices. He always has hope. He never reaches the freezing-point of knowing absolute faillure. Only the man of goodwill carries always in his heart this capacity for damnation." - Graham Greene "The Heart of the Matter" 61-62

***



One month since my last confession, anywhere from 60-75 various mortal sins. Last night I was praying my Rosary in the Cathedral before Mass, and at one point when I reached "...ora pro nobis peccatoribus..." 'pray for us sinners', I realized that at least in my almost constant dwelling outside a state of grace, I can still pray the Ave Maria with great honesty. St. Francis remarked after he threw off his clothes and handed them to his father infront of the Bishop, that he could now truly pray "Our Father". On the contrary, in all my sin, I can now at least truly pray "us sinners" with authenticity.

By some blessing of providence, I found another church that has reconciliation Monday nights, and I have the day off. I'm anxious for reconciliation, and I know the feelings Greene describes about peace and despair. Malcolm Muggeridge (another Catholic convert) described his friend Graham Greene by saying he was "a Jekyll and Hyde character, who has not succeeded in fusing the two sides of himself into any kind of harmony."

The English Tradition

A reader commented on my devotion to the English Martyrs, and it was only then that it really hit me how big a part they have played in my faith. I always tell people that my decision to 'go Roman' was purely intellectual, but if I've learned anything from the Existentialists (there is a kernal of truth in every heresy), it is that we are whole beings, and I guess my emotions have followed my education.

I am a student of English history and while that makes me appreciate the Anglican tradition, I feel like there is an undercurrent all throughout English history. The story of Christ begins with St. Augustine of Canterbury - sent by the Pope!, St. Gregory the Great no less - and continues to make England the 'most obedient child of the see of Peter' I believe the Venerable Bede says.

St. Thomas Beckett died as a papal martyr, refusing to serve the king over Rome, as did St. Thomas More. Eventually one begins to see that England never saw itself as seperate from the jurisdiction of the Roman bishop.

Such learned and holy men like St. Edmund Campion, and St. Robert Southwell, as well as all the Tyburn martyrs (mostly Jesuits), inspire me and show how far people were willing to go for sometimes only 1 doctrine (in the Anglican communion's more conservative days). St. Margaret Clitherow likewise showed the same determination, as well as all the executed priests I had to study for my project on the Old Bailey courthouse, where Catholic priests were executed until 1701 and after that, received the 'merciful' Hanoverian sentence to life in prison.

As St. Thomas and the scholastics knew the obstinate denial of even one de fide dogma was a damnable offense. While there is room for invincible ignorance, etc, the English martyrs prove by their devotion and self-sacrifice that Papal Supremacy is such a doctrine (as the Apostles' martyrdom bore witness to the truth of the Resurrection).

The example of the English saints teach me another doctrine of the faith. By seeing the transformed life of those like the Venerable John Henry Newman, St. Aelred of Rivaulx, or the English Dominicans like Fr. McNabb, I am reminded that justification by infused grace which makes the person righteous, is not just a theory, but an empirically observable fact.

These two prime doctrines which have set Traditional Protestantism apart from the Roman Church, I feel, are best argued against by the life witness of the martyrs of the English tradition. While there are counter examples like John Donne, I feel that when reading G.K. Chesterton, Evelyn Waugh, and Timothy Radcliffe O.P., the spirit of the English tradition is the spirit of the Roman Church, and that it is the Holy Spirit.

That might be a little triumphalistic or weak philosophically/theologically, but this is only a blog after all. I do not consider myself a part of the English tradition (I'm Canadian after all, and only half British, half German Anabaptist), but I am an avid follower of it. I love talking with Anglicans, and even seeing marxist English historians like E.P. Thompson pick up on it.

When the Venerable Cardinal wrote his great philosophical work "An Essay on the Grammar of Assent" he preferred to go in the school of the English philosophical tradition even if it was at discord with Catholic Realism. He employed it and sanctified it.

I need to remember to invoke the intercession of the English saints more often, and find some more female ones.

Thanks for reading, God bless.

Death, Sparrows, Tooth Decay, and The Jesuits

I've heard this story like 5 times in the last month and apparently read it last year in Medieval British history but had forgotten it. In A.D. 627, King Edwin was trying to decide whether to become a Christian or not, and so he conducted a little council wherein he asked all his advisors whether he should or not.

"Another of the king's chief men, approving of his words and exhortations, presently added: "The present life of man, O king, seems to me, in comparison of that time which is unknown to us, like to the swift flight of a sparrow through the room wherein you sit at supper in winter, with your commanders and ministers, and a good fire in the midst, whilst the storms of rain and snow prevail abroad; the sparrow, I say, flying in at one door, and immediately out at another, whilst he. is within, is safe from the wintry storm; but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, into the dark winter from which he had emerged. So this life of man appears for a short space, but of what went before, or what is to follow, we are utterly ignorant. If, therefore, this new doctrine contains something more certain, it seems justly to deserve to be followed." The other elders and king's councillors, by Divine inspiration, spoke to the same effect." - St. Bede the Venerable (Ecclesiastical History Bk. II)

I was thinking today that I feel (I usually never trust feelings) fairly certain that I want to enter the priesthood and that I want to meet with our vocations director tomorrow. I thought about my life, dying without children or a wife, and of a hundred years from now when no one will remember me. The only fear I had - honestly - was that I wouldn't be able to become a Jesuit. I'm planning -as of now- on becoming a religious priest (hopefuly SJ), but I thought about how fleeting life is, and how my only real passion is for Christ's kingdom (as terrible a sinner as I am, this is still my deep longing). If I can serve it as a layman, that's great, but I really feel that I want to give up everything. The reading today was from Philipians 3, and it was one of my favourite passages, St. Paul writes that he counts all as rubbish compared to knowing Christ, and that he counts it all as loss that he may be found in Him. That's what I thought: I only want to be found in Christ.

As I brushed my teeth tonight I noticed that a tooth my dentist pointed out 6 months ago looks pretty bad, and I figured it might be decaying. I wasn't worried. I thought 'i'm going to be a priest, who cares what I look like. Perhaps it'll be a form of penance and detachment from vanity.'. Like I said, I'm no saint, but I was actually finding joy in bad things.

All of this connects to a sermon I heard from an English Monsignor today on EWTN who only had one hand. He said that he wasn't sad about it, and that as far as he knew, having two hands doesn't make most people happy anyway. He had a chance to help manage a bank, but left it all and became a missionary priest. He eventually worked with Pope John Paul II. He talked about God bringing good out of every evil and grace out of every sin. It gave me alot of hope to hear someone speak with such faith. The more I think about it, we're all just sparrows in the great hall of life. Some of us don't have hands, some of us have rotten teeth, some of us have rotten souls. But only the last ailment is truly mortal. You can survive anything with the grace of Christ.

I don't know if tomorrow I'll resign myself to complaining or commit grave sins, but in this present moment, I'm grateful to God for the peaceful acceptance of his providence. There are days I am overwhelmed with love for God, and this is one of them. To him be Glory forever.

Glorious Defeat, Scotland, and Spiritual Combat

Today we were learning about one of my favourite 'recusants' (he technically wasn't, but he was still a resister and came from a traditionally Catholic family... sort of): Bonnie Prince Charlie (Charles Edward Stuart / Charles III uncrowned king of England, Scotland, Ireland, and France as the traditional title goes...).

He was the last hope for Jacobitism in Britain and if he would've had a successful takeover of London, he might've gotten France's support and been the Catholic king of the UK, bringing back the faith, and sending the Hanoverian Usurpers back to Hell/Germany where they could proceed to not learn English... anyway. Why was I telling this story again? RIGHT!

ok. So Charlie had a glorious victory at the battle of Prestonpans but lost at Culloden. I was thinking about his defeat and exile. Things went so well with him for a while, and he was doing great, but then his arrogance coupled with fear of the returning Hanoverian armies made him act foolishly. In the end he lost, ran, and eventually even temporarily converted to Anglicanism in an attempt to claim he could rule since he was Protestant (he eventually reverted to Catholicism when back in France). One character flaw lead to the next, and if he'd only known his limits and listened to his friends things would've gone differently.

The whole history of Scotland is this sad tale of fiery ideals and passions of the Highland Scots, eventually dwindling and joining the lowlanders in the Anglo-fied subservience and cynical pragmatism of Adam Smith and David Hume.

In my life, I see the dangers of the history of Scotland. I have these lofty ideals, and these plans to immediately rush to completely perfect myself in one day or over a short period of time. If I would only recognize my weakness and commit myself to slow progress, then perhaps I could have some victory. But sadly I feel much more like Bonnie Prince Charlie, I am unready for battles I allow myself to be caught in, and during my retreats from the enemy I endure such heavy losses that I end up without anything. I'm exiled from my own homeland and have fallen from my vocation. So hopefully from this Catholic brother of Old, his majesty Charles III, I can learn some lessons about Spiritual Combat and perhaps Jacobitism and Sanctification are closer than one would think.

Lessons:

1. Don't go it alone. Without the Catholic and even the Protestant Lords and Clan Leaders, the Bonnie Prince wouldn't have been able to even begin. So always stick with your friends and take their advice when they tell you you're acting foolishly.

2. Be content with whatever victories you can have. When Charlie had taken Edinburgh he still hadn't even got the support of all of Scotland, and he spread himself too thin in search of greater glory. Mastering oneself is a slow business, and should always be done -as St. Thomas tells us- by submitting the passions to reason. If we get ahead of ourselves, that's when bad things happen.

3. Glorious defeat. When the Jacobites retreated, the Hanoverians & the Winter destroyed them and thinned their ranks incredibly. They fled and hid until their towns and homes were burned by the English. Many were imprisoned and nearly starved to death, it was a total shame. When tempted don't gradually give in to weakness, don't even consider surrender as an option, but valiantly stand your ground until you are so overcome by concupiscence or the enemy that your defeat was at least glorious.

4. Don't lose the dream. After losing at Culloden and going into hiding, Bonnie Prince Charlie began having affairs and drinking heavily. When it seemed like he had no chance at all he even temporarily gave up his Religion (which was the heritage of his family, he was born in Rome for God's sake! and supported by the Pope). Everyone around him lost hope and Jacobitism died slowly. If he would've kept up the dream, perhaps he could've made it when the French tried to invade later. Always hope that even in defeat and exile from God's grace while in mortal sin, you will return again, and maybe -just maybe- one day your flag will wave high in highland winds once more.

Seeing Orange

For one of my British History classes, I have to lead a seminar on the "Glorious" Revolution of 1688. For those unfamiliar with British history: in 1688 James II a Catholic, tried to pass laws of Religious Toleration and had a male heir. This was enough for parliament to treasonously plan a Dutch invasion of England and a Coup D'Etat in which William of Orange, military leader of a Protestant league waging war against Louis XIV of France, could take the crown. Many Scottish and Irish Catholics died fighting for King James, but English historians call the event a "bloodless revolution" (as any student of England knows, Catholics and non-English folks don't 'count'). My professor is an oldschool Englishman who was at least nominally CofE from what I can tell, and characterized James II as a despot and absolutist. But I mean, who wouldn't call legislation for Freedom of Religion despotic? How mindlessly absolutist to act well within constitutional law to protect a persecuted minority. ...sarcasm...

Then I saw this video of Northern Irish politician Ian Paisley screaming at the Pope: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoCU6Clpkxk It's weird how things change, because I was actually in a bible study with his grandson at bible school in England. I think we stopped being facebook friends when I converted to Catholicism. When we were at school both he (the grandson) and I, actually agreed that we had doubts about those who believed in infant baptism and the Trinity, could really be biblical Christians. Good old Evangelical Arianism and Anabaptism...

Then I found the Canadian Orange Lodge, which is like the KKK for anti-Catholic Anglos. The Strange thing is how I could see myself being in it if I hadn't gone Roman.

I feel like Joseph Pearce a bit, the famous Irish convert to Catholicism. It's always a weird thing to switch 180 degrees from your upbringing. But I find myself with the famous Catholic historian Lord Acton saying that communion with Rome, is more dear than life. It's strange that for us Anglo's, Catholicism is a political thing. For every other race, it's not a political matter if you become Catholic, but for the descendent or student of English History, conflicting loyalties to King and Church have been quite common.