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Friday night
To THE SAME.
The show at King’s College came off yesterday and was even more alarming than I had thought, as I was the first Fellow to be admitted and after running the gauntlet of the great Hall and intense curiosity of the undergraduates, had to walk up alone to the platform and stand in the open while the Dean who presented me expatiated on my career and qualifications—ending, to the joy of all present, by saying that I enlivened my leisure by talking to cats!
The Principal received me as “exponent of mysticism and poet” which surprised me a good deal. The college dinner that evening was however great fun, nearly 200 there. I sat at the theology table, between X. and Y. and managed to be quite polite when they talked of “superstition.” But oh! how completely these intellectualists miss the bus!
50 Campden Hill Square, W.8.
January, 1928.
To A.B.
Be careful and don’t attempt early Celebrations when it means risk and over-fatigue. I am sure it is more pleasing to God that we should be reasonably prudent in such things and treat the bodies He has given us with respect, than follow at the risk of illness our own devotional inclinations. So there!! I would like you to get to look at the Sacraments in as objective a way as you can; and realize that the gift is always made to you, whether you feel it or not. I allow the early morning is far best from our point of view, but after all God is outside time, isn’t He, and never refuses His grace if we are faithful? And in the same way about prayer—I would not feel troubled, or strain after more comprehension because it seems to you that you know very little yet. We all know very little, but the way to know more is to practise very gently what we have. So I’m not going to tell you anything special to do during the next seven weeks: only to exercise quite a simple, loving trust as towards God, and realize He is moulding and leading you and it is His job far more than yours! Try and see your ordinary daily life as the medium through which He is teaching your soul, and respond as well as you can. Then you won’t need, in order to receive His lessons, to go outside your normal experience. So too the type of prayer best for you is that to which you feel drawn in your best and quietest times and in which it is easiest to you to remain with God. Whether you do or don’t use words or books is not very important. But there should be confidence and self-surrender in it, and of course prayer and selfoffering for those you love and who need you.
Avila.
Sep. 11, 1928.
To L.M.
I must write you a line from here in the interval between our very late dinner and crawling to bed!
We have had such a wonderful day and not yet seen St. Joseph’s which we shall tomorrow morning. Got here late last night and owing to the unspeakable noisiness of Spanish nights I overslept myself and did not get to Mass which was very sad.
But we went down to the Encarnacion directly after breakfast and luckily fell in with a young American Jesuit, speaking perfect Spanish, who helped us a lot. It is a pale, rosy-brown place, very Italian externally with flat tiled roofs and a big walled garden with trees. You go into a little court with a splendid old vine which must have been there in Teresa’s day and then into the actual parlours she used, with the original grilles from behind which she talked to St. Peter of Alcantara and St. John of the Cross. The Church has been much enlarged, the site of the old Dormitory, including her cell, having been thrown into it and of course horribly decorated—but the west end is still as in her day. I think perhaps the most affecting thing is the little grille at which St.
John of the Cross sat to hear her confessions, she being of course within enclosure.
The door into the choir through which the nuns receive communion is the one she used and where she had the vision of the Spiritual Betrothal. A very bad picture commemorates this—in fact, a good deal has to be passed over lightly!
Then we went up into another series of parlours and saw a selection of relics; and two Carmelites came to the grille and talked to our Jesuit and asked if C. and I would not like to become nuns as they had “plenty of room.” They were by no means closely veiled! and seemed very pleased to have some conversation and drew a curtain which allowed us to see into the cloister where large stuffed figures of the Saint and the Holy Child marks the scene of the episode “I am Jesus of Teresa.”
13th. I went to Mass at the Encarnacion this morning; such a divine walk down from the walls, with early morning light on the mountains.
There were two other women in the big, bare church and of course the nuns behind the grille. They sang the O Salutaris and then the priest walked down to the west end and gave each Communion through the little gold door Teresa used. Then they sang the Tantum ergo and we had Mass. It was really lovely.
After breakfast we went to St. Joseph and spoke to a very gay Carmelite through the turn-table, who again suggested we had better become nuns, and then asked if we were Catholic or Protestant. On C.‘s struggling to describe herself as Anglo-Catholic the nun said she only understood Catolica! Catolica!
We were then shown the original Chapel of St. Joseph where the first Mass was said and the first nuns took their vows and then the relics, including Teresa’s little drums and pipes in perfect preservation, her leather belt, one of her letters and one of her bones! At the Casa Santa where the room she was born in is turned into a Chapel, the friar who showed us round let me hold her rosary in my hand.
The whole town seems almost what it must have been in her time. You see the covered mule carts in which she travelled at every turn; the peasants are still mostly in old costume, mules in paniers and the ox waggons quite unchanged.
All water is still carried from the public fountains in great Roman jars balanced on the women’s hips. Altogether it is a dream of a place and ranks next after Assisi. You must come here. The accommodation is quite decent and we like the Spanish food. The weather keeps splendid; a real southern sun but a bright air. We have put in an extra day so will not get to Toledo till Saturday I think.
St. Jean de Luz.
Sept. 24, 1928.
To THE SAME.
We are having a few days’ complete sloth before returning home, sea and sun and nothing to do … very reviving after Spain which was rather too much for H. and me… .
Toledo is marvellous. Nothing Teresian there but her convent (Church rebuilt) and one tooth which I refused to see! also the great fortress-like house of Carmelite Friars, grim enough to make prisons for a dozen inconvenient saints. But the Moorish things—the two mosques they turned into churches but now are kept empty and mosquey again, and the exquisite synagogue built by Moorish workmen for a Jewish merchant whom the Inquisition polished off later on—are simply lovely and so are the Mozarabic towers and the mediaeval walls and gates. The streets, with very few exceptions are Oriental alleys between high walls and have donkey traffic only—the paniers touching the houses and sweeping all before them.
Everywhere one finds lovely little courts with azulejo and old pillars and galleries quite unchanged.
We went to the Mozarabic Mass. I had not been able to get a description of it so could not follow all the eleven points of difference though some were obvious, e.g. the Epiklesis, loudly and distinctly repeated after the words of Consecration, the offering up of the elements at the very beginning of the service, the Pax given all round, a quite different arrangement of the Canon in short bits, a highly ceremonial washing of hands with a big jug and basin and above all, a startling savage howl uttered by the choir at the end!
they did it again at Vespers! Most peculiar!
50 Campden Hill Square, W.8.
Nov. 6 [1928].
To W.Y.
Yes, I agree with you, that Christ gives Himself eternally—that is, through His self-giving God comes into the soul whether we know it or not. Holy Communion is one of the great ways we actualize this and also give ourselves in our turn, to be used in the Divine work of redeeming the world.
These modernists are very useful in translating religious truth into current language, broadening the basis of faith, etc., but they are curiously deficient it seems to me in simplicity.
I think the old woman who could in the Sacrament realize “my Jesus”
was spiritually far in advance of the theologians who argue about it.
I do hope you are better again and back with your children. I had to address a big meeting of S.S. teachers the other day! such nice young things. I talked mostly about sheep-dogs!
50 Campden Hill Square, W.8.
Aug. 4, 1929.
To Z.A.
… I am very glad indeed that the Psalms and St. Augustine suited you so well and I hope you will go on using those for “daily food” while extending your reading in other directions. One never, I find, exhausts them, in fact the more familiar one gets with them, the more spiritual treasures they reveal. I was interested in what you said (about St. Augustine’s “cosmic experience” because it shows so well just where you are and the direction in which you want to expand.
Of course it was the insufficiency of this experience—true enough as far as it goes—which compelled him to become Christian. It lacked the personal love and obligation to a personal God, the real, heartbreaking penitence and longing for a costly perfection that comes with the recognition that Christ is not just “perfect man,”
but the very character of God self-revealed in human ways and appealing to the free love and will of man.
When Augustine said of Neo-platonism, “How could these books have taught me Charity?” he put it in a nutshell. At his conversion, he didn’t just sanctify, but went clean beyond the “higher pantheism”
to a personal relationship that taught him humility and love.
I think without at present struggling with dogmas of atonement, meditation, etc., which won’t mean anything to you yet, you should face the fact that “Christ as the ideal which in the course of evolution man may become”—is not Christianity. Christianity says that in Christ God comes to man—enters the time process. As von Hugel says somewhere “the essence of religion is not development from below, but a golden shower from above.”
I can’t remember now whether you told me you’d read von Hugel or not. If not, do try his little Life of Prayer and his volume of Letters and see how you feel about them. There’s a new book just out, Dogma in History and Thought, edited by W. R. Matthews, which I think will clear your mind about actual doctrines, especially Professor Relton’s article at the end. And I think, if you don’t know them, Bishop Gore’s Belief in God and Belief in Christ. All these are by first-rate scholars but of course definitely Christian.
My own idea is that it is really better to face up at once to what a genuinely Catholic religious philosophy teaches, than to temporize with half-Christian pantheistic-immanentist books….
By all means report on what you think of any of the above you do read. In fact I think that is essential at present if I am to be of any use to you. You are perfectly right in thinking that you have got to make the transition from “God in everything” to “Everything in God”—If “Christ gave Himself for me” is difficult—perhaps Christ as a Bridge between the Divine and the Natural (and this is St. Catherine of Siena’s image) isn’t so difficult? Don’t be troubled because you do not feel these things emotionally—the focus of religion is will, not feeling, isn’t it? Try, gently without strain, to turn your Psalms and your own thoughts and desires into prayers. Simple acts of communion with God—and if and when that experience of silent peace you describe returns, accept and remain in it gratefully, but don’t deliberately force it. Remember God is acting on your soul all the time, whether you have spiritual sensations or not. I hope you will write again as soon as you feel inclined and have the opportunity.
Yacht Wulfruna.
Aug. 26, 1929.
To THE SAME.
I am so sorry to be late in answering your last letter… . There are just one or two points I would like to say something about now.
(1) It isn’t a bit surprising that you find the Psalms and even your own attempts to develop personal prayer, an “exercise” rather than an “experience.” One has to make up one’s mind to submit to training, including the drudgery of training; nor is one’s spiritual state ever to be measured in terms of feeling and conscious experience. This is where the corporate religious life comes in as such a support. You will find concentration difficult, and prayer and the things of the spirit will often seem unreal. Nevertheless, if persevered in, all those things will gradually train and expand your soul, as certainly as gymnastics train the body.
(2) Books. By von Hugel’s Letters I did mean the big volume if you can get hold of it. I think some of the more philosophical ones will interest you and help you and make a preparation for his Eternal Life. Other useful books I think I didn’t mention are Temple’s Mens Creatrix and Christus Veritas and Otto’s Idea of the Holy. If you like my Life of the Spirit perhaps you would find its successor Man and the Supernatural a help. Anyhow I have said what I could there about the relation of Christ to God and the soul’s life to both.
Christianity would surely not be “nullified” but victorious by the coming of the Kingdom?—the mystical body of the Incarnation “would then be conterminous with humanity”—redemption would then be an achieved fact? … The time is hardly come for giving up your work in order to think things out. It seems to me God is arousing and working on your soul—and it is better to go quietly on, working, thinking and praying as much as you can manage without strain and remaining very docile in His hands. But if you could somewhat reduce your work so as to have more leisure of mind and heart that would be a very great help.
Langeais.
Sunday, 15 September, 1929.
To CLARA SMITH.
We had a wonderful day at Chinon yesterday—started with a white autumn fog over the river, and ghosts of poplars standing up in it —and through a hazy forest, till just as we reached Chinon it cleared, and we had a lovely afternoon: walked up St. Joan’s old paved track to the Castle, saw the tower she stayed in and the ruins of the chapel she used, and—in the church where she received the sacraments before seeing the King—lighted two candles at her altar.
It’s quite a nice district for saints. We went to St. Martin’s tomb at Tours (more candles) and at a tiny old dead place called Candes, at the confluence of the Vienne and Loire, found a miraculously beautiful Angevin church, built over the cell in which he died.
To-day we went to Fontevrault over a villainous road which nearly made us seasick! Recovered we had a wonderfully good lunch at the village drinkshop, which looked impossible but where the gendarme insisted, rightly, that we should “eat very well”; and then saw the abbey and cloisters and the tombs of the Plantagenets, all mixed up now with a large prison and entered via the police station: but a glorious piece of architecture. The abbey did have three floors of cells in it but everything has been cleared out. It has one of the most lovely Romanesque apses I ever saw but it looks unhappy without an altar in it. Very few people seem to go and see it compared with the other places, though it is really far more lovely and interesting than these Renaissance chateaux created by kings for the use of bad lots. I could not get any photographs or postcards of it, or of the “lanterne des morts” near the parish church—the only one we have seen. The whole district is stuffed with wonderful old things, ignored by the guidebooks, so that one never knows what one is going to find: most exciting.
Rather a nice little hotel here, with a half yard, half garden (described as Jardin enorme avec boscage) in which we have all our meals. Last night a French couple arrived in a motor, travelling with two charming cats, one aged 15 and one 9, whom they had trained to motoring and always took everywhere with them! Of course we made great friends and I had all the cats’ domestic arrangements explained to me in fullest detail!
Nice inscription found in the church at Chinon: “Que les chretiennes aient le bon gout de s’approcher a l’autel avec les levres au nature! s.v.p.”!
Fitampes.
Sunday night [23 Sept., 1929].
To THE SAME.
We came here to-day from Beaugency; having lunch at Orleans which is a dull hole, except for the Cathedral and its associations with St. Joan. A great statue of her stands behind the High Altar now, and at her feet is buried the Cardinal Archbishop who got her canonized—and quite a nice figure of him kneeling at her feet. The whole place is full of memories of her and makes up for a surfeit of altars trimmed with paper roses for the Little Flower, who meets one in every church.
Nice little hotel here with 5 cats and a lovely fluffy white rabbit, who has a day hutch in the cour and a night hutch in the kitchen, which glows with burnished copper and provides very good food, of the normal French kind. Some of our food has been far from normal. I think our most startling meal was at the Hotel of the Fairy Melusine at Lusignan: Radishes—large dish of mussels (refused and exchanged for 2 fresh sardines!)—fried pigs’ trotters (one each)—pork chops and saucissons—cheese—grapes. The Fairy Melusine’s view of knives and forks was of course very economical—and as to her ideas of sanitation!!! She was run hard by St. Savin, where dejeuner began with two little baked potatoes each, and went on to ham and gherkins.
But St. Savin had the most miraculous Romanesque Abbey Church, still full of its original 11th and 12th century frescoes. I don’t suppose anything so exciting as that will happen now, as we are on beaten tracks. We think of going to Les Andelys tomorrow and thence to Beauvais.
Feb. 21, 1930.
To –.
Thank you very much for your letter. I gather from it that you are still much too concerned with the question of your own “progress” (I wish you could forget for quite a year that this word exists!) too anxious, too impatient. It is quite impossible for any of us to measure ourselves and estimate our progress. Our job, having found the path we honestly believe God wishes us to follow, is to go quietly on with it and leave the results to Him! This may seem a hard saying but it’s the only way to keep self-occupation out.
I don’t think during this period of transition you can reasonably expect to be creative or constructive in your work. You will have to wait for that till things settle themselves a bit. Of course it is to the good that you have ceased, as you say, protesting against life—so long as one does that, there can be no question of spiritual growth. Don’t strain yourself in the effort to formulate and understand things, as a result of your reading. Very likely X.
is too advanced for you at present—if so, quietly leave on one side the things in which you can’t follow without floundering. The same applies to formal meditation, though the gentle effort to apply your mind to some New Testament scene or saying of Our Lord, etc., is probably a good discipline. In all you do, think, or pray about, throw the whole emphasis on God—His work in your soul, His call to you—the fact that you only exist, from moment to moment, by His Act and your whole raison d’etre is to praise, reverence and serve Him.
5 May, 1930.
To A.B.
… I am so glad your retreat this time brought you sunshine and peace. Those “times of consolation” are lovely, and refreshing—but in the nature of things they cannot be continuous. That you should have a reaction is not a proof that you “go wrong”—but if you “go to bits” as it were when the light is withdrawn, then that shows you relied on it too much, and that your spiritual life is still based too much on feeling and not enough on will. It is your natural temperament, I think, to fly backwards and forwards between depths and heights! Try gently and gradually to get into the centre of your picture not your experiences, needs, aspirations—but just God’s Will for you whatever it is; and make your chief practice a quiet selfoffering to Him, to be used His way, and if He pleases without any “experience” at all. To be a tool, a channel for His work on …
all you touch. And just leave yourself out. You can perfectly well trust Him to attend to your interests if you are faithful in attending to His. So your chief prayer must not be to “see Him first and always” but to be useful to Him first and always! I think you will find this practice tends to steadiness and peace—and it is only in steadiness and peace we really draw nearer God. The emotional cravings for Him you describe in your letter are perfectly natural—but not necessarily spiritual! And they actually operate like the “law of reversed effort” against the realization of the Presence of God.
At The Quillet, Appledore.
May 14, 1930.
To Z.A.
It has been in my mind for some little time to write to you and say how much I hope you are getting on all right and not concentrating too fiercely on religious problems! I feel with you, especially just at present, that it is most necessary to keep your human, non-theological contacts and interests supple and alive. Kindly acts of service, firm discipline of your tendency to judge other people, to look at them and their views critically, etc., and all kinds of humble work in which you can forget yourself, are all things which will do most to make your soul fit to realize Christ. So do keep up all your general interests, mix with people, love them, but don’t try to “do them good” or discuss religion with them! All this will make a better preparation for you:’ Retreat than reading religious books and thinking of your soul. If any of your work is uncongenial, seize on that and do it with special zest as something you can offer to God, and act on the same lines with people. The Retreat is only a fortnight off now, and then I shall look forward to seeing you.
50 Campden Hill Square, W.8.
May 20, 1930.
To THE SAME.
Thank you very much for your letter… . This is only to say that the last thing I wish for you is that you should be badgered or hustled into the Church. As to whether “I shall make you a “thorough-going Catholic”—I hope I shall never try to make you any particular thing! My job is simply to try and help you to find out what God wants you to be, and what will help and support your particular type of soul in His service. I certainly hope you will be confirmed and become a regular communicant—as to Confession it may or may not be for you. Wait and see. And meanwhile be as humble, peaceful and interested in your daily jobs and surroundings as you can!
Presteign.
June 12, 1930.
To Y.L.
Last night we were out till nearly 10 (it was quite light with a glorious sky) driving slowly along the lanes looking for creatures.
We found a charming adolescent plover, like a miniature ostrich, taking his first walk and very nervous and of course many kitten-rabbits bent on suicide….
Now to business.
(1) Anyone can “lead a prayer-life,” i.e. the sort of reasonable devotional life to which each is called by God. This only involves making a suitable rule and making up your mind to keep it however boring this may be.
(2) If dryness and distractions have you in their clutches just now, fall back on the Divine Office. Say Prime or Terce in the morning, Vespers or Compline at night, with the intention of joining the great corporate prayer of the Church. You will then be making acts of Adoration, Penitence, etc., though probably not feeling them, which is another story and much less important. You can also offer your prayers, obedience and endurance of dryness to Our Lord, for the good of other souls—and then you have practised intercession.
Never mind if it all seems for the time very second-hand. The less you get out of it, the nearer it approaches to being something worth offering—and the humiliation of not being able to feel as devout as we want to be, is excellent for most of us. Use vocal prayer and use it very slowly trying to realize the meaning with which it is charged and remember that anyhow you are only a unit in the Chorus of the Church and not responsible for a solo part so that the others will make good the shortcomings you cannot help.
Helford Passage, Mawnan Smith, Cornwall.
Aug. 21, 1930.
To Z.A.
… Thank you so much for your letter. … I send this book, which seems to me very good, and I think may interest you, especially the parts towards the end, bearing on the Eucharist. It really is religious, which so few theological books are! …
Hicks, E. C., The Fullness of Sacrifice.
I am so glad you feel you are now getting more hold of the power of prayer.—No! I don’t mind your continued lack of emotional feeling.
This is a pleasant stimulus but not the real foundation and there is always a risk at the beginning of mistaking fervour for faith. You are building more solidly without it and will be the better able to use it when it comes. God knows His job better than we do and will give you what you need at the right time. Your will and perseverance are already proofs of love—all the more worth offering because you are not getting any pleasure out of it! Keep calm and all will be well. Let me know where you are going to be for your confirmation, won’t you? and when you intend to make your First Communion?
Hartland, N. Devon.
Sep. 2, 1930.
To THE SAME.
Thank you so much for your letter. I do wish I could be with you on Sunday in the flesh as I shall be in the spirit: but Francis will take care of you [her confirmation]—and it will be I hope the beginning of much and ever-increasing strength, peace and happiness.
I am glad you go straight to the Convent. You realize they are very advanced Anglo-Catholics and the whole routine is monastic… .
They keep silence in the mornings and at meals; so you will have as much quiet as you like. But I do beg you not to attempt to spend all the time in prayer and devotional reading! Just be quiet and grateful—don’t strain yourself or try to whip-up emotion… .
As to devotional preparation, Psalms viii and cxvi, St. John vi and xv, the Fourth Book of the Imitation, especially chaps. 7, 8, and 9
… will give you enough to choose from. Don’t be disappointed if you don’t feel anything—no one can tell you beforehand whether you will or not—but even though you should feel cold or dry or baffled, this does not affect the main point: which is that Our Lord comes to your soul to feed you, not to give you sensations and you come to offer Him your whole self, not just your emotional life.
I like to think of the Sacraments as points where the supernatural penetrates and transforms the natural world—and truly gives itself to us, under an apparently natural form, so that we can receive It as we could not do in Its spiritual essence alone. So that humble receptivity and faithfulness is the main thing asked of us—and however imperfect our dispositions, that does not diminish the fullness and beauty of the divine gift, or the reality of the Presence which is there just the same, whether we feel it or not.
…
I’m glad you like Dr. Hicks’ book. It impressed me very much. I am sure you will find his teaching on the Eucharist a help: partly because he doesn’t try to explain too much but leaves the fringe of mystery intact.
I do so hope those coming days will be full of great blessings and the deepest kind of joy.
This little Franciscan Cross was blessed at Assisi and had the benediction of St. Francis on it. I thought perhaps you would like it.
Sept. 10, 1930.
To THE SAME.
… The Sacrament of penance in its reality is an awful and sacred thing. I think myself, as von Hugel thought, that it should be kept as it was in the primitive Church for healing the results of grave sin, or seriously sinful states of mind, etc., and not be a routine discipline… .
But anyhow, as long as it means nothing to you the only right and wholesome course is to let it alone I think… . You must relax, and just be as quiet, childlike and confident as possible and take all the interest you can in the non-religious side of your life.
Indeed I never taught you that “the flesh doesn’t matter”!!—it is quite un-Christian to think that—and I hope you are eating your meals properly and sleeping well at night? Both can be done to the Glory of God, can’t they?
The Christian life is something so rich, deep, supple and altogether lovely—so naturally supernatural as it were—and not anything which asks more than we can do, or in any way strings one up. So keep calm like a good child, won’t you? You now have the support of the whole family you have joined, including the Saints: God never badgers souls who surrender to Him—but lets them grow gently, feeding on what suits them and leaving the rest. And that is what you are to do.
50 Campden Hill Square, W.8.
All Saints, 1930.
To THE SAME.
I think these notes (from that wise old saint Augustine Baker and arranged for your use!) will answer your questions about mortification. The austerities of the saints must be left to saints: we are not to presume to attempt them, unless distinctly called by God. The only result of sampling strong tea when our proper diet is milk and water is a severe spiritual tummy-ache. Go slow.
I’m actually up and dressed and am going to Canterbury to do the Wives’ Fellowship Retreat on Monday. So please think of us and of your veil beginning its new life…. Then I’m going to Moreton for a short Retreat (for myself) … and then shall have another shot at my hermit-like London life, until the plan now on foot to export me to the South of France matures… .
NOTES ON MORTIFICATION FROM AUGUSTINE BAKER
(1) Quietly to suffer all crosses, difficulties and contradictions to self-will whether internal or external, including temptations and dryness. This is the very essence of a mortified life.
(2) Never to do or omit things on account of one’s likes or dislikes, but refer all to God’s will.
(3) Those mortifications are right for us which increase humility and power of prayer and are performed with cheerful resolution. They are wrong, if deliberately undertaken instead of the obvious difficulties of life and if they produce depression and strain.
(4) Habitual quietness of mind is essential to true mortification.
All impetuosity and unquietness has in it some self-love but the Holy Spirit is stillness, serenity and peace.
(5) In general, the mortifications sent by God and the ordinary friction of existence are enough to discipline our souls. Voluntary mortifications are never to be assumed till the necessary difficulties and contradictions of life are cheerfully and fully accepted.
Rosemullion Hotel, Budleigh Salterton.
Feb. 7, 1931.
To THE SAME.
Thank you so much for your letter. You were just in time to get a place in the March Retreat at Pleshey, so that’s all right. I am awfully pleased with this place—such beautiful air and wonderful sun whenever it is fine, as at present! and even the two weeks here have done me far more good than the six at Sidmouth.
Now about your letter. You are not required to have a “prayer policy.” Do you have a policy about intercourse with your friends or any other of the deepest relations of life? Your “policy” must simply be to respond to what God gives and do your best, as you can, in the circumstances. And don’t be too proud to acknowledge that what He does is infinitely more important than what you can feel or do.
Resting quietly in the Divine Presence is a prayer and often a far better one than our deliberate efforts can manage: and more humbling, because we can’t produce it at will. Our part, when it is like that, is very grateful acceptance. Please don’t increase your Communions at present. I would rather you observed a very moderate rule and put obedience before spiritual experiences. When you feel your prayer is blank and poor and deficient in love, say how sorry you are. And when you are quite left dry, use formal prayers and try honestly to enter into them and mean them as your little contribution to the total prayer and praise of the Church!
The more you think of that and the less of your own condition the better!
Romsey.
Wednesday in Easter Week, 1931.
To X.Y.
This is by way of being an answer, probably most inadequate, to your last letter. I think the general answer to it is that you fuss far too much—and haven’t nearly enough assimilated the priceless art of letting God make the first move. Thus, as to “mortifications”
—having fully, generously, gratefully accepted all the conditions in which you are placed and dealt with them to the best of your ability, ignoring as much as you can your personal likes and dislikes (not deliberately acting contrary to the said likes and dislikes) you will surely have done a good bit to mortify self-love, comfiness, fastidiousness, slackness, inordinate affection, etc. If you haven’t, anyhow you can! The string of imperfections you mention are nearly all things that are in your own hands. You just needn’t do them!—that’s the truth. And your right course surely (as regards the ones which really are faults and not fuss) is to give your whole will to ceasing to do them—just that, and not fossick round for “extraordinary mortifications.” Quietly dealing with one’s own uncontrolled thoughts and desires is infinitely more humbling than any sort of deliberate austerity; which only makes one feel one has done something! But don’t have hand-to-hand tussles with distractions and wanderings of mind—that intensifies the disease.
Try and drop all that and hold some thought or word that does mean something to you, before your soul. Remember that in the Sacraments you get actual energy, enough to do and be what God requires of you at your present stage. If vocal prayer helps you most at the moment, use it by all means and be quiet and humble about that too, and don’t expect to “realize” all the time.
But don’t load the dice against yourself by assuming that you are “sure to get slack again.” That is unfair to God, isn’t it? and merely asking for failure. Assume rather that if you are quiet and faithful and correspond as well as you can to what He gives, He will produce in you what He wants.
9 June, 1931.
To DOM JOHN CHAPMAN.
This is really an answer to the last bit of your letter, because I feel I owe you an explanation of my “position” which must seem to you a very inconsistent one. I have been for years now a practising Anglo-Catholic … and solidly believe in the Catholic status of the Anglican Church, as to orders and sacraments, little as I appreciate many of the things done among us. It seems to me a respectable suburb of the city of God—but all the same, part of “greater London.” I appreciate the superior food, etc., to be had nearer the centre of things. But the whole point to me is in the fact that our Lord has put me here, keeps on giving me more and more jobs to do for souls here, and has never given me orders to move. In fact, when I have been inclined to think of this, something has always stopped me: and if I did it, it would be purely an act of spiritual self-interest and self-will. I know what the push of God is like, and should obey it if it came—at least I trust and believe so. When … I put myself under Baron von Hugel’s direction, five years before his death he went into all this, and said I must never think of moving on account of my own religious preferences, comforts or advantages—but only if so decisively called by God that I felt it wrong to resist—and he was satisfied that up to date I had not received this call. Nor have I done so since. I promised him that if ever I did receive it I should obey. Under God, I owe him my whole spiritual life, and there would be much more of it than there is, if I had been more courageous and stern with myself and followed his directions more thoroughly. And it seems to me a sort of secondary evidence that God means me to be where I am, that He gave me that immense and transforming help, and yet with a quite clear light that I am to stay here and not “down tools.” Of course I know I might get other orders at any moment, but so far that is not so. After all He has lots of terribly hungry sheep in Wimbledon, and if it is my job to try and help with them a bit it is no use saying I should rather fancy a flat in Mayfair, is it?
Please do not think this cheek. It is not meant so, but it is so much easier to write quite straight and simply.
Aug. 5.
To X.Y.
On our way up, we went round by Kelham and saw their new Chapel.
Everyone was away of course but a charming novice, who was acting Sacristan, showed us round. It’s awfully impressive—intensely austere and all done by line and plain surfaces—not a statue, not even of our Lady—no stations—the Blessed Sacrament reserved in a tiny Oratory we were not allowed to see.
The whole Church is dominated by Jagger’s wonderful Rood. One gets no idea of this from the small photos. Our Lord bound to the Cross with cords; a living figure, full of intense power and looking straight into the eyes of whoever looks up at Him—and Mary looking up in an ecstasy of worship; and John crushed by penitence and grief. The effect, against the deep purple apse-wall, is simply marvellous. The few things they have are all perfect works of art.
… There was perhaps a certain lack of homeliness—but a very great sense of the numinous.
We drove through Sherwood Forest, where I once saw a fox having a quiet evening stroll and rabbits watching him. But saw nothing better this time than a young wagtail that had not got a tail to wag.
S.S. Venus, North Sea.
September, 1931.
To L.M.
This will be posted in England, to which we are gently rolling our way—not such a smooth passage as when we came but so far quite comfy… .
Stalheim was a marvellous place—the hotel perched at the top of a 1,000-foot cliff and looking right down the Naerodal—one of those solemn rock valleys which seem like an approach to the Inferno. Our arrival was adventurous: as when we reached the foot of the cliff the car stopped and the driver said calmly: “I go no further. From here you walk.” He then pointed to Heaven and said, “There is the Hotel!” It was 9 p.m. and pretty dark but light enough to make it obvious that the climb was far beyond me! and not alluring to any but the young and strong.
In the end we got a horse from a farm which scrambled slowly up the 13 steep zig-zags. The high valleys and hills at the top were splendid and I would like to stay there for days. We got one very good walk among the summer pastures and saw the cows and goats being called down from the tops for milking.
As from 50 Campden Hill Square, W.8.
17 September, 1931.
To DR. MARGARET SMITH.
C. tells me that you have very kindly sent me a copy of your new book, now waiting for me at home. Thank you so very much for it—I shall most specially value possessing it from you as well as for its own sake. Meanwhile the Spectator sent me a copy here to review, so I have had an opportunity of reading it. I have been more than interested—really excited. You seem to me to have made a contribution of first-class importance to the history of mysticism and to have completely proved your point about the doctrinal origins of Sufi-ism. Of course, as always, when a historical problem is cleared up, one promptly thinks, “Why on earth did no one think of this before!”—the answer being of course that they didn’t have the requisite combination of knowledge, sympathy and common sense.
Studies in Early Mysticism in the Near and Middle East.
I was also rather struck (perhaps more than you intended!) by the very slightly Christian character of much of the Eastern mystical writings—they were really ready to the hand of the Sufis, weren’t they? and had hardly anything in them to vex the most sensitive monotheist. Your quotations are lovely both of the Christians and Muslims.
24 Sept., 1931.
To DOM JOHN CHAPMAN.
I sometimes wonder whether (a) at certain points or stages the soul must suffer; and then an apparently inadequate cause may be the occasion of the maximum pain it can endure … or (b) it may be allowed to pay some of the price of the happiness of another soul.
Nov. 27, 1931.
TO A YOUNG MOTHER.
Yes, I am sure you find the C.S.S. rule of Poverty very difficult to square with married life. When you told me what you intended, I could not imagine how you were going to manage it! How can a husband and wife adopt different scales of living without tension? it must become very acute in relation with the children and their clothes, education, amusements, etc. Married tertiaries in the past presumably both embraced poverty or else, like Jacopone’s wife, wore the hair-shirt secretly under their nice clothes! I do hope you will find a solution that really symplifies life instead of just making it complex in a fresh way.
Dec. 2, 1931.
To Z.A.
Thank you very much for your letter. I think you deserve full marks for taking mine so well!! The unfortunate part of trying to communicate (our spiritual) experiences is that we never manage it and at best only interest and at worst amuse or repel. Hence the deep wisdom of St. Bernard’s “My secret to myself.” . .. “Let us keep our heads,” as the Baron was so fond of saying!
50 Campden Hill Square, W.8.
7 February, 1932.
To E. I. WATKIN.
. .. The last thing (years ago!) my friend told me of the Golden Fountain lady was that she said she had been “told inwardly” not to write and publish any more. I own I did not feel wholly satisfied that her experiences were supernatural, (a) The extreme emotionalism, (b) the lack of reticence, (c) the note of spiritual self-assurance, all seemed to contrast rather vividly with the undoubted mystics. I agree with you that ecstatic phenomena do seem to be related to the physiological rhythm (e.g. St. Teresa) and like conversion tend to appear about the end of adolescence and again at full maturity—30 or so—and at the close of middle age. This doesn’t bother me because I think them a by-product and not the essence; and often better away! The development at its best seems to be towards depth and steadiness—the “theopathetic state”—rather than raptures. This, surely, would agree with St. John of the Cross, a safer guide than all the fervent females put together! The St.
Teresa of the Foundations seems to me a nobler figure, more deeply and fundamentally united to God, than she is in the ecstatic period described in the Life. I suppose Charity, as an infused grace, is given in the “ground of the soul” and it is there that the abiding union with God takes place; and that the divine love then spreads more and more throughout the whole psychic life—like Ruysbroeck’s “fountain with three rivulets”; the contemplative life, therefore, which first appears to the soul as a contrast, and is realized by way of vision, audition, ecstasy, etc., becomes as it matures more deep, still and universal. But I don’t feel sure you will agree with this!
50 Campden Hill Square, W.8.
12 February, 1932.
To THE SAME.
Thank you very much for your very interesting letter. I expect you are right, and that the Golden Fountain lady’s trying way of expressing herself is partly due to the lack of a good tradition; but I still feel that, even if her experiences were all that they seem to her to be, the normal movement of the soul to a much quieter, deeper and less emotional type of realization is an advance and not a loss.
As to St. John of the Cross, I think that return to an almost physical description of ecstatic joy in the end of the Living Flame becomes explicable when we remember that he died before he was 50; therefore, presumably, it describes not the final but the intermediate stage of a mystic’s development, and tallies with St.
Teresa’s ecstatic period, not with her last state. It comes, too, at a moment in the physiological life when ecstatic or emotional experience of an intense type often seems to occur, doesn’t it? …
No! I can’t feel the fact that ecstatic experience is so sporadic and has a close relation to “age and condition” is disturbing. It’s real when it happens, and mediates the Absolute just as the passion of Romeo and Juliet mediates something of an absolute sort. And anyhow “nude faith” is surely the really solid, splendid and convincing thing? I have an idea heaven will be both absolutely happy and absolutely dark, to protect us from the blaze of God.
50 Campden Hill Square, W.8.
16 February, 1932.
To F.H.
… I think that restlessness and feeling of dissatisfaction with life is partly physical in origin, and should be met on the natural level of cultivating wholesome interests as much as one possibly can, facing (as you realize) the true facts and accepting them, trying to find happiness in interesting yourself in children and so forth. All lives can seem futile and unfulfilled without God but no life is futile with Him, is it? It is a question of centring yourself on Him more utterly, and abandoning your will to His. That is the string for your beads. If there are great sides of life withheld from you, it is your opportunity, isn’t it? to dedicate to God all the love, energy and service which would have gone into them, and be ready and alert to see what He wants of you, perhaps something that seems on the surface quite inconspicuous and humble, but which can be irradiated by the intention which directs it to Him. The “drive,” the “roots” are all there and not in the particular thing you do, aren’t they?
As to writing, I don’t think anyone else can definitely advise you —but if it really is a strong impulse, then I should try—but with the full knowledge that you may fail and that you will vanquish the mere vanity which is afraid to fail. No creative urge which can’t conquer that demon is going to be any good. You must be prepared to stand on your own feet, do the work as well as you know how, and leave the results.
19 February, 1932.
To M.C.
Did M. tell you of my darling Italian Saint (head of a tiny group of Italian Primitives) whom I asked to join the Disarmament Prayer Group and who replied she could not promise a fixed period because:
“Agli uccelli non si puo chiedere in dato canto in un dato tempo. E
voi vogliamo essere nella nostra espressione di religiosita come gli uccelli—pregare, cantare, perche amiamo, in tutta liberta e semplicita. Senza nulla d’imposto e di stabilito.”
Birds are not expected to sing a particular song at a particular time. And we wish our religion to express itself like the birds: to pray and sing in perfect liberty and simplicity because we love —without rules and regulations.
May 30, 1932.
To THE SAME.
I’m so glad the Passion Play is done and long to see it. My thing is done too, except for the last read-through, and will, I think, go to Methuen’s next week. I know I’m doing an awful thing but I’m sending in this a bit of MS. and asking, would you read just the piece from half down p. 3 to beginning of p. 5? It seemed to me to express a patent truth, which I am certain does happen … if you are busy, don’t dream of bothering with it.
I was awfully interested in what you said about having an image-making mind. I think on the whole mine is the other kind and of course it would make a great deal of difference to one’s devotional framework. I don’t a bit want to break the 2nd Commandment! but I wallow in the Athanasian Creed! all the same I agree, one must watch and listen to our Lord all one can, and the more one does, the deeper the wonder grows.
We had an icy day (physically) for the W.F. Quiet Day, but M.
arrived with some of her prayer group, like a troop of dynamos; and after that it gave me no trouble at all. It is amazing what a difference a few real praying people can make. Goodbye. It’s lovely to feel you will be with us at L.C. We shall end on the Feast of the Sacred Heart which, in spite of the terrible pictures, I do most dearly love. Do you know that bit of St. John Eudes?—“The Sacred Heart of Jesus is the Holy Spirit.”
[1932.]
TO J.K.
These two letters (and that of Dec., 1933) were written to a friend who was disappointed in the spiritual life of a church and parish in U.S.A.
Thank you so much for your letter and for giving me your confidence.
I can guess very well what the position is like and that there is much in it that you must find very hard, painful and disappointing.
It is heartbreaking to think that lives given to God should, by bad training, be prevented from developing their best. But still, the story is not finished yet, is it? God’s training goes on to the very end; and in the present phase you are part of the material He can make use of in the deepening and sensitizing of other souls. That gives you a very great responsibility and incentive to keep your faith and hope alert in the very difficult conditions which surround you. Yours is a missionary job and missionaries always have to bear loneliness for Christ; and the effect, if they take it rightly, is to throw them back on Him and develop more and more their hidden life with God. He comes to us in and with all circumstances, however adverse they may seem to us.
This hard bit of the way has in it much that can purify your love and strengthen your soul… . Have patience! Remember how St.
Augustine said, “One loving spirit sets another loving spirit on fire”—sooner or later the thirst for God will awake in some soul and you will be there to make the link. Meanwhile go on quietly, don’t let your own devotional life drop below normal and don’t let yourself be critical or hostile about others.
[1932.]
To THE SAME.
It is lovely to think of you steadily gaining ground with your group of women—very difficult work I am sure, but how supremely worth while. It seems so hard to make modern people see the distinction between Christianity and all other systems, doesn’t it?
Some people say “Life” and “Spirit” seem more real than God; and they “need contemplation,” but don’t bother about what they contemplate!
A class of “modern” mothers.
June, 1932.
To L.M.
Thank you so much for letter and MS. safely received….
Someone was much upset at the bit in Action saying a self-willed prayer of demand, not submitted to God, might be effective and even do harm as an exercise of psychic energy disguised as prayer. She thought it would frighten people and that prayer could never do harm. But personally I think this sort of spurious prayer does happen, and as you do not protest, shall leave it.
The Golden Sequence, Methuen, 1932.
As to what you say about Peace, Yes! I think too it is possible to be used as a channel without feeling peace, indeed, while often feeling on the surface in a tornado! Nevertheless, the essential ground of the soul is held in tranquillity, even through the uproar and every now and then the soul perceives this. The real equation is not Peace = satisfied feeling, but Peace = willed abandonment.
June 15,
To M.C.
I don’t think I can write to you about the Passion Play, because it simply overwhelmed me—I don’t know whether you have done much textually to it (I don’t think you have) or if it’s the result of quiet reading straight through—but the effect is tremendous. Of course, it seems to me by far the deepest thing you have done. That sense running right through it, of infinite mysteries accomplished almost unknowingly, in a finite scene, and the awful and creative grief and love—it really is shattering, you know, as well as so intensely beautiful… .
Something very strange happened about L.C. and its experiences.
Last week I got a letter from Sorella Maria, my Italian Saint, asking specially how it had gone, as those three days, and especially the last evening she had suffered so greatly—“far more than usual” and how deeply thankful she would be if this suffering had “availed for a blessing.”
A retreat she had conducted.
Goodbye till the 22nd. I am looking forward to it more than a mortified person should.
Trinity II, 1932.
To THE SAME.
I am no intercessor myself—when I have the feel of God at all, I can think of nothing else—and when I haven’t, I mostly fidget. I’m very relieved to hear the way you do it, because that is, when I manage it, my way too!
L.C. was nice… . And, for the first time in a Retreat of mine we had the Blessed Sacrament on the altar all the time. I thought, poor fool that I am, how lovely it would be! But as it went on, the awful power of that white eternity seemed more and more overwhelming: it seemed to make noisy nonsense of everything I was trying to say; and I ended feeling like a cross between a monkey and a parrot. Everyone else seemed quite calm and happy, so it was evidently all right for them. But I felt like Angela when she kept saying to her Secretary, “Brother, I blaspheme, I blaspheme.”
July 5, 1932.
To THE SAME.
This will be an incoherent letter because I have just been given a very engaging Persian kitten, named after St. Philip Neri (who was very sound on cats) and his opinion is that I have been given to him.
Blakeney.
Tues., p.m. [1932].
To THE SAME.
You see, I come to Christ through God, whereas quite obviously lots of people come to God through Christ. But I can’t show them how to do that—all I know about is the reverse route. The final result, when you have the two terms united, is much the same—“the figure and the mountain are one”—but the process quite different.
I’ve never in any of my phases been a “good Evangelical” and I expect you have—but on the other hand I’m not sure you have ever been a white-hot Neo-Platonist! so I should feel awfully shy and awkward expounding the personal side; whereas I’ll go to any length to try and make people “feel God.”
Still, I expect I must try to develop that section a bit more. So pleased you like the bit about primitive adoration beginning with the childhood of the race. I do feel that so much; and that we ought not to be ashamed of the humble origin of many of our religious acts and ideas. Have you read Marett’s Faith, Hope and Charity yet, I wonder. There’s a lot of that sort of thing in it—most thrilling.
You would love this place—the immense salt marshes looking like sheets of greenish-mauvish opal—and the white clouds of tems, and the larks always shouting alleluia….
And now I’ve nearly finished without saying how lovely I think your Prayer Pamphlet is—and why ever did I not know about it before?
… That’s a wonderful thought, about watching His daily Crucifixion in, out, and so forth (and, alas! in much “organized”
religion!). But what I feel most (when not deep in the metaphysical dumps) is the triumphing life in the Saints in spite of all appearances—something like St. Clement’s “The Christian life is a perpetual spring-time.”
Oh yes! I’m sure we must adore the Purpose before we can even see it really.
Sep. 12, 1932.
To U.N.
You are very often in my thoughts for I know what a desperately hard time you must be having and how much prudence as well as courage you will need to get really on your feet again and recover your hold on life. In a way, the fact that you accepted the sacrifice so fully in the first instance may possibly make the inevitable psychological reaction specially severe. I hope that may not be so—but if it is, my dear, and you are troubled by uprushes of bitter or violent feeling, rebellious thoughts, exasperated nerves, lack of interest or any of the other miseries by which our unstable psyche makes us pay for great strain—do not blame yourself too much, do not get frightened, but reckon this in as the result of the heavy blow which has, as it were, left a bruise on the subconscious that may work out in one of these humiliating ways.
Consider that this too is suffering and therefore can humbly be offered to God. Do not try to struggle with the situation and its difficulties but so far as is in your power turn from it to other things, in this case obviously a special love and interest in your other children… . Fill your mind with them and every detail of their time… . If you do go away for a bit, let it be to a place where your interest and attention is filled with active work and you have no time for silence and meditation and living through it all in thought.
When it all seems unbearable, talk about it—do not brood or practise suppression…. When you find in your prayers that you are moving away from thoughts of God to thoughts of your own unhappiness, Stop! Get up, read if you can, if not, do not scruple to turn to some active occupation. Short aspirations, constant thoughts of and appeals to God will be better than long prayers just now… .
St. Francis, 1932.
To G.F.
… it is one of the advantages of being a scamp, that one is unable to crystallize into the official shape, and so retains touch with other free lances and realizes how awful the ecclesiastical attitude and atmosphere often makes them feel. As to feeling rather dismayed by the appearance of the Church Visible at the moment—that is inevitable I’m afraid to some extent. But keep your inner eye on the Church Invisible—what the Baron used to call “the great centralities of religion.” That is what really takes one up into itself “with angels and archangels and all the company of Heaven,”
not only the Vicar and the curate and the Mothers’ Union Committee.
But there is something entrancing don’t you think, in a supernatural society, so wide and generous and really Catholic, that it can mop up all these—even the most depressing—and still remain the Bride of Christ? The Church is an “essential service” like the Post Office, but there will always be some narrow, irritating and inadequate officials behind the counter and you will always be tempted to exasperation by them.
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