Ten years of ‘Some Definite Service’

The village of Deeping St. Nicholas, Lincolnshire, seen from the Peterborough–Lincoln train, 20th March, 2014.

‘We read to know that we are not alone,’ it turns out C. S. Lewis didn’t say — I have almost been the latest to misattribute to the man himself a line spoken by him only in a fictionalised form, in the 1993 biographical film Shadowlands.  Still, the words ring quite as true as if he really had said them.  It was to know that I was not alone, for instance, that I started following Catholic blogs in early 2010.  I read for some alternative to the media hostility against the forthcoming visit to Britain of Pope Benedict XVI; I read in search of ripostes to  the media mischaracterisation of Catholics and the Christian faith and the personal attacks on Benedict himself; I read, in that heyday of the New Atheists, for witty rejoinders to the mockery of believers that was then still fashionably edgy.  I read, and kept reading, for intelligent and thoughtful writing on what the Church actually believes and why, and on living out our faith in the present age.

And what a relief it was to find those blogs.  Many were pseudonymous, such as the ‘Countercultural Father’ and now-defunct ‘Reluctant Sinner’, but others were written under their authors’ real names: Joanna Bogle’s was a particular favourite, as well as the various contributors to the Catholic Voices blog.  Either way, they seldom overstepped the mark in tone or content, to my mind at least, and whether vigorous or sober in style, in substance they were generally well-informed and intellectual.  They always gave plenty to think about — though I never dared comment!  I also enjoyed other writers beyond the so-called ‘Catholic blogosphere’, such as Peter Hitchens’ lyrical long-form essays and Eleanor Parker’s insights into Anglo-Saxon culture in ‘A Clerk of Oxford’.

Then, some years later, I happened upon the blog of Maolsheachlann Ó Ceallaigh (the ‘Irish Papist’), with its poetry, its unpretentious musings and memoirs, the occasional spice of more polemic pieces, and the quiet courtesy with which he diligently responded to every single blog-comment short of, though occasionally even including, actual spam.  It was probably in corresponding with him that a creative idea already glowing like a small fierce flame within me gathered strength until I could resist it no longer, and published the first post on this blog, ten years ago today.

The title came from a meditation of the great — now Saint — John Henry Newman, from which Pope Benedict quoted in his address in London’s Hyde Park on 18th September 2010, and which seems as sound as ever:

God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons.

He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do His work.  I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it if I do but keep His commandments.  Therefore, I will trust Him, whatever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him, in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him.  If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him.  He does nothing in vain.  He knows what He is about.  He may take away my friends.  He may throw me among strangers.  He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me.  Still, He knows what He is about.

Bl. John Henry Newman: Meditations on Christian Doctrine, Meditations and Devotions, March 7, 1848.

And here is the excerpt from Pope Benedict’s address in which he reflects on the above passage:

One of the Cardinal’s best-loved meditations includes the words, “God has created me to do him some definite service.  He has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another.”  Here we see Newman’s fine Christian realism, the point at which faith and life inevitably intersect.  Faith is meant to bear fruit in the transformation of our world through the power of the Holy Spirit at work in the lives and activity of believers.  No one who looks realistically at our world today could think that Christians can afford to go on with business as usual, ignoring the profound crisis of faith which has overtaken our society, or simply trusting that the patrimony of values handed down by the Christian centuries will continue to inspire and shape the future of our society.  We know that in times of crisis and upheaval God has raised up great saints and prophets for the renewal of the Church and Christian society; we trust in his providence and we pray for his continued guidance.  But each of us, in accordance with his or her state of life, is called to work for the advancement of God’s Kingdom by imbuing temporal life with the values of the Gospel.  Each of us has a mission, each of us is called to change the world, to work for a culture of life, a culture forged by love and respect for the dignity of each human person.  As our Lord tells us in the Gospel we have just heard, our light must shine in the sight of all, so that, seeing our good works, they may give praise to our heavenly Father.

The heyday of the ‘Catholic blogosphere’ now seems some way past.  There are still plenty of good magazines and newsletters with engaging articles, but fewer individual blogs than there used to be, and those less lively.  (That said, there is a good deal of activity to be found via Malcolm Mann’s list of extant Catholic blogs at the British Catholic Blogs directory).  Perhaps it was mostly a ‘Benedict moment’, a phenomenon with a particular context, but like all such things it may have sown the seeds of a quiet harvest.

As for this particular blog, I wrote, and write, however sporadically, much as I have read — to know that I am not alone — and to try to convey similar reassurance to others of like mind.  I know how encouraged I was in my faith, temperament and conviction by these other writers, and I have always felt that in making my own contribution I might help to do for someone else what these others did for me.

For in today’s Britain it can, and often does, feel like a lonely business being a Catholic Christian, never mind an Englishman of homely and nostalgic temperament.  This sense of isolation may seem unlikely, given that I have millions of fellow believers around the world, to say nothing of the companionship we find in the canon of the saints and in the pages of old books.  And indeed, it has been my astonishing blessing over the last ten years to get to know more friends of like mind than I once could ever have hoped for.  Even so, it can feel lonely.  So much is no longer what it used to be: old traditions, cherished institutions, principles, morals and manners… none seem able to withstand the caustic solvent of liquid modernity, and only in certain niches like family homes, rare schools, or particularly vital parishes, does the old culture thrive.  In such moments I have found it helpful to seek the company, even the virtual company, of others who think and feel along the same lines.

Having said this, the blog is not just supposed to be a balm for gloom.  I try to write in both major and minor keys, hoping to produce as much a positive celebration of poetry, music, churches, landscapes and traditions, and other oddments, as a record of what has passed.  Indeed, one regret about the blog is that it doesn’t seem to leave me much room for humour.  Exposed to the windswept steppes of the Internet, which lack the context and shared experience which are so essential to a shared sense of humour and in which misunderstanding seems so easy, and perhaps amid the kind of virtual stage-fright that results, I find it much harder to crack jokes — no doubt to the benefit of all.

Thank you to everyone who has read, or commented on, or been sent to sleep by this blog over the past decade.  I don’t know how much longer Some Definite Service will last, but as long as it seems worthwhile, I will try to offer, as far as I can manage, the kind of refuge that I myself seek in other blogs, and a candle of witness to the many good and gentle things I see in the world.  For, ultimately, those are the things that will endure, or, if not, the eternal verities they betoken.  Hope, that slow-burning thing, may have to wait ten, or a hundred, or two thousand years, but it will outlast all opposition — and even all blogs!  — until its final and wondrous vindication.

John Everett Millais’ portrait of John Henry Newman on display at Arundel Castle (W. Sussex), 13th September 2019.

Why (still) this blog?

A quick note to record that today, the 6th January 2020, this blog reaches its fifth birthday.  I’m very grateful for all who have read and commented in that time; I hope you have enjoyed the pieces I have written.  And happy feast of the Epiphany!

I must admit that my motivations in writing this blog remain much as I described them in my first post: mainly self-centred!  Really I think of it as a diary of my own thoughts and ideas, a record of people and books and places I find interesting, and an outlet for my obsessions: poetry, music, churches, landscapes and traditions.  I find it a good way of working out what I really think and feel about something, and also of honing my writing-craft.

Often, though, I also feel that I would like, in however small and hidden a way, to record and publish my celebration and defence of things dear to me.  There are things and people in this world, some of them in danger or decline, or dealt an unfair press, or simply deserving of a larger hearing, that I feel the urge to praise, or protect, or ponder.  The blog gives me a way to do this, allowing me, quietly and cautiously, to stand up and be counted, and to give encouragement to others who have similar interests and ideas.  This is why I make my writing public.  Whenever I have made the wonderful refreshing discovery of a like-minded and thoughtful writer, my first feeling is of gratitude, more than anything else, for their courage and generosity: it may be small recompense on my part to inflict this blog on the Internet in return, but, apart from spreading the word about the writers I encounter and mulling over their ideas or stories, it is all I have to give.  

I know, too, that my articles might be read by people who do not share my perspective on things — this is entirely welcome, and opens up an opportunity for dialogue.

Since 2015, various heartening developments have coincided with some of the ideas and interests that have featured here, and I have even made some new acquaintances; this turns out to be one of the joys of blog-writing.  For example, the recent revival of interest in the composer Ruth Gipps has brought me into conversation with other admirers of her music.  And even the blog’s title has taken on new meaning since last October, when the author of the prayer from which I took that mysterious, paradoxical phrase ‘Some Definite Service’ was canonised: he is now Saint John Henry Newman.  The year beforehand, the gist of that meditation had already received special attention in the Church, when the Synod on Youth asked how we can remind the world and our neighbours that we all have, every single one of us, however weak or inadequate we think ourselves, however uncertain the future seems, regardless of our past and irrespective of our station in life, a definite vocation, ‘some definite service’: we are not mere meaningless molecules, but have been created for a cosmic and glorious purpose.

I hope that this blog has been an encouragement to others, and offered the welcome of a virtual wayside sitting-room for netfarers.  If so, it has done its job and I mine.

The New Evangelisation: ten thoughts

How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?  The question asks itself now not in ancient Babylon but in our own country and our own day, and with growing urgency.  The Church’s answer is the New Evangelisation —  a great call to re-evangelise Christian cultures that have forgotten the faith — but it can be hard to see how we are to fit into it, or where to begin.  I am not a convert, still less an expert, but I thought it might be worth putting up this list of reflections, even if most of them might seem obvious.

1. Apathetic agnosticism is a greater, a subtler and a more widespread challenge than aggressive secularism.  Our country is awash with spiritual apathy (or acedia): a number of people are openly opposed to Christianity, but far more in modern Britain seem almost to sleepwalk through life, hurled by busy lives from distraction to distraction, not seeing what weighs them down.  There is a lot of unwise, stupid and wrong behaviour as well, but we should never confuse this, the result of sin to which believers are hardly immune, with the actual intelligence and goodness of non-churchgoers.   Easy though it might be to forget in a culture opposed to the Church in so many ways, people really do examine the human heart carefully without any particular grudge against Christianity.  We should remember that our faith does not make us, in ourselves, superior to them — see Galatians 6:14.  Another point is that people have different reasons for not going to church, and these cannot necessarily be bashed aside with a copy of the Catechism.  For instance, many young people, having been brought up without regular church attendance, might feel that to start practising would be a slight to their parents and their values; it would be wrong for us to ride rough-shod over that loyalty.  Many people stay away from church without resenting churchgoers; many pray without practising; many believe in God but lack faith in the visible institution of the Church; many people are of good will but spiritually unadventurous. There are also more people with misgivings about modern values than the media suggest: I know a number of (young!) people who reverence marriage, dislike bad language, seek beauty in poetry, and so on.  To be evangelised is to discover something that is not completely unfamiliar.
2. We should announce the Gospel by asking people questions.  This is an age, in thrall as it is to the doctrines of self-determination and relativism, in which people dislike being lectured to, and in any case, it is better to invite people to discover the faith for themselves and in their own time.   Proclamations, however resonant, can be taken as slogans and brushed off quite easily.  Even quietly-posed questions are less easy to ignore.  They are more likely to percolate unobtrusively through the mind, reappearing every so often, never really going away, gently nudging and pestering for an answer.  We could learn from our Evangelical brethren here:  the talks and discussions they organise often have a question as the title, such as ‘Is there more to life than this?’, ‘What if the Resurrection really happened?’, and so on.  Even rhetorical questions demand unspoken answers.  Do you believe that you have an absolute and irreducible dignity as a human being?  Would you prefer to be excused for your wrongs, or to be forgiven?  Do you remember that we believed because it is true?
3. We must evangelise the arts and culture.  We must have the courage to answer the cults of sarcasm and ugliness with works of art, literature and music that uphold human dignity and strive for beauty.  The right artistic intention is, I think, to be prized even more than accomplishment or execution.  A  sincere true utterance with some rough edges is better than a thousand polished works calculated to trample goodness and truth gratuitously (I think works of art or literature can be evil, as well as simply bad).  The ideals by which all art was once made have been so neglected that they now represent a niche in the market, and it is up to us to fill it.  We need writers, composers and architects whose subjects are not necessarily explicitly religious but whose faith can be seen to leaven their work.  We need audibly beautiful, even musical poetry.  Popular music must be prized out of the hands of the industry that has dragged it down into sordidness, and the airwaves filled with simple, unaffected, authentic and uplifting tunes.  Films, too, could explore the world and the soul far more deeply, and without sermonising (Inside Out, which I have already praised, is a case in point).  These things matter because art is not inanimate: it always acts upon us for better or worse.  If beauty is a reflection of God, and God is love and truth, beautiful art will lead us towards deeper understanding and purer love of each other and of God.  Such love is several orders of magnitude above a love of music or poetry, but both have the same essence and the same divine origin.
4. Our position should not be a merely anti-modern or reactionary one, even though we are right to mourn to much of what the past has taken with it.  Although we should cherish tradition, resist our culture’s chronological snobbery with energy and revive certain aspects of the old world, our aim is not simply to return to the past.  Likewise, given that much of what we say and believe might be called ‘conservative’, we should remember that we are so confident in its truth because it is Christian orthodoxy, not because it is conservative.  We should look for opportunities in the modern world; we should embrace new technology.  This is, for instance, the age of the image, and ours is the religion of the image: the modern ‘explosion of imagery’, Fr. Robert Barron has said, even makes this a ‘Catholic moment’.  Why should the Church not encourage the building of beautiful websites or beautiful graphic design?  I am probably guiltier than most of yearning for the past and raging against the present, but we should make the effort to receive the ‘sacrament of the present moment’ gratefully.
5. We must never tire of striving and praying for Christian unity.  Christians have inherited a difficult and a painful tangle and our divisions, though less raw than they once were, remain scandals and obstacles to faith.  We should make a greater effort to collaborate with Evangelical Christians who, like us, hold to Christian faith in the teeth of fashion, their concern for what is ‘Biblical’ corresponding to ours for what is ‘orthodox’.  We should make an effort to understand the Eastern Orthodox faith: last February’s meeting between Pope Francis and the Russian Patriarch Kirill, and good relations with the Patriarch of Constantinople, are valuable and significant.  (I have heard a priest say that fifty years might suffice for full communion to be restored between East and West.)  Even within the Catholic Church, we should overcome our differences by trying to keep them in perspective, avoiding airing them in public if possible, and also by keeping our minds and hearts fixed on Jesus Christ (see point 10). 
6. Marriage, the family and childhood matter.  It is on this front that the modern world has declared war most explicitly on the Church.  We need courage to defend it.  A preoccupation with the welfare of adults, though not unjustified, has contributed to the social and cultural neglect of children and the elderly, who in their own ways have become almost second-class citizens.  Children in particular are segregated from the world of adults: because the adult world believes itself entitled to violent and sordid entertainment, children must be given their own isolated culture.  This, among other things, means that the passage from childhood to adulthood is no longer a steady growth or slow mellowing but a series of disillusioning shocks and blows, the worst of which fall between the ages of eleven and fourteen.  Surely most of us have seen this happen: the descent of the grey veil of cynicism; the deliberate self-vandalism of the soul; the hideously thorough revolt against childhood.  The New Evangelisation reminds us of the importance of the family, in which all people have their place and by which all understand their own lives.  Somewhere (I wish I could remember where!) I have heard and heartily agreed with the statement that ‘all men are called to be fatherly and all women to be motherly’.  I think it would also be good rule to behave at all times as if children might overhear.  Unfashionably, I also believe that men can and should cultivate chivalry towards women and that women should demand excellent manners of men.  Both men and women, if they are called to do so, should steel themselves joyfully for the mission of marriage and parenthood.
7. There is a good deal of health in the Church’s youth.  I can report this from belonging to it!  In university chaplaincies, in diocesan ministries, in parishes, however small in number, there is plenty of energy, intelligence and good humour to be harnessed.  The Church has great strength in its youth, as World Youth Day has proved again and again, and will surely do again this coming July. 
8. A sense of vocation is the antidote to the myth of self-determination.  There is more strength to be gained from the feeling of being called to do something than from simply wanting to do something.  The current idea that we may do as we please as long as we think it harms nobody else will, I think, pall, since it leaves nobody but oneself to blame for plans going wrong or indeed for suffering.  As people tire of endless fruitless avenues, the Church should be there to propose a robuster way of life, something requiring service and devotion and even vows, which nevertheless brings far greater happiness than the path of self-absorption and quick gratification.  I never tire of quoting Cardinal Newman’s meditation about service and vocation, from which this blog’s name is taken: ‘God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission — I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next […] I have a part in this great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connexion between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling.  Therefore I will trust Him’. One way of telling whether something is a real vocation, it has occurred to me, is to feel a strong desire to do something good, to be terrified of doing it, and to be determined, almost in spite of oneself, to do it all the same.
9. We are sharing a revealed faith, not advocating a philosophy or policy.  Our faith is not an idea that we came up with one afternoon in the pub and are rather pleased with.  It is not a theory to be evaluated, nor a strategy to be risk-assessed.  It is not our idea but God’s.  If we invite people to understand the Church, we do so because we believe they will be happier for knowing it, and we want happiness for them out of love: it is something that we can hardly help telling other people about, like the urge to share music or discuss favourite books. 
10. Who do we say that He is?  Our first task is to evangelise ourselves.  In a lecture that is well worth listening to, Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth says (here to be precise) that in the modern world we are to concentrate above all on the person of Jesus Christ.  Where, before the Council, the emphasis might have been too often on ‘The Church of the Lord’, we are invited now to found our lives more clearly upon ‘The Lord of the Church’.  The New Evangelisation may be a great task, but it begins here, and is a futile exercise without it.  It may also be a great task, but it is to be gone about in small, even unseen ways.  Whatever happens, we should not worry: we have already been told that it will all come right in the end.

Do readers have thoughts about these?  I would be interested to read any comments.

Geburtstagsglückwünsche…

…für den emeritierten Papst Benedikt XVI, der heute sein neunundachtzigtes Lebensjahr feiert!

Yes, today is the great Pope Emeritus Benedict’s eighty-ninth birthday.  I say ‘great’ and mean it because, as I explained in one of my first posts on this blog, I think he is one of the most important public figures to have appeared on the world stage since the millennium (and he had been doing mighty work long before then).  Not only did he hold the Church’s tiller steady against wave after wave in this age of tumult, but he went out to do battle with the forces of secularism and relativism: not with sound and fury, as they expected, but with lucidness of intellect and steadfastness of goodness.  He dedicated his intellectual gifts to the cause of goodness and truth.  He reminded a world unwilling  (especially in the West) to acknowledge its burden of disillusionment, cynicism and selfishness that it is, in fact, possible to speak of such things as absolute truth, intellectual faith and authentic love: “I have come,” he once said, visiting Berlin, “to speak about God".  He was undaunted when the apostles of secularism scoffed, “Truth?  What is that?”. He continued to use old words like ‘beauty’, ‘love’ and ‘faith’ with a straight face, and yet without raising his voice.  Having witnessed evil for himself, especially in the 1930s and 1940s, he taught my generation that goodness and gentleness are not the same as blandness, or even as kindness, but often have to be proved with moral courage and honesty before God.  Above all, he gave us a tremendous example, itself founded on the example of Christ.  He (along with St. Peter) has a magnificent successor in Pope Francis, but his writing and example remain a rich treasure-trove for the Church and for the New Evangelisation.  It is as much a gift as a challenge to number among the ‘Benedict generation’, and so I here express my gratitude for his long life, pray for his good health, and propose a Bavarian ‘Prost!’.

Pope Benedict toasting last year’s 88th birthday (It is right and just)

(Photo: The Ratzinger Forum, possibly ultimately L’Osservatore Romano)

Why this blog and why its title?

The second question is the easier to answer!  The words are a favourite phrase of mine; they come from a prayer written by the writer, theologian, priest and cardinal John Henry Newman (1801–1890).  I think it is worth reproducing in full:

God has created me to do Him some definite service.  He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another.  I have my mission.  I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next.  I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons.

He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do His work.  I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it if I do but keep His commandments.  Therefore, I will trust Him, whatever I am, I can never be thrown away.  If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him, in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him.  If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him.  He does nothing in vain.  He knows what He is about.  He may take away my friends.  He may throw me among strangers.  He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me.  Still, He knows what He is about.

Bl. John Henry Newman: Meditations on Christian Doctrine, Meditations and Devotions, March 7, 1848.

These are wise enough words in themselves, but I have another reason to cherish them.  I heard them repeated by one of my heroes, Pope Benedict XVI (now Pope Emeritus), at the vigil held in Hyde Park before Newman’s beatification.

Here I wish to say a special word to the many young people present.  Dear young friends: only Jesus knows what “definite service” he has in mind for you.  Be open to his voice resounding in the depths of your heart: even now his heart is speaking to your heart.  Christ has need of families to remind the world of the dignity of human love and the beauty of family life.  He needs men and women who devote their lives to the noble task of education, tending the young and forming them in the ways of the Gospel.  He needs those who will consecrate their lives to the pursuit of perfect charity, following him in chastity, poverty and obedience, and serving him in the least of our brothers and sisters.  He needs the powerful love of contemplative religious, who sustain the Church’s witness and activity through their constant prayer.  And he needs priests, good and holy priests, men who are willing to lay down their lives for their sheep.  Ask our Lord what he has in mind for you!  Ask him for the generosity to say “yes!”.  Do not be afraid to give yourself totally to Jesus.  He will give you the grace you need to fulfil your vocation.

 Benedict XVI to young people at Hyde Park, in London, 18th September, 2010.

If it is good enough an idea for these two men, it is good enough for me: that even the hardest and humblest deed can be done in ‘some definite service’ (a paradox in the best tradition of Christianity, as Chesterton might have pointed out), and is never in vain.

Now I may be misguided in believing that this could apply specifically to my writing a blog about (I imagine) all sorts of things like poetry, culture, music and so on, and I may very much doubt that anyone else’s ‘definite service’ extends to having to read it, but it ought to be good writing practice and a bit of fun.

‘I too shall something make,

And joy in the making…’