Stephanie A. Mann's Blog, page 253

Happy Thanksgiving!

At Mass, we often sing Lutheran Chorales translated by Catherine Winkworth. Here is one by Martin Rinkart, written in the seventeenth century. Felix Mendelssohn used it in his Second Symphony, the Lobgesang or Hymn of Praise. Here is a link to a performance.

Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things has done, in Whom this world rejoices;
Who from our mothers’ arms has blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.

O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us,
With ever joyful hearts and blessèd peace to cheer us;
And keep us in His grace, and guide us when perplexed;
And free us from all ills, in this world and the next!

All praise and thanks to God the Father now be given;
The Son and Him Who reigns with Them in highest Heaven;
The one eternal God, whom earth and Heaven adore;
For thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore.

Anglican Byrd

I just received this CD by The Cardinall's Musick of William Byrd's one great composition of Anglican church music: The Great Service. I listened to it once last night, but have to hear it again. After hearing so much of Byrd's Catholic liturgical music in Latin, this is taking some getting used to. The Great Service includes all the canticles of the Divine Office: The Benedictus, the Magnificat, the Nunc Dimittis, and the Te Deum, plus the Kyrie and the Credo. (The CD uses these Latin (and Greek) titles even though the words for each are in English, of course.) The program also includes four psalm settings and one "Carroll for Christmas Day" ("This day Christ was born"). The liner notes conjecture a bit about the composition of this Great Service and the fact that Byrd did not have it published in his lifetime. He wrote it during what Andrew Carwood calls a difficult decade--the 1580's--when England was plunged into fear of plots within and without. Carwood comments that the decade was also a rich creative period for William Byrd, including this work. Carwood states that "The Service is the result of considerable labour and is his only significant foray into the Anglican world. The Great Service is so good, it seems extraordinary that Byrd did not publish it . . ." Carwood believes Byrd wrote The Great Service as a kind of leave-taking from Court and the Chapel, because soon after its composition (although Carwood has no precise date), Byrd moved to Stondon Massey, where he was able to safely worship in the Catholic chapel of his patron, Sir John Petre. In fact, The Great Service wasn't discovered in the modern world until 1922, when one Edmund Fellowes found a manuscript in Durham Cathedral! This site provides some explanation of the use of The Great Service in Anglican public prayer: The Church of England compressed the Daily Office of the Roman (Sarum) rite into two services: Mattins and Evensong. The morning service incorporated the Catholic Matin canticles of the Venite (Psalm 95) and the Te Deum, as well as the canticle sung at Lauds – the Benedictus (Zechariah’s song from Luke). The Jublilate (Psalm 100) was set as an alternative to the Benedictus, but rarely used in the 16th century. During the Communion the Creed may be sung, though more common to sing the Kyrie, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei. Byrd set the Creed and Kyrie. The evening service comprised the Magnificat from the Roman Vespers and the Nunc Dimittis from Compline (song of Simeon also from Luke). Essentially, Anglicanism took a ‘best-of’ approach to the Catholic liturgy and created what has become and remains to this day its morning and evening worship format.

Byrd took this English service, and its restriction to simple word-painting, and created his Anglican masterpiece. He added dimension by playing with text repetition and the possibilities of a flexible double choir. The common choral set-up of Mean-Alto-Alto-Tenor-Bass was used for each choir, named Decani and Cantoris [set-up]. Tactus is organized into two choirs of 8 voices ‘ 2 of S-A-T-B for each. This gives added responsibility to our altos, who when split carry their part individually (but altos like to flex their vocal muscles anyway). But Byrd’s use of these choirs is ingenious as at times he will steal a voice from one choir to add to the texture of the other, e.g. ‘As he promised to our forefather Abraham’ in the Magnificat is sung by A-A-A-T-B, using 2 altos and 1 tenor from Decani and the 3rd alto and bass from Cantoris. He constantly shifts colour, density, and imitation of sound by playing with these possibilities, including sections sung by low voices and others by high, and the alternation of ‘full’ and ‘verse’ (solo) passages. Within the parameters of the new Anglican palate, Byrd’s composition is highly creative. He likely starting composing the work relatively early, before 1580, with the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis later, as demonstrated by their more mature, confident, and elaborate schemes.

A Layman and a Priest in York: Martyrs under the New Acts of Treason

Two of the Eighty-five Martyrs of England and Wales beatified by Blessed John Paul II, a layman Blessed Marmaduke Bowes and a priest, Blessed Hugh Taylor suffered in York on November 26, 1585 in York.

The most important point about these two martyrs is that they were the first to be executed under the 1584 act against the Jesuits (or any other Catholic priests) who had been born in England or Wales and then traveled to the Continent for ordination and then returned as missionaries to the recusant Catholic community, and against those who assisted them.

Blessed Marmaduke Bowes was born in Ingram Grange in Yorkshire: Married layman and father. Fearful of the persecutions of the day, he was a covert Catholic who put in appearances in the Established church to keep the authorities away. He sheltered priests on the run, and had his children raised Catholic. In 1585 his children's tutor was arrested and bribed to apostatize, turn informer, and denounce Bowes for helping priests. Bowes and his wife were arrested and imprisoned in York; she was released, but Marmaduke was convicted on the statements of the tutor.

He was the first layman executed under the law that made helping priests a felony. He was hung on the 26th of November in 1585, along with Blessed Hugh Taylor, who had just arrived in York in March 1585, after his ordination in Rheims in 1584. We don't have much other detail about Blessed Hugh Taylor: I suppose we could imagine him growing up in a recusant family and being prepared to endure exile, danger, and death for his parents' Catholic faith. Or, he could have grown up in an Anglican family, read the Fathers, questioned the validity of the Church of England and secretly converted, traveling to Rheims for study and ordination, returning to England to almost immediate capture

Father Taylor was the first to suffer under the Statute 27 Eliz. c. 2. against priests as traitors passed by Parliament in 1584. Most of the Catholics executed after 1584 suffered under this statute (there were a few executed under the 1571 and 1581 statutes which made it treasonous to call the monarch a heretic or to convert or induce someone else to become Catholic, respectively). Blessed John Britton was martyred under the 1571 Statute, for example, in 1598. Blessed George Errington suffered hanging, drawing, and quartering in 1596 under the 1581 Statue, in another example, The priests who suffered before 1584 were found guilty of simple treason, which usually, as in the case of Saints Campion, Briant and Sherwin coming up on December 1, meant that the Crown accused the priests of some conspiracy against the Queen.

Blessed Marmaduke may be called a martyr in spite of himself--he had tried to maintain a public face of conformity, attending Church of England services to avoid suspicion or fines, but secretly he helped priests and raised his children in the Catholic Faith. Betrayed by a Catholic, he was arrested and charged based on evidence offered by his children's tutor.

The Unknown Purcell

Daniel Purcell, who is either Henry Purcell's younger brother or a cousin, died on November 26, 1717. According to this site,

Daniel Purcell (c.1663-1717) was a musician, composer, socialite and punster. He was a child in the choir of the Chapel Royal, organist at Magdalen College, Oxford, and composer-in-residence at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane. His output was prolific, consisting of music for some fifty plays, as well as many anthems, cantatas, songs, odes, and instrumental sonatas.

Whilst in Oxford, Daniel Purcell was also a member of an Oxford Music Club, which also counted Richard Goodson, the organist of Christ Church, and James Brydges, Duke of Chandos and later famously patron to Handel, amongst its membership.

Of Daniel's works, it is probably the theatre music which is most of interest, ranging from single songs for sometimes ill-fated productions to whole 'Purcellian' Dramatick Operas such as The Island Princess (Motteux, 1699), and The Grove, or Love's Paradise (Oldmixon, 1700). His cantatas 'after the Italian Manner' (1713) were some of the first examples of their style in the English language, and, whilst he held no official appointment, his composition of odes for Princess (later Queen) Anne, and various other members of the Royal family, show his close connections with court life.

The wikipedia article also cites Purcell's music for Choral Evensong as being the most performed of his music today. Here is a performance of his Magnificat, by a group called Novi Cantores. Presto Classical offers this CD from Priory which includes his Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis from Chicester Cathedral and also have this CD from Chandos (cover pictured above): The Unknown Purcell :

On this recording we have a selection of works for solo harpsichord and for violin and continuo by Daniel Purcell, most of which are premiere recordings. Traditionally, Daniel Purcell has been known primarily as the younger brother of Henry Purcell (though a strong argument can be made that they were cousins), and it has been said that it was from this family connection only that he derived ‘what little reputation which as a musician he possessed’ (Sir John Hawkins). It is not true, however, that Daniel’s legacy was based entirely on the fame of Henry. Daniel lived for over twenty years after Henry’s death in 1695, adopting styles and forms that only became popular in England around 1700, including the da capo aria, the Italianate cantata and – most relevant to this recording – the solo sonata.
 
Nearly all of Daniel Purcell’s surviving solo harpsichord music consists of arrangements, the only clear exception being the short Toccata, a brief essay in the style of the preludes from Henry Purcell’s harpsichord suites. The Suite is a simple but effective arrangement of movements from the composer’s own suite, for four-part strings, for Farquhar’s play The Inconstant. The expressive Rondeau is also likely an arrangement of a piece for four-part strings. The other three harpsichord pieces are simple arrangements of Daniel’s songs, derived from Oxford manuscripts, and reflecting Daniel’s links with the city.

Choral Evensong is part of the "Anglican Patrimony" the Ordinariate brings to the Catholic Church, and this blog has a post that demonstrates even how its celebration is an outreach to those Anglo-Catholics remaining in the Church of England (pray it is not too long before they join the "old true flock of Christ" as Blessed John Henry Newman proclaimed!).

Two Royal Consorts Born on November 25

Charles I's Queen Consort, Henrietta Maria, was born on November 25, 1609, and Catherine of Braganza, Charles II's Queen Consort was born on the same date in 1638. Their married lives could not be more different: Charles I was a faithful and loving husband; his son Charles II was an impossibly unfaithful spouse. Nevertheless, their careers as consorts were both marked by the fact that they were Catholic princesses married to Anglican monarchs, facing conflict with Parliament because of their religion.

Henrietta Maria was the sister of the most Catholic King of France, Louis XIII and had been sent to England with a mission to convert her Anglican husband. She was not crowned Queen of England because she could not receive Holy Communion in the Church of England. At first her arranged marriage to Charles I was as unhappy as one could be when the husband had a male favorite who opposed her possible influence on the young monarch. But once Buckingham was assassinated, Charles and Henrietta Maria grew to love each other.

As Charles became so uxurious, there were some who feared that he would become a Catholic just to please his wife and the mother of their growing brood. Conversions at Court and the very presence of Catholic priest and sacraments at Court were unsettling to the Puritans in Parliament. She was attractive and gathered Catholics and converts around her. Henrietta Maria honored the Catholic martyrs of the past two reigns, processing to Tyburn Tree and praying there. She also worked to protect Catholic priests during her husband's reign, pleading for their release.
When the Civil War began, Charles and his queen set up court in Oxford. She used the chapel at Merton College for Mass. Eventually Henrietta Maria fled England, home to France after a stop in the Netherlands, because she was attainted a traitor by Parliament. She worked hard to raise funds for her husband's cause and was bitterly grieved by his capture and execution.
Upon the Restoration of the Monarchy in the person of her son Charles II she r eturned to England for a time but then came back home to France, always wearing mourning for her husband. Henrietta Maria died in France on September 9, 1669; she had been given a dose of opiates and did not revive. She was 60 years old and had been a widow for 20 years.

More about Henrietta Maria here, especially about her efforts to support her husband during the English Civil War.

Charles II married a Catholic wife who brought with her dowry the port cities of Tangier and Bombay. She did not speak English when she and Charles married in 1662. Catherine had to accept Charles' rampant infidelity and also endured several miscarriages. Nevertheless, he would not contemplate divorcing her even during the Exclusion Crisis when Parliament urged him to do so in order to have a legitimate Protestant heir to succeed him rather than James, the Catholic Duke of York. Charles always took her side in any conflict with a mistress regarding her position at Court, although never to the point of actually practicing fidelity. While she did not have any surviving children, his mistresses bore his illegitimate children, whom Charles acknowledged and supported.

He definitely defended her against allegations during the infamous faux Popish Plot incident, when Parliament wanted her banished.

Along with James, the Duke of York, Catherine hoped for Charles's conversion to Catholicism on his deathbed. Father John Huddleston, who had helped him escape Scotland in 1650, did receive him and Charles died a repentant Catholic, hopefully.

After Charles died in 1685, Catherine remained at Court; with the fall of James II in 1688 and the invasion and coup by William and Mary of Orange, however, she returned to Portugal in 1692. She died in Lisbon on December 31, 1705 and is buried in the great Jeronimos Monastery in Lisbon. More about Catherine here.

The Solemnity of Christ the King and the English Martyrs

It was on the Solemnity of Jesus Christ the King of the Universe in 1987 (November 22) that Blessed John Paul II beatified the Eighty-Five Martyrs of England and Wales:

This feast of Christ the King proclaims that all earthly power is ultimately from God, that his Kingdom is our first and lasting concern and that obedience to his laws is more important than any other obligation or loyalty.

Thomas More, that most English of saints, declared on the scaffold: “I die the King’s good servant but God’s servant first". In this way he witnessed to the primacy of the Kingdom.

Today we have declared Blessed another eighty-five martyrs: from England, Scotland and Wales, and one from Ireland. Each of them chose to be "God’s servant First". They consciously and willingly embraced death for love of Christ and the Church. They too chose the Kingdom above all else. If the price had to be death they would pay it with courage and joy.

Blessed Nicholas Postgate welcomed his execution "as a short cut to heaven". Blessed Joseph Lambton encouraged those who were to die with him with the words "Let us be merry, for tomorrow I hope we shall have a heavenly breakfast". Blessed Hugh Taylor, not knowing the day of his death, said: "How happy I should be if on this Friday, on which Christ died for me, I might encounter death for him". He was executed on that very day, Friday 6 November 1585. Blessed Henry Heath, who died in 1643, thanked the court for condemning him and giving him the "singular honour to die with Christ".

Among these eighty-five martyrs we find priests and laymen, scholars and craftsmen. The oldest was in his eighties, and the youngest no more than twenty-four. There were among them a printer, a bartender, a stable-hand, a tailor. What unites them all is the sacrifice of their lives in the service of Christ their Lord.

The priests among them wished only to feed their people with the Bread of Life and with the Word of the Gospel. To do so meant risking their lives. But for them this price was small compared to the riches they could bring to their people in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

The twenty-two laymen in this group of martyrs shared to the full the same love of the Eucharist. They, too, repeatedly risked their lives, working together with their priests, assisting, protecting and sheltering them. Laymen and priests worked together; together they stood on the scaffold and together welcomed death. Many women, too, not included today in this group of martyrs, suffered for their faith and died in prison. They have earned our undying admiration and remembrance.

These martyrs gave their lives for their loyalty to the authority of the Successor of Peter, who alone is Pastor of the whole flock. They also gave their lives for the unity of the Church, since they shared the Church’s fait, unaltered down the ages, that the Successor of Peter has been given the task of serving and ensuring "the unity of the flock of Christ". He has been given by Christ the particular role of confirming the faith of his brethren.

The martyrs grasped the importance of that Petrine ministry. They gave their lives rather than deny this truth of their faith. Over the centuries the Church in England, Wales and Scotland has drawn inspiration from these martyrs and continues in love of the Mass and in faithful adherence to the Bishop of Rome. The same loyalty and faithfulness to the Pope is demonstrated today whenever the work of renewal in the Church is carried out in accordance with the teachings of the Second Vatican Council and in communion with the universal Church.

Central to this renewal, to which the Holy Spirit calls the Church, is work for that unity among Christians for which Christ himself prayed. We must all rejoice that the hostilities between Christians, which so shaped the age of these martyrs, are over, replaced by fraternal love and mutual esteem.

Seventeen years ago [1970] forty of the glorious company of martyrs were canonized. It was the prayer of the Church on that day that the blood of those martyrs would be a source of healing for the divisions between Christians. Today we may fittingly give thanks for the progress made in the intervening years towards fuller communion between Anglicans and Catholics. We rejoice in the deeper understanding, broader collaboration and common witness that have taken place through the power of God.

In the days of the martyrs whom we honour today, there were other Christians who died for their beliefs. We can all now appreciate and respect their sacrifice. Let us respond together to the great challenge which confronts those who would preach the Gospel in our age. Let us be bold and united in our profession of our common Lord and Master, Jesus Christ.

Last year the Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, celebrated Mass in thanksgiving for the 25th anniversary of these beatifications--and in his sermon he noted the detail that 10,000 English Catholics attended the ceremony in Rome! You may find a link to his sermon here.

Blessed Martyrs of England and Wales, pray for us!

November 22, 1963: Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell

The mainstream media has been recalling the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, fifty years ago with specials showing the news reporting that day--all the images of men and women, all formally dressed with hats and suits and ties and nice coats, and all the cigarettes! Nearly all of the news anchors have a smoking cigarette between their fingers and an ashtray on their desk. All the conspiracy theories are being described and detailed--did Lee Harvey Oswald really act alone?

Catholic media organizations are also remembering the assassination of John F. Kennedy with analysis of what it meant that he was the first and only Catholic elected President of the United States. Was it good for Catholics, especially since Kennedy had to promise the Houston Ministerial Association that his Catholic faith would never influence his presidential decisions? Thank you, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale! As Russell Shaw commented:

Houston, September 12, 1960. John F. Kennedy is addressing the Houston Ministerial Association. Kennedy, the Democratic candidate for the presidency, has been buffeted for months by nativist anti-Catholicism. He and his advisors have concluded that he must address the problem head-on.

JFK's address to the ministers in Houston was the result. It's said to have been the work of John Cogley, Commonweal editor and later religion writer for the New York Times, who eventually quit the Catholic Church, became an Episcopalian, and was an Episcopal deacon when he died.

Although the speech's reasoning doesn't stand up under close examination, Kennedy's Houston text is a superficially skillful piece of work. There's hardly a statement in it to which, taken in isolation, a reasonable person could object. But the speech as a whole is a sustained exercise in privatizing religion. Declaring his faith to be his business and no one else's, Kennedy puts daylight between himself and his Church and pledges that, if he's elected, religion won't influence his performance. The Houston speech did the trick: Kennedy was elected. But the text stands as a landmark in the process of excluding religion from the public square that's still underway.

Shaw also analyzed the Kennedy candidacy and election and their influence on Catholic assimilation and secularization in his book, American Church .

I remember that my grandmother had a "funeral card" of President Kennedy in her prayerbook: a picture of JFK with prayers for the repose of his soul and another card with a poem (written by Kennedy in heaven!) expressing his love for his family and especially his pride when his little boy saluted the cassion during his funeral procession.

But on November 22, 1963, two other prominent men died--C.S. Lewis and Aldous Huxley. Peter Kreeft wrote a book (Between Heaven and Hell: A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death with John F. Kennedy, C. S. Lewis & Aldous Huxley) that depicts a Platonic style dialog among the men after they've died:

On November 22, 1963, three great men died within a few hours of each other: C. S. Lewis, John F. Kennedy and Aldous Huxley. All three believed, in different ways, that death is not the end of human life. Suppose they were right, and suppose they met after death. How might the conversation go?

Peter Kreeft imagines their discussion as a part of The Great Conversation that has been going on for centuries. Does human life have meaning? Is it possible to know about life after death? What if one could prove that Jesus was God? With Kennedy taking the role of a modern humanist, Lewis representing Christian theism and Huxley advocating Eastern pantheism, the dialogue is lively and informative. Here's an excerpt:

Kennedy: That's just what I can't buy: that old-fashioned theology of God descending from heaven like a meteor.
Lewis: All right, then, let's be very specific. Who is Jesus, according to your faith?
Kennedy: The ideal man, the man so perfect and wise that his followers called him divine. Not God become man but man become God.
Lewis: A very nicely put summary of humanist Christology; but do you think this is Christianity?
Kennedy: Old Christianity, no; New Christianity, yes. The only form of it a modern man can believe without giving up his intellectual honesty. I heard a preacher put it this way: you can be honest, or intelligent, or a medieval-style Christian, or any two of the three, but not all three. Work that out for yourself.
Lewis: Very clever, but the same barb can be used to sting anyone. I can say you can be honest, or intelligent, or a modernist, or any two of the three, but not all three. The substantive point, as distinct from the debater's nicety, is the identity of Jesus. Let's zero in on that issue.
Kennedy: Fine. Who is Jesus?
Lewis: God become man.
Kennedy: Literally?
Lewis: Yes.
Kennedy: How can you as an educated twentieth-century man take such an outdated position?
Lewis: As distinct from your new, modern one?
Kennedy: Yes.
Lewis: Because for one thing, your new position is as old as the hills. Or, at least, as old as Arius.
Kennedy: Who?
Lewis: Arius, a fourth-century heretic who carried half the church with him even after the Council of Nicea addressed the issue by clearly and strongly affirming Jesus' divinity. The same thing is happening again today with modernism and humanism. Your so-called new Christianity is nothing but the old Arian heresy in new dress.
Kennedy: Really, now, there's no need to call each other names.
Lewis: I didn't call you a name; I just labeled your position accurately.
Kennedy: I wish you would avoid using labels like heretic.
Read more here.

Henry Purcell, RIP

Henry Purcell died on November 21, 1695. The wikipedia article on this great English Baroque composer includes some excerpts from his compositions, while this "Online Gallery" from the British Library features portraits and excerpts. Like the sixteenth composers Tallis and Byrd, Purcell lived through dynastic changes that effected changes in his music style and career.

This biography from The Purcell Society describes some of those changes:

During the 1680s, Purcell was frequently called upon to compose a large-scale ode or ‘welcome song’ to mark a special event in the royal calendar. In 1682, he was appointed as a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, and, in the following year, his first published collection appeared. This was the Sonnata's of III. Parts, for two violins, bass viol and continuo. His best-known composition, the dramatic entertainment Dido and Aeneas, was also written during the 1680s, though it is not certain when the first performance took place.

In 1689, William and Mary were crowned King and Queen, and there seem to have been fewer opportunities at court for composers than under their predecessors, Charles II and James II. Purcell turned to the theatre, writing four large-scale operatic works between 1690 and 1695, as well as incidental music for numerous plays. He continued to write court odes, however, including one each year between 1689 and 1694 to mark the birthday of Queen Mary. He also composed music for her state funeral, which took place in March 1695. Just a few months later, on 21 November 1695, Purcell himself died.


Since he wrote music both to celebrate her birthday and to commemorate her passing, this recording by the Choir of King's College Cambridge and the Academy of Ancient Music, conducted by Stephen Cleobury, looks like an interesting collection.

Gerard Manley Hopkins praised Purcell in verse:

The poet wishes well to the divine genius of Purcell and praises him that, whereas other musicians have given utterance to the moods of man’s mind, he has, beyond that, uttered in notes the very make and species of man as created both in him and in all men generally.

HAVE, fair fallen, O fair, fair have fallen, so dear
To me, so arch-especial a spirit as heaves in Henry Purcell,
An age is now since passed, since parted; with the reversal
Of the outward sentence low lays him, listed to a heresy, here.

Not mood in him nor meaning, proud fire or sacred fear,
Or love or pity or all that sweet notes not his might nursle:
It is the forgèd feature finds me; it is the rehearsal
Of own, of abrupt self there so thrusts on, so throngs the ear.

Let him Oh! with his air of angels then lift me, lay me! only I’ll
Have an eye to the sakes of him, quaint moonmarks, to his pelted plumage under
Wings: so some great stormfowl, whenever he has walked his while

The thunder-purple seabeach plumèd purple-of-thunder,
If a wuthering of his palmy snow-pinions scatter a colossal smile
Off him, but meaning motion fans fresh our wits with wonder.

The Ballad of the White Horse

The Wichita "local society" of the American Chesterton Society is reading Chesterton's The Ballad of the White Horse. We meet on the third Friday of every month at Eighth Day Books and are using the Ignatius Press edition of the poem:
The Ballad of the White Horse is one of the last great epic poems in the English language. On the one had it describes King Alfred’s battle against the Danes in 878. On the other hand it is a timeless allegory about the ongoing battle between Christianity and the forces of nihilistic heathenism. Filled with colorful characters, thrilling battles and mystical visions, it is as lively as it is profound.

Chesterton incorporates brilliant imagination, atmosphere, moral concern, chronological continuity, wisdom and fancy. He makes his stanzas reverberate with sound, and hurries his readers into the heart of the battle.  This deluxe volume is the definitive edition of the poem. It exactly reproduces the 1928 edition with Robert Austin’s beautiful woodcuts, and includes a thorough introduction and wonderful endnotes by Sister Bernadette Sheridan, from her 60 years researching the poem. Illustrated.

Dale Ahlquist provides an overview here. We were thrilled as we read aloud the King Alfred's answer to the three Danes in Book III, "The Harp of Alfred":

He heaved the head of the harp on high
And swept the framework barred,
And his stroke had all the rattle and spark
Of horses flying hard.

"When God put man in a garden
He girt him with a sword,
And sent him forth a free knight
That might betray his lord;

"He brake Him and betrayed Him,
And fast and far he fell,
Till you and I may stretch our necks
And burn our beards in hell.

"But though I lie on the floor of the world,
With the seven sins for rods,
I would rather fall with Adam
Than rise with all your gods.

"What have the strong gods given?
Where have the glad gods led?
When Guthrum sits on a hero's throne
And asks if he is dead?

"Sirs, I am but a nameless man,
A rhymester without home,
Yet since I come of the Wessex clay
And carry the cross of Rome,

"I will even answer the mighty earl
That asked of Wessex men
Why they be meek and monkish folk,
And bow to the White Lord's broken yoke;
What sign have we save blood and smoke?
Here is my answer then.

"That on you is fallen the shadow,
And not upon the Name;
That though we scatter and though we fly,
And you hang over us like the sky,
You are more tired of victory,
Than we are tired of shame.

"That though you hunt the Christian man
Like a hare on the hill-side,
The hare has still more heart to run
Than you have heart to ride.

"That though all lances split on you,
All swords be heaved in vain,
We have more lust again to lose
Than you to win again.

"Your lord sits high in the saddle,
A broken-hearted king,
But our king Alfred, lost from fame,
Fallen among foes or bonds of shame,
In I know not what mean trade or name,
Has still some song to sing;

"Our monks go robed in rain and snow,
But the heart of flame therein,
But you go clothed in feasts and flames,
When all is ice within;

"Nor shall all iron dooms make dumb
Men wondering ceaselessly,
If it be not better to fast for joy
Than feast for misery.

"Nor monkish order only
Slides down, as field to fen,
All things achieved and chosen pass,
As the White Horse fades in the grass,
No work of Christian men.

"Ere the sad gods that made your gods
Saw their sad sunrise pass,
The White Horse of the White Horse Vale,
That you have left to darken and fail,
Was cut out of the grass.

"Therefore your end is on you,
Is on you and your kings,
Not for a fire in Ely fen,
Not that your gods are nine or ten,
But because it is only Christian men
Guard even heathen things.

"For our God hath blessed creation,
Calling it good. I know
What spirit with whom you blindly band
Hath blessed destruction with his hand;
Yet by God's death the stars shall stand
And the small apples grow."

And the King, with harp on shoulder,
Stood up and ceased his song;
And the owls moaned from the mighty trees,
And the Danes laughed loud and long.

Charles Carroll, Poet?

Mary Ellen Bork writes for The National Catholic Register about Charles Carroll and a poem he wrote while at St. Omers:

What madman would exchange present gifts for those unseen? You fly from real blessings, blessings unreal you chase. Purge, I pray, these vain dreams from your fevered mind, and drive the hope deep-embedded far from your heart."  Charles Carroll, the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence, wrote these lines in 1753, while at St. Omer’s College, in a poem recently discovered at the Christian Heritage Centre at Stonyhurst College in England.  This discovery came from the oldest surviving museum collection in the English-speaking world, and its directors are eager to make its riches more available through digitizing and expansion.  On a visit to the United States, Lord David Alton, a prominent British Catholic and pro-life leader and an advocate for religious freedom, and Lord Nicholas Windsor, cousin to Queen Elizabeth II and a Catholic convert, said they see this collection of artifacts, relics and art as a critical reminder of what religious freedom costs, namely the blood of martyrs. And she goes on to explain the significance of the poem and of Carroll's attendance at St. Omer's, along with his cousin John: Both Charles and John Carroll, inspired by their knowledge of English Catholic history, fought for the right of Catholics to practice their religion at a time of strong anti-Catholic sentiment.  Knowing more about the history of the English Catholic struggle can better prepare us for the work of re-evangelization and defending our own religious freedom. Remembering our past will give us hope for the future.  Curator Jan Graffius said that Charles Carroll was 17 when he wrote this poem in Latin for a recitation on the feast of St. Cecilia. The tyrant Amachius, having sentenced Cecilia to death, pressured her to worship Roman gods in order to save her life, her youth and her beauty. The poem shows that young Charles saw clearly the corrosiveness of compromise.  Recitation formed an important part of the Jesuit education that started in the school, originally called St. Omer’s, which was founded in 1593 by Father Robert Persons during the persecution of Catholics by Queen Elizabeth I. There were no Catholic schools allowed in England, so the boys were smuggled out of their country to the school outside of Calais in France, then under Spanish rule. If they were caught leaving England, the penalty was imprisonment or death.  The school’s brave mission is engraved above the door: "Jesus, Jesus, convert England; may it be, may it be." Many students became priests and went back to England to preach the faith.
Read the rest here.