I have been meaning to write something on this subject for a while, which is resilience – psychological or spiritual, call it what you will. It is our ability to cope with adversity. One thing I admire about the people of my native land is how we got through World War II, all alone until the Americans finally came in and made the liberation of Europe possible. This was the experience of my grandparents and parents, anyone born before the mid 1930’s.
I have had many discussions with French people and the way they lived through the war. France was occupied from 1940 and came under the jackboot and the terror of the Gestapo. Some betrayed their neighbours for a food ration stamp! Resistance was rewarded by torture and a long trip to the concentration camp if you were not lucky enough to get a bullet right away! In England, they were generally in solidarity, led by the tough determination of Churchill and inspired by feelings of patriotism and national pride. The same feeling comes back year after year on Remembrance Day, even for those of us born after the war.
One way the English maintained the stiff upper lip was through humour and mocking the enemy. Litter bins were painted with cartoon pictures of Hitler with a wide-open mouth, so we could make him eat our rubbish! This video is a wonderful piece of testimony of this use of humour to get through those dark days.
But, the reality of war is something other than the patriotic films we had in the 1950’s and 60’s like The Dambusters. It was horror and destruction, pure evil. One has only to ask those who have been to Vietnam, Irak or Afghanistan in recent years. Many servicemen have been destroyed by post-traumatic-stress-syndrome and others have committed suicide. The nightmares never stop. Yet others made it through and rebuilt their lives.
One thing that brought me to this theme was reading something about St Theresa of Lisieux and her spiritual resilience. She had a very tough monastic way of life, and then she became ill with tuberculosis. Those were her physical trials, and there was her spiritual life. Her secret was The Little Way, one of simplicity and humility. Far from the sappy and sentimental image we often have of this Saint, reading her writings and about what others saw in her, she was tough. She wrestled with her faith and her impending death. Her simplicity was in reality down-to-earthness.
We all carry our crosses in one way or another, be it through ill health, war, famine, persecution and all the possibilities St Paul mentioned like being shipwrecked three times. It would appear that resilience is not a quality of some persons, but a process we all have to go through. Another extreme example I have seen in cinema is the famous film Papillon. The hero of the film played by Steve McQueen survives an incredible degree of suffering. His punishment may have been out of proportion with his crime. The French penal colonies of Guyana killed a large proportion of the prisoners. His will to live and escape remained intact. That is resilience!
We humans are generally very clever at finding coping strategies when faced with danger and adversity. I remember a few years ago overtaking a tractor in a van. The tractor suddenly turned left in front of me without indicating his direction. I was pushed into a trajectory towards a ditch in the other side of the road. As this happened, I remember being extremely calm, and only overcome by an adrenaline rush once the vehicle had come to a standstill, still upright and everyone alive and uninjured (two persons in the vehicle). It’s probably what happens to soldiers in battle and why many are totally fearless in the face of the enemy. It is partly their military training, but also basic human instinct. It also happened to me when I once rescued a person who tried to commit suicide by jumping into the Thames in London. You focus on the essential and forget your own fear or sense of self-preservation.
Here is a short quote from Guns of Navarone that has always particularly impressed me:
Cohn: Do you think they’ve got any chance at all, sir?
Commodore Jensen: Frankly, no. Not a chance in the world. I should be very surprised if they get even halfway to Navarone. Just a waste of six good men. However, I suppose that doesn’t matter, considering how many have been wasted already. I’m glad it’s not my decision; I’m only the middleman… Still, they may get there, and they may pull it off. Anything can happen in a war. Slap in the middle of absolute insanity people pull out the most extraordinary resources: ingenuity, courage, self-sacrifice. Pity we can’t meet the problems of peace in the same way, isn’t it? It would be so much cheaper for everybody.
Cohn: I never thought of it in just that way, sir. You’re a philosopher, sir.
Commodore Jensen: No. I’m just the man who has to send people out on jobs like this one.
Jenson described exactly this ability man has for finding a way. Some of the greatest inventions have been inspired by problems to solve, like Wallace’s bouncing bomb which was the only way to destroy the three dams in Germany. Necessity is the mother of invention. Get stuck out on the road with a broken-down car, and we generally find a way to get home. Sometimes, we absolutely need help, and sometimes we do a better repair job that we thought we were able to do. I have found myself out at sea in my boat and my mast down because of a rigging failure. Two possibilities: call for help or cope. I dismantled my rig and got to the beach holding the mast in one hand and the jib sheet and my tiller with the other hand. Once on the beach, a long way from my “home beach”, I was able to re-rig the boat and find something to hold the mast up – and get home. No heroism, just what any one of us in a fix has to do!
Resilience and resourcefulness are also things we learn. Scouting is a wonderful invention for kids. They learn to make things from very little and solve problems like adults. I found the same thing with the CCF and the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme. I my more recent experience, the Glénans made a big impression on me. The Glénans, founded on an archipelago of islands after the war in south Brittany, was designed to help young people after the trauma of the Occupation. Teach ’em to sail and stick together in a boat! I can’t think of anything better to make men and women of us. It all started with Baden Powell and Rudyard Kipling, men who really understood these human qualities that ennobled us and made us capable of realising our potential.
These human qualities are found in individual persons and whole societies, like England under siege before the Americans arrived. War is not the only adversity man has to face. We have only to look back a few days – and what is still happening – in the Philippines. First there were the wind and the waves of the typhoon, and now the total breakdown of civilisation as people try to survive in spite of the absence of humanitarian help (because helpers can’t get there or don’t have the boats, helicopters and planes). Many curl up and die. Others resort to pillage and crime, and others seek to remain within the bounds of morality and decency.
There is another story someone once told me about the bombing of Dresden. There was a mental hospital full of patients earmarked by the Nazis for euthanasia. When the city was bombed and the patients escaped, their mental illnesses went into remission and they helped other victims of the bombing like completely sane people. The insanity returned as “normality” returned. I don’t know how true this story is, and I have not read Slaughterhouse Five.
Resilience enables us to deal with danger and risk, keep our ability and competence under stress (like making the best of a vehicle out of control), recover from trauma – and take up challenges to deal with future hardship. We need to have a positive view on life, but not an illusory one that disregards reality. We can suffer greatly from traumas, anxiety, illness and obsessive thoughts, but we recover in time and become the stronger for it. It is necessary to be realistic for the future and build up confidence and self-esteem. With these in place, we communicate with others and keep our feelings under control.
As mentioned above, humour is very important in our task of coping. It is often a great help to take the mickey out of ourselves, which is often what elderly people do instead of complain about their failing health and lessened ability to do what they used to do. Again, we have the importance of a positive attitude, ability to solve problems and cope, but to have the humility to call for help when really needed (and not before). Belief and spirituality are essential. We take ourselves less seriously. However, there are aspects of religion that have caused a tremendous amount of harm. The guidance of souls needs to contain a notion of man’s essential goodness, even though we are all capable of evil.
There are various things most of us can do to build up our resilience. The most important is working on our attitude and chasing away alarmist and pessimistic thoughts. Only today, I was reading an article about the human race only having a few months to live before our being exterminated by radiation poisoning. Our planet is horribly polluted, but not to that extent. We need to take on the challenge of doing something about it.
Another thing is to get out and about, take up a sport within our physical possibilities. Above all, doing things like boating; hiking and mountaineering brings us into communion with nature and a sense of wonder. This helps the life of prayer as does the actual practice of prayer and spiritual reading. These things also bring us to see beyond ourselves and reach out to those in a worse predicament to ourselves. I think of the metal patients in the hospital of Dresden and how they became sane in the chaos and when they had other people to help out of the flames and rubble.
Land of our birth, we pledge to thee
Our love and toil in the years to be;
When we are grown and take our place
As men and women with our race.
Father in Heaven who lovest all,
O help thy children when they call.
That they may build from age to age
An undefiled heritage.
Teach us the strength that cannot seek,
By deed, or thought, to hurt the weak;
That, under thee, we may possess
Man’s strength to comfort man’s distress.
Teach us delight in simple things,
The mirth that has no bitter springs;
Forgiveness free of evil done,
And love to all men ‘neath the sun.
Land of our birth, our faith, our pride,
For whose dear sake our fathers died;
O Motherland, we pledge to thee,
Head, heart and hand through the years to be.
Here’s an old article on the offertory prayers I originally wrote for the Anglo-Catholic blog in its heyday. Link. Given the date (January 2010), I was writing in view to speculating what kind of liturgy would be used in the then-future ordinariates. There are some interesting comments, especially from a traditionalist Roman Catholic point of view. The subject tended to get laboured, and the Ordinariate liturgy is now only of curiosity value for me.
Nevertheless, the subject is interesting from a study point of view. I was reminded about having written by the article by an e-mail requesting permission for reproduction – which I gladly granted.
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In view of some amount of controversy about the offertory prayers in the rite of Mass, I thought it would be a good idea to write something on this subject. My primary source is a rather interesting work I have in my library by Fr Paul Tirot OSB, Histoire des prières d’offertoire dans la liturgie romaine du VIIe au XVIe siècle, Rome 1985. Tirot himself refers to a great extent to Jungmann’s Missarum Sollemnia, as I did when working at Fribourg University on the Tridentine codification of the Roman Missal in 1570.
Tirot writes the following (remember, in 1985) as a foreword to his work.
The promulgation of the Roman Missal of Paul VI, even if it marks a certain and profound rupture with liturgical tradition, does not cancel out interest for the history of the Roman Missal.
This is twenty years before the election of Cardinal Ratzinger to the Papacy. We find the implied theme of the hermeneutic of continuity and the possibility of loyally criticising the modern rite. Cardinal Ratzinger had already done so in some of his interviews and books. All I will do here is give an extremely brief overview of Tirot’s work together with a few of the author’s practical conclusions.
From the seventh century, we have very detailed accounts of the ceremonies of the Roman Mass in the Ordines Romani. At that time, the Offertory consisted of a procession to the singing of a psalm. The faithful brought offerings and a part of these (bread and wine) were reserved for consecrating and the rest given to the clergy and the poor. It rather reminds me of the Harvest Thanksgiving we have in English parishes. The oblata were placed on the altar and the Oratio super Oblata was said.
To that very austere ceremony was added other material from Gallican and Hispanic sources, in particular “recommendations” for the offerings of the people in the form of the diptychs, which eventually found their way into the Canon of the Mass (already in its present form before the fifth century). The Offertory Procession became much more solemn from the ninth century in France. After this came the reserving of this procession to clerics, and the practice we have in the Sarum Use of the subdeacon preparing the chalice in a side chapel and bringing the Gifts to the altar.
There are no silent offertory prayers in Ordo Romanus I. The Pontiff “bows a little” to the oblata. The first private prayers came in the form of apologies – the priest confessing his sins and unworthiness to offer the Sacrifice. In the Gallican rites, these prayers became very long. Jungmann contrasted this introduction of long apologia prayers to the austerity of the old Roman liturgy. No doubt, Bugnini felt the same way.
The first Suscipe offertory prayers, of Gallican origin, appeared from the eighth century. In the various local missals, they are extremely variable. The Receive, Holy Trinity prayer occurs at different points, whilst offering the bread and wine, or bowing over the oblations having already accomplished the gesture of offering. These prayers multiplied particularly in the Frankish and Germanic territories. The prayer as found in the Sarum, Dominican and many other missals was firmly established by the eleventh century. The prayer was said as the priest offered the host and the chalice together in a single movement.
The In spiritu humilitatis prayer is also very ancient, and is found in various forms in the ninth century. There are also variations in the syntax, as to this day between the Tridentine and Dominican missals. The meaning is identical. You can do quite a lot with a Latin sentence, changing the order of the words – and the meaning is gleaned from the declension of the nouns and conjugation of the verbs.
The formula for the priest washing his hands is also extremely variable, and it is interesting to see the Novus Ordo formula (from Psalm 50 [Vulgate]) suggest the Sarum formula – “Cleanse me, O Lord, from all defilement of soul and body, that I may be clean to fulfil the holy work of God”. The Dominican rite uses the Lavabo inter innocentes verses from Psalm 25, but the extract is shorter than in the later Roman rite. There are many other formulae.
The chalice is prepared variously at the beginning of the Mass (or at the time of the Gradual at High Mass) or just before the offering. The formula for blessing the water and pouring it into the chalice is variable, generally “From this be blessing, for from his side came forth blood and water…”.
The oblata were incensed for the first time in the time of Amalar of Metz. Around 830, in Rome, it was still unknown. After the incensing, also from Gallican inspiration, the oblations were often blessed, but not always. This was sometimes before, sometimes after, the washing of the priest’s hands. The York Use had the Veni Creator sung at this point, almost as a kind of epiclesis. Many of these blessing prayers were similar in content to the epiclesis of the Oriental Churches, asking the Holy Spirit to come down upon the Gifts.
The Orate fratres is very variable, as is its response. It is an invitation to pray the Oratio super oblata or Secret with the priest.
The monasteries had very reserved offertory rites. For example, the Carthusian monks use only the In spiritu humilitatis, the prayer over the gifts and a version of the Orate fratres.
Tirot concludes that the Tridentine (extraordinary Roman) offertory resulted from the fusion of the French and German traditions. Some called this offertory rite a little Canon, but this is an artificial and anachronistic concept.
An interesting practical conclusion emerges for the consideration of the Roman authorities (Congregation for Divine Worship). Particularly, we get from Fr Tirot:
1) As these offertory prayers in historical terms, like the entrance and communion prayers, are prayers of “devotion”, of a private character, and ad libitum sacerdotis: could one not, during a revision of the Missal of Paul VI, offer a choice of several formulae:
the present “blessings”, inspired by Jewish prayers for blessing meals [1969 Novus Ordo],
the monastic formula of Cluny, Cîteaux, and La Chartreuse: the In spiritu said bowing and in silence, the oratio super oblata being the only Roman offertory prayer,
the French formula: the Suscipe Sancta Trinitas whilst offering the bread and wine, the apologia of In spiritu and the blessing Veni Sanctificator with the character of an epiclesis [Sarum, Dominican, York, etc.],
the Rhenan formula: Suscipe sancte Pater, followed by the blessing Sanctificatum for the offering of the bread; and the Offerimus tibi, followed by the benediction oblatum tibi for the offering of the wine [“extraordinary” Roman Missal].
2) It would be fitting for these prayers to be said quietly by the priest, whilst the choir and congregation sing the anthem, or an offertory hymn, finished by the oratio super oblata.
In the same way, the private priest’s prayers at the beginning of Mass can be said quietly whilst the faithful sing the Introit anthem or psalm, finished by the Collect [after the Kyrie and Gloria]. The private communion prayers are already said quietly.
I think this little article should help to put things into perspective. These ideas have been floating around for a while, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Rome will allow this or that variation to the Order of Mass without for the time being recasting the whole Missal (as ought to be done sometime in the future). Perhaps this can happen in the Book of Divine Worship together with allowing the old Temporal Cycle propers as in the Anglican Missal.
I pinched this beautiful motet in German by Josef Rheinberger (1839-1901) from the Anglican Diaspora forum, but I have my own thoughts about this little-known nineteenth-century composer born in Leichtenstein amidst the soaring Alps.
Bleib bei uns, denn es will Abend werden, und der Tag hat sich geneiget (Abide with us as evening shadows fall and the day has ended).
Rheinberger’s music is certainly classical for his era, easy to play because it is generally so predictable. At least, that is for his organ music. Perhaps this music can be characterised in terms of combining the romantic spirit with classical counterpoint and form. One cannot but think of Mendelssohn, but Rheinberger’s style is definitely personal and lacks the weight and turgidity of Reger. Rheinberger, unlike Reger, Brahms or Beethoven, is not mentioned in connection with the German school of absolute music, opposed to the view that music has to have “meaning” or imitate some other aesthetic reality, but I see him in this tradition.
Does Rheinberger lack inspiration? That is difficult to say, but it has charm, intimacy and beauty. I have downloaded from Youtube a lovely organ concerto, a piano concerto and some chamber music. My music school choir here in Normandy put on Rheinberger’s Stabat Mater last summer.
Rheinberger merits being better known like our own Charles Villiers Stanford in England. I have to admit that Stanford seems to have that much more “punch”, especially in his symphonic works.
Dr William Tighe has sent out a circular e-mail, and I think it would be of interest to readers here. Most of us know that the Ordinariate rite of Mass is now rolled out and no longer secret. I quote:
My own one regret is that no thought was taken to restoring to the Prayer of Humble Access a phrase found in the 1549 original version, but omitted in 1552 and all later versions:
We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy: Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, in these holy mysteries, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.
(The above is the 1552/1559/1662 etc. version, with the omitted phrase inserted in bold italic. I place below the actual 1549 version, the ending of which was also rearranged in 1552, a rearrangement which I count as pure rhetorical gain):
We do not presume to come to this thy Table (O merciful Lord) trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We be not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy: Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the Flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his Blood, in these holy Mysteries, that we may continually dwell in him, and he in us, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his Body, and our souls washed through his most precious Blood. Amen.
Interest is being expressed in the background, so here’s my old article Jansenism about a fascinating variation of St Augustine of Hippo’s teaching on free will, grace and related subjects. The unique character of Jansenism resides in its not being a part of the Reformed world, but of French Catholicism in the Counter-Reformation era.
Some time ago, I set up a Classical Anglican Blow-Out Department for the discussion of matters relating to the cohabitation of Anglo-Catholics of various “tendencies” and those Anglicans who remain attached to the tenets of the Reformation, the Thirty-Nine Articles and the doctrines of the various magistral Reformers of the sixteenth century like Luther and Calvin.
The subject of Calvinism occasionally comes up here with a certain person running his blog, with a grievance against the ACC, bringing up the subject of myself and some of my commenters there. That person is keen on maintaining Calvinist doctrine in what he perceives to be the Anglican tradition, and considers that it is necessary to discredit the claims of Anglo-Catholics to claim membership of the Anglican way rather than convert to Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy.
I frankly have no concern for the person running that blog or which Christian community he belongs to. He is free to choose whether to believe or disbelieve, belong to one religious community or another, and even to change from one Christian denomination to another or even embrace another religion. That is religious freedom as defined in most democracies like the USA or the countries of Europe. He can do what he likes according to his informed conscience.
Personally, I have no interest in or concern for Calvinism. If the “tulip” is representative of Calvin’s historical teaching or writings, then I must in the name of mainstream Catholic tradition and teaching oppose it, maintaining that man is essentially good in spite of Original Sin (a term that needs defining in the light of Eastern Orthodox dogmatics and philosophy), that all humans have the possibility of attaining the beatific vision. I have to say that I tend to universalism in that I believe that there is a hell and justice for sinners – those who turn away from God, but that goodness and salvation will win out in the end for all creation. I firmly believe that the Redemption (otherwise known as the Atonement) was for all even though some might choose to reject God and “find out things the hard way”. We are free, and can be “one foot in and one foot” out all our lives. We have a part of responsibility in the matter of our sanctification and salvation, though we absolutely need God’s grace and help. Apart from my refusal of all five points of the “tulip”, I have no interest in discussing and debating in the manner of Reformation and Counter-Reformation apologists and theologians.
Here are some interesting links that give an overall picture:
However, there are commenters who feel inclined to discuss this subject. Fair enough. The “blow-out departments” are there, and they seem to fulfil a role that is not found everywhere on the Internet. I only exclude people for behaviour that is assimilated to trolling (sometimes very subtle) or extreme rudeness. I am opposed to Calvin’s doctrines, at least as they are described in the above links. I go as far as seeing similarities between aspects of Calvin’s teaching with parallel aspects of Islam and even some of the twentieth-century totalitarian ideologies! Some give their reasons for finding my own thoughts exaggerated. I am willing to listen to them. So, I am far from impartial as a Catholic believer and I certainly lack objectivity. So I will allow debate on the subject, just as long as it remains within the Classical Anglican Blow-Out Department.
I recommend academic approaches to the subject together with what words meant in that historical context, whether in Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Renaissance French or English. I have certainly allowed myself to caricature Calvin, and I lack the motivation to investigate the subject. I prefer to read other subjects, go sailing in my boat or do the garden. I encourage fair debate and study of historical Calvinism, present-day Calvinism and perspectives for reconciliation between Reformed, Catholic and Orthodox Christians.
I leave this posting without any possibility for comments. If you wish to take up a conversation on Calvinism, for or against, please do so on the Classical Anglican Blow-Out Department.
The utter devastation caused by Typhoon Haiyan on the 7000 islands that make up the Philippines. With an estimate of 10000 plus people dead and many millions effected by the disaster.
The Right Revd Damien Mead has launched an appeal in the Diocese of the United Kingdom to raise funds to assist the Right Revd Rene Canillo, Bishop Ordinary of the Anglican Catholic Church’s Missionary District of the Philippines, assist those who are in most desperate need.
Contributions can be made by Cheque to:
The Revd Dr Jonathan Munn
Diocesan Treasurer
ACC Diocesan Office
St Nicholas House
42-48 High Street
Lydd
Kent TN29 9AN
United Kingdom
(Please write on the back of the cheque ‘Typhoon Relief’)
Or online via paypal by clicking on the link below.
In both cases, if you are a UK Taxpayer, please consider downloading and signing the declaration available below and sending this to Dr Munn with your donation to make your money go further.
If you would rather not make a donation to an ACC specific project then please consider making a donation via Christian Aid, the Red Cross or one of the many other agencies responding to the disaster.
Many of them, like Fr. Chadwick, are there [in the ACC] mainly because of the “smells and bells.”
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Mmm… I am very rarely in England these days, so joining a Church because it uses incense and jangles bells at various points of the Mass would seem pointless.
Most of the time, my Mass is a Low Mass, because I am alone or with a couple of ladies as the congregation. Therefore I hardly ever use the sacring bell, and I make the effort to use incense (which is quite awkward when one is alone at the altar) on the very big feasts. I have some very nice Greek and Egyptian incense. Perhaps I should make the effort more frequently.
The term bells & smells seems to suggest the use of the sacring bell and incense just for the fun of it, without their having any true liturgical meaning. This is often the criticism levelled at Anglo-Catholics inspired by the old Ritualist movement, which actually was deeply social in its content and involved some very saintly priests, some of whom were prepared to go to prison for “non-conformity” to the 1662 Prayer Book. The bell is simply a signal to the faithful, and incense symbolises our ascending prayer and worship of the divine. It was always associated with the Sacrifice of the Old Testament. God always revealed himself in a veil of smoke, the smoke being a constant symbol of the divine presence in the Old Testament. If I just want to have fun, I have other things to do like going out in the boat (I did today during a brief “weather window”) or seeing films. I have been a priest for over fifteen years, and there has been plenty of time for the “novelty” to wear off.
Again, criticism helps us to reflect on the things we often take for granted.
My reflections continue on this theme of human evil and goodness, and everything in between. I come to the subject to the way the law in some countries deals with a criminal considered as to be so evil as to be beyond redemption – they kill that person. In modern times, human ingenuity devised methods thought to reduce physical suffering to the minimum: Pierrepoint’s long-drop hanging in England, the guillotine, America’s lethal injection and so many others. It is a dreadful subject to discuss, but so relevant to our reflection on human nature.
Dostoevsky offered his perspective in his book The Idiot.
Prince Myshkin: “Yes—I saw an execution in France—at Lyons. Schneider took me over with him to see it.”
Servant: “What, did they hang the fellow?”
Prince Myshkin: “No, they cut off people’s heads in France.”
Servant: “What did the fellow do?—yell?”
Prince Myshkin: “Oh no—it’s the work of an instant. They put a man inside a frame and a sort of broad knife falls by machinery —they call the thing a guillotine-it falls with fearful force and weight-the head springs off so quickly that you can’t wink your eye in between. But all the preparations are so dreadful. When they announce the sentence, you know, and prepare the criminal and tie his hands, and cart him off to the scaffold—that’s the fearful part of the business. The people all crowd round—even women— though they don’t at all approve of omen looking on. And I may tell you—believe it or not, as you like—that when that man stepped upon the scaffold he CRIED, he did indeed,—he was as white as a bit of paper. Isn’t it a dreadful idea that he should have cried —cried! Whoever heard of a grown man crying from fear—not a child, but a man who never had cried before—a grown man of forty-five years. Imagine what must have been going on in that man’s mind at such a moment; what dreadful convulsions his whole spirit must have endured; it is an outrage on the soul that’s what it is. Because it is said ‘thou shalt not kill,’ is he to be killed because he murdered some one else? No, it is not right, it’s an impossible theory. I assure you, I saw the sight a month ago and it’s dancing before my eyes to this moment. I dream of it, often.”
Servant: “Well, at all events it is a good thing that there’s no pain when the poor fellow’s head flies off”
Prince Myshkin: “Do you know, though,” cried the prince warmly, “you made that remark now, and everyone says the same thing, and the machine is designed with the purpose of avoiding pain, this guillotine I mean; but a thought came into my head then: what if it be a bad plan after all? You may laugh at my idea, perhaps—but I could not help its occurring to me all the same. Now with the rack and tortures and so on—you suffer terrible pain of course; but then your torture is bodily pain only (although no doubt you have plenty of that) until you die. But HERE I should imagine the most terrible part of the whole punishment is, not the bodily pain at all — but the certain knowledge that in an hour,—then in ten minutes, then in half a minute, then now — this very INSTANT—your soul must quit your body and that you will no longer be a man — and that this is certain, CERTAIN! That’s the point—the certainty of it. Just that instant when you place your head on the block and hear the iron grate over your head—then—that quarter of a second is the most awful of all.
This is not my own fantastical opinion—many people have thought the same; but I feel it so deeply that I’ll tell you what I think. I believe that to execute a man for murder is to punish him immeasurably more dreadfully than is equivalent to his crime. A murder by sentence is far more dreadful than a murder committed by a criminal. The man who is attacked by robbers at night, in a dark wood, or anywhere, undoubtedly hopes and hopes that he may yet escape until the very moment of his death. There are plenty of instances of a man running away, or imploring for mercy—at all events hoping on in some degree—even after his throat was cut. But in the case of an execution, that last hope—having which it is so immeasurably less dreadful to die,—is taken away from the wretch and CERTAINTY substituted in its place! There is his sentence, and with it that terrible certainty that he cannot possibly escape death—which, I consider, must be the most dreadful anguish in the world. You may place a soldier before a cannon’s mouth in battle, and fire upon him—and he will still hope. But read to that same soldier his death-sentence, and he will either go mad or burst into tears. Who dares to say that any man can suffer this without going mad? No, no! it is an abuse, a shame, it is unnecessary — why should such a thing exist? Doubtless there may be men who have been sentenced, who have suffered this mental anguish for a while and then have been reprieved; perhaps such men may have been able to relate their feelings afterwards. Our Lord Christ spoke of this anguish and dread. No! no! no! No man should be treated so, no man, no man!”
I read a comment in the place where this text was quoted, in which the argument was made that we all have to die one day, and knowing when we are going to die has a redemptive effect, this justifying capital punishment from a conservative Christian point of view. The middle-ages took this theory to extremes, as the story of Franz Schmidt illustrates. This man was an executioner in Germany at the end of the sixteenth century and beginning of the seventeenth. The accounts contained in this piece of history are absolutely gruesome, so only read it if you have a strong stomach.
Fundamentally, the theory was that the more pain and suffering that was inflicted on the condemned criminal in proportion to any degree of remorse or otherwise, the more the person could be saved from the pains of eternal hell. Schmidt sought to create a kind of preliminary last judgement to allow the condemned to made a “good end”. If there was a sign of remorse, the person would be dispatched quickly, and if not, he was subjected to an atrocious and lingering death by slow torture. It was a part of the belief of that era, and also that of the Inquisition whose barbaric methods were motivated by a “pastoral” consideration of converting the person.
Here in Europe and in most of the civilised world, we can be thankful that torture and executions have been abolished (even though there are occasionally scandals about torture being used by the army and police). Dostoevsky considered the disproportionate psychological punishment meted out on a condemned criminal, even one who had himself killed a person. I am also brought to consider the Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde. The hopelessness and wistfulness comes through as Wilde related the story of a prisoner condemned to be hanged for murder (very often a crime de passion in those days).
Can the worst criminals and serial killers be redeemed? The issue of crime and punishment is a very difficult one, and I am happy not to be the one who takes the moral responsibility of deciding, like a judge or lawmaker. I have had many conversations with my wife who works as a lawyer’s secretary. In canon law, there are medicinal and vindictive penalties. The former is designed to help a person get back on track, and the latter is a kind of revenge. The middle ages saw execution as a “medicinal” punishment. I hardly imagine such a thing motivating America’s electric chairs and lethal injection rooms! The real motivation of executing someone, as sentencing them to life imprisonment without parole, is getting rid of them.
There seem to be two important considerations when thinking about those who have committed heinous crimes. Society has to be protected from them and they must be deprived of freedom. If no reform is possible, then the detention has to be definitive. On the other hand, perhaps something other than modern prisons would be more appropriate, such as restoring penal colonies in inaccessible parts of the world like Devil’s Island or the Gulag. They can be allowed to work, live and rip each other to pieces if they so desire, but they would be exercising their free will with other criminals on equal terms. Perhaps that is just as cruel, but it certainly does away with that fateful moment known days, weeks or years in advance.
The law should make every effort to accommodate sincere conversion and repentance on the part of those who have committed heinous crimes. But such matters can only be entrusted to governments, lawmakers and judges versed in penal and constitutional law. The issues are difficult, but there must be something good even in the worst of the worst.
This is my personal blog concerning my philosophy of life as a Christian following the Romantic world view. I am a priest in the Anglican Catholic Church – Original Province and live in France.
