I only send this line of welcome and to wish you God speed. I am afraid you will not get this before Tuesday, as there is no post out to-day. 80 To the Same October 3, 1904. Welcome back to London. I should have written but that I felt probably my letter would have to travel about before it could find you, and since I got back from the North I have been very busy. When will you come and see me? Could you come on Saturday at 12.30? I have no idea when your lectures begin. It's strange how one's soul passes through great experiences and one plods on in the same round, and no one notices any difference or imagines what one has been through. You will, no doubt, have times of darkness and trouble again. I found, for the first few months, the one thing to do was to keep the door bolted and barred and to refuse to allow any question to enter; then all questions pass away-all such questions, I mean-and give one peace. God bless you. The next letter was written from America to the Reverend Mother of an Anglican community, the news of whose reception into the Church had just reached Father Maturin. 81 Easter Day, 1913. MY DEAR SISTER,-I have heard echoes and seen bits of reports of your news and I am thankful to hear it, though I have felt for a long time that you'd come in the end. I have remembered you at Mass and in my prayers often. I expect you have gone through a pretty hard time and that you will still have a good deal to suffer, though I suppose so many coming together makes the wrench somewhat less, or at any rate helps to soothe the pain. I found the solitude and isolation very hard, and find it so still, though in time one feels it is worth everything to see and know the Church from within; but that has only come upon me in time, perhaps more slowly than it will to you. No one knows how hard it is, and how sore and bleeding one feels, and as if all one's bones were out of joint, and I wonder when I read the Tablet's jaunty pæans what you and those with you are feeling really. The sense of responsibility for all those others, and the condemnation of those whom you have left behind, and the impossibility to explain or to make others see that, from the beginning, this end was inevitable, though you did not know it; all this must be burden enough without what you must have had to go through yourself. For myself, I can truly say that from the time I recovered my feet, a few months after I was received, never a question or doubt has ever crossed my mind, and I found myself at home almost at once, as if I had been always a Catholic, though I have had, I suppose like most, a good deal to suffer, and like Newman, 'courtesy, but little sympathy.' But perhaps I oughtn't to say this, as I have made many dear and kind friends . . and have seen in many families what seemed to me the very ideal of religion. I gather from what I have seen that you are going to be affiliated to the English congregation, but I don't know any details or how it is to be done. You won't misunderstand me when I say that I hope you will be made to feel the change very thoroughly-through and through-and enter into all the Benedictine ways, ancient and modern, and bring none of the Anglican atmosphere with you, except its 'vital piety,' of which I hope you'll bring a great deal. How I should like to see you and talk over things, but you are no doubt in very good hands. I can imagine no form of religion here on earth more completely satisfactory than the Benedictine; it breathes with the breath and breadth of antiquity, and wherever I have seen it, it certainly has the atmosphere of peace. All that one used to dream of in old days as an Anglican it realises and far surpasses. And it will not let you-if ever you are tempted to it-be controversial or bitter or full of amazement at the folly of all who do not follow you! But I don't think that will be your line. God bless you and your large family, and guide your barque into the haven of true Benedictine pax. Two more letters to friends on the verge of reception into the Church show once more his unfailing sympathy and helpfulness. The first of these correspondents had asked him to say Mass for her. 82 November 26, 1906. Indeed I will, and I am sure it will be accepted. I think there is nothing in the world like mental suffering, and perhaps no mental suffering like that which comes from having to hurt one's friends. But when that is the condition of testing and proving one's love to God, God must surely accept and bless it abundantly. And He will, and when you have settled down in the richer soil and purer air, you'll feel it. 83 March 6, 1912. I am very glad to hear that you are to be received to-morrow, and I will remember you at Mass. I hope your reception will bring you many blessings, but you must not, and I am sure will not, expect to see any immediate results-none except a feeling as if one had had one's skin torn off and was left bleeding. Tearing oneself from associations with which one had been bound up all one's life, and which hold all one's best and holiest associations, is not an easy step, and one does not grasp all the consolations till one gets a little healed and soothed-that will come in time. Don't look back, never reopen the question, never analyse your motives, but try to throw yourself into your new surroundings and life. Don't let yourself criticise ways that seem to you not to be as good as those you have been used to, and don't be scandalised at the quiet ways, instead of a good deal of the enthusiasm you have had where you were. You are coming into a system that has gone on over 2000 years without a change, that has converted the world, that does not lay itself out for bright services, etc., but has the strength to house and shelter the world against the assaults of unbelief, and I believe no other body has. In a year or two you'll be singing your Te Deumto-morrow you'll possibly be sore and worried as to whether you have done right; but you have, and it will all come flooding your soul with peace and consolation in time-but wait and be patient, be strong, and put your trust in the Lord and He will bring it to pass. God bless you, and please say one earnest prayer for me to-morrow. Printed by Spottiswoode, Ballantyne & Co. LTD. 1 |