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G K Chesterton; Scholars discuss possibiity ofCanonisation Cause
Topic Started: Saturday, 6. June 2009, 22:26 (518 Views)
Rose of York
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Catholic Herald
 


Scholars to meet in
Oxford to discuss
Cause of Chesterton
By Ed West

5 June 2009

G K Chesterton's reputation for holiness will be boosted next month when leading scholars meet in Oxford to discuss his Cause.

In this week's paper former Catholic Herald editor and Chesterton biographer William Oddie writes: "It is becoming clear that serious attention needs to be paid in the country of his birth to the question of Chesterton's holiness."

Dr Oddie will take part in a one-day conference on July 4 in Oxford where the speakers will include Dr Ian Ker, Fr John Saward, Fr Aidan Nichols OP and Dr Sheridan Gilley.

He said: "I have thought it possible for a long time, although when I wrote my book it wasn't something I particularly thought of him. But there was a time when no one thought Newman was particularly holy, just a bad-tempered, anti-Anglican polemicist. That's the way we think of Chesterton, as a polemicist.


Link to full report
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PJD

I liked these passages:

"There is a moment in the life story of many saints in which personal crisis is followed by a moment of vision, a moment in which there is a personal encounter with God which brings about a complete change of direction. There is, I think, such a moment in Chesterton's life."
[Oddie]

But as particularly significant - this:

"There is one secret for life
The secret of constant astonishment."

[Chesterton himself]

PJD
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Rose of York
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GKC

Born, London

Converted to the Catholic faith, Yorkshire, as a result of his friendship with the parish priest of the Church of the Holy Spirit, Heckmondwike.

GKC borrowed a book from Father O'Connor. He returned it with this poem written on the fly leaf of the book.

Quote:
 
To Father O'Connor


This is a book I do not like
Take it away to Heckmondwike
A lurid exile, lost and sad,
To punish it for being bad.
You need not take it from the shelf
(I tried to read it once myself:
The speeches (slur), the chapters sprawl
The story makes no sense at all)
Hide it your Yorkshire moors among
Where no man speaks the English tongue.

Hail, Heckmondwike! Successful spot!
Saved from the Latin's frothing lot
Where Horton and where Hocking see
The grace of heaven, Prosperity.
Above the chimneys hump and broad
A pillar of most solid cloud;
To starved oppressed Italian eyes,
The place would seem a paradise
And many a man from Como Lake
And many a Tyrolese would take
(If Priests allowed them what they like)
Their holidays in Heckmondwike.
The Belgian with his bankrupt woes,
Who through deserted Brussels goes
The hind that threads those ruins bare
Where Munich and where Milan were
Hears owls and wolves howl like Gehenna
In the best quarters of Vienna
Murmers, in tears "Ah how unlike
The happiness of Heckmondwike!"
In Spain the sad guitar they strike
And yearning, sing of Heckmondwike;
The Papal Guard leans on his pike
And dreams he is in Heckmondwike
Peru's proud horsemen long to bike
But for one hour in Heckmondwike;
Offered a Land Bill, Pat or Mike
Cry "Give us stones --- in Heckmondwike!"
Bavarian beer is good, belike
But try the gin of Heckmondwike.
The Flamands drown in ditch and dyke
Then itch to be in Heckmondwike,
Rise freedom, with the sword to strike!
And turn the world to Heckmondwike

Take then, this book I do not like -
It may improve in Heckmondwike.

G.K.Chesterton


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Rose of York
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website of Holy Spirit parish Heckmondwike
 
Fr J.O'Connor and G.K. Chesterton
Fr. O'Connor was the "model" for Chesterton's "Father Brown", the priest-detective. Chesterton wrote a poem on the flyleaf of a book he had borrowed from the priest. It begins;
"This is a book I do not like, take it away to Heckmondwike"
It was thought, by some, that Chesterton was received into the Catholic Church here in Heckmondwike. In fact he was received in the dance-room of the Railway Hotel in Beaconsfield (30 July 1922). By that time, Fr O'Connor had moved to St. Cuthbert's in Bradford. It was Chesterton's wife, Frances, who particularly requested that her husband's reception should be arranged by Fr O'Connor. He was assisted by Fr Ignatius Rice O.S.B.
Chesterton had thought that he might be received by Fr Ronald Knox. When he wrote to Fr Knox of his decision to be instructed (and received) by Fr O'Connor at Beaconsfield, Fr Knox replied in a humorous vein that he had admired Fr Brown's ability to neglect his parish, and trusted that this had been drawn from life!


http://www.holyspiritchurch.org.uk/

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PJD

"Hail, Heckmondwike! Successful spot!
Saved from the Latin's frothing lot"


So was he having a go at the Curia; or the dead language?

PJD
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Rose of York
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PJD
Sunday, 7. June 2009, 16:55
"Hail, Heckmondwike! Successful spot!
Saved from the Latin's frothing lot"


So was he having a go at the Curia; or the dead language?

PJD
I cannot work that out. The parish has a church built on the Byzantine-Romanesque style, it looks like a Roman Basicalla complete with copper dome. Mass was, naturally, in Latin in those days, and still is, in addition to vernacular.

GKC may have been referring to the Roman invaders who built the city walls at York not many miles away.
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Arthur Wood was born at Heckmondwicke on 24th January 1875. He composed Barwick Green which BBC Radio 4's The Archers use for its signature tune.

As for G K Chesterton I think that he should join the queue behind Graham Green and J R R Tolkien but perhaps ahead of CS Lewis and Hillarie Belloc.

G K Chesterton wrote a literary classic about his faith Orthodoxy and also The Everlasting Man, as well as The Catholic Church and Conversion. These are but three of several titles about his exploration of faith. I can recommend these but would happily read others.

Graham Green's novel the Power and The Glory is a classic which all priests should read for it contains the best description of the true nature of priesthood in any work of fiction that I have found. Tolkien was a devout Catholic and his Middle earth and the tales of the Lord of the Rings are dripping with Catholic allegories (see J. R. R. Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth: Understanding Middle-Earth by Bradley J Birzer) or if you need help sleeping, Exodus: Old English Text, Translation & Commentary by J.R.R. Tolkien.

However it was a golden age for Catholicism. Chesterton, Lewis and Tolkien are probably reunited in their friendship and chuckling to themselves about the prospect that any one of them could become a saint. All of them have a message which today’s generation would do well to hear and so I support the cause for Chesterton, though my own preference would be for Tolkien (Sorry Rose he was in the Lancashire Fusiliers during WW1 so I suppose he won’t be getting your vote)
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Rose of York
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Sunday, 7. June 2009, 19:43
All of them have a message which today’s generation would do well to hear and so I support the cause for Chesterton, though my own preference would be for Tolkien (Sorry Rose he was in the Lancashire Fusiliers during WW1 so I suppose he won’t be getting your vote)
Rose is non sectarian.

:angel:
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Rose of York
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Penfold
Sunday, 7. June 2009, 19:43
G K Chesterton wrote a literary classic about his faith Orthodoxy and also The Everlasting Man, as well as The Catholic Church and Conversion. These are but three of several titles about his exploration of faith. I can recommend these but would happily read others.
Is this it? It is a complete online book, The Everlasting Man, by G K Chesterton. Very handy for people who cannot easily get to a bookshop.

http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/chesterton/everlasting/content.htm
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Rose of York
Sunday, 7. June 2009, 19:56
Penfold
Sunday, 7. June 2009, 19:43
G K Chesterton wrote a literary classic about his faith Orthodoxy and also The Everlasting Man, as well as The Catholic Church and Conversion. These are but three of several titles about his exploration of faith. I can recommend these but would happily read others.
Is this it? It is a complete online book, The Everlasting Man, by G K Chesterton. Very handy for people who cannot easily get to a bookshop.

http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/chesterton/everlasting/content.htm
Yes, well found
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Joe Valente
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Penfold,

Are you saying that CS Lewis was a Catholic ?
What doth it profit a man if he gains the whole world but suffers the loss of his soul
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Joe Valente
Sunday, 7. June 2009, 23:11
Penfold,

Are you saying that CS Lewis was a Catholic ?



No, which is why he is lower in the list, sadly, he never came the whole way. He was however a very close friend of Tolkien and he wrote a great deal which would suggest a catholic sentiment.
I perhaps overstated his case but he was the one who almost made it into the fold and his writing is worth reading.

[Chesterton's The Everlasting Man contributed to C. S. Lewis's conversion to Christianity. In a letter to Sheldon Vanauken (14 December 1950)[23] Lewis calls the book "the best popular apologetic I know", and to Rhonda Bodle he wrote (31 December 1947)[24] "the [very] best popular defence of the full Christian position I know is G. K. Chesterton's The Everlasting Man."]

http://anglicancontinuum.blogspot.com/2008/09/following-is-from-write-up-about-book.html

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http://anglicancontinuum.blogspot.com/2008/09/following-is-from-write-up-about-book.html

I should explain the above reference to an Anglican site. To understand Lewis you need to understand that many English people consider themselves to be catholic but of the 'Church in England'. John Henry Newman led the trail to disprove the Via Media which many Anglicans still cling to. For Lewis accepting Rome was not without problems, he had issue with Marian devotion and his marriage but all these things could have been reconciled and many hoped that he would come the full distance before he died. Most of his later writing is very catholic and intellectually he was ready but spiritually he wavered and we can only pray for the cleansing power of purgatory, a doctrine he defended.
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PJD

I perhaps overstated his case but he was the one who almost made it into the fold and his writing is worth reading.

I don't think you have overstated the merit of Lewis' writings Penfold. I found them spiritually invigorating especially Mere Christianity.

PJD
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GRAHAM GREENE
I am a fan of Graham Greene and found his novels less taxing than many, which as a dyslexic is a major plus, and so he and Tolkien were my favourite authors as a teenager. His life and the abandonment of his wife would rule him out of serious consideration for sanctity, even though his mental state (He was what is now referred to as Bi--Polar) may have excused much of his behaviour. His writing speaks of a soul that has travelled the hard road. In the Power and the Glory he tells the tale of a priest who by accident finds himself the only priest remaining in a province of Mexico during the time of persecution. As a young priest he was a high-flyer and member of the social elite. He was fond of the high life and had even had affairs with women one of which had resulted in the birth of a child. In many respects he was a sinner and as circumstances changed he became addicted to alcohol. During the course of the novel we see him stripped of his priesthood as one by one his shortcomings are revealed and with the loss of his brievery the last outward vestige of his priesthood is removed. Eventually he makes it to safety and all could be well but he receives a call that takes him back into the lion’s den. I shall let you read the rest if you have not done so but the novel certainly reflects the title and he is ... well read on for yourselves.
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