Somewhere I heard that with the dissolution of the monasteries (however corrupt some of them might have been) the very fabric of communities was rent apart. I can well imagine this. I live near a monastery and even today, monasteries provide purpose, spiritual meaning, and succour to local communities. As of old, monasteries today can be corrupt, but the heart of them is above that. The loss of so many holy places which were also a practical help to their communities cannot be under-estimated. I wonder if this was the start point for the gradual loss of Christian belief in Britain. Imagine how it might have panned out had those monasteries thrived over the following centuries.
Interesting thoughts Kathy. We have two close friends living an enclosed Benedictine life. The spirituality of the female community of nuns, spills out into the local community in terms of prayer and commitment. This, in turn connects to the wider world. Local, sincere grounded spirituality, grows outwards. They live a simple life- with a small guest house.I believe that we can never overestimate the benefits of these ' thin spaces' - much needed during these changing times.
I live next door to an Orthodox monastery in a small tourist town known for its hot springs in northern California. This particular community of nuns has made a deliberate decision to become part of the fabric of the town because they don't want to appear weird to the residents. For example: there is elementary school next door and the nuns have participated in afterschool reading programs, these same children are given free reign to run through the monastery grounds and look at the koi pond and aviary that houses a few rescued grey parrots and other exotic birds, the nuns also have a small storefront where they sell homemade cookies (as well as many other interesting items) to those same kids as they walk home from school - for it has somehow miraculously remained a "walking town." The nuns also enjoy a good ice cream cone at the local ice cream parlor on special occasions. And they participate or attend some of the longstanding traditional town events, like the Tractor Parade. They have also taken in local women in need of a safe place to stay while they wait for more permanent housing. I could go on, but you get the idea. It is not my ideal place for a monastery, as it is essentially in the middle of the town, and so it is not especially peaceful or quiet. But it had been long abandoned when they were unexpectedly evicted from their former dwelling and sent here by their bishop to spiritually reinvigorate it. This may not have been the monastic life this community originally envisioned for itself, but they have embraced it as a gift with thanksgiving as a the place where God apparently wants them to be. After 15 years of living here, they have become very much a part of what makes this town so special.
Echoing the comment below, I wonder if Henry VIII was the beginning of the "welfare state". Up till then the church had collected tithes or taxes and used them - or was supposed to use them - for education, health care and the relief of the poor. Secular governments - kings - were more about defence of the realm/conquest. There is no perfect system. There never can be. As Paul has written elsewhere, we are all fallen creatures. But a state in which education, health care and the relief of the poor are underpinned by shared spirituality seems to me a much better way of organising things.
The poor and disabled who were dependent of the monasteries were left abandoned for a while. It was only in Elizabeth's reign that poor houses were founded- soon to become the infamous "work houses" which Dickens would deplore over two centuries later.
"Having been founded by a nephew of William the Conqueror (himself a one-man scandal), Binham started life with just eight monks, and despite its huge size it apparently never housed more than fourteen."
I traveled to Mt. Athos a few years ago, but ended up feeling more like a tourist than a Pilgrim. With that caveat, St. Panteleimon Monastery there felt like Binham — beautiful, but with the feel of a Potemkin Village.
I’m Catholic, but by the time of their dissolution by Henry VIII the English monasteries had largely arrived at the state of corruption and administrative bloat which Elon Musk and his DOGE team is finding in the US Federal government. Lots of grand, under-utilized buildings today as well.
Musk and his team of underaged boys are finding nothing of the sort in their slash and burn, which is doing inestimable damage to the fabric of institutions that serve our citizens. You don’t approach ‘waste and fraud’ with a chain saw, but a scalpel — as we are finding out. In fact, FAFO.
I am surprised to hear a Catholic describe the utter devastation visited on the English Church during the Dissolution as somehow ‘good’ thing. As a Lutheran even I know it was an utter catastrophe to their patrimony and the cohesion of their local society.
The grand, under-utilized buildings we see in the ruin of the British spiritual landscape today has many historical reasons, but Henry’s chain-saw savagery was its beginning.
Please do not foul the responses with political opinions. It’s uncouth and a waste of words.
The Catholic Church was being corrupted and any reasonable Catholic can probably see that a change was needed. Maybe the clutter of the churches had cluttered their spiritual eyes and minds? I don’t know, but the Reformation was a swing to the other extreme: a complete emptying. Although I’m grateful for the font being kept around. That thing is beautiful. :)
Fair comment. I’ve read “Stripping of the Altars”, but I stand by my comment. The older I get the more aware I am of how detached from reality biographers and academics are.
That’s why I don’t rely solely on a single source and instead exercise independent judgment based on what I’ve learned about how the world really works. Any other questions?
Very true—but I think it’s meant to be. Jesus tells us to take up our cross, not download the Catholic app. Thank you, this exchange will be a good Lenten reflection (I mean that sincerely and with brotherly love.)
One problem though: too many people who had not a shred of vocation were sent to become monks and nuns by families who could not or did not want to provide them with inheritance portions. The scholar Erasmus was one such, although he at least seems to have been a decent person, just not true monk material.
I've stayed at and visited nine Orthodox monasteries in the USA, from various jurisdictions, and saw nothing to indicate that any of those monasteries succumbed to corruption. The opposite, they were generous in sharing what they have, in welcoming travelers, and lending a listening ear. The monks or nuns created wonderful services, and seemed busy working between services. They often welcomed help and seemed happy to teach and guide helpers in a short prayer before a task and how to do what was needful.
It’s great that you had a good experience in the nine monasteries. A monk once told me that monasteries are paradise for visitors - heaven for a short stay - and I think that’s true.
It's true Jimmy Griggs was a fiddler and that he had a dog named Trap. But it wasn't he who discovered the tunnel. No, the tunnel was already known to the local boys, none of whom dared enter it. They'd all heard the tales.
Jimmy hailed from Thetford and had only been in the parts around Binham for a couple days. He was an itinerant fiddler.
"Well I'm not afraid to enter it," he said when the two Binham boys showed him where the entrance was. "What'll ya give me?"
They'd buy him two flagons if he got to the tunnel's end and returned.
They rigged up a small lantern that he slung from his side. He was to keep fiddling as he walked. That way the boys outside could judge how far in he'd gone.
Jimmy and the dog entered the tunnel. He proceeded slowly, fiddling as he went. Then suddenly he stopped fiddling. He noticed Trap was no longer with him.
"Trap! Trap!" he shouted.
The Binham boys outside, hearing the fiddler shouting about a trap, fled in fright.
The dog soon caught up with them.
Jimmy, thinking Trap must have gone further into the tunnel, proceeded on, the lantern flickering. In fact he heard a faint rustling ahead of him, just beyond the lantern's reach.
Alright, I've done my part. One of you take it from here. I figure Jimmy ends up in Galway, but that's just me.
Trap, Trap is that you boy? In the dim flickering glow of the lantern he saw not his dog but what looked like a shrouded figure. In a burst of fear Jimmy turned to run only to find another shrouded figure blocking his exit. “Do not fear young man. Your dog is safe. Why don’t you play us a tune on that fiddle of yours.”
As strong as his fear was, now an inexplicable peace enveloped Jimmy. The tunnel shown with a light now strong enough that Jimmy could see, not two, but now fourteen shrouded figures. Except shrouds they were not. Fourteen frocked figures they were. The monks of Binham they were.
And above their frocks were faces, each one with features deeply etched in the light cast by the flaming torches the monks carried. All that is except for one. He was smaller than the rest. His height would reach only just to Jimmy’s shoulder. Jimmy was not a tall man. Partly this was the make of him. But partly he was born at the start of the three worst summers in the collective memory; a memory that was rooted in at least one hundred years, such was the treasury of stories kept alive in the in taverns and hearths of his village and beyond. This was the reason why, so his mother said, that his legs bowed wide at the knees. Why unlike his brothers he could not run without lolloping from side to side. She told him not to take it to heart. There was nothing could be done about the tenacious rains and frost and the havoc they wrought. Once he had heard her say that she lost her teeth when he was a baby. He couldn’t bring himself to ask her about that.
All these memories unearthed in the moment he saw that the small monk with no shadows to his face was not a man a man at all, but only a boy. Perhaps thirteen or fourteen years old
The boy said in a hoarse whisper, 'Jimmy, Jimmy is that really you?' 'How do you know my name?' asked Jimmy, with the strange feeling that he knew the child from somewhere; something about the cast of his face was strangely familiar, he backed away slowly, dread filling his body.
The lantern light flickered and dipped in the cold breeze that blew down the tunnel. The monks advanced on Jimmy and surrounded him in a ring of flickering torches, and began a low sonorous chant sending a shiver through his bones.
Wonderful photos and history. The ransacking of beautiful places is where the evil begins. It leaves a void that fills with what we seem to have now. Ugly buildings and depressed humanity.. not the exact quote from that famous Russian but ‘ in beauty is salvation’
The Church in Ireland retained control over functions like education and health until fairly recently. There were well documented issues and abuses, but also many wonderful religious who dedicated their lives to helping the poor. Newly secular Ireland's record on looking after its most vulnerable doesn't impress me much - 'fumbling in the greasy till' is what it does best imo.
The church still controls the schools here. Not that you would really know it. I have several Irish friends who went through 15 years of Catholic-run education who have no idea what Catholicism is even about!
A very interesting older book (early 1900's) on the subject of the English monateries is "The Ruined Abbeys of Great Britain," by the noted architect Ralph Adams Cram, who was an American Anglo-Catholic. Copies are not too hard to come by, but do try to obtain one that has the original B&W photographs (some editions do not).
By the way Cram also wrote a very good little book of ghost stories, "Black Spirits and White."
As an inhabitant of Walsingham I have been enjoying your series on Walsingham's spiritual history. Binham is a lovely village that we like to retreat to in the summer, when Walsingham's narrow streets get packed with pilgrims and tourists (I feel a congestion charge is just round the corner!). We like to picnic in the priory ruins and imagine the monks going around their business around us in whatever 'room' we are in.
The interior of the present Anglican church is full of ecclesiastical history, and 'furniture' as you describe. No sign of a tunnel yet but if you visit on a summer's evening you'll see the sun shining through the large round window above the bricked-in gothic windows, casting colour patterns from the stained glass onto the stone floor. It gives a mystical air to an already peaceful ambience.
"After the Reformation, it was whitewashed and covered instead with Bible verses."
I would contend that is a good thing. For much of church history our architecture was simple and elegant. It wasn't until the church had become so corrupt and rich through its corruption that the buildings became more and more ornate and lavish. Our Lord has strong words for those who make broad their phylacteries and enlarge their garments.
The lives of the great saints we so enjoy to read, those of Augustine and Benedict, and "After the Reformation, it was whitewashed and covered instead with Bible verses."
I would contend that is a good thing. For much of church history our architecture was simple and elegant. It wasn't until the church had become so corrupt and rich through its corruption that the buildings became more and more ornate and lavish. Our Lord has strong words for those who make broad their phylacteries and enlarge their garments.
The lives of the great saints we so enjoy to read, those of Augustine and Benedict, and Basil and Athanasius, not to mention Maximus the Confessor, were all built upon their knowledge and love of the Scriptures, which led them to Christ.
We follow them, as St. Paul writes, as we follow Christ.
At its best the Reformation was a retrieval of the beauty of Christ and His benefits given to us. It was also a return to the simplicity as taught by Augustine and Benedict in their ancient monastic orders.
I think there is a balance to be had. Personally, I prefer small and simple churches to vast, ornate cathedrals (St Peter's, for example, makes me gag.) But it's not a matter of 'scripture' versus a corrupt church. 'Scripture', of course, was a creation of that church. And the mass destruction of, for example, the icons of saints by Reformers was, in my view, an act of spiritual vandalism.
The problem the Reformation has/had is that it led not to a simpler, more Christ-like Christianity, but to continental war followed by a splintering into tens of thousands of tiny 'churches' all claiming that they alone were interpreting the bible correctly. It also, in denying anything beyond what was written down, led to a more worldly faith - and ultimately to secularism. The saints you mention certainly loved and knew the Scriptures well - but they also defended the church.
I would agree in part, but disagree with it being the Reformation that led to a worldly faith. For every Protestant church you find that falls into that worldly faith, I can show you another that looks like the early church, filled with men and women who take care to tend souls and tend the earth and lead a life of faith that sees everyone as their neighbor.
The worldly faith that infected the church had already happened decades before the Reformation. I think you would enjoy the works of the Italian Reformers Juan De Valdez and Don Benedetto. Their works showed not simply how worldly the church had become, but also offered a helpful critique of the Italian humanism that has since infected the world. Their works showed how Christ's life, death, and resurrection gives us strength and everything we need to live deeper lives, unified with Christ because of His atoning sacrifice, and lead quiet and peaceful lives, dignified in every way.
You and I are in agreement that many in the Evangelical church have gone astray and in many ways looks like the shallow humanism of the Renaissance, where "what we do determines who we are." Instead, we need to continue the work of retrieval, as you have been doing, and return to the sources of great wisdom found in the early church and desert fathers, who themselves drew from the font of Christ, the author and perfector of our faith, and God's final word to us as we read in that beautiful work of the letter to the Hebrews.
I know as a Protestant we have disagreements especially surrounding the Reformation. But I know we also have much in common, and I praise God for one of my good friends introducing me to your work. And through it I was reintroduced to Wendell Berry.
And because of you, there is a library in the small town of Commerce, Texas, that is hosting its inaugural Wendell Berry Book Club. We plan to discuss his short story collection, Fidelity.
I had to come back to this comment Paul. By St Peter’s you meant the Basilica I’m assuming? If so that’s a pretty extreme visceral reaction. I have never been - it doesn’t attract me and I’m Catholic. I am not particularly drawn to visit and indeed wonder about how I would react.
I have a friend, an American Jew who described her own visit. She is not religious but was moved by the experience. She said that she observed something unique. That this was a place of worship where ‘all the world enters here’ and when she stood before the Pieta she cried because it ‘spoke to all women’. She placed this within the Christian story and when she told me about it, sat eating a curry in a restaurant, she cried again. Sometimes I get a sense that you have a deeply rooted reactionary spirit, that will always stand against - I can’t put my finger on it - but Catholicism with it’s ordered and overarching authority that is centralised would be one example of something you would naturally and strongly go against and probably never subscribe to, because it’s your nature. Does this capture any truth? And if so, does it sometimes mean that your vision is foggy, not being able to see beyond this strong natural tendency? I suppose in this instance, the good, of the place which extends to so many peoples? I like your honesty about how you reacted, and maybe I would react the same, but it’s a pretty awful statement and I wonder if there is anything you could add (good in particular if there is anything to state here - maybe not - but also bad or ugly that you can articulate and that came with reflection?
I don't think it's an awful statement. It's just my honest, personal reaction to that building. I'm not saying others should react that way. It's not tied up necessarily with my feelings about the Papacy. It was just a bodily reaction to a building which is vast, built of cold marble, literally baroque and felt to me extremely cold. I got no sense of holiness from it.
There is a context however - I visited St Peter's having come from underneath it. I toured the catacombs beneath the Vatican, and I stood before St Peter's very modest grave - and his relics. His bones are visible down there. It was a powerful experience. The essence of the simplicity and humility of the Christian path. The contrast with what is above it today was perhaps too great.
My nature, I think, reacts strongly against vast excrescences of power. I dislike the Papacy and its claims for that reason. That's not the same as disliking Catholicism per se. Too much power is a perennial human problem, and a universal one.
I’m glad that you offered an honest and personal reaction Paul and I hope you didn’t feel that this was something that needed to be defended, due to my response. I find these kind of statements in your writing sometimes the most interesting to dig into. To describe church as a place that gave such a visceral response that was so at odds with what it is designed to do is what I meant by ‘awful’. I think I need to improve my own use of language. That contrast you describe between the relics and tomb of Peter and the place is a powerful insight.
Well, as I've said a few times I think, I prefer small, intimate places of worship. I visited St Paul's in London, which is of course Anglican, and also baroque and marble, and I felt the same there. The baroque marble is probably a factor! But size matters. Small is beautiful to me.
I'm Catholic and I felt the same. Vast marble palace filled with statutes of dead Italian men. I actually had a chance to go to one of the last Masses that JP II ever conducted and backed out of it, as the place made me feel ill. I remember thinking a barefoot Palestinian carpenter wouldn't be welcome there. Ditto St Paul's, a temple for rich people imo.
Coming up from St Peter's relics and standing in 'St Peter's' basilica gave me exactly the same reaction. I imagined the actual St Peter - or, indeed, Jesus - walking into it, and I couldn't imagine them approving.
It's also an irony that that building was one of the direct causes of the Reformation. Selling indulgences to fund it was one of the things that angered Luther. The building of St Peter's in many ways ruined the church.
I’m Catholic and have never been, partly because I fear how I might react - ie as you did and Paul also described. I am struck by how visceral a response you both had. You have stayed Catholic - how have you integrated this dissonance? Has it been fairly simply resolved?
Re: For much of church history our architecture was simple and elegant.
Well, Hagia Sophia in Constantinople was not baroque but it was (and is) a work of great beauty, and was adorned as such inside until the Turks got rid of the iconography.
Off topic... Today I spent the afternoon in Voiron, in the Isère department in France, in the place where Chartreuse liquor is sold. We took a guided tour of the now almost abandoned cellar. I'm sure that people here can look up and read about the Chartreuse liquor : green and yellow Chartreuse which is apparently quite well known in the U.S. The liquor has been made by monks in the isolated monastery of La Grande Chartreuse for a long time now, and despite great hardship, and on and off persecution by the French state in tussles that must have something in common with Henry VIII's desire to get his hands on Church assets.
Chartreuse liquor is made by a community of monks that live in almost total silence, have no Internet connections, no cell phones, and can talk with each other for 4 hours a week. The rest of the time they spend in silence, in Bible readings, and prayer. In the course of a very long day, they pray from 11:00 PM to 3:00A.M. From 25-30 monks are involved in the preparation of the liquor, but only two at any one time know the total recipe, and the intricate pertinent details to prepare the liquor.
In Voiron you can see a business operation which is exemplary, and must be making a lot of money, which is redistributed, as the needs AND DESIRES of the monks are very simple. The life of a monk at La Grande Chartreuse is a difficult one, and 180° away from the nature of the business operation involved in marketing and distributing what the monks produce in the monastery. It is rumored that the monks use only plants that are local, but this is not true. The plants that go into the Chartreuse liquor come from all over the world.
What I really like is knowing that the monks still don't have Internet or cell phones, and their life is devoted to prayer, so... it can still be done, and people are doing it. For sure.. i am not doing it, but I like knowing that other people are still living like this and prayer for all of us poor lost, corrupt souls.
Hello Debra. I read and appreciate all your posts although I don't comment much any more. You are a very good writer and express many of the things I feel but don't have the skill to write. I still think green Chartreuse is the best most complex drink I have ever had. Very expensive for me to buy now. Why is the cellar now "almost abandoned"?
Years ago my wife and I visited Shrewsbury Abbey (or what's left of it). For you Brother Cadfael Mysteries fans, this is the place the books were set at. Similar story of dissolution in its later days. By the time of Henry VIII, the place was barely functional, with just a handful of monks left, and likely would have been dissolved anyway. It's odd what remains. The abbey church remains, but it transepts were truncated, and since it was originally a cathedral it was also much longer, till the choir and lady chapel were removed. What you have today is just the narthex and nave, and two transept stubs, of the original structure. The refectory pulpit sits outside across a highway that runs right through the original grounds. And of course the interior lacks the colors of the original, but I think is a Georgian, not a Victorian restoration, so not quite as drab (but it was 25 years ago when I was there, so my memory is unreliable at this point).
Thank you for your compliment, Dr. Beisler. I am vain enough to like (sincerely expressed) compliments...
At the place we visited, the cellar has been abandoned because it is in the middle of the small city, right next to the train station, and the volume of alcohol present in it represented a potential danger to the city. The cellar has been moved to a less dangerous location. But the monks have expressed their FIRM INTENTION of not giving in to pressure, and will keep their production... WITHIN REASONABLE LIMITS, so as to not exhaust the plants OR PEOPLE involved in producing Chartreuse. I greatly admire their determination and ethic.
Somewhere I heard that with the dissolution of the monasteries (however corrupt some of them might have been) the very fabric of communities was rent apart. I can well imagine this. I live near a monastery and even today, monasteries provide purpose, spiritual meaning, and succour to local communities. As of old, monasteries today can be corrupt, but the heart of them is above that. The loss of so many holy places which were also a practical help to their communities cannot be under-estimated. I wonder if this was the start point for the gradual loss of Christian belief in Britain. Imagine how it might have panned out had those monasteries thrived over the following centuries.
Interesting thoughts Kathy. We have two close friends living an enclosed Benedictine life. The spirituality of the female community of nuns, spills out into the local community in terms of prayer and commitment. This, in turn connects to the wider world. Local, sincere grounded spirituality, grows outwards. They live a simple life- with a small guest house.I believe that we can never overestimate the benefits of these ' thin spaces' - much needed during these changing times.
I live next door to an Orthodox monastery in a small tourist town known for its hot springs in northern California. This particular community of nuns has made a deliberate decision to become part of the fabric of the town because they don't want to appear weird to the residents. For example: there is elementary school next door and the nuns have participated in afterschool reading programs, these same children are given free reign to run through the monastery grounds and look at the koi pond and aviary that houses a few rescued grey parrots and other exotic birds, the nuns also have a small storefront where they sell homemade cookies (as well as many other interesting items) to those same kids as they walk home from school - for it has somehow miraculously remained a "walking town." The nuns also enjoy a good ice cream cone at the local ice cream parlor on special occasions. And they participate or attend some of the longstanding traditional town events, like the Tractor Parade. They have also taken in local women in need of a safe place to stay while they wait for more permanent housing. I could go on, but you get the idea. It is not my ideal place for a monastery, as it is essentially in the middle of the town, and so it is not especially peaceful or quiet. But it had been long abandoned when they were unexpectedly evicted from their former dwelling and sent here by their bishop to spiritually reinvigorate it. This may not have been the monastic life this community originally envisioned for itself, but they have embraced it as a gift with thanksgiving as a the place where God apparently wants them to be. After 15 years of living here, they have become very much a part of what makes this town so special.
Eamon Duffy has written several books on this subject, the most famous being "The Stripping of the Altars."
Echoing the comment below, I wonder if Henry VIII was the beginning of the "welfare state". Up till then the church had collected tithes or taxes and used them - or was supposed to use them - for education, health care and the relief of the poor. Secular governments - kings - were more about defence of the realm/conquest. There is no perfect system. There never can be. As Paul has written elsewhere, we are all fallen creatures. But a state in which education, health care and the relief of the poor are underpinned by shared spirituality seems to me a much better way of organising things.
The poor and disabled who were dependent of the monasteries were left abandoned for a while. It was only in Elizabeth's reign that poor houses were founded- soon to become the infamous "work houses" which Dickens would deplore over two centuries later.
"Having been founded by a nephew of William the Conqueror (himself a one-man scandal), Binham started life with just eight monks, and despite its huge size it apparently never housed more than fourteen."
I traveled to Mt. Athos a few years ago, but ended up feeling more like a tourist than a Pilgrim. With that caveat, St. Panteleimon Monastery there felt like Binham — beautiful, but with the feel of a Potemkin Village.
History rhymes.
I’m Catholic, but by the time of their dissolution by Henry VIII the English monasteries had largely arrived at the state of corruption and administrative bloat which Elon Musk and his DOGE team is finding in the US Federal government. Lots of grand, under-utilized buildings today as well.
Musk and his team of underaged boys are finding nothing of the sort in their slash and burn, which is doing inestimable damage to the fabric of institutions that serve our citizens. You don’t approach ‘waste and fraud’ with a chain saw, but a scalpel — as we are finding out. In fact, FAFO.
I am surprised to hear a Catholic describe the utter devastation visited on the English Church during the Dissolution as somehow ‘good’ thing. As a Lutheran even I know it was an utter catastrophe to their patrimony and the cohesion of their local society.
The grand, under-utilized buildings we see in the ruin of the British spiritual landscape today has many historical reasons, but Henry’s chain-saw savagery was its beginning.
I voted for the chain saw. The federal government is doing many things it does not have the right to do under the constitution.
Please do not foul the responses with political opinions. It’s uncouth and a waste of words.
The Catholic Church was being corrupted and any reasonable Catholic can probably see that a change was needed. Maybe the clutter of the churches had cluttered their spiritual eyes and minds? I don’t know, but the Reformation was a swing to the other extreme: a complete emptying. Although I’m grateful for the font being kept around. That thing is beautiful. :)
Leaving out the Musk/DOGE stuff, I think Eamon Duffy has put paid to the idea that the monasteries were "largely" corrupt.
Fair comment. I’ve read “Stripping of the Altars”, but I stand by my comment. The older I get the more aware I am of how detached from reality biographers and academics are.
But you only know about the corruption and bloat except via other biographers and academics, right?
That’s why I don’t rely solely on a single source and instead exercise independent judgment based on what I’ve learned about how the world really works. Any other questions?
Not really, although such a view would seem to make adherence to Catholicism somewhat problematic.
Very true—but I think it’s meant to be. Jesus tells us to take up our cross, not download the Catholic app. Thank you, this exchange will be a good Lenten reflection (I mean that sincerely and with brotherly love.)
One problem though: too many people who had not a shred of vocation were sent to become monks and nuns by families who could not or did not want to provide them with inheritance portions. The scholar Erasmus was one such, although he at least seems to have been a decent person, just not true monk material.
Many monasteries still succumb to corruption.
I've stayed at and visited nine Orthodox monasteries in the USA, from various jurisdictions, and saw nothing to indicate that any of those monasteries succumbed to corruption. The opposite, they were generous in sharing what they have, in welcoming travelers, and lending a listening ear. The monks or nuns created wonderful services, and seemed busy working between services. They often welcomed help and seemed happy to teach and guide helpers in a short prayer before a task and how to do what was needful.
It’s great that you had a good experience in the nine monasteries. A monk once told me that monasteries are paradise for visitors - heaven for a short stay - and I think that’s true.
It's true Jimmy Griggs was a fiddler and that he had a dog named Trap. But it wasn't he who discovered the tunnel. No, the tunnel was already known to the local boys, none of whom dared enter it. They'd all heard the tales.
Jimmy hailed from Thetford and had only been in the parts around Binham for a couple days. He was an itinerant fiddler.
"Well I'm not afraid to enter it," he said when the two Binham boys showed him where the entrance was. "What'll ya give me?"
They'd buy him two flagons if he got to the tunnel's end and returned.
They rigged up a small lantern that he slung from his side. He was to keep fiddling as he walked. That way the boys outside could judge how far in he'd gone.
Jimmy and the dog entered the tunnel. He proceeded slowly, fiddling as he went. Then suddenly he stopped fiddling. He noticed Trap was no longer with him.
"Trap! Trap!" he shouted.
The Binham boys outside, hearing the fiddler shouting about a trap, fled in fright.
The dog soon caught up with them.
Jimmy, thinking Trap must have gone further into the tunnel, proceeded on, the lantern flickering. In fact he heard a faint rustling ahead of him, just beyond the lantern's reach.
Alright, I've done my part. One of you take it from here. I figure Jimmy ends up in Galway, but that's just me.
This is excellent. Maybe readers can take turns telling the next part of this story until it is finished. If it ever finishes ....
Well, if Jimmy ends up in Galway, I'm afeared it'll never finish. ;)
Trap, Trap is that you boy? In the dim flickering glow of the lantern he saw not his dog but what looked like a shrouded figure. In a burst of fear Jimmy turned to run only to find another shrouded figure blocking his exit. “Do not fear young man. Your dog is safe. Why don’t you play us a tune on that fiddle of yours.”
As strong as his fear was, now an inexplicable peace enveloped Jimmy. The tunnel shown with a light now strong enough that Jimmy could see, not two, but now fourteen shrouded figures. Except shrouds they were not. Fourteen frocked figures they were. The monks of Binham they were.
Next…
And above their frocks were faces, each one with features deeply etched in the light cast by the flaming torches the monks carried. All that is except for one. He was smaller than the rest. His height would reach only just to Jimmy’s shoulder. Jimmy was not a tall man. Partly this was the make of him. But partly he was born at the start of the three worst summers in the collective memory; a memory that was rooted in at least one hundred years, such was the treasury of stories kept alive in the in taverns and hearths of his village and beyond. This was the reason why, so his mother said, that his legs bowed wide at the knees. Why unlike his brothers he could not run without lolloping from side to side. She told him not to take it to heart. There was nothing could be done about the tenacious rains and frost and the havoc they wrought. Once he had heard her say that she lost her teeth when he was a baby. He couldn’t bring himself to ask her about that.
All these memories unearthed in the moment he saw that the small monk with no shadows to his face was not a man a man at all, but only a boy. Perhaps thirteen or fourteen years old
Next,
The boy said in a hoarse whisper, 'Jimmy, Jimmy is that really you?' 'How do you know my name?' asked Jimmy, with the strange feeling that he knew the child from somewhere; something about the cast of his face was strangely familiar, he backed away slowly, dread filling his body.
The lantern light flickered and dipped in the cold breeze that blew down the tunnel. The monks advanced on Jimmy and surrounded him in a ring of flickering torches, and began a low sonorous chant sending a shiver through his bones.
Next.
Is the roof screen the sage as an iconostasis in the Orthodox church?
I think it is the Western equivalent. It screens the nave, in which the congregation gather, from the altar.
It's "rood" not "roof," by the way.
Wonderful photos and history. The ransacking of beautiful places is where the evil begins. It leaves a void that fills with what we seem to have now. Ugly buildings and depressed humanity.. not the exact quote from that famous Russian but ‘ in beauty is salvation’
If you have not read The Ethics of Beauty by Timothy Patitsas, I highly recommend it. It's probably the most profound book I have ever read.
The Church in Ireland retained control over functions like education and health until fairly recently. There were well documented issues and abuses, but also many wonderful religious who dedicated their lives to helping the poor. Newly secular Ireland's record on looking after its most vulnerable doesn't impress me much - 'fumbling in the greasy till' is what it does best imo.
The church still controls the schools here. Not that you would really know it. I have several Irish friends who went through 15 years of Catholic-run education who have no idea what Catholicism is even about!
A very interesting older book (early 1900's) on the subject of the English monateries is "The Ruined Abbeys of Great Britain," by the noted architect Ralph Adams Cram, who was an American Anglo-Catholic. Copies are not too hard to come by, but do try to obtain one that has the original B&W photographs (some editions do not).
By the way Cram also wrote a very good little book of ghost stories, "Black Spirits and White."
“We’re back!” truly hit the mark this Sunday morning. Now let me find a cloth to wipe up the coffee that was once in my mouth :) Thank you!!!
I thought that was hilarious, too!
As an inhabitant of Walsingham I have been enjoying your series on Walsingham's spiritual history. Binham is a lovely village that we like to retreat to in the summer, when Walsingham's narrow streets get packed with pilgrims and tourists (I feel a congestion charge is just round the corner!). We like to picnic in the priory ruins and imagine the monks going around their business around us in whatever 'room' we are in.
The interior of the present Anglican church is full of ecclesiastical history, and 'furniture' as you describe. No sign of a tunnel yet but if you visit on a summer's evening you'll see the sun shining through the large round window above the bricked-in gothic windows, casting colour patterns from the stained glass onto the stone floor. It gives a mystical air to an already peaceful ambience.
"After the Reformation, it was whitewashed and covered instead with Bible verses."
I would contend that is a good thing. For much of church history our architecture was simple and elegant. It wasn't until the church had become so corrupt and rich through its corruption that the buildings became more and more ornate and lavish. Our Lord has strong words for those who make broad their phylacteries and enlarge their garments.
The lives of the great saints we so enjoy to read, those of Augustine and Benedict, and "After the Reformation, it was whitewashed and covered instead with Bible verses."
I would contend that is a good thing. For much of church history our architecture was simple and elegant. It wasn't until the church had become so corrupt and rich through its corruption that the buildings became more and more ornate and lavish. Our Lord has strong words for those who make broad their phylacteries and enlarge their garments.
The lives of the great saints we so enjoy to read, those of Augustine and Benedict, and Basil and Athanasius, not to mention Maximus the Confessor, were all built upon their knowledge and love of the Scriptures, which led them to Christ.
We follow them, as St. Paul writes, as we follow Christ.
Sorry, meant to write, as they followed Christ.
At its best the Reformation was a retrieval of the beauty of Christ and His benefits given to us. It was also a return to the simplicity as taught by Augustine and Benedict in their ancient monastic orders.
I think there is a balance to be had. Personally, I prefer small and simple churches to vast, ornate cathedrals (St Peter's, for example, makes me gag.) But it's not a matter of 'scripture' versus a corrupt church. 'Scripture', of course, was a creation of that church. And the mass destruction of, for example, the icons of saints by Reformers was, in my view, an act of spiritual vandalism.
The problem the Reformation has/had is that it led not to a simpler, more Christ-like Christianity, but to continental war followed by a splintering into tens of thousands of tiny 'churches' all claiming that they alone were interpreting the bible correctly. It also, in denying anything beyond what was written down, led to a more worldly faith - and ultimately to secularism. The saints you mention certainly loved and knew the Scriptures well - but they also defended the church.
I would agree in part, but disagree with it being the Reformation that led to a worldly faith. For every Protestant church you find that falls into that worldly faith, I can show you another that looks like the early church, filled with men and women who take care to tend souls and tend the earth and lead a life of faith that sees everyone as their neighbor.
The worldly faith that infected the church had already happened decades before the Reformation. I think you would enjoy the works of the Italian Reformers Juan De Valdez and Don Benedetto. Their works showed not simply how worldly the church had become, but also offered a helpful critique of the Italian humanism that has since infected the world. Their works showed how Christ's life, death, and resurrection gives us strength and everything we need to live deeper lives, unified with Christ because of His atoning sacrifice, and lead quiet and peaceful lives, dignified in every way.
You and I are in agreement that many in the Evangelical church have gone astray and in many ways looks like the shallow humanism of the Renaissance, where "what we do determines who we are." Instead, we need to continue the work of retrieval, as you have been doing, and return to the sources of great wisdom found in the early church and desert fathers, who themselves drew from the font of Christ, the author and perfector of our faith, and God's final word to us as we read in that beautiful work of the letter to the Hebrews.
I know as a Protestant we have disagreements especially surrounding the Reformation. But I know we also have much in common, and I praise God for one of my good friends introducing me to your work. And through it I was reintroduced to Wendell Berry.
And because of you, there is a library in the small town of Commerce, Texas, that is hosting its inaugural Wendell Berry Book Club. We plan to discuss his short story collection, Fidelity.
I had to come back to this comment Paul. By St Peter’s you meant the Basilica I’m assuming? If so that’s a pretty extreme visceral reaction. I have never been - it doesn’t attract me and I’m Catholic. I am not particularly drawn to visit and indeed wonder about how I would react.
I have a friend, an American Jew who described her own visit. She is not religious but was moved by the experience. She said that she observed something unique. That this was a place of worship where ‘all the world enters here’ and when she stood before the Pieta she cried because it ‘spoke to all women’. She placed this within the Christian story and when she told me about it, sat eating a curry in a restaurant, she cried again. Sometimes I get a sense that you have a deeply rooted reactionary spirit, that will always stand against - I can’t put my finger on it - but Catholicism with it’s ordered and overarching authority that is centralised would be one example of something you would naturally and strongly go against and probably never subscribe to, because it’s your nature. Does this capture any truth? And if so, does it sometimes mean that your vision is foggy, not being able to see beyond this strong natural tendency? I suppose in this instance, the good, of the place which extends to so many peoples? I like your honesty about how you reacted, and maybe I would react the same, but it’s a pretty awful statement and I wonder if there is anything you could add (good in particular if there is anything to state here - maybe not - but also bad or ugly that you can articulate and that came with reflection?
I don't think it's an awful statement. It's just my honest, personal reaction to that building. I'm not saying others should react that way. It's not tied up necessarily with my feelings about the Papacy. It was just a bodily reaction to a building which is vast, built of cold marble, literally baroque and felt to me extremely cold. I got no sense of holiness from it.
There is a context however - I visited St Peter's having come from underneath it. I toured the catacombs beneath the Vatican, and I stood before St Peter's very modest grave - and his relics. His bones are visible down there. It was a powerful experience. The essence of the simplicity and humility of the Christian path. The contrast with what is above it today was perhaps too great.
My nature, I think, reacts strongly against vast excrescences of power. I dislike the Papacy and its claims for that reason. That's not the same as disliking Catholicism per se. Too much power is a perennial human problem, and a universal one.
I’m glad that you offered an honest and personal reaction Paul and I hope you didn’t feel that this was something that needed to be defended, due to my response. I find these kind of statements in your writing sometimes the most interesting to dig into. To describe church as a place that gave such a visceral response that was so at odds with what it is designed to do is what I meant by ‘awful’. I think I need to improve my own use of language. That contrast you describe between the relics and tomb of Peter and the place is a powerful insight.
Well, as I've said a few times I think, I prefer small, intimate places of worship. I visited St Paul's in London, which is of course Anglican, and also baroque and marble, and I felt the same there. The baroque marble is probably a factor! But size matters. Small is beautiful to me.
I'm Catholic and I felt the same. Vast marble palace filled with statutes of dead Italian men. I actually had a chance to go to one of the last Masses that JP II ever conducted and backed out of it, as the place made me feel ill. I remember thinking a barefoot Palestinian carpenter wouldn't be welcome there. Ditto St Paul's, a temple for rich people imo.
Coming up from St Peter's relics and standing in 'St Peter's' basilica gave me exactly the same reaction. I imagined the actual St Peter - or, indeed, Jesus - walking into it, and I couldn't imagine them approving.
It's also an irony that that building was one of the direct causes of the Reformation. Selling indulgences to fund it was one of the things that angered Luther. The building of St Peter's in many ways ruined the church.
I’m Catholic and have never been, partly because I fear how I might react - ie as you did and Paul also described. I am struck by how visceral a response you both had. You have stayed Catholic - how have you integrated this dissonance? Has it been fairly simply resolved?
Re: For much of church history our architecture was simple and elegant.
Well, Hagia Sophia in Constantinople was not baroque but it was (and is) a work of great beauty, and was adorned as such inside until the Turks got rid of the iconography.
Off topic... Today I spent the afternoon in Voiron, in the Isère department in France, in the place where Chartreuse liquor is sold. We took a guided tour of the now almost abandoned cellar. I'm sure that people here can look up and read about the Chartreuse liquor : green and yellow Chartreuse which is apparently quite well known in the U.S. The liquor has been made by monks in the isolated monastery of La Grande Chartreuse for a long time now, and despite great hardship, and on and off persecution by the French state in tussles that must have something in common with Henry VIII's desire to get his hands on Church assets.
Chartreuse liquor is made by a community of monks that live in almost total silence, have no Internet connections, no cell phones, and can talk with each other for 4 hours a week. The rest of the time they spend in silence, in Bible readings, and prayer. In the course of a very long day, they pray from 11:00 PM to 3:00A.M. From 25-30 monks are involved in the preparation of the liquor, but only two at any one time know the total recipe, and the intricate pertinent details to prepare the liquor.
In Voiron you can see a business operation which is exemplary, and must be making a lot of money, which is redistributed, as the needs AND DESIRES of the monks are very simple. The life of a monk at La Grande Chartreuse is a difficult one, and 180° away from the nature of the business operation involved in marketing and distributing what the monks produce in the monastery. It is rumored that the monks use only plants that are local, but this is not true. The plants that go into the Chartreuse liquor come from all over the world.
What I really like is knowing that the monks still don't have Internet or cell phones, and their life is devoted to prayer, so... it can still be done, and people are doing it. For sure.. i am not doing it, but I like knowing that other people are still living like this and prayer for all of us poor lost, corrupt souls.
Hello Debra. I read and appreciate all your posts although I don't comment much any more. You are a very good writer and express many of the things I feel but don't have the skill to write. I still think green Chartreuse is the best most complex drink I have ever had. Very expensive for me to buy now. Why is the cellar now "almost abandoned"?
Could be there aren’t enough monks to make it on a regular basis.??? 🤷🏻♀️
Also agreed, Chartreuse is sublime.
There is a BEAUTIFUL documentary about that very Carthusian monastery: https://youtu.be/aClOJzUFIvs?si=GRUXjFpnoe4LEGN5
It’s long and meditative and well…quite. Shows many things, among which is making Chartreuse! Highly recommend! BTW Chartreuse is wonderful stuff!
Thank you for telling me about this documentary, Leonore. Although I don't watch many videos, I may try to watch this one.
FYI, it’s long movie, no plot just beautiful stillness and silence. You will see. 🙏
I love these stories! You made laugh out loud a couple of times! I think if you were ever a monk you would be a cheeky one!
Years ago my wife and I visited Shrewsbury Abbey (or what's left of it). For you Brother Cadfael Mysteries fans, this is the place the books were set at. Similar story of dissolution in its later days. By the time of Henry VIII, the place was barely functional, with just a handful of monks left, and likely would have been dissolved anyway. It's odd what remains. The abbey church remains, but it transepts were truncated, and since it was originally a cathedral it was also much longer, till the choir and lady chapel were removed. What you have today is just the narthex and nave, and two transept stubs, of the original structure. The refectory pulpit sits outside across a highway that runs right through the original grounds. And of course the interior lacks the colors of the original, but I think is a Georgian, not a Victorian restoration, so not quite as drab (but it was 25 years ago when I was there, so my memory is unreliable at this point).
Thank you for your compliment, Dr. Beisler. I am vain enough to like (sincerely expressed) compliments...
At the place we visited, the cellar has been abandoned because it is in the middle of the small city, right next to the train station, and the volume of alcohol present in it represented a potential danger to the city. The cellar has been moved to a less dangerous location. But the monks have expressed their FIRM INTENTION of not giving in to pressure, and will keep their production... WITHIN REASONABLE LIMITS, so as to not exhaust the plants OR PEOPLE involved in producing Chartreuse. I greatly admire their determination and ethic.