Notes on the Lord's Prayer

Notes on the Lord's Prayer by Raissa Maritain, 122 pages

Assembled posthumously from notes left by the author for a work that was never completed, Notes on the Lord's Prayer is a commentary on the seven petitions of the Paternoster as recorded by St Matthew: Hallowed be thy name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, Give us this day our daily bread, Forgive us our trespasses, Lead us not into temptation, and Deliver us from evil.

In his foreword, Thomas Merton laments the modern division between "spirituality" and "theology", recommending this book as a corrective.  This should provide a suggestion of the depth of thought as well as feeling, of sense as well as sensibility, present in this meditation, designed not only as a pious exercise but also as an exploration of the divine mysteries.

Cardinal Manning

Cardinal Manning: A Biography by Robert Gray, 327 pages

Henry Manning did not set out to become a clergyman.  Financial pressures forced him away from a promising future in law and politics into a clerical career in the Church of England.  He did not set out to become a Catholic.  A long process led him from his upbringing in the heart of Evangelical piety into a more grounded, apostolic faith, and only a genuine crisis of conscience drove him out of Anglicanism.  Having become Catholic, however, and a Catholic priest, he did set out to take a leading position in the Catholic Church in England.  Conscious of his own considerable gifts, he was not reluctant to use them to guide the Church and society in the direction he thought best.

In his own time, Manning was highly esteemed.  Although his conversion cost him many of those dazzling friendships he had made in his youth, his tireless efforts for the working classes of England won for him an admiration far broader and no less genuine.  This was enhanced by his emaciated appearance, which seemed to be a visible record of long decades of prayer and fasting - Chesterton recalled seeing him in his cardinalatial robes looking like "a ghost clad in flames."  Subsequent generations were not so kind.  Comfortable secular scoffers had Lytton Strachey's infamous hackiograpy, which depicted Manning as an ambitious hypocrite.  Among Catholics, Manning's troubled relationship with St John Henry Newman caused his reputation to decline even as that of Newman grew.

Robert Gray's biography, then, is an important recovery.  For Gray's even-handed account of Manning's life, thought, and work reveals a man who was, indeed, ambitious and driven, yet fully aware of these tendencies in himself and determined to fight against them and, where possible, bend them towards good.  In the end, the reader is likely to echo the sentiment of the author, "if Henry Manning is not saved seventy times seven times, God help the rest of us."

Field of Cloth of Gold

The Field of Cloth of Gold: Men and Manners in 1520 by Joycelyne Gledhill Russell, 190 pages

In 1520, the King of England, Henry VIII, met with the King of France, Francis I, upon a field in northern France not far from Calais.  On one level, the meeting was part of Cardinal Woolsey's triangulation strategy, positioning England as the difference maker in the struggle between France and Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain.  On another, it was an opportunity for displays of royal magnificence by both princes, and feats of courage and skill during the days of tournaments that amused the two courts.  In the end, little of lasting value was accomplished, and the event serves in many ways as a brilliant coda to medieval Christendom before the horrors of the Reformation.

Russell's book is an exhaustive academic study of this legendary gathering.  As such, the casual reader is likely to find it exhausting.  Still, there is much of value and interest here, not only to the antiquarian, but also to those attempting to better understand a moment and period out of which the modern world was birthed.

Hell or Connaught!

Hell or Connaught!: The Cromwellian Colonisation of Ireland 1652-1660 by Peter Berresford Ellis, 252 pages

Catholic Ireland revolted against the Protestant rule of Charles I in 1641.  By 1644 the Irish were supporting the King against Parliament, and after the execution of the King in 1649 the Roundhead army arrived in Ireland to end resistance by fire and sword and, most deadly of all, starvation.  Hundreds of thousands of Irish, perhaps as much as a quarter of the population, perished and thousands more were enslaved and transported to the New World.  In Ireland itself, the decision was made to isolate the native Catholic population in the province of Connaught, the northwestern quarter of the island, with the lands thus depopulated to be given as pay for the Commonwealth soldiery and the London investors who backed the campaign.

The story of this decision, the effort made trying to put it into effect, and the pain it engendered are the primary themes of Ellis' history of the period.  There are other important narratives here, too, including the impact of land speculation, the religious sectarian divides among the colonists, the internal politics of the Commonwealth, ultimately resulting in its end, and the disappointments of the Restoration.  Ellis tells these stories, and more, including the long running personal feud over the survey of Ireland, in a straightforward manner that nevertheless manages to incorporate primary sources and contemporary poetry to provide a complete picture of a crucial moment in Irish history.