In Defence of the Faith
The Spirit- of Catholic Devotion
[The writer of " The Spirit of Catholic Devoiion," the Rev. Martin D'Arcy, is 'one of the leaders of the Roman Catholic community which has for its centre Campion Hall, Oxford. He.,was one of the chief contributors to the symposium, " God and the Supernatural:I
DEVOTION has many senses, but in writing of it here we have in 'mind the various ways in which the,,Cathcdic Church delights to worship. The primary and spontaneous attitude of man towards God is one of adoration or worship, but, with the development of religion, differences in the nature of the beliefs lead to difference in cult and devotion. Now Catholic devotion is ruled entirely by the beliefs of the Church ; doctrine determines "practice ; and so devotion can be defined as faith seeking love and deeper knowledge, with the assistance of every symbol and image and human device that is appropriate or legitimate. As might then be -expected, 'the devotions- which the Catholic Church adopts or encourages are usually didactic. Like the sculptures and Jesse windows of a mediaeval Cathedral the devotion exists to teach and draw the heart, whether by colour or pageantry or festival, to love and under- standing of God. Deliberately, for instance, the early Church took over and adapted to its purposes many of the feasts of paganism. Again, it refused to be icono- clastic ; and held that it was not in the interests of a pure religion to banish the sound of music and the light of candles and the spontaneous rehearsals of divine mysteries in terms of sense. There are, of course, and always have been, dangers in licensing the use of syMbols in religion, and indulging the often crude and fantastic tastes of men. The statue may become an idol, and the ritual a soulless formality. God, as we read in the Old Testament, found no pleasure in the 'smoke of sacrifices when no fire in the heart accompanied them, and the ideal of the Catholic, as of all true religion, is to worship in spirit and in truth.
The question arises, however, whether this worship in spirit and in truth must eschew all devotion in which the visible is used to symbolize and convey the invisible, To that, question the Catholic Church replies by an emphatic assertion of the intimate and happy connexion .between the two. In fact, it claims that it alone has . made a perfect marriage between the -two, because it alone has.understood fully the implications of the central doctrines of Christianity, the Incarnation and the Atonement. . .
The truth of this claim can be verified by many tests. . • The most sure would be to consider carefully the exact ' :nature and truth. of the teaching of ChrisL. . Another , .would • be, in the manner of a von Hugel, to argue from the com-positenature of man, and to show that &religion, • if it is2tp appeal, must descend from the heights to earth; that the -spiritual must be embodied in sensuous .forn.A. . We cannot Jove shapeless ghosts.. and even, ideals seem unsubstantial till they steal the heart away in the music-of a.B eethoven or vision of aDante. High Mass, as Leon Bloy -wrote,. " sums op the incommensurable in grief and the infinite .of gladness and who could dare claim that the Oberammergau play, the Jesu dulcis -11Iemoria, ,ther-I- sing of -a Maiden, or -" All my membres I have .opened -her to; My Body I have made her herte's bait, Quia amore langueo," suffer spiritually: because ..of- the medium chosen ? It would indeed be strange if, after God had not disdaimd a hurtian nature, his disciples should have to renounce. ills human and visible I The true spirit of Catholic devotion is found,therefore, whereVer the earth offers up its treasures to 1.24'3.6de a Vision of the invisible, or a Jacob's ladder to the eternal. "And if be thought that the Church has been over- indulgent in this matter, and filled every" land with local shrines and images, encouraging petty devotions and sentimental praetiCes, it should never be forgotten that these are never dissociated from doctrine. Such* devo- Aions are not obligatOry, but a chatter of freedoni in loVe. " Suffer little children to come unto Me." It is better to be silent than to murmur when the Church pours spikenard on the Teet orChrist or brings its burden to the Crucified. . _ There is, however, a spirit in Catholic devotion:beyond the explanation just given, a spirit. which it is difficult to explain, so intimate and strange is its secret. It eonSists" in a special attitude to and relationship with ChriSt, which = is closer' than that of a friend or lover, and is clescrihed with a variety of images and symbols by St. Paul and the Fourth Evangelist. St. Paul, for instance, saw marriage as a type of this divine and human Union, wherein we are made one flesh and one spirit in Christ. That mankind has a blood relationship with Adam is the teaching of Genesis ; that mankind has a sacred blood relationship With 'God in the new Adam is the teaching of the New Testament. The Word that was made Flesh, the V erbum supernum prodiens . . se nascens dedit socium, eonveseenS in edulium. The Christ of Palestine continues His mission and His life in the whole world to. the end of time. Having-tabernacied with man, He incorporates into His -mystical Body all -those who by eating of His flesh and drinking of His Blood abide in Him and He in them. •" This new and living way which He bath dedicated for us through the " veil, that is to say, His flesh," explains why the early Christians were thought to feast on children, why St. Ignatius described the ". Church of Rome as presiding at the love-feast, and how the boatmen of Alexandria could sing of " the fisherman, Christ, who baited human fish with the bait of life eternal." This is the secret con- tained in ritual, hymn and devotion, and remaining always the same despite the influences of city or country and the changing accent of joy or grief. Whether we take the, Celtic litanies or the _Canticle of the Sun, or the Eucharistic hymns of Aquinas—tuos ibi commensales- the spirit is pure and religious, but it flames as the sun when it seems to touch the earth. No religious writer save a Catholic could have written the Anima Christi, with its petition, " Hide me within Thy wounds " no better proof could there be of the faith of A Kempis than that the final book of the Imitation of Christ has for its subject the Eucharist.
The truth then which inspires Catholic devotion is principally the dogma of the Incarnation. To use an , ugly but exact word, the Catholic Church regards itself as a corporation of which Christ is the Head and the faithful are members. It feeds on the living and real -Eucharist ; it is as visible and one as Christ himielf, and its function is to bring about that incomparable , union of love between Christ and the soul through the .never-ageing humanity of Christ. Once it is grasped that , the. Church looks upon itself as a corpus mysticum, , and the Eucharist as substantially the corpus Christi, " the royal ration that dresses -our days to a dexterous and starlight order," then the multiple devotions of Catholicism will be seen to fall into place. They begin with the sacrifice of the Mass, whereat all flesh vows itself to that immortal union with God contracted on Calvary. Next to the Liturgy comes the Office, sung or read, which fills out from Matins to Compline the concentrated prayer of the Mass, propitiatory and eucharistic. The devotion to the Blessed Sacrament is a later development, and to enable the faithful to realize the continued human as well as divine Presence, the love of Christ is fostered by devotions to the Passion, the Crucifix, the Stations of the Cross, the Sacred Heart and by the service of Benediction. For the same reason, because of their intimate connexion with the Word Incarnate and His Mystical Body, the Mother of God and the saints figure so largely in Catholic prayers. They are not strangers or disturbers of the one object of love, God as revealed in Christ. They are His workmanship, the continued portraiture of the Son of Man, whose plenitude is defined in the holiness of His Mother and His members. The whole creation can serve to mirror the beauty of Him " in whom all things were made." As He is " the visible image of the invisible God," so all visible things can carry His image, and the members of His visible Body, the Church, have "access to the Father " in His flesh and in His spirit.
This, then, is the difficult conception which governs the devotion of the Catholic Church and is its spirit. Love for a Catholic must proceed from truth, and knowledge must bear fruit in love ; and the two meet in the doctrine of the Word made Flesh, for " we must pass through the wounds of His Humanity into the intimacy of His . [The article next week, " Mysticism and the Eastern Church," will be written by Professor N. Arseniew, of the University of Warsaw. Previous articles in this series have been : " Philoso- phy and Religion," by the Archbishop of York," " The Elements of Religion," by Professor Albert A. Cock, of University College, Southampton, " Evolution and Revealed Religion," by Dr. Charles E. Raven, " The Nature of Christ," by Dr. Alfred Garvie, Principal of New College, Hampstead, and Hackney College, " The Gospels as Historical Documents," by Professor C. H. Turner, " The Miraculous Elements in the Gospels," by Pr. Gordon Selwyn, " The Ethic of Christianity," by Dr. F. R. Barry, " The Witness of the Saints," by Evelyn Underhill, " The Philosophy of Prayer," by Abbe Bremond, D.Litt., Member of the French Academy, and " The Meaning of Sacra- ments," by Canon Oliver Quick, of Carlisle.]
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