60th Anniversary of the Death of Msgr. Ronald Knox

17 February 1888 – 24 August 1957

Mary of Holyrood may smile indeed,

Knowing what grim historic shade it shocks

To see wit, laughter and the Popish creed

Cluster and sparkle in the name of Knox.

- G.K.Chesterton

In Praise of Paraphrase

A quote from William Griffin, translator of the deuterocanonical books in The Message:Catholic/Ecumenical Edition, while translating some of the Latin classics into English, as found in Eugene Peterson's Eat This Book:

"I fully intended to do the literal translation, of course, and yes, better than any of my predecessors had done, but I soon found myself faltering.  Fidelity seemed its only virtue.  Felicity was nowhere to be seen.  But Fidelity without Felicity in translation can be a very mean virtue indeed.... As many before me, I'd always thought Paraphrase was bonkers.  Why?  Because my intellectual betters had told me so, and I had no occasion to say them nay.  But what they never told me in so many words was that all translation was all too errant.  Soon thereafter I concluded that if err I must, then I'd prefer to err on the side of Paraphrase rather than Literalese (172)."

And of course, there is this classic quote from Msgr. Ronald Knox:

"The translator, let me suggest in passing, must never be frightened of the word 'paraphrase'; it is a bogey of the half-educated.  As I have already tried to point out, it is almost impossible to translate a sentence without paraphrasing; it is a paraphrase when you translate 'Comment vous portez-vous?' by 'How are you?'  But often enough it will be a single word that calls for paraphrase.  When St. Paul describes people as "wise according to the flesh', the translator is under an obligation to paraphrase.  In English speech, you might be called fat according to the flesh, or thin according to the flesh, but not wise or foolish.  The flesh here means natural, human standards of judging, and the translator has got to say so.  'Wise according to the flesh' is Hebrew in English dress; it is not English (Englishing the Bible 8-9)."

Weekly Knox: Unity in the Risen Christ

"Destiny is always jumbling up the pattern of our lives like the patterns in a kaleidoscope. You can't avoid it, even by entering holy religion; you take a vow of stability, only to find that life is one long round of packing. The charmed circle is always being broken up; we are separated from the people we have grown accustomed to. But do let's get it clearly in our heads that there can be no real separation, in life or in death, as long as we stick to the Holy Mass. In Christ we are all one; the sacred Host is the focus in which all our rays meet, regardless of time and space. Only we must keep true to him; only we must all go on saying that prayer the priest says before his Communion, asking that though he is separated from everything else he may never be separated from our Blessed Lord; A te numquam, a te numquam, a te numquam separari permittas." 

-Msgr. Ronald Knox (The Mass in Slow Motion)

6 Questions with Karl Keating of Catholic Answers

Karl Keating is founder and former president of Catholic Answers, the country’s largest apologetics and evangelization organization. He is the author of a number of important apologetics books, including Catholicism and Fundamentalism and What Catholics Really Believe.  I would like to thank Mr. Keating for taking the time to answer these questions.

1) Earlier this year, it was announced that you are stepping down as President of Catholic Answers.  Looking back at all that your organization has done to renew apologetics in the United States, what would you say you are most proud of?  What are you most hopeful with Catholic Answers going into the future?

Pride being one of the Seven Deadlies, let me answer you not in terms of what I’m most proud of but this way: I’m grateful for the wonderful people I’ve had the privilege of working with since going into apologetics work full time in 1988. Catholic Answers’ success has been due chiefly to them, very little to me. With them continuing their work, I have every confidence that Catholic Answers will become even more effective in the future.

2) This year we commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Vatican II document Dei Verbum.  How do you think this document has been received and embraced over the past 50 years?

With mixed results. Many Catholics have read—and even studied—it and the other documents of Vatican II, but the large majority has not. In some parishes and dioceses one can detect an authentic application of the principles given in Dei Verbum, but that can’t be said universally.

3) Catholic Answers, from the start, has encouraged a more biblically-literate Catholic laity.  What are some of the best biblical resources that every Catholic should have in his or her library?

You mean, aside from my own books? (Insert winsome smile here.) First, each Catholic should have a version of the Bible that he actually will read. It does no good to have on the shelf the “best” translation if the wording doesn’t entice you to open the pages. Second, each Catholic should have a Bible commentary. I won’t recommend a particular one here because the ones I use are out of print, and I don’t find any of the easily-accessible commentaries to be ideal—for me. They may be just right for someone else.

4) How were you introduced to Msgr. Ronald Knox?  What are some of your favorite works of his?

I don’t recall how I first came across Knox. Perhaps it was a reference in one of Frank Sheed’s works (but then I don’t recall how I first came across Sheed either). I have no trouble, though, identifying my favorite Knox books: Difficulties and Let Dons Delight.

Difficulties is Knox’s exchange of letters with Arnold Lunn, who, during their correspondence, was not yet a Catholic. (Lunn was received into the Church by Knox not long after the book was published.) Lunn challenged Knox on Catholic distinctives, and Knox answered with clarity and charity. For his part, Lunn already was showing the high level of argumentation that would make him, with Sheed, one of the two top Catholic apologists of the twentieth century. Difficulties is one of the few books I’ll read over and over, so rich is it in insights and so gentlemanly is the disputation.

Let Dons Delight is a work of fiction, and it could have been the book for which the term tour de force was coined. Knox’s premise has the narrator falling asleep in 1938 in the don’s common room at a fictitious Oxford college. The man wakes up to find himself in the same room but in 1588. He overhears the dons of that time talking about the impending invasion of the Spanish armada; more importantly, he listens to them discuss the status of Christianity in England. Knox, wonderfully adept at English, puts in the mouths of the dons precisely the style of language that was used in 1588.

The narrator falls asleep and then wakes up fifty years later, in 1638. The man who had been the youngest don in 1588 is now the eldest. The English used in the 1638 discussion has changed slightly, and Knox knows just how. England’s Christianity has changed too. The narrator falls asleep and awakens repeatedly, going through the same thing every fifty years, up to 1938.

5) Catholic Answers is publishing, in April, a collection called The Lost Works of Ronald Knox.  It will contain six of his works that have been largely out of print for many decades.  How did this book come to be?  Could you discuss, briefly, the six works that are included in it?

These six works were of my choosing. They had been on my shelves for years, in various formats, and I realized that even few fans of Knox were familiar with most of them. I thought it would be a tribute to Knox to bring these works together and that, by ordering them chronologically, they would show his development, from his pre-Catholic years right up to the end of his life.

The Essentials of Spiritual Unity is almost Knox’s outline of his own conversion, stopping just before (because written just before) he “poped.” The Beginning and End of Man briefly explains why we’re here—something most moderns either have forgotten or never have known. The Rich Young Man is called by Knox “a fantasy”: what would the story be if the rich young man of the Gospels also happened to be the prodigal son’s older brother and the good thief on the cross? Nazi and Nazarene was written during World War II and shows what the divide was between the faith and Nazism. On English Translation was the Romanes Lecture, given by Knox shortly before he died; he already was deeply ill, and this was his valedictory. Proving God: A New Apologetic was published posthumously. Knox was trying to work up a new way to do apologetics, since he had become convinced that the old ways just weren’t working in the modern world.

6) You have mentioned in a few places that you enjoy reading from Msgr. Knox’s translation of the Vulgate.  Why is that?  What would you say to someone who might feel that only a literal translation is best?

I have nearly all of the books Knox wrote, dozens of them—an indication that I like his style: limpid, smooth, insightful. Those qualities come across also in his one-man translation of the Bible. It is true that his translation is not “literal” in the extreme sense of that word. Some of the older translations from the Vulgate artificially mimicked Latin sentence structure, for example, and ended up reading not as real English. (Knox provided many examples in Trials of a Translator, the book in which he responded to critics of his Bible translation.) I would not recommend the Knox translation for someone doing a close formal study of the Bible—the Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition is better for that—but I do recommend the Knox translation to anyone who wishes to get lost in the text.

New Ronald Knox Book from Catholic Answers

From our friends at the Ronald Knox Society of North America:

Here's some good news: Catholic Answers has published a beautiful new volume of 6 forgotten Knox sermons and essays. The book will be off the press in April but is available for pre-order.


Included in this volume:
1. The Essentials of Spiritual Unity
2. Proving God
3. The Rich Young Man
4. Nazi and Nazarene
5. The Beginning and End of Man
6. On English Translation (Romanes Lecture)

This is a handsome hardback with high-quality paper, old-style wide margins, clean typography, an ex libris plate, and a sewn-in satin ribbon. Plus a forward by Karl Keating.

It sounds like a "must have" for Knox fans!

7 Questions: Fr. Milton Walsh

Milton Walsh holds a doctorate in Sacred Theology from the Gregorian University in Rome.  An expert on Knox's writing, he is the author of Second Friends: C.S. Lewis and Ronald Knox in Conversation and Ronald Knox as Apologist: Wit, Laughter, and the Popish Creed.  Both titles are available through Ignatius Press.

1) How did you come upon the writings of Msgr. Ronald Knox? What kind of role has he played in your life, both spiritually and theologically?

I first came across the writings of Ronald Knox in high school, in the late 1960s.  I was in the minor seminary at a very tumultuous time in the Church and society, and with like-minded friends began exploring the writings of men like Newman, Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, Arnold Lunn, and Ronald Knox.  From that time on they have been constant sources of spiritual and intellectual refreshment.

A few years after I was ordained a priest, my bishop sent me to Rome for doctoral studies.  I had hoped to concentrate in spirituality, but he asked me to devote my energies to apologetics.  This was in 1982, and the word had all but dropped out of the Catholic lexicon.  He foresaw that in the future we would need people trained in presenting the Catholic faith in a clear, attractive way.  Knox was, of course, my model for this, and I did my doctorate on his approach to apologetics.  Many years later I re-worked the dissertation for the general reader, and it was published by Ignatius Press as Ronald Knox as Apologist.

I have also found Knox to be a sympathetic spiritual guide and a model for preaching.  His sermons were always biblical, imaginative, and intellectually stimulating … and delivered with a lightness of touch and occasional humor.  I think any preacher would do well to make Knox’s sermons regular reading.

2) As a high school theology teacher, one of the classes I teach is Catholic Apologetics.  In the class, we utilize Knox's In Soft Garments, which is a collection of lectures Knox gave to Catholics attending Oxford in the 20's and 30's.  For many, Knox is known primarily as the convert who became an eminent apologist for the Church.  Yet, as you have pointed out in your book Ronald Knox As Apologist, that towards the end of his life he saw a need for a new kind of apologetics.  His death in 1957 left that an open question.  So, what do you think he was aiming at in this new apologetics and how might that be applicable to the Catholic Church in 2015?

I’ll try to give a brief answer to a question which generated an entire dissertation!  Knox did “classical apologetics” very well, and his Belief of Catholics is still a good resource for those who want a popular intellectual defense for belief in the existence of God and the unique role of Christ in human history.  This apologetic approach was the heir to the Enlightenment, and tended to put great emphasis on rational argumentation.  Reason was seen to be the common ground between believer and unbeliever; Knox and the other writers I mentioned earlier often approached apologetics from this vantage point.

But we are more than “thinking machines”, and Knox recognized that many intellectual questions are rooted in more existential realities.  This comes across in his conferences to Catholic students at Oxford, in In Soft Garments and in The Hidden Stream.  By the 1950s, Knox realized that mere logical defenses were not sufficient for many people.  He was deeply affected by the invention and use of the Atomic Bomb, and his God and the Atom (regrettably, not in print) testifies to an important change in his priorities.  He wanted to write “a new apologetics”, but did not get very far with it.  His final illness from cancer took him very quickly.

If I had to summarize the direction he seemed to be heading in his new approach, it would be this: the classical Catholic apologetics relied perhaps too much on pure logic, and most people are not purely logical.  The dilemma was, then, what can be the common ground for a conversation between believer and unbeliever?  His answer was ordinary human experience, which takes in the intellect but so much more: desire, beauty, heroic ideals, etc.  In fact, Knox incorporated much of this “argumentation” in his sermons, which addressed not only the mind but the whole person.

3) Of all his works, many people believe to be his greatest achievement is his translation of the Vulgate.  What are your thoughts on the Knox Bible?

I think it was the work Knox himself was proudest of, and was a remarkable feat, especially given the fact that he did the translation singlehanded in wartime England, with all the limitations that entailed.  He admitted that although there were people who liked him but did not like his translation, he would much prefer to have people not to like him but like his translation.

The venture was star-crossed in several ways.  He had squabbles with some of the bishops over the translation.  He was not a biblical exegete himself, and had limited contact with Scripture scholars. When he took up the work, his friend C.C. Martindale was pleased because he thought that with his ability to write in a diversity of styles (witness Let Dons Delight, which captures the forms of English over several hundred years), Knox would be able to capture the different styles of diverse books of the Bible. But Knox himself was aiming at what he called “timeless English”: his idea was that his translation would be understandable by readers not only today but in the past.  He also wanted the Old Testament to have a slightly archaic flavor to it.  And of course he was translating the Latin Vulgate, and soon after his work was completed the Church permitted biblical translations from the original Greek and Hebrew.

The result, in my opinion (and I am certainly no biblical expert), is a translation that is very beautiful in places, but in others it strikes a contemporary ear as rather idiosyncratic.  His English is elegant, which is a welcome change from some of the more “breezy” translations that have been produced in recent years. 

4) Why should someone today, with all the translations available, consider reading regularly from the Knox Bible?

I am very pleased that the entire Knox Bible is back in print (Baronius Press), and it certainly should have a place on one’s bookshelf.  It recommends itself for several reasons:

1.      Knox was a master of English, and his rendering of familiar biblical texts in a new way can offer fresh insights. (One of his complaints was that some bishops did not like his translation because it did not sound like the Douay-Rheims; his reasonable response was that the whole point of a new translation is that it should be different.)

2.      Even those who did not fully embrace his translation when it came out acknowledged that his translation of the Epistles of St. Paul was masterly. 

3.      Knox had a facile mind, and one example of this in his translation was his ability to take passages in the Psalms and the end of the Book of Proverbs which in Hebrew were “abecedarian” (that is, each verse began with a different letter of the alphabet) and do the same in English.  A tour de force!

4.      Knox was not a biblical exegete, but he had a profound knowledge of the Scriptures especially because of his upbringing in an evangelical Anglican family.  One biblical scholar compared Knox to the amateur detective (and remember, he wrote detective stories and was a colleague of Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers and others), who spots the clues that the Scotland Yard professionals (i.e., biblical scholars) overlook.  His translation and commentaries would not pass muster as “scientific” exegesis, but he does bring out many spiritual insights in the text.  And, after all, there should be a place for that kind of scholarship.  Knox produced a commentary on the New Testament, and it would be wonderful if some publisher would produce his New Testament translation with the commentary on the bottom of the page, which had been his original intent.

In sum, I would recommend reading Knox’s translation along with others because he opens a window that provides freshness to texts which can become stale when read frequently.  It is the work of a man who was deeply imbued with a love of the Bible, saw it as a whole, and sought to make its words resonate in the heart.

5) Unlike some of the great English writers of the twentieth century, like Chesterton, Tolkien, and Lewis among others, Knox has not seemed to have had the same size of following today like the others.  Why do you think that is the case?

Thanks in part to the remarkable work of Sheed & Ward, Ronald Knox’s writings were very popular both in England and here in America from the 1930s until the early 1960s.  A lot happened in the sixties (to put it mildly!) – many Catholic publishers disappeared and avowedly Catholic writers went into eclipse, in part I believe because “ecumenism” seemed to make it somehow poor taste to speak about Catholic particularity. (In fact, I think convert authors like Knox can be truly helpful to the ecumenical movement because they bridge the divide.)  There was also a general “dumbing down” in Catholic education, most dramatically seen in the collapse of the entire catechetical enterprise of the Church.  Doctrine was out, good vibes were in. That reaction was in part due to the overemphasis on purely logical presentations of doctrine, which was a concern of Knox himself in his later years.

Chesterton is always Chesterton, and is in a league of his own, so it is no surprise that his cork popped back up very soon. Lewis has enjoyed something of a Renaissance largely because of the interest shown him by American Evangelicals; and of course he is a remarkable writer, dealing with the basic tenets of “mere Christianity”.  Tolkien stands on his own as a novelist and, although there are many theological themes in his works, they are not explicitly religious.

In part Knox went into oblivion because his books were out of print, and that is thankfully changing.  He tended to be a bit colloquial in his writing, so at times his allusions seem foreign in a culture different from that in which we wrote.  Some of his writing is dated.  But I would argue that much of it is not, and in fact he has much to offer contemporary readers.  I associate him with C. S. Lewis in this way: Lewis is a more engaging writer, but Knox has more theological depth.  Knox’s writings can serve as a good follow-up to those of Lewis, because Lewis does a good job presenting a very broad vision of Christian belief, but Knox fills in the landscape.

6) If a person wanted to get started reading Msgr. Knox, where would you advise him or her to start?

I would offer a few suggestions, in part because it depends on who the reader is and what he or she is looking for.

If you want a good introduction to the Catholic faith: The Creed in Slow Motion.  These were originally talks he gave to schoolgirls during the Second World War.  They are easy reading and accessible to young people.  It is interesting to think of him spinning these out at the same time he was laboring on his translation of the Bible.

For someone looking for a logical defense of basic apologetical questions like the existence of God and uniqueness of Jesus Christ, I would suggest The Belief of Catholics.  The first half of the book presents a logical defense, the second half gives a sense of the mystery of Catholic life from the inside.

The next step up as far as apologetics are concerned would be his university sermons:  The Hidden Stream and In Soft Garments.

All of the foregoing fall into the genre of apologetics.  More importantly, I would urge everyone to read his sermons, which have been collected together into a large volume by Ignatius Press (Pastoral and Occasional Sermons).  They make great spiritual reading, throughout the liturgical year, on the Eucharist, about the saints, indeed the whole of Catholic life.  Knox was able to combine Scripture, theology, and personal experience in a gentle but compelling way.

His retreat conferences are very good, although many are still out of print.  Because Knox was so popular in the 1950s, many of his writings can be found second-hand.

7) Since this blog focuses on the importance of Scripture, I was wondering what your favorite verse of Scripture may be as translated by Msgr. Knox?

Here is one selection:

Why then, since we are watched from above by such a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of all that weighs us down, of the sinful habit that clings so closely, and run, with all endurance, the race for which we are entered.  Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the origin and crown of all faith, who, to win his prize of blessedness, endured the cross and made light of its shame, Jesus, who now sits on the right of God’s throne.  Take your standard from him, from his endurance, from the enmity the wicked bore him, and you will not grow faint, you will not find your souls unmanned.  (Heb 12:1-3)

Knox on Translation

H

Haven't done one of these in a while, but I was re-reading On Englishing the Bible and came across this interesting quote.  It caused me to reflect on whether or not things are better or worse, in regards to Catholics reading the Bible, than in Knox's day.  All of this is of great importance, particularly as we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of Dei Verbum this year.

"And yet, is the Douay, as it has come down to us through Challoner, really so familiar to us, so universally beloved?  I understand that for several years, during and after the war, it was impossible, in England or Scotland, for a Catholic to buy a copy of the New Testament.  Would any other Christian denomination in the world have sat down under that?  In my experience, the laity's attitude towards the Bible is one of blank indifference, varied now and again by one of puzzled hostility.  The clergy, no doubt, search the Scriptures more eagerly.  And yet, when I used to go round preaching a good deal, and would ask the P.P. for a Bible to verify my text from, there was generally an ominous pause of twenty minutes or so before he returned, banging the leaves of the sacred volume and visibly blowing on the top.  The new wine of the gospel, you felt, was kept in strangely cobwebby bottles (On Englishing the Bible 11)."

This short quote is another reason why Msgr. Knox is the (un)official patron saint of this blog.  His insights into the Church, and ability to point out the obvious, is only matched by his wit.  We could use a few more Knox-like people in the Church today.  On Englishing the Bible is available through Baronius Press, but only if you purchase the Knox Bible.  It is not sold separately.  However, I have two brand new copies to give away.  So, if interested, just put your name in the comment section of this post by the end of the day on Sunday and you will be entered to win a copy of it.  This is open to everyone, no matter where you live.  And if you don't have the Knox Bible, go get one!

Thank You!

Knox Contest

As we are about to enter the season of Advent, now is a good time as any to have a contest.  This one, which will likely be the last one for 2014, is focused around the great Cathoic convert, translator, detective novelist, and apologist Msgr. Ronald A. Knox.  I have made no secret on this blog my admiration for this man.  I find his writings to be both enriching and entertaining, which I think is a truly rare thing.  Although he may not receive the same attention as some of his other more famous contemporaries, I actually prefer his writings to those of Chesterton, Belloc, and Lewis.  (Please don't throw any stones!)

So, what will the winning entry receive in this Knox Contest?  The following brand new books and CD will prove a wonderful introduction to this great man:

1) The Wine of Certitude: A Literary Biography of Ronald Knox by David Rooney (Ignatius Press)

2) On Englishing the Bible by Ronald Knox (Baronius Press).  The winner will receive two brand new copies, one for themselves and another to give to a friend.  Thank you to the fine people at Baronius Press for providing this amazing book for this contest.  I "literally" read this all the time.

3) Ronald Knox Collection CD from Old Time Radio Catalogue.  This contains four presentations by Knox, himself, with a run time of one hour and eleven minutes.  Included in this collection are reflections by Knox on Christmas, Chesterton, Newman, and translating the Bible.  Hear the man in his own voice.


Rules for the contest:
 1) If you have a website or blog or are active on Facebook, please announce this contest. If you don't, that is OK. You can still enter the contest.

 2) Please enter your name in the comment section of this blog post. I (or my wife) will randomly draw one winner at the conclusion of the contest, which will be on Sunday November 30th at 11:59 PM.

3) I will announce the winner on Monday December 1st. The winners must contact me, via email, within a week with their full name and address.

 4) One entry per person.

 5) Contest is only available to those who live in North America.

Lamentations 1

From our friends at the Ronald Knox Society of North America:

The First Lessons of Matins on Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday are taken from the Lamentations of the Prophet Jeremias. They are among the saddest and most beautiful readings of the Liturgical Year.

Here is Knox's translation of Chapter 1:

When Israel was brought into captivity, and Jerusalem left deserted, the prophet Jeremias sat down and wept, with this mournful lamentation following. And as he spoke, ever he sighed and moaned in the bitterness of his heart.

1. Alone she dwells, the city erewhile so populous; a widow now, once a queen among the nations; tributary now, that once had provinces at her command.
2. Be sure she weeps; there in the darkness her cheeks are wet with tears; of all that courted her, none left to console her, all those lovers grown weary of her, and turned to enemies.
3. Cruel the suffering and the bondage of Juda's exile; that she must needs dwell among the heathen! Nor respite can she find; close at her heels the pursuit, and peril on either hand.
4. Desolate, the streets of Sion; no flocking, now, to the assembly; the gateways lie deserted. Sighs priest, and the maidens go in mourning, so bitter the grief that hangs over all.
5. Exultant, now, her invaders; with her enemies nothing goes amiss. For her many sins, the Lord has brought doom on her, and all her children have gone into exile, driven before the oppressor.
6. Fled is her beauty, the Sion that was once so fair; her chieftains have yielded their ground before the pursuer, strength-less as rams that can find no pasture.
7. Grievous the memories she holds, of the hour when all her ancient glories passed from her, when her people fell defenceless before the invader, unresisting before an enemy that derided them.
8. Heinously Jerusalem sinned; what wonder if she became an outlaw? How they fell to despising her when they saw her shame, that once flattered her! Deeply she sighed, and turned away her head.
9. Ill might skirts of her robe the defilement conceal; alas, so reckless of her doom, alas, fallen so low, with none to comfort her! Mark it well, Lord; see how humbled I, how exultant my adversary!
10. Jealous hands were laid on all she treasured; so it was that she must see Gentiles profane her sanctuary, Gentiles, by thy ordinance from the assembly debarred.
11. Kindred was none but went sighing for lack of bread, offered its precious heirlooms for food to revive men's hearts. Mark it well, Lord, and see my pride abased!
12. Look well, you that pass by, and say if there was ever grief like this grief of mine; never a grape on the vineyard left to glean, when the Lord's threat of vengeance is fulfilled.
13. Must fire from heaven waste my whole being, ere I can learn my lesson? Must he catch me in a net, to drag me back from my course? Desolate he leaves me, to pine away all the day long with grief.
14. No respite it gives me, the yoke of guilt I bear, by his hand fastened down upon my neck; see, I faint under it! The Lord has given me up a prisoner to duress there is no escaping.
15. Of all I had, the Lord has taken away the noblest; lost to me, all the flower of my chivalry, under his strict audit; Sion, poor maid, here was a wine-press well trodden down!
16. Pray you, should I not weep? Fountains these eyes are, that needs must flow; comforter there is none at hand, that should revive my spirits. Lost to me, all those sons of mine, outmatched by their enemy.
17. Quest for consolation is vain, let her plead where she will; neighbors of Jacob, so the Lord decrees, are Jacob's enemies, and all around they shrink from her, as from a thing unclean.
18. Right the Lord has in his quarrel; I have set his commands at defiance. O world, take warning; see what pangs I suffer, all my folk gone into exile, both man and maid.
19. So false the friends that were once my suitors! And now the city lacks priests and elders both, that went begging their bread, to revive the heart in them.
20. Take note, Lord, of my anguish, how my bosom burns, and my heart melts within me, in bitter ruth. And all the while, swords threatens without, and death not less cruel within.
21. Uncomforted my sorrow, but not unheard; my enemies hear it, and rejoice that my miseries are of thy contriving. Ah, but when thy promise comes true, they shall feel my pangs!
22. Vintager who didst leave my boughs so bare, for my much offending, mark well their cruelty, and strip these to in their turn; here be sighs a many, and a sad heart to claim it.

St. Peter Continued Knocking by Ronald Knox

This sermon was preached at St Mary’s Church, Derby, on Passion Sunday, 3 April 1927 and appears in ‘University Sermons of Ronald Knox’.  I read this last week and really like it, so I have decided to share it with you.  

The story of St Peter’s escape from prison at the time when his life was threatened by King Herod is told in the Acts of the Apostles with remarkable fullness of detail. How he passed through the first and second wards of the prison and then came to the iron gate that leads to the city; how he went up one street before he lost sight of his Angel Deliverer, then stood there considering his position and decided that it would be best to go to the house of John Mark. How he knocked there in the gateway. How a servant girl came to open the grille, and even what her name was. How the people inside the house were occupied at the moment in praying for their imprisoned brother. How they refused to believe that it could really be Peter himself, and how he stood at the door still knocking while they still argued inside. All told with a personal touch, yet St Luke could not know Jerusalem very well, and information must have been usually second-hand, therefore how is it that in this one chapter St Luke has dealt so faithfully with this subject? My impression is that St Luke got his narrative here from an eye-witness. In the last verse of chapter eleven, just before this narrative, you will see that the Christians at Antioch were warned by prophecy of a famine which was soon to affect Jerusalem. They determined to send alms to the Church there, and they did so by the hands of St Barnabas and St Paul.

St Paul was little known in Jerusalem in those days, and he would keep close to the side of St Barnabas. St Barnabas would be almost sure to stay with his nephew – at the house of John Mark. It would be at this house they stayed. It would be at this house that they heard one morning the terrible news: “Herod has arrested the Prince of the Apostles – Peter in all likelihood is to go the same way as James”.

Only fifteen years since the Ascension – so much work still to do. The Church still so weak and so scattered, and now it is to lose its head. They fall to prayer in the house of John Mark, and night finds them still praying – John Mark and his mother, Mary, her brother or brother-in-law, the Levite Barnabas; with him the great, clever convert, who was persecuting the Church little more than a dozen years ago, and a great company of others, among them the servant girl, Rhoda – the rather self-important, not very efficient presbytery maid. A knock at the door breaks in upon the murmur of their intercession. What is it? Fresh persecution? Never mind, Rhoda knows her duty – she will answer the front door. As she opens it, she hears a whisper and recognizes the voice – once before he had been recognized by a maid who opened the door – with unfortunate results. Nothing of the Protestant about Rhoda – she knows the Pope’s voice; so full of the news, she does not stop to reflect whether it be undignified or cold for her guest to be kept waiting, but she rushes in to the family prayers with the announcement that Peter himself is asking admittance. Do they hasten to let him in? Why no, they have only Rhoda’s word for it, and that girl would say anything. They try to soothe her, “Hush, you are excited – you had better go to bed. These long prayers have been too much for you, and you have begun to imagine things. Go to bed – you will be all right in the morning.” Rhoda stands her ground. She is not one to imagine things. She ought to know Peter’s voice when she hears it. Then they consider a fresh tack – perhaps the girl has seen something after all. One has heard strange stories before now of men about to die being seen by their friends at a distance, sometimes miles away. Is this some such apparition? Has Peter been murdered – another martyr? They say to her “It is his angel”, and all the time the real Peter stands there knocking, almost fifteen years to the day since he stood knocking at the door of Pilate’s Praetorium. Then somebody – St Barnabas, I think, for he was a practical and hospitable man – suggests it might be worth while going to the door to see if anyone is there – and there stands St Peter with his finger on his lip.

I hope you will not think me fanciful if I say that this group of Christians praying in the house of John Mark reminds me of a certain school in the Church of England – a certain group of men, not a large one, who are not any longer content to assail the papacy with hard names or to ignore it as if it did not exist – a group which has a friendly attitude and yet refuses to shake off the fetters of its Protestantism. “Believe in the Pope? Of course we believe in the Pope” and they will tell you – “When England was Catholic in the Middle Ages our fathers owed allegiance to Rome and they were right to do so. We too would have suffered in the days of the Martyrs if need be for the privileges of the papacy. Just at present, owing to this unfortunate misunderstanding about Anglican Orders, we are not quite on such close terms with the Vatican as we should like to be, but we would be friends with the Pope if he would let us, and we shall one day achieve reunion with the Vatican and be one once more.”

They cannot say “We have a Pope” but “We had a Pope in the Middle Ages, we would have had a Pope at the time of the Reformation; we would have a Pope now, if only the Pope would take us on our own terms. We shall have a Pope some day.” They pray for a Pope, like the faithful souls gathered in John Mark’s house, but they pray for an imaginary Pope, a historical memory or an ideal fiction. They know that a Pope is necessary to their system. They see their own Church torn with rivalries and dissension. They know that such rivalries and dissensions must be in a Church which replaces the principle of authority by the principle of compromise. They see it riddled with heresies and they know there is no safeguard against the occurrence of such heresies unless the gift of infallibility is centered in one man. They feel themselves to be at best an imperial institution – the Church of Lambeth, or at best the Church of Wembley. They know no power can unite living churches all over the world except the power which has no nationality. They know no voice can be heard over the tumult except one that speaks from another world. Many souls gathered in prayer, but no Pope, and therefore no Church – and all the time Peter stands knocking at the door – a real Pope, a figure in flesh and blood, a prince in being, and by these would-be Catholics of another faith, with all their devotion to an imaginary Pope, the real Pope is cold-shouldered and ignored.

Sometimes one of their number listens to the knocking at the door, listens and is attracted. “How strange that he whom we have longed for so greatly should be waiting at our doors all the time.” No time must be lost clearly in telling the others. “Look, Peter stands at the gate” – and that message is the signal for contradictions – “A fancy, a mere fancy, you are letting your imagination run away with you – it is an attack of nerves – take it easy for a bit – you will find you think differently in a month or two.” Or, if the questioner is not content with these explanations, “What you see is not the real Pope, but a ghost of the Pope – he who reigns at the Vatican is no true prince of Christendom but a phantom of a historical institution, an anachronism, a pathetic survival of the power of the papacy – dead, dying, or, at any rate, just going to die.”
God forgive all those who thoughtlessly embarrass the soul already trying to obey the voice of conscience. If the papacy be dead, then the Catholic Church is dead, and if the Catholic Church be dead, Christ has failed. Close down the churches. Shut up the Bible. Let us have no grinning death mask of Anglo-Catholicism to mock at our despair.

But Peter is still there. All the fury of Herod has spent itself in vain. Peter’s prison on Easter even, like his Master’s tomb on Easter morning, stands empty. We have a Pope.

But now I may be speaking this evening to some non-Catholics who are not interested in any of these High Church vagaries. I may be speaking to people who do not call themselves Catholic. They are plain Church of England people, or plain, old-fashioned Nonconformists. They do not believe in the Pope. They do not want a Pope. They do not see what is the use of the Pope. They have been brought up to think of him as an unscrupulous foreign tyrant, whose claim to exercise authority over men’s consciences is an insult to freeborn Englishmen. They think of him as a tiresome inspector who goes round interfering with other people’s business. They do not see why they should take an interest in a Roman Italian Bishop. If you feel like that, you must not expect me to talk you round in five minutes; but for five minutes I should like to put another point of view before you: to say what we mean by the papacy and the value we set on it; our attitude to the person and to the office of the Pope. You think of the Catholic Church as one of these vast business concerns, with depots all over the world, controlled from a single centre. You think all Catholics are ordered about by their priests, and of the priests as so many tools, following in blind obedience daily a policy dictated, presumably on the telephone, by their bishops; of the bishops as so many foremen, obeying a policy dictated to them from day to day, by wireless, I suppose, from the Pope. You say: “That explains the success of the Catholic Church – it is a business affair, carried on in the most efficient and most unscrupulous way possible, and the head of it, the centre of it all, is one man at the Vatican”. You say it is incredible the way he has succeeded in imposing his will over three (or three hundred?) millions of mankind. The Church of Rome to you is a vast machine, working with all the smoothness of a machine, and one single man controls the lever, and that is your idea, or something like your idea.

I wish I had the time and I wish I had the language to explain to you how gloriously wrong is that impression of the Catholic Church. Every Catholic knows that his Church is a splendidly happy-go-lucky
affair – often haphazard, with sometimes internal quarrels – and that it would not hold together for ten years if there were not supernatural life and unity in this Divine Church.

Let me put to you instead the true idea of the feeling which Catholics have towards the Pope, and our attitude towards his authority, which and where that authority has to be exercised. Did it never occur to you that we call the Pope the Holy Father because we think of him as our father? That the unity of the Church is not the unity of a machine but the unity of a great family? That our obedience to the Holy Father in that very limited range of affairs in which he demands our obedience is not that of a workman towards the foreman who will sack him if he doesn’t work, but it is that of children towards their father – each eager to outdo the others in showing affection; each eager to outstrip the others in anticipating his slightest wish? That we obey him in effect not because we fear him as the doorkeeper of heaven, but because we love him as the shepherd of Christians, of Christ’s flock?

Did it never occur to you that the Pope, on his side, as he looks out over the turmoil and distress of this troubled world, looks at it not with the eyes of a crafty schemer, but with the eyes of a father, longing for the salvation of souls; heartbroken sometimes at the waywardness of his children, overjoyed sometimes when they come back to him, as children will to their father and ask him to make it up? Do you not see that he thinks of you and of all those Christians who renounced his authority as the father in the parable thought of his prodigal son, longing for the Protestant nations of the world to come back from their wandering and to find rest and content in their true home? He knocks at your door, people of England, not like a tyrant demanding submission, but like a father appealing for a welcome, and for the recognition which his unfilial sons refuse.

“Peter stood at the door without and continued knocking” as he knocked long ago in the shade of the porch, while the souls within busied themselves, shutting their ears to the noise, till at last they rose to let him in. So he knocks still, while souls that profess to hold him in all reverence shut their ears and invent comfortable theories; because they cannot or will not come out to seek him in the darkness and the storm. He knocks patiently, for the fisherman has learnt patience. He knocks gently, for his shepherd heart knows that bullying will do no good. But don’t mistake his errand. He has keys on his shoulder. It is the doorkeeper who knocks.


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