St John Roberts

Today is the Anniversary of the execution of one of the many namesakes of mine.  Saint (for that is how he has become known) John Roberts was Welsh (as Robertses always ultimately are), born in 1577 to a farming family.

Namesake he may have been, but in very many ways our paths seem quite opposite.  Born into a Protestant home John was converted to Catholicism in France.  In the febrile world of Reformation and Counter-Reformation religious politics he found himself in the wrong religion in the wrong place.

In returning from Europe to London he knew he was in mortal danger, but he wanted to work among London's poor anyhow.  From this act of foolery or bravery came his execution.  Yet even at his Tyburn execution the usual cruelties of that age were mitigated by his popularity with the poor.  They would not permit the authorities to treat his body with quite the cruelty they normally would have done - at least not before he was dead.  London has a very long list of cruelties on its hands;  it has also, as Charles Dickens for one reminds us, always had plenty of The Poor.

From his village birth to die at 33 years of age in the capital city after having a reputation for looking after the poor?  Well, for all my Protestantism I can see some reasons to think of him as saintly and a reminder of Someone else.

Barsanuphius

I'm not the greatest authority on Saints Days but today being that of Barsanuphius I thought he deserved some attention. In fact attention was exactly what he didn't have as he disappeared for 50 years as a hermit and communicated by correspondence only. That has a certain appeal as a lifestyle when faced with an unsympathetic culture, but he also wrote many things that offered wisdom to those more engaged with the world than he . . .

Do not demand love from your neighbour, because you will suffer if you don’t receive it; but better still, you indicate your love toward your neighbour and you will settle down. In this way, you will lead your neighbour toward love.

Don’t exchange your love toward your neighbour for some type of object, because in having love toward your neighbour, you acquire within yourself Him who is most precious in the whole world.

Forsake the petty so as to acquire the great; spurn the excessive and everything meaningless so as to acquire the valuable.

Shelter the sinner if it brings you no harm. Through this you will encourage him toward repentance and reform — and attract the Lord’s mercy to yourself. With a kind word and all possible means, fortify the infirm and the sorrowful and that Right Arm that controls everything, will also support you. With prayers and sorrow of your heart, share your lot with the aggrieved and the source of God’s mercy will open to your entreaties.

Do not distinguish the worthy from the unworthy. Let everyone be equal to you for good deeds, so that you may be able to also attract the unworthy toward goodness, because through outside acts, the soul quickly learns to be reverent before God.

Do not annoy or hate anyone – neither for faith, nor for his evil deeds… If you want to convert someone to truth, then grieve over him, with tears and love say a word or two to him, but do not burst out in anger, and may he not see any sign of hatred on your part, because love is not able to hate, or become irritated, or reproach anyone with passion…

New Saints

On the day that the Pope continues the labyrinthine ecclesiastical process of canonisation for John Henry Newman, and in the spirit of my previous post, I offer a somewhat more dynamic and wholly more glorious expression of saint-making. 

Simple really.