On
Tuesday the 16th of April Susan Southall conducted a Spiritual
Reading Group in the Carmelite Library on the English Dominican Timothy
Radcliffe. Here is Susan’s introductory paper to that session.
Timothy Radcliffe was born in London at the end of
the Second World War (1945) but spent most of his youth on his family’s estate
in Yorkshire, the upper-class English country life celebrated in literature,
although he points out that from the ages of eight to eighteen, three quarters
of his time was spent at boarding schools: these were the Benedictine schools
Worth and Downside. All of his numerous cousins and in fact most English
aristocratic children were the same, although he finds it incredible now. On
his second night at school he was beaten for leaving his clothes on the floor.
He says, ‘No one had ever hit me, no-one. I was utterly astonished that anyone
might do such a thing!’ [1]
On one side he is descended from the great Catholic
recusant families who had demonstrated the ability to put their faith above the
loyalty demanded by the state. When he became involved in the anti-nuclear
campaigns with other young Dominicans it was pointed out they were breaking the
law. His reaction was, ‘We had been breaking the law for centuries.’ [2]
His mother’s family came from Portugal at the beginning of the nineteenth
century. They had a theological bent, and association with the East: they
subscribed to Country Life for the
Dalai Lama until he went into exile! His great-grandfather George Lane-Fox, had
been disinherited by his father when he became a Catholic. He went to Rome to
become a novice at Santa Sabina: although his father wasn’t speaking to him,
many other relatives were and they visited, taking him to dinner at Rome’s
finest restaurants. His novice-master suggested that with so little attention
to the vow of poverty he lacked a religious vocation, and so he became the
ancestor of a Master of the Order instead.[3]
It was only after leaving school that Timothy
Radcliffe had any reason to question his faith. He began to meet people who
asked, ‘but is it true?’ He came from this protected Catholic background and
now had to reflect. If it is true, he thought, he ought to spend his life on
it. All that he knew was that there was a religious order whose motto was
Truth. He asked the Benedictines to put him in touch with the Dominican
provincial. Within five minutes, he said he wished to join the Order. He was
sent to talk to the novitiate, and was struck by the simplicity of the life
there, and the richness of discussion. It was a complete intellectual
environment, people discussing everything from communism to the sacraments. His
family would later be disturbed that he decided to join an Order with such a
left-wing reputation. At the end of this visit, he asked to join the Order. The
novice-master suggested he should read Plato’s Dialogues as preparation.
He had never thought of religious life before this,
and he came from a politically conservative family. He had a hard time to begin
with, being the only person there who came from an upper-class background. He
was teased all the time, and became familiar with terms like exploiters of the
working-classes, and immoral capitalists. He thought this was unfair on his
relatives, whom he knew to be good people. In time, his own political views
began to change and he joined his brethren protesting against the Vietnam War
and the nuclear sites in England. It was a time of disturbance in the world and
in the church. Guidance from superiors was helpful. He remembers saying to the
elderly Dominican Gervase Matthew, ‘It must be very hard for you, Gervase, to
see all this going on.’ To which he replied, ‘Oh, it was worse in the fourteenth
century.’[4]
Of his vows, in spite of his background, poverty
didn’t trouble him. It was something different to experience! It bothered some
of his relations, though. He had an argument with an uncle who wanted to pay
his train fare: he explained that he was hitch-hiking. Eventually the
compromise that was reached had the chauffeur driving him in the Rolls-Royce to
a suitable stop at the highway and handing him his bag as he was given a lift
in a lorry. Travelling light! Chastity provided more difficulty for young men,
especially as they were at that time given no formation in how to deal with
their sexuality. He makes the observation that ‘what is the hardest aspect of
chastity is not the lack of sexual activity but, much more, the lack of
intimacy — knowing that you have a unique importance for one person who has
that same importance for you.’[5] At
the age of thirty, he found this aspect painful. But obedience was never a
problem. For Dominicans, obedience took place in an atmosphere of ‘dialogue and
fraternity.’[6]
He became a priest in spite of his resistance to clericalism. He wanted to be a
brother of the Order, but when asked he accepted ordination as a form of
obedience to brothers who requested it. Gervase Matthew told him the most
important thing he did as a priest was hearing confessions. He found this to be
true, especially as he recognised that ‘you are not a superior being handing
out God’s absolution to someone else’ but yourself a sinner who can encourage
others by giving the words he needs to hear himself.[7]
That process was repeated much later when after
years of teaching scripture at Oxford at the request of Simon Tugwell, he was
elected English Provincial. He had fallen in love with study, and the transition
to leaving research, libraries and students for travel, administration and
meetings was difficult. He was able ‘to create the conditions in which we can
really talk to each other, and together arrive at decisions about the common
good.’[8]
One of the advances from his English years was related to the AIDS crisis. He
arranged a conference of hospital chaplains, doctors and nurses, and patients
and broke the taboo on talking around the disease. AIDS sufferers were free to
stay at Blackfriars to come and rest. This was at a time when the illness was
completely stigmatised.
He isn’t able to know exactly how he came to be
Master of the Order. He thought he wouldn’t have to worry about it; he was such
an unlikely candidate. He accepted the office as part of his obedience to his
brothers. For two-thirds of the year he was travelling, supporting the friars,
the sisters, the laity and the contemplatives, especially those working in places
of violence, war and persecution, as Rwanda during the genocide, a situation
that brought him to tears. It is a nine- year appointment, which he held from
1992-2001, virtually living in airports, and he feels no one could manage to do
it for longer.
When asked if the Order should leave magnificent
buildings such as Santa Maria Novella in Florence to open new mission
territories, he replied: ‘You ask what we should close. I think the first
question we need to ask is what we should open. Let’s first do something new
and then see what, as a consequence, we must give up. You mention the example
of Santa Maria Novella, that wonderful priory in Florence, filled with
Renaissance frescoes. It is true that we cannot let ourselves become museum
keepers for tourists. But surely we can find ways of preaching the gospel
through the beauty of such places.’[9]
Timothy Radcliffe continues to preach from his
community at Blackfriars in Oxford, and his homilies can be read on the
internet: https://www.english.op.org/profiles/timothy-radcliffe.htm
[1]
Timothy Radcliffe, I Call You Friends
(London: Continuum, 2001), 11.
[2] Radcliffe, I Call You Friends, 4.
[3] Radcliffe, I Call You Friends, 15.
[4]
Radcliffe, I Call You Friends, 19.
[5] Radcliffe, I Call You Friends, 22.
[6] Radcliffe, I Call You Friends, 20-21.
[7] Radcliffe, I Call You Friends, 29.
[8] Radcliffe, I Call You Friends, 34-35.
[9] Radcliffe, I Call You Friends, 76.
No comments:
Post a Comment