The Pen is Mightier than the Sword TITUS BRANDSMA by PETER THOMAS

 

World Press Freedom Day is celebrated on the 3rd of May. Carmelite Titus Brandsma is to be canonized as a saint of the universal church 11 days later on the 15th May. In this article we link the two by recognizing Titus Brandsma in his role as a journalist. The story of his remarkable life as a Philosopher, Theologian, Spiritual Mentor, Mystic, Pastor, Remarkable Human Being, etc. can be found at www.carmelite.com.au

In 1939 Adolf Hitler’s Nazis occupied through brute force what was then Czechoslovakia. It was the beginning of the German invasion Into Austria, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, the UK’s Channel Islands, the Soviet Union and Italy. On the 10th May 1940 the infamous Battle of Rotterdam, a military campaign that saw the surrender of the main Dutch forces four days later, secured the Netherlands as an occupied country of the Third Reich. Journalists in the Netherlands were put on notice not to resist and among them was the Carmelite, Titus Brandsma.

Titus saw the ominous development of Nazism with his use of unequivocal, forceful language as he warned the Dutch against Hitler’s tyranny, “the Nazi movement is a black lie.” He immediately came to the notice of the Dutch National Socialist Party and hence became a marked man. As the German tanks with their red war banners and swastikas smashed their way across the Dutch frontier any opposition to the occupiers was considered traitorous; religion came under attack and Jews were victimized. Priests and religious were prohibited from the positions of principals of secondary schools; their salaries were reduced by 40% and all Catholic schools were forced to expel Jewish students. Titus defended the freedom of the press and of the Catholic press in particular. For this he was put to death.

Seventy-seven years after the end of World War 2, on average every five days a journalist is killed for bringing information to the public. Attacks are sometimes perpetrated in non-conflict situations by organized crime groups, militia, ‘security’ personnel, and even local police. These attacks include murder, abductions, harassment, intimidation, illegal arrest and arbitrary detention. Fifty-five
journalists were murdered in 2021 and two hundred and ninety three are in prison. (UNESCO) The Committee to Protect Journalists executive director, Joel Simon said in a statement about these numbers that “the numbers reflect two inextricable challenges-governments are determined to control and manage information, and they are increasingly brazen in their efforts to do so.”

The Nazis in the Netherlands introduced a policy of ‘enforced conformity’ which systematically eliminated non-Nazi organisations. This was a shock to the Dutch who had traditionally had separate institutions for all the main religious groups, particularly Catholic and Protestant. The process was opposed in the Catholic press and by 1941 all Catholics were urged by the Dutch bishops to leave any associations that had been Nazified. Catholic newspapers were Informed they had to accept press releases and advertisements emanating from official Nazi sources. Church authorities appointed Titus to convey to all Catholic editors in the Netherlands that they must disobey this command. The church hierarchy warned Titus that he was being asked to take on a most dangerous mission and gave him the option to refuse. He accepted the mission freely and willingly. From that moment as he travelled the length and breadth of the Netherlands to speak with editors he was shadowed by the Gestapo.

The German occupation of the Netherlands which lasted from 1940 until the German surrender in May 1945 saw the majority of Jews in the country sent to Nazi concentration camps. By the end of the war in 1945 only around 38,000 of the 140,000 Jews that lived in the Netherlands survived. Many were sent to Dachau the place of execution for Titus Brandsma.

The atrocities committed during this time were barbaric, and Perhaps the most shocking example was the forced eviction of Jewish psychiatric patients when hundreds of disabled and mentally ill Jews were transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) representing 600,000 media professionals in more than 140 countries speaks for journalists within the United Nations by promoting international action to Defend press freedom and social justice; condemns the use of media for propaganda or to promote intolerance and conflict and believes in freedom of political and cultural expression. Currently the IFJ is working with journalists in the Ukraine particularly with a Sky UK news crew as well as a Swiss journalist who was recently attacked and severely injured by Russian forces.

Australian journalist, Peter Greste, notable for his 13 months of imprisonment in a Cairo jail for his alleged criticism of the Egyptian regime delivered the University of New South Wales 2016 Gandhi
Oration. He reminded his audience that Gandhi was a journalist as Well as being a lawyer, politician and spiritual leader. Mahatma Gandhi launched and edited a newspaper in South Africa and later in
India where all his writings in spite of danger to himself were in support of an unwavering commitment to facts. Gandhi’s philosophy, said Greste can be boiled down to one idea that peace, dignity and security can only be guaranteed when we respect the human rights of all. Gandhi and Titus Brandsma had a lot in common.

Titus was arrested on January 19, 1942 and taken to a prison at Scheveningen near The Hague. He was denounced as an enemy of the German mission with the claim that his hostility is proven by his
writing against German policy towards the Jews. It was well known by the German authorities that since 1935 he was in agreement with many Dutch intellectuals in their public condemnation of the Nazi persecution of Jews. On March 12 Titus was transported to the notorious penal settlement at Amersfoort. A fellow prisoner at Amersfoort recalls Titus concern and care for the Jews. In late April
Titus was transferred to Dachau concentration camp where on Sunday July 26, 1942 he was injected with a deadly drug. He died within ten minutes.

In celebration of World Press Freedom Day and the canonization of Carmelite priest, Titus Brandsma we are reminded that there are Core principles of journalism that Titus and journalists in the twenty-
first century deem sacrosanct. These are truthfulness, accuracy, objectivity, impartiality, fairness; to seek out the truth and act with integrity. Applying these principles in real life is hard but examples
such as Titus Brandsma and other heroic journalistic figures Demonstrate that public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice And the foundation of democracy. Titus died for the truth; Titus died for his faith; Titus died so that others might live.

Peter Thomas has worked in radio and television both as a producer, writer, director and presenter of current affairs and news, light entertainment and religion. He co-founded Albert Street Productions, an independent documentary production company that produced
features both for Australia and international television including the ABC, SBS, all commercial networks and the Discovery Channel. He has taught Church & Media Studies at Yarra Theological Union and Radio Journalism at RMIT University, Melbourne. A passionate broadcaster, Peter maintains a weekly radio commitment. He is married to Marcella with four adult children, nine grandchildren and has a special interest in meditation and mindfulness practices.

Ref: UNESCO.org
‘No Strangers to Violence, No Strangers to Love’ by Boniface Hanley ofm, Ave Maria Press.
www.holland.com
UNSW 2016
International Federation of Journalists

 

This article was first distributed by the Justice, Peace, Integrity of Creation Commission of the Carmelite Order, JPIC 114, April 2022.

 

A Life and a Restoration of Thomas Traherne (I)

A paper written by Philip Harvey for Spiritual Reading Group on Zoom at the Carmelite Library, Wednesday the 16^th of March, 2022. All references in the paper, plus many other Traherne sources, are available on this site under the headings Thomas Traherne LINKS and Thomas Traherne BIBLIOGRAPHY.

 

St Mary's Church, Credenhill, Herefordshire, England

A LIFE OF GLORIOUS PRINCIPLES 

Thomas Traherne is one of the most significant, original, and remarkable English spiritual writers of the seventeenth century. This is something we can say now in the twenty-first century because most of his writing has only come to light in the last 100 years or so. It’s one reason why we call him a modern writer. 

“Why is this soe long detained in a dark Manuscript, that if printed would be a Light to the World, and a universal Blessing?” 

We are still not fully confident of his birth date, but it was probably 1637. A biographer of the time knew enough about Traherne to say he was the son of shoemaker, which makes him what people called a commoner. His childhood and youth were a time of supreme value to Traherne. We know this because childhood is a major theme in his writing, an explanation of his thought, an autobiographical key. 

“Once I remember (I think I was about 4 years old, when) I thus reasoned with my self – sitting in a little Obscure Room in my Fathers poor House. If there be a God, certainly He must be infinit in Goodness. And that I was prompted to, by a real Whispering Instinct of Nature. And if He be infinit in Goodness, and a Perfect Being in Wisdom and Love, certainly He must do most Glorious Things: and giv us infinit Riches; how comes it to pass therfore that I am so poor? of so Scanty and Narrow a fortune, enjoying few and Obscure Comforts? I thought I could not believ Him a GOD to me, unless all his Power were Employd to Glorify me. I knew not then my Soul, or Body: nor did I think of the Heavens and the Earth, the Rivers and the Stars, the Sun or the Seas: all those were lost, and Absent from me. But when I found them made of Nothing for me, then I had a GOD indeed, whom I could Prais, and rejoice in.”[Centuries of Meditations III 36] 

Traherne was very bright and entered Brasenose College, Oxford at the age of 15. His transit through that place was supported by funds from a relative. He completed his MA in 1661. 

“Having been at the University, and received there the Taste and Tincture of another Education, I saw that there were Things in this World of which I never Dreamed, Glorious Secrets, and Glorious Persons past Imagination. There I saw that Logick, Ethicks, Physicks, Metaphysicks, Geometry, Astronomy, Poesie, Medicine, Grammar, Musick, Rhetorick, all kind of Arts Trades and Mechanicismes that Adorned the World pertained to felicity. At least there I saw those Things, which afterwards I knew to pertain unto it; And was Delighted in it. There I saw into the Nature of the Sea, the Heavens, the Sun, the Moon and Stars, the Elements, Minerals and Vegetables. All which appeared like the Kings Daughter, All Glorious within, and those Things which my Nurses and Parents should have talkt of, there were taught unto Me.’ [Centuries of Meditations III 36] 

This passage opens up the personality of Thomas Traherne for our attention. We see that he has an enquiring mind, a love of education in its relationship to the world around him, a marvelling perception and delight in existence. He makes a point that this was not the kind of education he had received from his parents and others, which I interpret as Traherne relishing the next stage of learning. But like many who go to university, he is also aware of something missing. What is it? 

“Nevertheless som things were Defectiv too. There was never a Tutor that did professely Teach Felicity : tho that be the Mistress of all other Sciences. Nor did any of us Study these things but as Aliena [i.e. as foreign, outside the normal coursework], which we ought to hav Studied as our own Enjoyments. We Studied to inform our Knowledg, but knew not for what End we so Studied. And for lack of aiming at a Certain End, we erred in the Manner. How beit there we received all those Seeds of Knowledg that were afterwards improved; and our Souls were Awakened to a Discerning of their faculties, and Exercise of their Powers.” [Centuries of Meditations III 37] 

The subject of Felicity is not on the curriculum at the University of Oxford. It is clearly however the main subject on Traherne’s mind. It is the central expression of Traherne’s vision of God and life. Before completing his degrees, in 1657, Traherne had already been appointed to the living of Credenhill, a beautiful village in Herefordshire. He was ordained in October 1660. While some sources say he held this position all of his relatively short life, other sources including the plaque to Traherne in St Mary’s Credenhill itself say he was there for ten years. Whatever, and scholars will continue their explorations, it is this inspiring country place that Traherne writes about later. 

“When I came into the Country, and saw that I had all time in my own hands, having devoted it wholy to the Study of Felicitie, I knew not where to begin or End; nor what Objects to chuse, upon which most profitably I might fix my Contemplation. I saw my self like som Traveller, that had Destined his Life to journeys, and was resolvd to spend his Days in visiting Strange Places: who might wander in vain, unless his Undertakings were guided by som certain Rule; and that innumerable Millions of Objects were presented before me, unto any of which I might take my journey – fain I would have visited them all, but that was impossible. What then should I do? Even imitat a Traveller, who because He cannot visit all Coasts, Wildernesses, Sandy Deserts, Seas, Hills, Springs, and Mountains, chuseth the most Populous and flourishing Cities, where he might see the fairest Propects, Wonders, and Rarities, and be entertained with greatest Courtesie: and where indeed he might most Benefit Himself with Knowledg, Profit and Delight: leaving the rest, even the naked and Empty Places unseen. For which caus I made it my Prayer to GOD Almighty, that He, whose Eys are open upon all Things, could guid me to the fairest and Divinest.” [Centuries of Meditations III 52] 

He placed himself in God’s care and guidance. And he wrote about the experience. We now know that Traherne was a dedicated writer all of his adult life. One of his writing projects during the 1660s was to send meditations to a woman of serious religious intentions, by name Susanna Hopton. Susanna was the wife of a Welsh Judge and lived in Herefordshire outside the village of Kington. She corresponded with many spiritual thinkers and kept what we might call a spiritual reading group of friends and acquaintances. The things Traherne sent her seem to have been the handouts to guide the group’s reflections. This is why, when we read ‘Centuries of Meditations’, as the handouts are now called, we meet someone who is enthusing us in the shared pursuit of the ways of God. Everything we read here was first a correspondence about the spiritual life written by Thomas Traherne for the use of Susanna Hopton. We may read these, in turn, as messages to us through time, one to one. 

“Till your Spirit filleth the whole World, and the Stars are your Jewels, till you are as Familiar with the Ways of God in all Ages as with your Walk and Table: till you are intimately Acquainted with that Shady Nothing out of which the World was made: till you lov Men so as to Desire their Happiness, with a Thirst equal to the zeal of your own: till you Delight in GOD for being Good to all: you never Enjoy the World. Till you more feel it then your Privat Estate, and are more present in the Hemisphere, Considering the Glories and the Beauties there, then in your own Hous. Till you remember how lately you were made, and how wonderful it was when you came into it: and more rejoice in the Palace of your Glory, then if it had been made but to Day Morning.” [Centuries of Meditations I 30] 

Sometime in the later sixties or early seventies, Traherne became chaplain to the Lord Keeper of the Seal, Sir Orlando Bridgeman. This placed him very close to the centre of power in England at the Restoration. Politics being politics, when Sir Orlando fell out of favour with the monarch, his chaplain went with him. This is why Traherne was living at Bridgeman’s house in Teddington when he died in 1674, at the young age of 37. The cause of death remains unknown. Nor is there a portrait likeness of him in existence, despite the appearance of certain unexplained claimants on Google Image.   

It helps to place the scant facts about Traherne’s life in the context of the volatile events of national life in England. His growing up was spent watching the English tear themselves apart in what is called the English Civil War, or the English Revolution, a period that witnessed the execution of the king, the effective abolition of the church, and war between social and religious factions. That is, when he became rector of Credenhill in 1657, the Church of England was banned, there were no bishops, and the Puritans determined who could serve in a parish; circumstances overturned with the Restoration. Traherne survived a year of plague and then the Great Fire of London in 1666. It is, nevertheless, out of this dire period of national crisis that Traherne grew into maturity to express a vision of life that is buoyant, exuberant, joyous, enquiring, and immensely generous. 

“You never Enjoy the World aright, till the Sea it self floweth in your Veins, till you are clothed with the Heavens, and Crowned with the Stars: and perceive your self to be the Sole Heir of the whole World: and more then so, because Men are in it who are evry one Sole Heirs, as well as you. Till you can Sing and rejoice and Delight in GOD, as Misers do in Gold, and Kings in Scepters, you never Enjoy the World.” [Centuries of Meditations I 29]

A Life and a Restoration of Thomas Traherne (II)

Traherne plaque in the church at Credenhill, Herefordshire, where he was Rector 

A RESTORATION OF THE POET THOMAS TRAHERNE 

“He thought it a Vain Thing to see Glorious Principles lie Buried in Books, unless he did remove them into his Understanding; and a vain thing to remov them unless he did revive them, and rais them up by continual exercise. Let this therefore be the first Principle of your soul. That to hav no Principles, or to liv beside them, is equally Miserable. And that Philosophers are not those that Speak, but Do great Things.” [Centuries of Meditations IV 2] 

As I said at the outset, most of Traherne’s writings remained unknown for over two hundred years. His biographer Gladys Wade puts it in 1944, “we have the unique spectacle of an author whose first book was published less than a year before his death; and whose books have been ‘appearing’ at wide intervals over the course of two and a half centuries, with the process still incomplete!” [Wade 111] Today we know he was prolific. In 1896 someone found two manuscripts on a street book barrow in London. One of these contains all of the quotes we are reading today, a work titled by its editor ‘Centuries of Meditations’, because Traherne collected the progression of his meditations into hundreds. Other discoveries started emerging, whether by accident or educated guesswork. Some of them had lain unidentified in libraries all of that time. The most recent of these discoveries was in 1997, MS 1360 of Lambeth Palace Library, no less. 

Many unanswered questions surround the vanishing of most of his writing after his death. Misplacement, misappropriation, mangling, neglect? By chance on Facebook this month I conversed with the English historian Diarmaid MacCulloch, who had reviewed a new history of the 17^th-century English church. While I said I thought Traherne a “quintessential Anglican”, he replied that in the terms of the new book “one might say pioneering as much as quintessential Anglican.” “Perhaps too pioneering for his own religious friends,” I wrote, “given they seem to have succeeded in hiding his manuscripts for over 200 years.” MacCulloch then observed, “the modest inconsequentiality of Traherne’s story is rather quintessentially Anglican.” 

Reader reception since 1908, when the first of his works was printed by Bertram Dobell, tells its own story and explains why a critical edition of 15 volumes called The Oxford Traherne is now underway, the first volume planned for publication in 2024. That is the very same university where they still don’t offer Felicity on the curriculum. Which is not to say that several august people inside that place, as well as outside, haven’t spoken enthusiastically of what Traherne is doing. 

C.S. Lewis called ‘Centuries of Meditations’ “almost the most beautiful book in the English language. I could go on quoting it forever.”

 Rowan Williams talks of Traherne’s “Platonic vision of the world – the ascent through created beauty,” and of what is “very typical of Traherne, that sense of an absolutely, overflowing abundance of divine welcome and courtesy in the world around.” 

Denise Inge, just about the best elucidator in this century, says “readers with imagination fall for Traherne. He takes you on unexpected interior journeys into desire and lack, infinity, time, and eternity.” 

Ronald Blythe has described his experience of giving a paper at a Traherne conference at Credenhill, where the poet was rector, as follows. “I felt overwhelmed to be reading Traherne’s writings in the church where his voice had sounded. Mine and the other scholars’ papers failed to explain him. Nor could we bring him to the real attention of those listening to us, for his is that form of happiness which travels at the speed of light, and is well on its way in a single spoken sentence from his works. [These gatherings at Credenhill help] re-establish the claims of happiness and delight as being a necessary aspect of the Christian experience. Traherne’s is the ultimate apology for such claims.”    

 PERSONAL EXPERIENCE OF READING TRAHERNE 

Ronald Blythe raises the very real matter of the reader’s experience of this poet. Reading ‘Centuries of Meditations’ is to encounter someone enthusiastic to share his experience of blessedness, blessedness as both the origin and purpose of existence. His sharing of this understanding is not mainly about him, it’s about you and me the reader being made to see that this is real, that it is available to you and everyone. Everything starts with Traherne and his understanding of relationship to God, but very quickly he is true to his word in wanting us to have that understanding and experience in the same way that he does. 

The paragraphs of ‘Centuries of Meditation’ come from this place of blessedness, such that the cumulative effect of reading them is visionary. We read some of the paragraphs this morning and make connections; they are open invitations to contemplation. But the work itself sets out different ways of talking about blessedness (or Felicity) follow a ranging sequential logic, a logic that is not made transparent, or by use of conjunctions, but must be followed by intuition. One reason why we cannot simply read them as a thesis of the spiritual life is that every paragraph is a spontaneous searching after meaning, valuable in and of itself. We can spend any amount of time profitably on just one paragraph.

 Gladys Wade believes that “the form of these meditations exactly suited Traherne’s quick-moving mind; yet it exerted a necessary and perfective discipline.” So, even though the content can be expressive of immensity and richness of creation, Wade agrees that “the nature, and the virtue, of the control imposed by their form on these meditations” shows Traherene at his best in revising and correcting his text, “the development in Traherne of a new insight into the value of restraint.” [Wade 189]

 When I read other works of Traherne, the contrast in style, voice, layout, manner, and direction of ‘Centuries of Meditations’ is apparent. It has its own artistry, its own individual mode of presentation. Traherne has struck upon a method of expression that suits his purpose. This means that even though there are repetitions across several entries and passages that seem like digressions at the time, each paragraph shows him actively getting at one particular point in his thought. The cumulative effect is very powerful.    

TRYING TO DEFINE AND EXPLAIN FELICITY 

“The best of all Possible Ends is the Glory of GOD, but Happiness was that I thirsted after. And yet I did not erre – for the Glory of God is to make us Happy. Which can never be don but by giving us most Excellent Natures and Satisfying those Natures: by Creating all Treasures of infinit Valu, and giving them to us in an infinit maner, to wit both in the Best that to Omnipotence was possible. This led me to Enquire, Whither All Things were Excellent and of Perfect Valu, and whither they were mine in Propriety?” [Centuries of Meditations III 39] 

To appreciate Traherne, it is necessary to try and explain what he means by this keyword, Felicity. Today we are very used to self-help books and happiness manuals that are designed to get us in a good frame of mind for daily life. Although Traherne encourages self-help, he would never have called it that, nor would he for a moment have believed that you can do any of this all by yourself. He sometimes uses Felicity interchangeably with happiness, the operations of Felicity of their very nature leading us into all happiness. However, happiness in and of itself is not the final objective of true Felicity. Nor is Felicity simply a synonym for happiness. Happiness is an outcome of being in a state of Felicity. 

Often his use of the word is equivalent to blessedness, or a state of beatitude. He says we can achieve this state through various means, through prayer and living out the virtues, by loving God and our neighbour as ourselves. It also means putting aside all sinful distraction, anything that hinders this state. At the same time, he puts no time frame or rules on blessedness, so that blessedness may be experienced at any time. This means he may recall at will times of blessedness as a child, a youth, and as an adult. He freely recites examples. Felicity is available to anyone at any time. It is our willingness singlehandedly to go find it, that assists in its action. 

Another word for this is grace, grace being ultimately the state he describes. I think what he is talking about is the even closer state of peace and wellbeing experienced in close relationship to God. The way he finds this is by attention to God’s goodness and a trained avoidance, rejection, and distancing from anything else, especially that coming from perception of evil. 

“And what Rule do you think I walked by? Truly a Strange one, but the Best in the Whole World. I was Guided by an Implicit Faith in Gods Goodness: and therfore led to the Study of the most Obvious and Common Things. For thus I thought within my self: GOD being, as we generally believ, infinit in Goodness, it is most Consonant and Agreeable with His Nature, that the Best Things should be most Common – for nothing is more Naturall to infinit Goodness, then to make the Best Things most frequent; and only Things Worthless, Scarce. Then I began to Enquire what Things were most Common: Air, Light, Heaven and Earth, Water, the Sun, Trees, Men and Women, Cities Temples &c. These I found Common and Obvious to all: Rubies Pearls Diamonds Gold and Silver, these I found scarce, and to the most Denied. Then began I to consider and compare the value of them, which I measured by their Serviceableness, and by the Excellencies which would be found in them, should they be taken away. And in Conclusion I saw clearly, that there was a Real Valuableness in all the Common things; in the Scarce, a feigned.” [Centuries of Meditations III 39] 

Dorothy Sayers says that Traherne is one of the great spiritual writers of the via affirmativa, or affirmative way. While the via negativa is one way to have relationship with God, as for example in the ascetic practice of St John of the Cross, where meaning is achieved through a reductive process of nothing, or ‘nada’, so the via affirmativa is about understanding God through everything in creation, and by affirming and building up positive statements about God’s nature, and in turn his good creation, of which we are a part.  This is certainly Traherne’s acquired mode of expression, which is why his writing can be so inspiring, but also at times overwhelming. It is a creation theology that places value on every living being and object. 

Lucy Winkett, vicar of St James’ Piccadilly in London, says that “Traherne teaches us a habitual stance towards creation that is not fundamentally human-centric. Despite one of his goals seeming to be individual happiness – which could seem too self-serving – he defines that happiness as union with the divine, bound by the cords of love, as embodied by Christ on the cross. And so, in the end, it is more of a self-giving than a self-actualisation.”  She argues that this de-centring of the human experience underlies all Traherne’s quests for happiness and it is this de-centring that “is needed in our attitude towards the current ecological crisis.”     

CONCLUDING WITH HIS BIOGRAPHER GLADYS WADE 

My paper has cited several avid readers of Thomas Traherne. I wish to conclude my paper by giving a short tribute to one of those readers, a woman who deserves much more attention and gratitude than she has received over time. Her name is Gladys Irene Wade. Gladys, though most people in her life would have addressed her as Miss Wade, and later Dr. Wade, was a Western Australian, born in 1895. She attended a convent school, which may explain what happened next. 

Thomas Traherne was the subject of her thesis at The University of Western Australia and University College London, completed in 1919, when most of his newly found writings had only been available for ten years. Her study took her all over Hereford, Oxford, London and other Traherne localities. She worked closely with the “Traherne-enthusiast” Robert Allerton Parker, who lived in New York and who assisted with preparation of her final manuscript. 

One of the essential turning points in mid-century study of Traherne, a gathering together and analysis and exposition of the author, was the conversion of this thesis into a book, ‘Thomas Traherne’ by Gladys I. Wade, published by Princeton University Press in 1944.  Gladys Wade was an Australian scholar and educationalist. For a short while she was Deputy Headmistress of the Methodist Ladies’ College in Barkers Road, Kew, in Melbourne (1935-40), before moving to be Headmistress of MLC Burwood, Sydney, a position she held until she retired in 1959. In other words, we can surmise that much of the final editing of the (for some decades) foundational biography and introduction to Thomas Traherne was done in Melbourne, though the preface is signed Sydney 1942, after she had gone there to be Headmistress. 

Dr Wade might have been a blue stocking, in the sense of someone who pursued academic literature as a career. Or she may have deliberately chosen to have two strings to the bow and go into school administration as well. However, that I am aware she never wrote another book. It is worthy of note to know that her interest in language was acute. One of the first things she did as Headmistress of MLC Burwood was to create the school’s house system, the houses being given Indigenous names: Mooramoora, Leawarra, Churunga, and Booralee. A portrait of her in the school history describes her as a person of  “extreme reserve and formal manner, stemming perhaps from shyness”, thoroughly professional and “forthright” in her dealings with School Councils and administrators. I think we get closer to the insightful thinker and interpreter of Traherne however, when she is said to have had “a deeply religious nature.” It is thanks to this woman that the blossoming world of Traherne scholarship since 1944 has been able to work from her benchmark accomplishment. Denise Inge’s splendid introductory book of 2008 may be read as the successor to her book. I leave the final word in my paper to Dr Wade. 

“Traherne goes joyously forward. Having followed this path, and found it good, Traherne points it out to others as a way to blessedness. The first essential, he declares, is that a man must ‘believe that Felicity is a glorious though an unknown thing.’ He must accept it as reasonable, and desire it; nothing else will set his feet on the ladder and nerve him for the climb. But to see and to long for felicity is not to possess it; the necessary spiritual discipline comes by this method of intense meditation of the common, visible things of earth, until the perception of their glory and beauty and exquisite interrelationship blends with the perception of their spiritual origin and operation. This for Traherne is the highway to felicity; this continuous, conscious perception of the essential beauty of the world is his scala perfectionis.” [Wade 235-6] 

       

 

Thomas Traherne BIBLIOGRAPHY

Here is a list of books read during the creation of my paper on Thomas Traherne. Philip Harvey

 

Cover of Anne Ridler's 1966 edition of Thomas Traherne, with special cover engraving by Reynolds Stone 

Ronald Blythe. Under a broad sky. Canterbury Press Norwich, 2013 

Ronald Blythe. Word from Wormingford : a parish year. Viking, 1997 

Geraldine E. Hodgson. English mystics. Mowbray, 1922 

Rufus M. Jones. Spiritual reformers in the 16^th & 17^th centuries. Macmillan, 1928 

Gordon Mursell. English spirituality. SPCK, 2001 

Chad Michael Rimmer. Greening the children of God : Thomas Traherne and nature’s role in the ecological formation of children. Pickwick Publications, 2019 

K. W. Salter. Thomas Traherne : mystic and poet. E. Arnold, 1964 

Dorothy Sayers. ‘The Beatrician vision in Dante and other poets’, in The poetry of search and the poetry of statement. Wipf & Stock, 2006, c1963 

Thomas Traherne. Happiness and holiness: Thomas Traherne and his writings. Edited by Denise Inge. Canterbury Press Norwich, 2008 

Thomas Traherne. Poems, Centuries, and Three Thanksgivings. Edited by Anne Ridler. Oxford University Press, 1966 

Thomas Traherne. The poetical works of Thomas Traherne, 1636?-1674 : from the original manuscripts. Edited by Bertram Dobell. Published by the editor, 1906 

Thomas Traherne. Selected poems and prose. Edited by Alan Bradford. Penguin Books, 1991 

Thomas Traherne. The way to blessedness : Thomas Traherne’s Christian ethicks. Edited by Margaret Bottrall. Faith Press, 1962 

Gladys I. Wade. Thomas Traherne. Princeton University Press, 1944 

Ailsa G. Thomson Zainu’ddin. They dreamt of a school : a centenary history of the Methodist Ladies’ College Kew 1882-1982

Thomas Traherne LINKS

 Here is a set of links to sites visited during the creation of my paper on Thomas Traherne. Philip Harvey 

David Buresh:

https://surprisedbytraherne.com/

No main author claim is made for the blogspot ‘Surprised by Traherne’, but David Buresh writes the lead articles. 

Nigel Butterley: https://www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/work/butterley-nigel-meditations-of-thomas-traherne

Setting of words from ‘Centuries of Meditations’. 

Richard Chartres: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2011/21-april/features/from-the-miserable-gulph-to-a-second-innocence-a-travel-guide

An article by the former Bishop of London. 

Sheena and Robert Coupe:

https://issuu.com/mlcschoolsydney/docs/walk_in_the_light_1986_mlc_school_l/135

‘Walk in the Light : MLC School Burwood, a centenary history’, containing biographical information about Traherne’s own biographer, Dr Gladys Wade, Headmistress of the School 1941-1959, pages 122 ff.

 Jules Evans:

https://www.philosophyforlife.org/blog/thomas-traherne

Personal essay praising Traherne’s influence. 

Gerald Finzi:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEKeaqwtQ6A

Dies Natalis, Op. 8., using words of Traherne. 

John Inge: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/may/15/denise-inge

Bishop John Inge’s obituary for his wife Denise Inge, premier editor and elucidator of Traherne, The Guardian, 16^th May 2014. 

Alison Kershaw: file:///C:/Users/Home/Downloads/Kershaw_Alison_2005.pdf

Author’s thesis at the University of Western Australia, 2005. 

Diarmaid MacCulloch:

https://www.facebook.com/diarmaid.macculloch

Online conversation with Diarmaid MacCulloch about Traherne and the 17^th century English church, 8^th March 2022. 

The Oxford Traherne:

https://oxfordtraherne.org/news/

Site of the 15-volume projected critical edition of the Works. 

Eleanor Parker https://aclerkofoxford.blogspot.com/search/label/Thomas%20Traherne

‘A Clerk of Oxford’ is Parker’s award-winning anonymous blog, filled with medieval and early modern literary outings of all kinds. She now teaches at Brasenose College, where she like Traherne is an alumnus. 

The Traherne Association: https://thomastraherneassociation.org/index.php

Based in Herefordshire, this site contains all things Traherne, including a link to the annual Jeremy Maule Lecture, given in 2021 by poet Malcolm Guite. 

Rowan Williams:

http://webmail.stpeters.org.au/iss/reports/RWjun02pt2.shtml

‘From William Temple to George Herbert. Anglican Origins : Prayer and Holiness’, talks at the Institute for Spiritual Studies at St Peter’s Eastern Hill, Melbourne, 25^th May 2002. 

Robert Willis:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmxTk5dYVDs

Dean Robert of Canterbury’s morning prayer for the 27^th of September 2020, anniversary of Traherne’s death. 

Lucy Winkett:

https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2021/17-september/faith/faith-features/see-yourself-in-your-father-s-palace

An article by the Rector of St James’, Piccadilly on Traherne and environment.