It is said that twenty-two veterans commit suicide each day in the United States of America. Many more think about it. To return to civilian life once you have done your military service is not often easy. The research is clear. Even for those who did not serve in combat theatres, military life is stressful to a degree rarely found elsewhere in western countries. The aftermath of such service is often the loss of connection with family and friends through time.
Until recently, many of these, and other, veterans died relatively unknown and alone. But, something has changed in the United States in the past few years. Funeral homes are letting the broader community know when a veteran has no family to bury them. Folks across the country are now organising to attend the funerals of these men and women. Sometimes only a few attend. At other times, there can be hundreds present.
There is something about the thought of dying alone and forgotten that touches us deeply. In his poem, Hora Novissima, or The Last Hour, the thirty-two-year-old Newman expresses such dread. He is writing while at sea in June of 1833 having recovered from serious illness. He was returning to England from his Mediterranean excursions having been separated from the Froudes, his travelling companions, when they had returned home weeks earlier. Newman accepts that in that dread last hour, it may be God's will that neither friends nor family may attend him. What he prays for is the ministering presence of the Church.
Newman specifically refers to dread three times in this poem of twenty lines. The dread command to return to dust is the first. The second is the dread presence of the Cross, that symbol of agony and death. And, finally, the dread of dying alone which God will not distain.
Less than a week later, Newman is in Marseilles where he pens all but the last twelve lines of his poem, Separation of Friends. The last lines of the earlier version speak of the speechless intercession of a man's mourning friends who send up their prayers to heaven through clear blue skies. The language becomes more tender in the last twelve lines added in 1836. These were occasioned by the death of his friend and former travelling companion, Richard Hurrell Froude, sortly after Newman's thirty-fifth birthday.
Froude was an Anglican priest and a fellow leader in the Oxford Movement. Newman addresses the mourning friends with the term, dearest. He does this as he ponders what might be known were their friend able and willing to communicate across the divide. But, then, the poet acknowledges that this would not be well met and refrains. Again, he addresses his hearers as dearest. According to Father Juan Velez, Newman often addressed his close friends with charissime, dearest, in his correspondence. He hung photos and paintings of both his patron saints and his departed friends on the walls of his private chapel. As the communion of the saints, their bonds remained strong. [1]
On pages 324 and 325 of The Dream of Gerontius, we should realise the blessed situation for what it is. Here the Dreamer's friends, his dearest, are assisting him in his dread hour. They are both present and presencing the communion of the saints to the Dreamer through their recitation of the litany. This is not a mere formulae. It is the work of earthly prayermates invoking the intercession of the saints under the banner of God's mercy towards us in our Lord Jesus Christ.
We should not hurry past this work of the Assistants. Instead, we might ask whether or not such assistance would be meaningful for us today. How familiar are we with the personages called upon? How often do we invoke their aid in our lives and praise God for theirs? Have we made friends of these, our elder brethren, and those invoked later in the poem? That Newman did so throughout his life is evidenced by the number of them about whom he wrote poems. Such communion may seem unreal at our end, if we care not to enact it now.
Still, God's grace certainly seems inscrutable at times. In his Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh captured this magnificently. Family and friends are uncertain or distainful as to whether a priest should be called to the deathbed of Lord Marchmain, a profligate. The priest is called and Lord Marchmain signals to receive the Sacrament. That grace to say yes to God's mercy results in two further unexpected affirmations of faith. First, by daughter Julia and, then, by family friend Charles Ryder in due time. We should never dispair of God's grace. On the other hand, we should never presume either.
On page 325, through the prayers of his dearest, Gerontius rallies to use well his waning time on earth. Those assisting at his dying have helped him to weather "the storm of that bewilderment" which is for "a season spent." But, Gerontius knows that at this "last hour" he still needs to prepare to meet his Maker. [2] He must use the time well. So, must we all while we may. No one of us knows the day of our ultimate demise. Now is the time to make friends for our end.
| [1] | Velez, J.R. (2017) Holiness in a secular age: The witness of Cardinal Newman. New York: Scepter Publishers, pages 31-32. |
| [2] | With regard to the phrase to "meet his Maker", Ian Ker (2009) tells us, on page 574 of John Henry Newman, that Newman had submitted two revised poems to The Month which were about his sister Mary. He had done this to support the magazine prior to providing the editor with The Dream of Gerontius. Mary died quite suddenly in January 1828 thirty-seven years before Newman wrote his last published poem. In the year of her death, Newman wrote two poems about Mary. The first was Consolations in Bereavement in April. The second was A Picture in August of 1828. The reference I make to meeting the Maker is from the second poem: Such was she in the sudden hour | That brought her Maker's call,-- Proving her heart's self-mastering power | Blithely to part with all,--. Newman never got over Mary's death both in its suddenness and his loss of her innocence. A Picture was the first poem in the first volume of The Month (July-December 1864) and is found on pages 209 and 210. The second poem was Epiphany-Eve: A birthday offering which was written in 1830 on the anniversary of her death on the 5th of January. It is found on pages 210-212 of the same volume. |