Daily prayer in Ordinary Time with French saints and writers 8: 10 February 2024

Thomas Merton … ‘to be grateful is to recognise the Love of God in everything he has given us’

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time, the time between Candlemas and the 40 days of Lent, which begins next week on Ash Wednesday. The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Saint Scholastica (ca 543), sister of Saint Benedict and Abbess of Plombariola, and tomorrow is the Sunday next before Left.

We spent two days in Paris earlier this week, and so, during these 11 days in Ordinary Time, my reflections each morning are drawing on the lives of 11 French saints and spiritual writers.

As this series of reflections began last Saturday, I admitted I am often uncomfortable with many aspects of French spirituality, and that I need to broaden my reading in French spirituality. So, I have turned to 11 figures or writers you might not otherwise expect. They include men and women, Jews and Christians, immigrants and emigrants, monks and philosophers, Catholics and Protestants, and even a few Anglicans.

Before this day gets busy, I am taking some quiet time early this morning for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, A reflection on a French saint or writer in spirituality;

2, today’s Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

Thomas Merton … the ‘beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves’

French saints and writers: Thomas Merton (1915-1968):

Thomas Merton (1915-1968), who had a had a major influence on modern western spirituality, has been described as the greatest Roman Catholic spiritual writer of the 20th century, and he is remarkable for his contributions to reintegrating spirituality and theology.

Thomas Merton is the author of 70 or more books and is best known for classics such as The Seven Storey Mountain, New Seeds of Contemplation and Zen and the Birds of Appetite. His writings cover a wide range of subjects, including spirituality and the contemplative life, prayer, and religious biography.

He was also deeply interested in issues of social justice and Christian responsibility. He did not shy away from controversy and addressed race relations, economic injustice, war, violence, and the nuclear arms race.

Thomas Merton is also remembered for his attempts to rearticulate the contemplative-monastic life and the Christian mystical tradition for today’s readers, his role in fostering ecumenical relations, particularly between Anglicans and Roman Catholics, and his role in interfaith dialogue, especially between Christians and Buddhists.

Thomas Merton was born in Prades, Pyrénées-Orientales, in France on 31 January 1915, and was baptised in the Anglican church in Prades. His father, Owen Heathcote Grierson Merton (1887-1931), was from New Zealand; his mother Ruth (Jenkins) was a Quaker artist from the US; they met when they were both living in Paris. Throughout his life, he remained proud of being French born of artist-parents.

The family later settled in New York. The birth of his brother, the death of his mother while Thomas was six, and the long-distance romances of his father created an unsettling life for Thomas Merton for some years. In his early teens he lived briefly at 18 Carlton Road, Ealing, in the 1920s.

His father died when he was 15, and he completed his schooling at Oakham, a public school in Rutland, and then enrolled as an undergraduate at Clare College, Cambridge. Some accounts say that he fathered a child while he was at Cambridge, but that the mother and child were killed in the London Blitz during World War II.

Without completing his degree at Cambridge, he returned to the US, and became a student at Columbia University in New York, where he developed friendships and relationships that would nurture him for the rest of his life.

Although he was nominally an Anglican, Thomas Merton underwent a dramatic conversion experience in 1938 and became a Roman Catholic. He recounts the experience of his conversion in his autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, which became a spiritual classic when it was published in 1948.

Thomas Merton joined the Trappists, the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance in 1941, entering the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky.

As a Trappist monk he was known as Father Louis, and his gifts as a writer were encouraged by the abbot. In addition to his translations of Cistercian sources and his original works, Thomas Merton carried on a prolific correspondence with people around the world on a wide range of subjects. Some of his correspondence takes the form of spiritual direction, some shows his deep affections for friends outside the community, and much of it demonstrates his ability to be fully engaged in the world even though he lived a cloistered life.

On 10 December 1968, Merton was in Bangkok in Thailand to attend an interfaith conference between Catholic and non-Christian monks when he got out of his bath to adjust an electric fan. He was electrocuted when touched an exposed wire with his wet hands and died a painful death.

On the very same day – 10 December 1968 – Karl Barth also died. He was one of the greatest theologians of the 20th century, and Pope Pius XII regarded Barth as the most important theologian since Thomas Aquinas.

Thomas Merton’s former family home at 18 Carlton Road, Ealing, a short walk from Ealing Abbey, is now a home of the Sisters of the Resurrection.

Thomas Merton in his own words:

The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.

By reading the scriptures I am so renewed that all nature seems renewed around me and with me. The sky seems to be a pure, a cooler blue, the trees a deeper green. The whole world is charged with the glory of God and I feel fire and music under my feet.

A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. No man can serve two masters. Your life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire.

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

To be grateful is to recognise the Love of God in everything he has given us – and he has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him. Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder and to praise of the goodness of God. For the grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference.

‘Shall I … wake up the dirty ghosts under the trees of the Backs, and out beyond the Clare New Building’ (Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain) … punting on the Backs, behind Clare College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 8: 1-10 (NRSVA):

1 In those days when there was again a great crowd without anything to eat, he called his disciples and said to them, 2 ‘I have compassion for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. 3 If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way – and some of them have come from a great distance.’ 4 His disciples replied, ‘How can one feed these people with bread here in the desert?’ 5 He asked them, ‘How many loaves do you have?’ They said, ‘Seven.’ 6 Then he ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground; and he took the seven loaves, and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to his disciples to distribute; and they distributed them to the crowd. 7 They had also a few small fish; and after blessing them, he ordered that these too should be distributed. 8 They ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. 9 Now there were about four thousand people. And he sent them away. 10 And immediately he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the district of Dalmanutha.

Thomas Merton’s hermitage at the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, Kentucky (Photograph: Bryan Sherwood / Wikipedia, CC BY 2.0)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 10 February 2024):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), has been ‘Gender Justice in Christ.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday by Ellen McMibanga, Zambia Anglican Council Outreach Programme.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (10 February 2024) invites us to pray in these words:

We pray for the church leaders, clergy and laity of the Anglican Church of Zambia. May they lead with wisdom, showing the example of equality to their congregations.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
you have created the heavens and the earth
and made us in your own image:
teach us to discern your hand in all your works
and your likeness in all your children;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who with you and the Holy Spirit reigns supreme over all things,
now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

God our creator,
by your gift
the tree of life was set at the heart of the earthly paradise,
and the bread of life at the heart of your Church:
may we who have been nourished at your table on earth
be transformed by the glory of the Saviour’s cross
and enjoy the delights of eternity;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Almighty God,
give us reverence for all creation
and respect for every person,
that we may mirror your likeness
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of the Sunday before Lent:

Almighty Father,
whose Son was revealed in majesty
before he suffered death upon the cross:
give us grace to perceive his glory,
that we may be strengthened to suffer with him
and be changed into his likeness, from glory to glory;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Yesterday’s Reflection (André and Magda Trocmé)

Continued Tomorrow (Paul Ricœur, 1913-2005)

Thomas Merton’s autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, became a spiritual classic when it was published

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Select reading:

Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1948).
Thomas Merton, Seeds of Contemplation (Norfolk, Connecticut: New Directions, 1949).
Thomas Merton, The wisdom of the desert; sayings from the Desert Fathers of the fourth century (New York: New Directions, 1961).
Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (New York: Doubleday, 1966).
Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation (New York: New Directions, 1972).

Laurence C Cunningham (ed), Thomas Merton: Spiritual Master. The Essential Writings (New York: Paulist Press, 1992).
Laurence C Cunningham (ed), Thomas Merton and the Monastic Vision (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999).
Esther De Waal, On Retreat with Thomas Merton, A Seven Day Programme (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2011).
James Forest, Thomas Merton, a Pictorial Biography (London: Catholic Truth Society, 1980).
Monica Furlong, Merton: A Biography (London: Ligouri, 1995).
Michael Mott, The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1986).
Philip Sheldrake, A Brief History of Spirituality (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007).

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time with French saints and writers 7: 9 February 2024

André Trocmé (1901-1971) and Magda Trocmé (1901-1996) have been designated Righteous Among the Nations

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time, the time between Candlemas and the 40 days of Lent, which begins next week on Ash Wednesday.

Charlotte and I are back in Stony Stratford, having spent two days in Paris. In these 11 days in Ordinary Time, my reflections each morning are drawing on the lives of 11 French saints and spiritual writers.

As this series of reflections began, I admitted I am often uncomfortable with many aspects of French spirituality, and that I need to broaden my reading in French spirituality. So, I have turned to 11 figures or writers you might not otherwise expect. They include men and women, Jews and Christians, immigrants and emigrants, monks and philosophers, Catholics and Protestants, and even a few Anglicans.

I have a medical appointment later today. But, before this day gets busy, I am taking some quiet time early this morning for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, A reflection on a French saint or writer in spirituality;

2, today’s Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

The Revd André Trocme (1901-1971) was the pastor in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon for 15 years

French saints and writers: 7, André and Magda Trocmé:

André Trocmé (1901-1971) and his wife Magda Trocmé (1901-1996), a French couple, have been designated Righteous Among the Nations. For 15 years, André was a pastor in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, a remote parish on the Plateau Vivarais-Lignon in south-central France.

His Christian pacifist positions were not well received by the French Protestant Church. In his preaching, he spoke out against discrimination as the Nazis were gaining power in Germany and he urged his Huguenot congregation to hide Jewish refugees from the Holocaust during World War II.

André Trocmé was born on 7 April 1901 in Saint-Quentin-en-Tourmont to a large and economically comfortable Protestant family. When he was 10, his mother Pauline (Schwerdtmenn) died after a car crash, and he was raised by his distant but demanding father, Paul Trocmé, a prosperous curtain manufacturer.

His upbringing was sheltered and strict, but he faced reality when World War I reached his hometown. Trocmé was only 13 as he watched soldiers struggle through the streets after battle. In 1916 he saw the trains taking dead soldiers to the crematoria. His family was split between his mother's German heritage and his half-French brothers, and Trocmé became aware of the notions of identity and loyalty.

His views on pacifism matured through lengthy conversations with a young soldier about the ideals of nonviolence. When the young soldier was killed in battle, Trocmé became more committed to the ideals of pacifism.

When their town was bombed in 1917 by the Germans, the Trocmé family were evacuated to southern Belgium as refugees. This gave André Trocmé an understanding of what it meant to be poor, in contrast to the wealthy life he had known.

After World War I, the Trocmé family moved to Paris, where André studied at the Faculty of Protestant Theology and at the Sorbonne. His convictions about nonviolence and Christian socialism deepened as he studied the Bible and met many like-minded students like himself, including Edouard Theis (1899-1984), who would later join Trocmé in Le Chambon.

Trocmé’s studies were interrupted by conscription in 1921-1923). He did not resist because he wanted to experience the placement in Morocco. When his conscription ended, Trocmé and several of his university colleagues joined the French branch of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation.

He received a one-year bursary in 1925 for young French theologians from Union Theological Seminary, New York. There Trocmé was a tutor to the children of John D Rockefeller Jr to pay his expenses, and there too he met Magda Grilli, a Russian-Italian woman who was studying social work.

Magda Elisa Larissa Grilli di Cortona was born on 2 November 1901 in Florence. Her father was an Italian born into Florentine. Her Russian-born mother died shortly after giving birth, and for the rest of his wife Magda’s father was a distant figure.

A scholarship in 1925 enabled Magda to attended the New York School of Social Work at Columbia University. She and André met in New York, and they married in 1926.

André Trocmé’s first appointment as a pastor was in Maubeuge, a town in northern France that had been destroyed during World War I. Although French pastors at the time were prohibited from advocating conscientious objection, Trocmé supported men in his town who resisted conscription.

The Trocmé family stayed in Maubeuge for seven years. But by 1932 the dusty, polluted air was taking its toll on them. He searched for a new parish, but was turned down by the first two he applied to. The third, Le Chambon, was more open to pacifists and admired his faith.

André Trocmé and the Revd Edouard Theis founded the Ecole Nouvelle Cévenole in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon in 1938, and it later became Le Collège-Lycée Cévenol International. Its initial purpose was to prepare young local people to enter university. As war loomed on the horizon, it took in many young Jewish refugees who wished to continue their education.

When Nazi Germany overran France in 1940, André and Magda Trocmé became involved in a network organising the rescue of Jews fleeing Nazi deportations. When the Vichy regime was set up, Trocmé and neighbouring pastors area encouraged their congregations to shelter ‘the people of the Bible’ and for their cities to be a ‘city of refuge.’

Through Trocmé’s role as a catalyst, Le Chambon and surrounding villages became a haven in Nazi-occupied France. Trocmé and his church helped the town develop ways of resisting the Nazis, and they created a number of safe houses to hide Jews and other refugees.

The work was supported financially with contributions from Quakers, the Salvation Army, the Congregational Church in the US, the pacifist movement Fellowship of Reconciliation, Jewish and Christian groups, the French Protestant student organisation Cimade and Help to Children, based in Switzerland. This support helped to house and buy food for refugees. Many refugees escapes to Switzerland on an underground railroad network, many were placed in family homes and children were enrolled in schools using false names.

When the Vichy puppet regime demanded a list of all the Jews in the town, Trocmé refused to accept their definitions and told them: ‘These people came here for help and for shelter. I am their shepherd. A shepherd does not forsake his flock … I do not know what a Jew is. I know only human beings.’

Anti-Jewish Vichy security agents were sent to search in the town, but most of their efforts were without success. One arrest by the Gestapo led to the death of several young Jewish men in deportation camps. Daniel Trocmé (1910-1944), the director of their residence, La Maison des Roches, was André Trocmé’s second cousin. He refused to let the young adults put in his care to be sent away without him. He was arrested and later murdered in the Majdanek concentration camp.

When Georges Lamirand, a minister in the Vichy government, visited Le Chambon on 15 August 1942, Trocmé forcibly told him of his views and beliefs. Days later, Vichy gendarmes were sent to the town to locate ‘illegal’ aliens. In the face of rumours that Trocmé was about to be arrested, he urged his parishioners to ‘do the will of God, not of men.’ He quoted Deuteronomy 19: 2-10, which speaks of the entitlement of the persecuted to shelter, ‘so that the blood of an innocent person may not be shed in the land.’ The gendarmes were unsuccessful and left the town.

Trocmé was arrested in February 1943, along with Edouard Theis and the school headmaster Roger Darcissac, and they were sent to Saint-Paul d’Eyjeaux, near Limoges. They were released after four weeks and pressed to sign a commitment to obey all government orders. Although Trocmé and Theis refused, they were released and went underground. Trocmé continued to run the rescue and sanctuary efforts with the help of many friends and supporters.

After World War II, André and Magda were co-secretaries of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation in Europe. During the Algerian War, they set up the group Eirene in Morocco, with the aid of the Mennonites, to help French conscientious objectors. They advocated for Algerian independence, demonstrated against nuclear weapons and campaigned for drafting a world constitution.

André Trocmé spent his final years as a Reformed Church pastor in Geneva, and died there on 5 June 1971; Magda died in Paris on 10 October 1996. They are buried together in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon.

Months before he died, Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial centre in Jerusalem, recognised André Trocmé as Righteous among the Nations. His cousin Daniel Trocmé was recognised in March 1944, and Magda was recognised in July 1986.

The Plateau Vivarais-Lignon and Le Chambon-sur-Lignon have become a symbol of the rescue of Jews in France during World War II. Yad Vashem honoured the village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon and the neighbouring communities with an engraved stele in the memorial park. It was the second time Yad Vashem honoured a whole community, the first time being the Dutch village of Nieuwlande in 1988.

Muriel Rosenberg, in her book Mais combien étaient-ils? (2021), estimates that between 1940 and 1945, at least 2,000 Jewish refugees, including many children, were saved by the small village of Le Chambon and the communities on the surrounding plateau because the people resisted the demands of the Vichy and Nazi police and military.

Their contemporaries included the Revd Jacques Martin (1906-2001), a French pastor, pacifist and conscientious objector whose involvement in the Resistance and the protection of Jews brought him recognition from Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous Among the Nations.

Baron Roland de Pury (1907-1979), a Swiss Protestant theologian, pastor and writer who lived in France during World War II, helped Jewish refugees to escape to Switzerland, and was arrested by the Gestapo. He too was honoured as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.

The French theologian Madeleine Barot (1909-1995) was active in the Resistance, in human rights movement, and the early work of the World Council of Churches. She too was given the status of Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.

Marie Elmes (1908-2002) from Cork, who worked with American Friends Service Committee in Perpignan during world War II, saved the lives of 200 Jewish children in Vichy France, hiding them in the boot of her car. She is the first Irish person honoured as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.

A plaque in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon commemorates the rescue of Jews by Magda and André Trocmé (Photograph: Pensées de Pascal / Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0)

Mark 7: 31-37 (NRSVA):

31 Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. 32 They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. 33 He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. 34 Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, ‘Ephphatha’, that is, ‘Be opened.’ 35 And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. 36 Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. 37 They were astounded beyond measure, saying, ‘He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.’

A memorial at Yad Vashem recalls the extraordinary story of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon

Today’s Prayers (Friday 9 February 2024):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Gender Justice in Christ.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday by Ellen McMibanga, Zambia Anglican Council Outreach Programme.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (9 February 2024) invites us to pray in these words:

Help us O Lord to ensure that we treat everyone we encounter with respect and love.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
you have created the heavens and the earth
and made us in your own image:
teach us to discern your hand in all your works
and your likeness in all your children;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who with you and the Holy Spirit reigns supreme over all things,
now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

God our creator,
by your gift
the tree of life was set at the heart of the earthly paradise,
and the bread of life at the heart of your Church:
may we who have been nourished at your table on earth
be transformed by the glory of the Saviour’s cross
and enjoy the delights of eternity;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Almighty God,
give us reverence for all creation
and respect for every person,
that we may mirror your likeness
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection (Simon Weil, 1909-1943)

Continued Tomorrow (Thomas Merton, 1915-1968)

The Mary Elmes Bridge … the centrepiece is designed to create the impression of a menorah (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time with French saints and writers 5: 7 February 2024

Canon Frederic Anstruther Cardew (1866-1942) … known in Paris as the ‘chorus girls' friend’

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time, the time between Candlemas and the 40 days of Lent, which begins next Wednesday.

Charlotte and I arrived in Paris yesterday, and we are staying here for two days. So, in these 11 days in Ordinary Time, my reflections each morning are drawing on the lives of 11 French saints and spiritual writers.

As this series of reflections began, I admitted I am often uncomfortable with many aspects of French spirituality, and that I need to broaden my reading in French spirituality. So, I have turned to 11 figures or writers you might not otherwise expect. They include men and women, Jews and Christians, immigrants and emigrants, monks and philosophers, Catholics and Protestants, and even a few Anglicans.

I am taking some quiet time early this morning for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, A reflection on a French saint or writer in spirituality;

2, today’s Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

Canon Frederic Anstruther Cardew at the wedding of Lord Dudley and Gertie Millar in Paris in 1924

French saints and writers: 5, the Revd Canon Frederic Cardew (1866-1942):

Saint George's Church, the main Church of England church in Paris, is at 7 rue Auguste Vacquerie, just a few steps from the Arc de Triomphe. Although the present church is a modern church dating from 1978, the church dates back to 1824.

Saint George’s is one of two Church of England congregations in central Paris, the other being Saint Michael’s. There are four other Church of England congregations in the suburbs. Paris also has an American Episcopal Church at avenue George V.

Saint George’s says it seeks, ‘in the very heart of this busy city, to be a place of the holy, a place of silence and of prayer,’ where visitors may experience ‘something of the wonder and loving mystery of our God, and may feel drawn gently into His sacred presence.’

The foundation stone of ‘old Saint George’s’ was laid in 1887 on the site of the present church. That church was high in both senses – Victorian Gothic and Anglo-Catholic. The church, with its colourful chaplains and curates – including Father Frederic Cardew and his ministry to English ‘dancing-girls’ – survived two World Wars and the Nazi occupation of Paris, and in more recent decades became the centre for Anglican-Roman Catholic ecumenism.

Throughout much of the first half of the 20th century, Canon Frederic Anstruther Cardew (1866-1942) was known in Paris as the ‘chorus girls' friend.’

He was born in Mean Meir in Lahore, now in Pakistan, on 6 March 1866, a son of Colonel Sir Frederic Cardew, an army officer in India, and Clara (Newton) Cardew. Sir Frederic was later the Governor of Sierra Leone (1894 -1900).

Canon Frederic Cardew had many prominent church figures in his family. His aunt Lucy Cardew was married to Frederick William Farrar (1831-1903), Dean of Canterbury; his first cousin Maud Farrar married the SPG secretary, Bishop Henry Montgomery (1847-1932) from Moville, Co Donegal, and they were the parents of Viscount ‘Monty’ Montgomery of Alamein.

Frederic Anstruther-Cardew was still in his late teens when he went to Canada in 1884, volunteered to fight Indians and sought adventure as a cowboy in the US. He returned to England, was ordained in 1891.

He was Precentor of Brisbane Cathedral when he married Norah Skye Kington in Saint Mary Abbots Church, Kensington, in 1894. Her father, Colonel William Miles Nairne Kington (1838-1898), played cricket for Gloucestershire. In Australia, Cardew was the Vicar of Charleville in Queensland for three years from 1894.

In Charleville, Cardew ministered to the biggest cattle stations in the world. It was there that he became famous across the colony as the ‘Cattle Punchers Padre.’ It was said his parish was the biggest in the world, covering 120,000 square miles.

Cardew then spent three years as the Vicar of All Saints’ Church, Brisbane. There he officiated at the wedding in 1898 of Travers Robert Goff (1863-1907), a bank manager from Dublin, and Margaret Agnes Morehead – their children included PL Travers (1899-1996), born Helen Lyndon Goff, the author of Mary Poppins.

Cardew was back in England, living in Leicestershire and Derbyshire in the early 20th century. He became the chaplain of Saint George’s Church, Paris, in 1907, and remained there until 1939. He was also the rural dean of France and a prebendary of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London.

Soon after his arrival in Paris, Cardew founded the Cardew Theatre Girls’ Hostel in Montmartre for American and English ‘chorus girls’ in 1907. For over 30 years, he fed and sheltered countless chorus girls who sought their fame and fortune in the burlesque shows of Paris. He became the confessor, matchmaker, and legal adviser to thousands of ‘Les Girls’ and in doing so became famous across Europe as the ‘Chorus Girls’ Friend.’

During World War I he visited the frontlines, the trenches and the battlefields, and one of his sons was taken prisoner of war at the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915. At a victory dinner in Paris after the war signed himself with aplomb as ‘Chaplain of Blighty.’

Cardew continued his work among the ‘chorus girls’ after World War I. His fame and personality were so great that he was worked into the storyline of a show, The Nymph Errant, that became a musical by Cole Porter. He was also chaplain to the Actors’ Union and the Actors’ Association, was involved in the Anglo-Catholic Congress in 1923.

Canon Cardew officiated at the marriage of one of his ‘chorus girls,’ Gertie Millar (1879-1952), who married the widowed William Ward (1867-1932), 2nd Earl of Dudley, in Paris in 1924. Lord Dudley’s first wife had drowned in 1920 while she was visiting Connemara. The wedding caused a stir because Gertie was well-known on stage and in the chorus halls, while Lord Dudley had been Viceroy of Ireland (1902-1905) and Governor-General of Australia (1908-1911). He is named in James Joyce’s description of his Vice-Regal progress through Dublin in Ulysses.

But the publicity surrounding the wedding attracted public support for Cardew rather than notoriety, and in 1928 the British Ambassador in Paris presented him with a cheque for £1 million. The long list of subscribers was headed by the Prince of Wales, later Edward VIII, who had known Cardew from childhood but was also known to many of the chorus girls and was a close friend of Lord Dudley.

Canon Cardew’s first wife Norah died in London on 27 July 1931. He married his second wife, Margaret Sophie Stokes, on 17 August 1933. He had been made OBE the previous year, and the French government recognised his work by making him a Chevalier du Legion d’Honneur, the highest award from the French government.

When Edward VIII abdicated in 1936 and subsequently married Wallace Simpson at the Château de Candé in Tours on June 1937, Cardew became embroiled in the controversy. The civil marriage was followed by a Church of England service conducted by the Revd Robert Anderson Jardine, Vicar of Darlington in the Diocese of Durham.

Cardew said he the former king was ‘an old friend of mine and I have known him since he was a boy.’ But, he said, Jardine had conducted the service without his permission as Rural Dean of France and in defiance of the Bishop of Fulham, Bishop Basil Batty, who was in charge of Anglican affairs in continental Europe, and in defiance of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Durham.

Cardew said he was responsible for Anglican matters in France, and called for Jardine to be dismissed. He added that ‘any clergyman under my jurisdiction here in France who performed such a breach would almost certainly be deprived of his living.’ Cardew may also have disliked Jardine’s aggressive evangelical views. Jardine was eventually forced to retire and never worked again in parish ministry in the Church of England and died penniless in 1950.

Meanwhile, Cardew retired in 1939, and moved back to London. Canon Frederic Cardew died at the age of 76 in Shrewsbury House, Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, on 12 July 1942. He was the father of four sons.

After World War II, a memorial was erected to Canon Cardew in Saint George’s Church in 1950. With the help of the Girls’ Friendly Society, his widow Margaret refounded his club in 1952. In 1970, the YMCA contributed a legacy to the organisation, later known as the YMCA-Cardew Club. The club supports young English speakers, many of them au pairs, and the clubroom is at Saint George’s Church.

Saint George’s Church had been badly damaged during World War II. The site was sold to developers and the church is now housed in the ground floor and the basement of a modern apartment building on the site.

Frederic Anstruther Cardew is remembered to this day as a saintly and pastorally caring priest. The American writer Julien Green (1900-1998), who was born and lived in Paris, became a Roman Catholic in 1916. But in his autobiographical Young Years (1984) he recalled the influence on him of Cardew during his childhood days when he went to church in Saint George’s with his parents:

‘I remember that when the Reverend Cardew knelt in front of the altar and in an uncertain voice, but with an accent that did not deceive, intoned a hymn immediately taken up by the faithful, an indescribable emotion took possession of me. There was in this man a humility so deep and a faith so pure that I received something from it without even guessing what it was about. Because of this man, I loved God. I didn’t know anything about it and Reverend Cardew didn’t know anything about it either. Recently, a Catholic priest told me that this man had left behind the memory of an unblemished life after having been for a long time the chaplain of the girls at the Folies Bergère.’

Saint George’s Church was rebuilt in 1978. The Revd Mark Osborne is the chaplain, the Revd Nicolas Razafindratsima is the curate, and the former Dean of St Albans, the Very Revd Jeffrey John, is Associate Chaplain. The Sunday services include the Said Eucharist (BCP 1662) at 8:30 and Solemn Eucharist at 10:30.

Saint George’s Church, Paris, was rebuilt in 1978

Mark 7: 14-23 (NRSVA):

14 Then he called the crowd again and said to them, ‘Listen to me, all of you, and understand: 15 there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.’

17 When he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable. 18 He said to them, ‘Then do you also fail to understand? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, 19 since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?’ (Thus he declared all foods clean.) 20 And he said, ‘It is what comes out of a person that defiles. 21 For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, 22 adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.’

Édouard Manet’s ‘A Bar at the Folies-Bergère’ (1882) … Canon Frederic Cardew was known in Paris as the ‘chorus girls' friend’

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 7 February 2024):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Gender Justice in Christ.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday by Ellen McMibanga, Zambia Anglican Council Outreach Programme.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (7 February 2024) invites us to pray in these words:

Let us pray for gender justice across the world, remembering that gender equality can lead to the abolishment of poverty.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
you have created the heavens and the earth
and made us in your own image:
teach us to discern your hand in all your works
and your likeness in all your children;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who with you and the Holy Spirit reigns supreme over all things,
now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

God our creator,
by your gift
the tree of life was set at the heart of the earthly paradise,
and the bread of life at the heart of your Church:
may we who have been nourished at your table on earth
be transformed by the glory of the Saviour’s cross
and enjoy the delights of eternity;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Almighty God,
give us reverence for all creation
and respect for every person,
that we may mirror your likeness
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection (Albert Schweitzer, 1875-1965)

Continued Tomorrow (Simon Weil, 1909-1943)

‘F Anstruther Cardew, Chaplain of Blighty’ … a post-war dinner card in Paris in 1918

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time with French saints and writers 4: 6 February 2024

Albert Schweitzer received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time, the time between Candlemas and the 40 days of Lent, which begins next week. The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today recalls the Martyrs of Japan (1597).

Charlotte and I are travelling to Paris later today. So, in these 11 days in Ordinary Time, my reflections each morning are drawing on the lives of 11 French saints and spiritual writers.

As this series of reflections began, I admitted how I am often uncomfortable with many aspects of French spirituality, and how I need to broaden my reading in French spirituality. So, I have turned to 11 figures or writers you might not otherwise expect. They include men and women, Jews and Christians, immigrants and emigrants, monks and philosophers, Catholics and Protestants, and even a few Anglicans.

I am taking some quiet time early this morning for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, A reflection on a French saint or writer in spirituality;

2, today’s Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

Albert Schweitzer is remembered for his work at the Hôpital Albert Schweitzer in Lambaréné in Gabon

French saints and writers: 4, Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965):

The Revd Dr Ludwig Philipp Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) was a theologian, organist, musician, writer, philosopher, physician, Lutheran minister and Nobel laureate, and he challenged the traditional and historical views of Jesus and of Saint Paul.

Albert Schweitzer became the eighth French to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952, but is best remembered for his work at the Hôpital Albert Schweitzer in Lambaréné in French Equatorial Africa, now Gabon.

Albert Schweitzer was born on 14 January 1875 in Kaysersberg in Alsace. Until 1871, it had been part of France, and then became part of the German empire as part of the Imperial Territory of Alsace-Lorraine. He later became a French citizen after World War I when Alsace once again became French.

He was the son of Adèle (née Schillinger) and Louis Théophile Schweitzer. He grew up in Gunsbach in Alsace, where his father was the local Lutheran-Evangelical pastor. The Protestant and Catholic congregations shared mediaeval parish church in the village, with Sunday services in different areas at different times in a compromise dating from the Reformation and the Thirty Years’ War.

Schweitzer went to school in Mulhouse, where he also studied organ in 1885-1893 with Eugène Munch, who inspired him with an enthusiasm for the music of Richard Wagner. When he played at Saint-Sulpice in Paris in 1893 for Charles-Marie Widor, the French organist was deeply impressed and agreed to teach Schweitzer without fee.

Schweitzer studied theology in Strasbourg from 1893, and returned to Paris in 1898 to write a PhD dissertation on the religious philosophy of Kant at the Sorbonne, and to study with Widor.

Schweitzer became a deacon in Saint Nicholas Church, Strasbourg, in 1899. When he completed his licentiate in theology, he was ordained as a curate in 1900. He became Principal of the Theological College of Saint Thomas, from which he graduated, and the appointment was made permanent in 1903.

As a musical scholar and organist, Schweitzer interpreted Bach’s music, drawing on his knowledge of theology and Lutheran hymns. Widor and Schweitzer were among the six musicians who founded the Paris Bach Society in 1905. A pamphlet in 1906 effectively launched the 20th century Orgelbewegung and a major reform in organ building.

Meanwhile Schweitzer first considered missionary work in 1905, but the Society of the Evangelical Missions of Paris was looking for a physician and also considered his Lutheran theology as ‘incorrect.’

His book Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung (History of Life-of-Jesus research) was published in 1906 and established his theological reputation. It was first published in English in 1910 as The Quest of the Historical Jesus. In The Quest of the Historical Jesus, Schweitzer argued that the life of Jesus must be interpreted in the light of Jesus’ own convictions, which reflected late Jewish eschatology and apocalypticism.

Schweitzer concluded his treatment of Jesus with what has been called the most He words of 20th century theology: ‘He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lake-side, He came to those men who knew him not. He speaks to us the same word: 'Follow thou me' and sets us to the task which he has to fulfil for our time. He commands. And to those who obey him, whether they be wise or simple, he will reveal himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in his fellowship, and as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience who he is.’

He returned to university to study medicine in Strasbourg and meanwhile, in June 1912, he married Hélène Bresslau, municipal inspector for orphans and daughter of the Jewish German historian Harry Bresslau.

After receiving his MD degree, Schweitzer offered to work at his own expense as a physician in the Paris Missionary Society’s mission at Lambaréné on the Ogooué River, in what is now Gabon, then a French colony in West Africa. In early 1913, Albert and Helene Schweitzer left to establish the Hôpital Albert Schweitzer, and they had about 2,000 patients in the first nine months, some travelling many days and hundreds of kilometres to reach the hospital.

After World War I began in 1914, life became difficult for the Schweitzers as German citizens in a French colony. They were sent to Bordeaux in 1917 and not released until 1918, when they were transferred to Alsace. After World War I, his parents’ former French citizenship was reinstated and he became a French citizen.

He worked for a time as a medical assistant and assistant pastor in Strasbourg, gave organ recitals and was invited to lecture in the University of Oxford in 1922 on civilisation and ethics. He also spoke in Cambridge, London and Birmingham, where he played the organ to enthusiastic audiences.

Schweitzer returned to Africa in 1924, expanded the hospital wards, buildings and staff, and built a new hospital. He returned to Europe in 1927, but later returned again to Lambaréné and continued working there throughout World War II.

Meanwhile, his theological research, writing and publication continued. He published Mystik des Apostels Paulus (The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle) in 1931, in which he summarises Pauline mysticism as ‘being in Christ’ rather than ‘being in God.’ He argues that the experience of ‘being-in-Christ’ is not a ‘static partaking in the spiritual being of Christ, but as the real co-experiencing of his dying and rising again.’ The ‘realistic’ partaking in the mystery of Jesus is only possible within the solidarity of the Christian community.

Schweitzer argued that rather than reading justification by faith as the main topic of Pauline thought, as set out by Luther, Saint Paul’s emphasis was on the mystical union with God by ‘being in Christ’. After baptism, Christians are continually renewed throughout their lives by participation in the dying and rising with Christ, most notably through the Sacraments.

Unable to return to Europe during World War II, he stayed in Lambaréné from 1939 until 1948, when he returned to Europe for the first time.

After World II, Schweitzer’s practices, standards and attitudes in Lambaréné were criticised by many visitors, including journalists and writers, and he was accused of paternalism in his attitude towards Africans. But he continued to see his work as a medical missionary in Africa to be his response to Jesus’ call to become ‘fishers of men’ and he was a harsh critic of colonialism and ‘the crimes … committed under the pretext of justice.’

Schweitzer was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize of 1952, accepting the prize with the speech, ‘The Problem of Peace.’

He was awarded the Order of Merit in 1955 and honorary Doctorates by Cambridge, Oxford and Edinburgh. The philosopher Bertrand Russell, the composer Vaughan Williams and the painter Augustus John queued up to see him in the restaurant of his friend Emil Mettler in Petty France, London.

The keynote of Schweitzer’s personal philosophy was the idea of Reverence for Life (Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben). From 1952 until his death he worked against nuclear tests and nuclear weapons with Albert Einstein, Otto Hahn and Bertrand Russell. He was one of the founders of the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy in 1957.

In his ‘Declaration of Conscience’ speech in 1957, Schweitzer appealed for the abolition of nuclear weapons, concluding: ‘The end of further experiments with atom bombs would be like the early sunrays of hope which suffering humanity is longing for.’ His four speeches on Radio Oslo in 1957-1958 were published in Peace or Atomic War.

Albert Schweitzer died on 4 September 1965 at his hospital in Lambaréné. His grave, on the banks of the Ogooué River, is marked by a cross he made himself. His cousin Anne-Marie Schweitzer Sartre was the mother of Jean-Paul Sartre.

Albert Schweitzer at 21, when he was studying theology in Strasbourg and Paris

Mark 7: 1-13 (NRSVA):

7 Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, 2 they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. 3 (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; 4 and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) 5 So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, ‘Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?’ 6 He said to them, ‘Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,

“This people honours me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
7 in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.”

8 You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.’

9 Then he said to them, ‘You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition! 10 For Moses said, “Honour your father and your mother”; and, “Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.” 11 But you say that if anyone tells father or mother, “Whatever support you might have had from me is Corban” (that is, an offering to God) – 12 then you no longer permit doing anything for a father or mother, 13 thus making void the word of God through your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many things like this.’

Albert Schweitzer receiving an honorary degree in Cambridge

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 6 February 2024):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Gender Justice in Christ.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday by Ellen McMibanga, Zambia Anglican Council Outreach Programme.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (6 February 2024) invites us to pray reflecting on these words:

Blessed is she who had faith that the Lord’s promise would be fulfilled. All generations shall call her blessed (Luke 1:45).

The Collect:

Almighty God,
you have created the heavens and the earth
and made us in your own image:
teach us to discern your hand in all your works
and your likeness in all your children;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who with you and the Holy Spirit reigns supreme over all things,
now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

God our creator,
by your gift
the tree of life was set at the heart of the earthly paradise,
and the bread of life at the heart of your Church:
may we who have been nourished at your table on earth
be transformed by the glory of the Saviour’s cross
and enjoy the delights of eternity;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Almighty God,
give us reverence for all creation
and respect for every person,
that we may mirror your likeness
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection (Eugénie Mouchon-Niboyet, 1796-1883)

Continued Tomorrow (Frederic Cardew, 1866-1942)

‘Life’ magazine announces the death of Albert Schweitzer in 1965

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time with French saints and writers 3: 5 February 2024

Eugénie Mouchon-Niboyet (1796-1883), the granddaughter of two Reformed pastors, was a French journalist, early feminist and Christian activist

Patrick Comerford

The 40-day season of celebrations of Christmas and Epiphany came to an end with the Feast of the Presentation or Candlemas on Friday (2 February), and we are now in Ordinary Time, that short time before Lent begins next week.

Charlotte and I are planning to visit Paris later this week. So, in these 11 days in Ordinary Time, my reflections each morning are drawing on the lives of 11 French saints and spiritual writers.

As this series of reflections began, I admitted that I have never been very comfortable with many aspects of French spirituality, and that I need to broaden my reading in French spirituality. So, I have turned to 11 figures or writers you might not otherwise expect. They include men and women, Jews and Christians, immigrants and emigrants, monks and philosophers, Catholics and Protestants, and even a few Anglicans.

I am taking some quiet time early this morning for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, A reflection on a French saint or writer in spirituality;

2, today’s Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

Eugénie Mouchon-Niboyet (1796-1883) founded the first feminist daily newspaper in France

French saints and writers: 3, Eugénie Mouchon-Niboyet (1796-1883):

Eugénie Mouchon-Niboyet (1796-1883), the granddaughter of two Reformed pastors, was a French author, journalist, early feminist and a Christian activist who is best known as the founder of La Voix des Femmes (The Women’s Voice), the first feminist daily newspaper in France.

Eugénie Niboyet was born Eugenie Mouchon in Montpellier on 10 September 1796. In The Real Book of Women (Le vrai livre des femmes): ‘I come from a literate family with origins from Geneva, Switzerland.’ Her paternal grandfather, the Revd Pierre Mouchon (1733-1797), was a Swiss pastor in Geneva and Basel, and compiled the index to the Encyclopédie of Denis Diderot and Jean-Baptiste le Rond d’Alembert, the monument of the Enlightenment. Her maternal grandfather was a pastor from Gar.

During the French Revolution, her father fled the Cevennes where he sought refuge to avoid execution. She was raised in a family that was loyal to Napoleon, and during the Bourbon Restoration the family lived in Lyon. Eugenie was marked for life by the arrest of some family members and by her visits to prison.

At 26, Eugénie married Paul-Louis Niboyet, a 30-year-old lawyer, in a Protestant wedding in 1822. The couple lived in Mâcon in Burgundy, where their only child, a son Jean Alexandre Paulin Niboyet, was born in 1825.

Eugénie moved to Paris in 1829, and began to make a living as a writer. In a prize-winning essay for la Société de la morale chrétienne (the Society of Christian Morality), she focused on the theme of the blind and their education. She joined the Society of Christian Morality and become involved in many social issues, including prison reform, education reform and the abolition of slavery in French colonies.

The Society of Christian Morality shared its conference rooms with the Saint-Simonians. Eugénie attended the sermons of the Saint-Simonians and, inspired by their ideas, followed their movement with her husband and son.

The Saint-Simonians were radical and fringe Christians and utopian socialists. She became one of the four women who became responsible in 1830 for preaching to the workers but bringing them aid and education. The radical religious movement eventually split and Eugénie distanced herself from the Saint-Simonians without disowning their economic and political ideas.

She was part of the group of women who took part in the first periodical written entirely by women, La Femme libre (The free woman), created by Marie-Reine Guindorf and Desiree Veret.

Back in Lyon in 1833, Eugénie founded the first feminist periodical outside Paris region with the publication of The Women’s Adviser (Le Conseiller des femmes), followed by The Lyonese Mosaic (La Mosaïque Lyonnaise), and in 1834 she took part in the creation of The Athenaeum of Women (L’Athénée des femmes).

Back in Paris, Eugénie founded The Gazette of Women (La Gazette des femmes) in 1836. She was the editor in chief of The Peace of the Two Worlds (La Paix des deux mondes) in 1844.

The revolution of 1848 gave new hope to feminism. In March 1848, Eugénie founded and ran The Voice of Women (La Voix des femmes). It was described as ‘a socialist and political newspaper representing all women’s interests,’ and was supported by a political club that included many feminists involved with small publications.

The Voice of Women took a radical initiative on 6 April when it nominated the writer George Sand (1804-1876) as a candidate to the French Constituent Assembly. Sand disavowed the initiative and claimed she did not know the women involved. Satirical cartoonists lampooned Eugénie and the journalists of The Voice of Women.

Discouraged and hurt by the fallout, Eugénie ceased publishing The Voice of Women on 20 June, and her group of feminist activists dispersed. She retired from public life and went into exile in Geneva, where she lived with difficulty translating Charles Dickens and children’s books by Lydia Maria Child and Maria Edgeworth.

Eugénie Niboyet returned to France in 1860, and published The True Book of Women (Le Vrai livre des femmes) in 1863. She took up the pen again after the Paris Commune in 1871 to call for pardons for the convicted Communards. By contrast, the Basilica of Sacré-Cœur was built on the summit of the butte of Montmartre to ‘expiate the crimes of the Commune.’ It looks down on the site where 30,000 Communards were slaughtered.

At the age of 82, Eugénie Niboyet was honoured at the feminist congress in Paris in 1878. She died in Paris on 6 January 1883.

Allée Eugénie Niboyet … a street sign in Lyon 7e arrondissement (Photograph: Romainbehar, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Mark 6: 53-56 (NRSVA):

53 When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat. 54 When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him, 55 and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. 56 And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the market-places, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.

The south façade of the Basilica of Sacré-Cœur in Montmartre (Photograph: Tonchino/Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 5 February 2024):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Gender Justice in Christ.’ This theme was introduced yesterday by Ellen McMibanga, Zambia Anglican Council Outreach Programme.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (5 February 2024) invites us to pray in these words:

We pray for the Anglican Church in Zambia – for all the projects and programmes they are running to give justice and a voice to the oppressed and to care for their communities.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
you have created the heavens and the earth
and made us in your own image:
teach us to discern your hand in all your works
and your likeness in all your children;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who with you and the Holy Spirit reigns supreme over all things,
now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

God our creator,
by your gift
the tree of life was set at the heart of the earthly paradise,
and the bread of life at the heart of your Church:
may we who have been nourished at your table on earth
be transformed by the glory of the Saviour’s cross
and enjoy the delights of eternity;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Almighty God,
give us reverence for all creation
and respect for every person,
that we may mirror your likeness
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection (Francis Le Jau, 1665-1715)

Continued Tomorrow (Albert Schweitzer, 1875-1965)

At the age of 82, Eugénie Niboyet was honoured at the feminist congress in Paris in 1878

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time with French saints and writers 2: 4 February 2024

Francis Le Jau (1665-1717) … a French-born Anglican priest who studied at TCD and became an SPG (USPG) missionary in South Carolina

Patrick Comerford

The 40-day season of celebrations of Christmas and Epiphany came to an end on Friday with the Feast of the Presentation or Candlemas (2 February), and we are in Ordinary Time, the time between that season and the 40 days of Lent. Today is the Second Sunday before Lent.

n the past, this Sunday was known as Sexagesima, one of those odd-sounding Latin names once used in the Book of Common Prayer for the Sundays between Candlemas and Lent: Septuagesima, Sexagesima and Quinquagesima. Later this morning I hope to be part of the choir singing at the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford.

Charlotte and I are planning to visit Paris later this week. So, in these 11 days in Ordinary Time, my reflections each morning are drawing on the lives of 11 French saints and spiritual writers.

I admitted yesterday that I have never been very comfortable with many aspects of French spirituality, such as Sacre Coeur and the political associations of devotions to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the way Joan of Arc has become a symbol of the far-right in France, Bernard’s preaching of the Crusades, or the way Calvin is read today by modern neo-Calvinists. I realise I need to broaden my reading in French spirituality, and so I have turned to 11 figures or writers you might not otherwise expect. They include men and women, Jews and Christians, immigrants and emigrants, monks and philosophers, Catholics and Protestants, and even a few Anglicans.

Before today begins to get busy, I am taking some time for reflection, prayer and reading this way:

1, A reflection on a French saint or writer in spirituality;

2, today’s Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

The Long Room in the Library in Trinity College Dublin … Francis Le Jau studied theology at TCD (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

French saints and writers: 2, Francis Le Jau (1665-1715):

Francis Le Jau (1665-1717) was a French-born Anglican priest who studied theology at Trinity College Dublin and became a missionary in South Carolina with the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG), now USPG.

Le Jau was born into a French Huguenot family in Angiers in 1665. At the age of 20, he fled France during the persecution of Huguenots after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, became an Anglican and studied in Trinity College Dublin (MA 1693, BD 1696, DD 1700).

The Duke of Ormond had made Dublin a safe place for Huguenot refugees, and there Le Jau worked from 1695 on behalf of William King, Bishop Derry and later Archbishop of Dublin, to obtain many books in French, including works published in Paris, Rotterdam and Amsterdam.

Meanwhile, the Irish Nonjuror, Canon Charles Leslie (1650-1722), Chancellor of Connor, had fled to Paris after he was deprived of his Church offices for refusing to take the new oath of loyalty to William of Orange after the Battle of the Boyne. He was said to have been named after Charles I, who was executed the year before Leslie was born.

From Dublin, Le Jau moved to London, where he was installed a canon of Saint Paul’s Cathedral (1696-1700). In 1700, the year he received his doctoral degree (DD) from TCD, he moved to St Christopher’s Island, where he served for 18 months at the request of Henry Compton, Bishop of London from 1675 to 1713. King became Archbishop of Dublin in 1703, and Le Jau continued to correspond with him about books published in France until 1704.

Meanwhile, SPG was founded in 1701, and from 1706 until his death in 1717 Le Jau was a missionary with SPG in to South Carolina, based in Goose Creek. He arrived in South Carolina in December 1706 and wrote numerous letters to SPG describing in the colony as well as his own activities. He describes the colonists celebrating their victory over an attempted French invasion from 27 to 31 August 1706.

Le Jau lived through both the Tuscarora War (1711) and the Yamasee War (1715) in South Carolina During the Yamasee War, a coalition led by the Catawba tribe attacked his home area of Goose Creek and many his parishioners were involved in the fighting.

At the height of the Yamasee War, Le Jau’s family went to live in Charleston with Gideon Johnsons, a fellow missionary and former classmate in TCD. During that time, Henriette Johnson, a painter who shared a French Huguenot background, painted a portrait of Le Jau. Le Jau’s son went on to serve as an aide de camp under General Maurice Moore for the remainder of the Yamasee War.

In his letters to SPG, Le Jau repeatedly refers to the ‘Savannah tongue’ – probably the Shawnee language – as a trade language understood from the Carolinas to Canada. He believed there was a potential use for missionary work, and sent a copy of the Lord’s Prayer in the Savannah language to the SPG. He also refers to the Creek language.

Many of his letters provide an insight into the difficulties SPG missionaries faced in the colonies: the dangers and cost of the journey across the Atlantic, fears of bad weather, piracy and war, and the many setbacks they faced when trying to establish homes and churches after their arrival. Le Jau wrote frequently about his family’s difficulty in acclimatising to a hostile environment, endemic sickness in the area, and attempts to sustain his household with limited assistance from his parishioners.

Le Jau was dependent on the financial and material resource of SPG, as well as local networks of professional support from other neighbouring clergy. But his limited material comfort was underwritten by his purchase of three slaves to help maintain his household.

He was strongly critical of the treatment of Native Americans by the colonists in South Carolina. He describes a plantation owner in Goose Creek burning a Native American slave to death. However, his exploitation of enslaved people within his own household sits uneasily alongside his frequent denunciations of the cruel behaviour he had observed in neighbouring slaveowners. He compromised with slaveowners who were concerned that baptised slaves would seek freedom and equality, and composed a mandatory declaration for slave converts that their baptism was not ‘out of any design’ to free themselves ‘from the Duty and Obedience you owe to your master while you live, but merely for the good of your soul.’

Francis Le Jau died on 10 September 1717. Before he arrived in South Carolina, one eighth of the colony’s white population was of Huguenot descent in 1690; after his death, those numbers had increased and reached 20% in 1722.

For many years, Leslie was the Anglican chaplain at the Jacobite court in St Germainen-Laye. Meanwhile, Charles Leslie returned to Paris in 1717, the year Le Lau died, and published a two folio-volume edition of his Theological Works in 1719. Leslie returned to Ireland in his last days, and died at Castle Leslie, Co Monaghan, in 1722. Leslie later influenced some of the writings of John Henry Newman and the Tractarians. Over 13 pages of the British Museum library catalogue are devoted to his books and pamphlets, making Leslie and Le Jau early Irish literary and Anglican links with Paris.

Saint James Church, Goose Creek … Francis Le Jau was a missionary with SPG based in Goose Creek, South Carolina

John 1: 1-14 (NRSVA):

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

‘In the beginning was the Word’ (John 1: 1) … pages from Saint John’s Gospel, the first complete handwritten and illuminated Bible since the Renaissance, in an exhibition in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 4 February 2024):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Gender Justice in Christ.’ This theme is introduced today by Ellen McMibanga, Zambia Anglican Council Outreach Programme:

Many men and women are holding hands to put a stop to abuse in households and the community as the call for gender justice continues to be raised by humanity.

‘Gender equality is the goal that will help abolish poverty,’ asserts Graça Machel (founder of the Graça Machel Trust and a member of The Elders), ‘which will create more equal economies, fairer societies, and happier men, women and children.’

By accepting that men, women and children are equally made by God, freely reconciled by Christ, and given spiritual gifts by the Holy Spirit, we can establish and uphold justice. The call for gender justice serves as a reminder to everyone to treat one another with respect and love, honouring the reality that God loves us (II Corinthians 5: 17). ‘There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus’ (Galatians 3:28).

In order to promote gender equity and eradicate injustices that are being practised in our homes, communities and countries, it is the responsibility of the Church and all of us.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (4 February 2024, the Second Sunday before Lent) invites us to pray in these words:

Loving God,
Let us renew our love for all of humanity.
May we focus on spreading
the faith, hope and love
you give to us.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
you have created the heavens and the earth
and made us in your own image:
teach us to discern your hand in all your works
and your likeness in all your children;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who with you and the Holy Spirit reigns supreme over all things,
now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

God our creator,
by your gift
the tree of life was set at the heart of the earthly paradise,
and the bread of life at the heart of your Church:
may we who have been nourished at your table on earth
be transformed by the glory of the Saviour’s cross
and enjoy the delights of eternity;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Almighty God,
give us reverence for all creation
and respect for every person,
that we may mirror your likeness
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection (Rashi)

Continued Tomorrow (Eugénie Mouchon-Niboyet)

Francis Le Jau’s exploitation of enslaved people in his own household sits uneasily beside his denunciations of the cruelty of neighbouring slaveowners

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org