Tag: Georges Bernanos

On the First Anniversary of Robert’s Passing

Today marks the first anniversary of our beloved Robert’s passing – father, husband, friend and fellow Catholic. We, his widow and children, would like to honor this day with a short article.

We had today a very reverent Memorial Requiem Mass at our local SSPX chapel in Linden, to which many kindly came to pray for Robert’s soul. Father John Carlisle celebrated the Mass, assisted by four reverend altar boys, among them our son Robert. I think Robert would have been pleased to see how people came together to remember him and pray for his soul.

Our daughter Isabella put a memorial holy card together for this occasion, and we publish it here as a photo because it tells a whole story in itself. It depicts the image of a great saint, St. Charles de Foucauld (d. 1916), whom my husband had long admired, especially after a religious had shown him a room filled with photos of Charles de Foucauld who showed his transformation from a decadent and womanizing officer to an ascetic priest living in the desert trying to convert Muslims.

On the day when Charles de Foucauld was killed by some raiding Muslims, he wrote a letter quoting his own mentor and confessor, Father Henri Huvelin, who had said on his deathbed, in Latin: “Numquam amabo satis.” “I will never love enough.”

My own husband, Robert, was so touched by that quote that, in the last weeks of his own life here on earth, he discussed this Latin quote with several of his interlocutors, among them a former student of his from Christendom College and our pastor, Father Carlisle. Having been stirred to reflections himself by that quote and conversation, Father Carlisle then made a picture of the saint with that Latin quote, to be hung in his own office. One day, he came for a pastoral visit and showed this image to a visibly touched Robert Hickson. But not only this. When Robert had passed and was lying in his casket on the day of his wake, Father kindly brought that very framed picture with him and laid it on the casket, right above Robert’s head and heart. Father then later gave it to us as a grieving family.

So in order to remember that whole circle of a quote from a saintly priest that was written down by a saint and that was later cherished by an honorable Catholic layman in his last weeks of life, and then again by a saintly priest, our Isabella placed that very picture that Father had made onto our holy card in remembrance of today, also as a sign of gratitude for Father’s pastoral care and love for our family in difficult times. Our readers can read here a short, stirring account of Saint Charles de Foucauld’s life and that Latin quote.

Numquam amabo satis.

As if in God’s beautiful Providence, that was not yet enough, Robert actually had another conversation, the last deep and more intellectual conversation here on earth, with another priest who brought him in the last weeks of his life the sacraments. They spoke about Our Lady, whom our Robert loved so much. And Father brought up to Robert the quote “De Maria, numquam satis.” “Concerning Mary, never enough.” This statement written by St. Bernard of Clairvaux was later picked up by St. Louis Marie de Monfort and brought into a clarifying light with his commentary: “And yet in truth we must still say with the saints: De Maria numquam satis: We have still not praised, exalted, honored, loved and served Mary adequately. She is worthy of even more praise, respect, love and service.”

The priest later sent me a text message with that quote, saying that Robert had asked him to send me that quote because he loved it so much.

What a beautiful summary of a man’s life, what a fruit of a life of faith these two Latin quotes are! They seem like the peak of a mountain in a life that we all are to climb: at the end stands love, love of God and His Blessed Mother, and love of man. We can never love enough.

Yet here comes another lovely aspect to the story.

On top of that image of St. Charles de Foucauld on the holy card our daughter placed a quote from a French author, George Bernanos, and that quote itself has a deep meaning for our family, as well. The quote says: “Blessed be he who has saved a child’s heart from despair.”

Robert loved that quote so much that he wanted it to be on his tombstone. And so it will be, in only a few weeks, on his grave in the cemetery of the St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary of the Society of St. Pius X in Dillwyn, Virginia.

After his passing, Loreto Publications published a final collection of Robert’s essays. The book, entitled Ordo Dei: Collected Essays by Robert Hickson, contains all of his essays that he ever published on this website, Ordodei.net. And when we held the book in our hands, we realized that Robert’s last essay published by him here on earth dealt exactly with that very quote from George Bernanos!

We were also touched to see that the first essay on this website – and thus also in the book – was an essay about his most favorite author, Hilaire Belloc, entitled “Sentimentalists and Barbarians – Contrasting Thoughts of Hilaire Belloc in 1912 and G.K. Chesterton in 1934.” We can only recommend our readers to look it up.
The introduction to this last collection of essays – several other essay books had been previously published by Loreto Publications, one of them with a preface by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano – was written by Brother Andre Marie, M.I.C.M. We will end this this short commemoration of our beloved Robert Hickson with some quotes from Brother’s introduction, and our attentive readers will notice that, here, too, a circle is closing:

Dr. Robert Hickson loved words. Those of us who knew him can vouch for this fact. Yet, Robert was not a man who loved words more than that thing which it is the purpose of words to convey: the truth. A classicist who studied and taught Greek and Latin letters, Robert relished the words attributed to Saint Bernard of Clairvaux: Cui sapiunt omnia prout sunt, hic est vere sapiens (“He is truly wise who savors all things just as they are.”) He would point out that the Latin word for wisdom has for its root—as can be seen in this very passage from Saint Bernard—the verb, sapere “to relish.” [….]

Robert would examine the mystery that lay behind such words as the calamitous “power without grace” that Evelyn Waugh put on the lips of Saint Helena, or the lovely “fresh supernatural Beatitude” that George Bernanos puts in the mouth of the eponymous curé in his Diary of a Country Priest: “Blessed be he who has saved a child’s heart from despair,” words Robert could rarely say without becoming emotional (and which, I am given to understand, will grace his headstone in Dillwyn, Virginia).

We thank God for Robert.

We miss you very much, Robert.

May you rest in peace. Requiescat in pace.

“Blessed Be He Who Has Saved a Child’s Heart From Despair”

Dr. Robert Hickson                                                                         6 November 2022

                                                 Saint Leonard of Limoges  (d. 559)

 Josef Pieper (d. 6 November 1997—R.I.P)

“Blessed Be He Who Has Saved a Child’s Heart From Despair”

Some Reflections from The Diary of a Country Priest (1937) by Georges Bernanos

Epigraphs

“Don’t let your hour of mercy strike in vain.” (The Paperback 1954 Doubleday Edition, page 48)

***

“Blessed be he who has saved a child’s heart from despair.” (Ibid., Page 41)

***

“What is this Sloth which can merit the extremity of divine punishment? St.Thomas’s answer is both comforting and surprising: tristitia de bono spirituali, sadness in the face of spiritual good. Man is made for joy in the love of God, a love which he expresses in service. If he deliberately turns away from that joy, he is denying the purpose of his existence. The malice of Sloth lies not merely in the neglect of duty… but in the refusal of joy. It is allied to despair.” (Evelyn Waugh, Collected Essays, page 573 of the “Sloth” Essay.)

***

In view of Georges Bernanos’ 1937 spiritual novel The Diary of a County Priest—first published in French, just before the outbreak of World War Two—we now also come to understand better (and often thus savor) a fresh supernatural Beatitude: about saving a child from despair.  Does it not gradually become a binding obligation of our Catholic Faith in its fuller virtue?

That is to say, “Blessed be he who has saved a child’s heart from despair.” Such a Beatitude  comes from, and depends upon, Grace—i.e., the indispensable (and gracious) Order of  Grace.

My German wife, Maike Maria, was immediately touched by this implicit beatitude—and was freshly inspired—by this effectively proposed new Beatitude; and she thus guided me also at the challenging end of my preparatory, mortal temporal life, too. We shall try to convey in this short essay some of these intimate insights.

For example, it will relate how the sacrament of Extreme Unction channels and prepares  a stronger  life of grace with clarity and strength. Moreover, there are two forms of hopelessness: despair and presumption. The Sin of Spiritual Sloth is one of the Seven Capital Sins, and an effective preparation for the Sin of Despair. Other interwoven insights will now follow, especially about growing in Spiritual Childhood and letting the Little Ones come loyally and affectionately to Christ.

Indeed, at the core of these reflections is “the concept and reality of spiritual childhood.” We are to live and die supernaturally alive in sanctifying grace. The Lord also spoke of (and to), the Little Ones –unless you become a little one….!

The Diary of a Country Priest ends with the diarist’s  words as he died:

“Does it matter? Grace is everywhere….” (page 233, my emphasis added).

The priest (Curé) of Ambricourt now thus introduces us to his parish and village:

My parish is bored stiff; no other word for it. Like so many others! We can see them being eaten up by boredom, and we can’t do anything about it. Some day perhaps we shall catch it ourselves – become aware of the cancerous growth within us. You can keep going a long time with that in you.

This thought struck me yesterday on my rounds. It was drizzling. The kind of thin, steady rain which gets sucked in with every breath, which seeps down through the lungs into your belly. Suddenly I looked out over the village, from the road to Saint Vaast along the hillside – miserable little houses huddled together under the desolate, ugly November sky. On all sides damp came steaming up and it seemed to sprawl there in the soaking grass like a wretched worn-out horse or cow. What an insignificant thing a village is. And this particular village was my parish! My parish, yes, but what could I do? I stood there glumly watching it sink into the dusk, disappear…. In a few minutes I should lose sight of it. I had never been so horribly aware both of my people’s loneliness and mine. I thought of the cattle which I could hear coughing somewhere in the mist, and of the little lad on his way back from school clutching his satchel, who would soon be leading them over sodden fields to a warm sweet-swelling byre…. And my parish, my village seemed to be waiting too – without much hope after so many nights in the mud – for a master to follow towards some undreamed-of, improbable shelter.

Oh, of course I know all this is fantastic. Such notions can scarcely be taken seriously. A day-dream! Villages do not scramble to their feet like cattle at the call of a little boy. And yet, last night, I believe a saint might have roused it….

Well, as I was saying, the world is eaten up by boredom. To perceive this needs a little preliminary thought: you can’t see it all at once. It is like dust. You go about and never notice, you breathe it in, you eat and drink it. It is sifted so fine, it doesn’t even grit on your teeth. But stand still for an instant and there it is, coating your face and hands. To shake off this drizzle of ashes you must be for ever on the go. And so people are always ‘on the go.’ Perhaps the answer would be that the world has long been familiar with boredom, that such is the true condition of man. No doubt the seed was scattered all over life, and here and there found fertile soil to take root; but I wonder if man has ever before experienced this contagion, this leprosy of boredom: an aborted despair, a shameful form of despair in some way like the fermentation of a Christianity in decay.

(Georges Bernanos, The Diary of a Country Priest, translated from the French by Pamela Morris, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1937, 1954, pages 1-2 – my emphasis added)

Despite the many pervasive manifestations of sadness and intimate sorrow, the Curé of Ambricourt touches the heart and affirms almost everyone he meets. For example: experience the betrayed Countess, also young Chantel; and the sensitive French Foreign Legionnaire (and motor-cyclist), and the Curé de Torcy (the faithful mentor of the idealistic and younger priest).

The reader will be profoundly enriched by this text, and he will want to savor its slow wisdom and eloquence—at least more than thrice down the years.

Let there be hope for the Little Ones. And a yearning for sustained Grace.      

                                                             –Finis–