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St George, the Martyr-Knight

Full title: Saint George and the Dragon Artist: Gustave Moreau Date made: 1889-90 Source: http://www.nationalgalleryimages.co.uk/ Contact: [email protected] Copyright © The National Gallery, London

23rd April 2021

The CHC blog

St George, the Martyr-Knight

Stefan Kaminski

Celebrating our martyr-patron, St George, necessarily involves some distinguishing of fact from fiction. Even some of the earliest narratives from the 5th-century that relate to St George claim some rather incredible stories of him. We automatically associate him with a dragon, but ironically this story can’t be traced further back than the Golden Legend of the 12th century.

What is clear is that the St George did exist as a historical person. An ancient cult, and the accounts of several pilgrims in the 6th to 8th centuries, all speak of Lydda as the resting-place of his remains and of the veneration which had been accorded him since his death in about 303 AD. His martyrdom would have therefore occurred under the tyrant-Emperor Diocletian, who was also sometimes allegorised as a dragon – one possible explanation for the associated story.

The veneration of St George spread quickly in both East and West. A church in Rome was already dedicated to him by 512AD, and it still stands today. His cult was “exported” to England by the 8th century, and churches had been dedicated to him by the time of the Norman conquest.

The crusades brought about an increase in the popularity of such “martyr-knights” as St George, whose patronage was invoked to support righteous causes. George was particularly seen to personify the ideals of Christian chivalry, and so was quickly adopted as a patron of various city states and countries. King Richard the Lionheart is said to have been responsible for introducing St George’s coat of arms. However, by 1222 his feast had already been proclaimed a holiday. By the 14th century, English soldiers were bearing St George’s coat of arms, but the official seal of Lyme Regis already consisted of a ship bearing the “George cross” in 1284. His cross remains the British Navy’s ensign today.

Gustav Moreau, Saint George and the Dragon
San Giorgio in Velabro, Rome
An image of the remains of the Temple of Janus, showing San Georgio in Velabro to the right, by Etienne Duperac
Categories
Events Talks

The Logos & Literature [online evening talks]

The Logos & Literature:
Elaborating the Divine
[online evening talks]

29th April-8th July 2021 @7:30pm

Explore some of the great themes of Catholic Christianity,
in writing old and new

Online at 7:30pm every second Thursday, beginning 29th April. Talks last 45-60 minutes, followed by 30 minutes Q&A.

Please register at the bottom of this page for a link.

29th April
Rev. Dr Michael Halsall
Tolkien's Cosmology: Understanding Our World

JRR Tolkien’s mythical world captured the hearts and minds of millions. His world is one that speaks to us because it is anchored in a profound truth: that of a cosmos brought into being and continually guided, whilst simultaneously respecting the free choices of its creatures. Rev. Dr Halsall will explore the beauty of Tolkien’s vision as a reflection of the Catholic understanding of the cosmos, as defined in its relationship to the Creator.

Fr Halsall is a priest of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, and teaches Philosophy at Allen Hall Seminary in London. Fr Halsall’s recent book – Creation and Beauty in Tolkien’s Catholic Vision – explores the philosophical themes in Tolkien’s crafted creation narratives, alongside those of the Christian tradition, influenced as they are by varieties of Christian Neoplatonism.

13th May
Fiorella Nash
Searching for Truth: Fact and Fiction Today

Fiction plays a powerful role in the search for and perception of truth. Historical fiction offers a means of accessing the past, and contemporary fiction often helps to shape the way a society is perceived. Fiorella Nash will explore the importance of both genres in seeking and reclaiming truths both religious and about ourselves, and in a particular way, the role of the murder mystery genre in the search for truth and justice.

Fiorella De Maria is an Anglo-Maltese writer who grew up in Wiltshire, England and studied English literature at Cambridge University. A winner of the National Book Prize of Malta, she has published ten books including: Poor Banished Children, Do No Harm, We’ll Never Tell Them, A Most Dangerous Innocence and the Father Gabriel mysteries which have been described as “Miss Marple for the twenty-first century”. She lives in Surrey with her husband, four children and a dog called Monty.  

27th May
Roy Peachey
Catechetical Poetry: Presenting Christianity in China

The beauty and structure of poetry presents a particular form of literature that is at once attractive and easily memorised. Roy Peachey will examine how Wu Li, one of the masters of early Qing Dynasty painting, used traditional Chinese verse to evangelise the people of China. Even after he became a Jesuit priest in 1688, Wu Li continued to paint and write poetry, using his elegant art to present the essentials of Christianity to the Chinese people at a time of great political and religious uncertainty. Despite the very different conditions in which it was produced, his work therefore offers an intriguing example for our own times too.

Roy Peachey was educated at Oxford, London and Lancaster universities, studying Modern History, English and Chinese Studies. He is has held several senior educational roles whilst teaching, and pubilshed a number of books, including 50 Books for Life: A Concise Guide to Catholic Literature.

10th June
Dr Rebekah Lamb
Fiction as Formation: CS Lewis and the Chronicles of Narnia

The Chronicles of Narnia draw much of their depth from CS Lewis’ appreciation of the Christian vision of education and the liberal arts. Dr Rebekah Lamb will focus on the formative elements of Lewis’ fiction, with special emphasis on The Silver Chair.

Dr. Rebekah Lamb lectures at the School of Divinity, University of St. Andrew’s. She specialises in Religion and Literature from the long-nineteenth century to the present, with  emphasis on the Pre-Raphaelites and their affiliate circles. Prior to St. Andrews Rebekah was an inaugural Étienne Gilson Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of St. Michael’s College (USMC) in the University of Toronto and also taught Literature and Humanities Studies at Our Lady Seat of Wisdom College (SWC) in the Ottawa Valley.

24th June
Corinna Turner
Educating in Virtue: Appealing to the Young Mind

Stories are a fundamental and important means of communicating principals and actions by which to live life: namely morality and virtue. They have played a central role in education in every civilised society, adapting to the specifics of each era and place. Acclaimed author, Corinna Turner, will explore the challenges of presenting and exemplifying virtues in literature to the modern, young mind.

Corinna Turner is the Carnegie medal nominated author of the I Am Margaret series, The Boy Who Knew (Carlo Acutis), and other works for young adults and adults. She is a Lay Dominican, and lives in the UK.

8th July
Prof. Alison Shell
Inspiring Heroism: Counter-Reformation Catholicism and English Drama

The Catholic Church’s response to the challenges posed by the Reformation was often embodied in drama and performance. Even among England’s persecuted Catholics, cultural activity of this kind occurred: secretly or discreetly on the mainland, and more openly in plays put on by the colleges set up on the Continent to educate English youths. Both at home and abroad, such plays encouraged Catholics to hold onto tradition, and celebrated saints and martyrs in a way intended to inspire both actors and audience.

Prof. Alison Shell is Professor of English at University College London, and runs the MA in English: Shakespeare in History. She is an editor and critic, reviewing for the Times Literary Supplement, the Church Times and a number of academic journals. Principal works include: Catholicism, Controversy, and the English Literary Imagination, 1558-1660 (1999), Oral Culture and Catholicism in Early Modern England (2007), and Shakespeare And Religion (2011)

***Admission is free. We kindly request a donation to support the costs of our activities.***


Please register below:

Categories
Blog Media

The Necessity of Good Friday

2nd April 2021

The CHC blog

The Necessity of Good Friday

Stefan Kaminski

Each day of the Easter Triduum is inseparable from the rest: Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday form a single, liturgical action, as the Church sees it. Together, the Thursday evening to Sunday morning constitute a time of immersion in the most sacred and greatest of mysteries. In the middle of this liturgical trio is the celebration of Our Lord’s Crucifixion on Good Friday. It would not be inaccurate to call this, literally, the “meat” of the Triduum: the substance of the rite that is instituted on Holy Thursday is found on Good Friday; and, without Christ’s death, there would be no Resurrection. The celebration of the most joyous and solemn Easter Mass hinges on the prior celebration of Good Friday.

Equally, if Easter signals the commencement of our life in the Holy Spirit, the era of the Church, Good Friday can be perhaps considered the absolute pivotal moment between Testaments Old and New. Although a “New Testament event”, it also signals the final closure of the Old Testament, in the sense that Good Friday celebrates the Sacrifice of sacrifices, the last word with respect to man’s historic need for sin offerings as practiced under the Old Covenant. Christ’s sacrifice is the final but only effective one in a long chain of sacrifices made since Abel and Cain. Similarly, in finally atoning for all human sin, past and future, it ushers in the life of grace. So it is that all sacrifices before Christ’s were a mere antetype; any sacrifices made since cannot be other than idolatry.

At the same time, the Cross speaks most profoundly of the Mystery of God’s Love. It brings together and crushes the contradiction created by man’s first disobedience. In the Cross, the weight of human sin and the magnitude of the Father’s Love confront each other; High Priest and Victim are united; God and man are reconciled; life and death are met. The Mystery of this day is such that “every word is silenced before this… the Father’s hour, when the eternal triune plan is executed,” in the words of von Balthasar.

Carl Bloch, The Crucifixion of Christ

Indeed, the only necessary words on Good Friday are those spoken by the Son as He hangs from the Cross: seven phrases, identified from across the Gospels, referred to as the Seven Last words. These words uttered by the Word are, in a sense, God’s final word. “But in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son” (Heb 1:2), and these are the words spoken by the Son in the last moments of His life on earth. Each is therefore full of significance, drawing together all of God’s preceding revelation and bringing it to its climatic fulfilment.

Perhaps the most enigmatic of these words, and the ones that most vividly speak of the transition from Old Testament to New, is the fourth phrase: “Eli, Eli, la′ma sabach-tha′ni?” “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

These words come from the beginning of Psalm 22; Israel’s great psalm of suffering, a plea for deliverance from suffering and hostility. It is addressed to an apparently-distant God: One who is recognised as past deliverer of Israel, but Who is currently silent, despite the repeated prayers of the people. The psalmist, some 1,000 years before, speaks of the very details that are to manifest themselves on Calvary: the mockery and the challenge to God, the piercing of the hands and feet, the division of the clothes amongst the soldiers and the casting of lots for the outer garment. By invoking Psalm 22 from the Cross, Jesus thus identifies those prophetic words with the event of His Crucifixion, simultaneously speaking reality into those words as he undergoes what they portray.

At the same time, Psalm 22, and therefore the Crucifixion event, does not end with the sufferings of the Messiah. In the last stanzas of the Psalm, a transformation takes place: “From thee comes my praise in the great congregation; my vows I will pay before those who fear him. The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied… the families of the nations shall worship before him.” In these lines, the early Church identified herself as the “great congregation” that offers a sacrifice of praise. In the memorial of the Passion, instituted by Christ at the Last Supper and manifested in the Church’s liturgy, the Bread of Life Himself becomes the food of the afflicted. And as the Gospel spread throughout the Roman empire and beyond, so those who worshipped the One, true God spread beyond the people of Israel to include the wider families of the nations.

And so Psalm 22 also alludes to the immediate fruit of Christ’s Suffering: the birth of the Church, and with her, of the Sacramental economy. As the Old Testament is brought to completion and the New begun, so too the people of God is created anew. From the side of the Body of Our Lord is drawn forth the water and blood of the Church’s Sacraments, Baptism and the Eucharist. As Eve was drawn from Adam’s side, so too is the Church drawn from Christ’s.

We celebrate today “a great mystery… Christ and the Church”, in which “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph 5:25). The contemplation of the Cross is the contemplation of Christ’s love for each of us, from which flows the offer of grace and the promise of new life. Good Friday is not a day to be overlooked.

Post updated 29th March 2024

Categories
Blog Media

G.M. Hopkin’s “God’s Grandeur”

2nd April 2021

The CHC blog

God's Grandeur

By Gerard Manley Hopkins
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
    It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
    It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
    And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
    And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
 
And for all this, nature is never spent;
    There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
    Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
    World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

A discussion of G. M. Hopkins's poem "God's Grandeur"

Dr Michael D. Hurley (University of Cambridge, Chairman of the Christian Heritage Centre at Stonyhurst), Dr Rebekah Lamb (University of St Andrews, Trustee of the Christian Heritage Centre at Stonyhurst), and Dr Jan Graffius (Curator of the Museum, Library, and Archives at Stonyhurst) discuss Gerard Manley Hopkins’s “God’s Grandeur”.

The podcast offers an accessible overview of Hopkins’s life, the literary and theological richness of his poetry, and some of the ways in which his religious, scientific, and creative imagination was shaped by his experiences at Stonyhurst.

In collaboration with Stonyhurst College and Jesuits in Britain.

Gerard Manley Hopkins Podcast

About Gerard Manley Hopkins

Gerard Manley Hopkins was an English poet and Jesuit priest, one of the most individual of Victorian writers. However, because his style was so radically different from that of his contemporaries, his best poems were not accepted for publication during his lifetime, and his achievement was not fully recognised until after World War I. Hopkins was a former seminarian pupil and teacher of Stonyhurst. His poem ‘God’s Grandeur’ is thought to be inspired by the grandeur of the building and the beauty of his surroundings whilst at Stonyhurst, finding ‘God in all things’.

Categories
Media Video

The Life to Come

A Journey of Salvation: The Drama Displayed
#6 The Life to Come

***The talks are made available freely with the request for a donation to support our costs.***

Please donate here:


A reflection on the Last Things – death, judgement, heaven and hell – which are most vividly spoken of in the Book of Revelation, but also given concrete shape by the Gospels. Michelangelo’s Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel provides an artistic aid to this talk.

About the speaker:

Sr Emanuela Edwards is a member of the Missionaries of Divine Revelation, an apostolic community orientated towards the New Evangelisation. She has worked extensively with the Vatican Museums delivering tours and talks on Art and Faith. For more information about the Missionaries of Divine revelation, please click here.

Other videos in the series:

#1 In the Beginning

#2 The Naked Truth

#3 A Great Love Song

#4 The Greatest Gift

#5 Signs of Passion

Categories
Events Retreats

Loving Holiness [weekend retreat]

Loving Holiness:
St Joseph & Our Lady
[weekend retreat]

31st July - 2nd August 2021

Meditations on the holiest of married couples, in honour of the year dedicated to St Joseph by Pope Francis

A weekend retreat for any adult, whether single, married or consecrated

Conferences preached by Fr Armand de Malleray, FSSP

Daily timetable includes Holy Mass (Extraordinary Form), Eucharistic Adoration, Rosary, Latin Compline and Confession.

Theodore House Oratory and St Peter’s church available for prayer.

Enjoy the beautiful surrounding countryside.

Comfortable en-suite accommodation in a quiet setting.

Timings:

  • Arrivals from 3pm (Saturday)
  • Retreat commences at 6pm (Saturday)
  • Departures from 3pm (Monday)
About the speaker:

Fr Armand de Malleray, F.S.S.P., was born in France. After military service in Hungary and seminary studies in Germany, he was ordained a priest in 2001. As a priest, he has spent much of his time in England, working with youth and in parishes. He established the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter in England, and has become well known as a retreat director for priests and laity alike.

For more information about Fr de Malleray, please click here.

Cost:

Single room:  £160 per person

Twin room (sharing): £110 per person

Costs include full board from Saturday dinner to Monday lunch inclusive.

Precautions against Covid-19 are implemented at Theodore House as advised by the Government.

In case of cancellation or postponment resulting from Covid-19, deposits and payments will be refunded or carried over.

All places are now sold out. If you would like to register your name as a reserve in case of cancellation, please email [email protected]

Please register below (includes £50 p.p. deposit payment):

Venue:

Categories
Media Video

A Thinking Body, Embodied Minds

Integrating Spirit, Mind & Body [mental health webinars]
#2 A Thinking Body, Embodied Minds

***The talks are made available freely with the request for a donation to support our costs.***

Please donate here:



Building on the fundamental Christian vision of the human person as a unity of soul and body, Elizabeth Corcoran  explores the benefits for mental health in caring for our body in a holistic manner, drawing on her experience of Functional Medicine.

About the speaker:

Dr Liz Corcoran has a passion for empowering people to restore their health through changing how they interact with their world. Through her own and family members’ struggles with health she was led to Functional Medicine. She graduated Royal Free University College London in 2005 and completed higher training in psychiatry. She has pursued further education with the Institute of Functional Medicine as a means to ‘come alongside’ her patients to help them make changes and improve their health. She also runs the only UK charity focused on medical research helping people with Down’s syndrome.

Other videos in the series:

#1 Thinking Christianity & Mental Health

Categories
Media Video

Signs of Passion

Signs of Passion

A Journey of Salvation: The Drama Displayed
#5 Signs of Passion

***The talks are made available freely with the request for a donation to support our costs.***

Please donate here:


This talk is be based around the Turin Shroud, offering a very visual aid to the sufferings of Our Lord in His Passion and Death, as well as some insights into the history and study of the Shroud.

Note: The Shroud will next be exposed in 2025.

About the speaker:

In 2008, Pam acquired a full-sized replica of the Shroud from Barrie Schwortz, the official photographer of the 1978 STuRP scientific examination of the Shroud.  It was one of the first four replicas he created.  She was so moved by the beauty of the Shroud that she developed an exhibition around the replica. For more information about her exhibition, please click here.

Other videos in the series:

#1 In the Beginning

#2 The Naked Truth

#3 A Great Love Song

#4 The Greatest Gift

#6 The Life to Come

Categories
Media Video

The Greatest Gift

The Greatest Gift

A Journey of Salvation: The Drama Displayed
#4 The Greatest Gift

***The talks are made available freely with the request for a donation to support our costs.***

Please donate here:


God’s approach to us as Son and Redeemer, in the person of Jesus Christ, is the pivotal point of human history. Several artistic pieces are examined to aid in a reflection on the mystery of the Incarnation and of our Redemption.

About the speaker:

Dr Caroline Farey has taught catechesis, theology and philosophy for many years throughout the English-speaking world. She has held several important positions, having also been appointed by the Vatican as one of the lay experts at the Synod on the New Evangelisation. She has a passion for Sacred Art, which she has long made use of in her teaching. For more information about Dr Farey’s current work, please click here.

Other videos in the series:

#1 In the Beginning

#2 The Naked Truth

#3 A Great Love Song

#5 Signs of Passion

#6 The Life to Come

Categories
Blog Media

CHC acquires Caldecott Library

2nd March 2021

The CHC blog
The Inklings included C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, who were foundational to Stratford Caldecott's conversion

Stratford Caldecott's library finds a home at the CHC

Stefan Kaminski

The Christian Heritage Centre is very pleased to announce its acquisition of Stratford Caldecott’s personal library, which will find a home at Theodore House and form the backbone of the CHC’s own library.

Stratford Caldecott is a name much-loved by many students, scholars and writers both in the Catholic world and without. Referred to as “the most powerful voice for Catholic culture in the Anglophone world”, Stratford found his way to Catholicism from an agnostic background and by way of several Eastern religions. His conversion was helped along by his realisation that the stories which had shaped his youth were all built on a Christian worldview. These particularly included C.S. Lewis’ and J.R.R. Tolkien’s writings.

Apart from teaching at Oxford, his own alma mater, Stratford set up the Centre for Faith and Culture with his wife Leonie, as well as establishing the Second Spring movement with her. He served on the boards of Communio, The Chesterton Review and the Catholic Truth Society, as well as editing Magnificat, Humanum and the Second Spring journal. He wrote and published widely on Christian apologetics, theology, and cultural themes.

Stratford sadly passed away in May 2014 after a long battle with cancer, though the work of the Second Spring movement very much continues under the guiding hands of Leonie and of Tessa Caldecott Cialini. Following his death, Leonie moved house and has been keen to find a good home for the Stratford’s library.

“This is an historic opportunity for the CHC. Strat is an incredibly important figure in the history of contemporary Catholicism in the UK (and beyond) and contributed to the kinds of initiatives so dear to the CHC,” says Dr Rebekah Lamb, a Trustee of the charity. Rebekah was greatly influenced by Stratford, having attended his Second Spring summer school, and she now lectures in Theology, Imagination and the Arts at St Andrews.

“Buried a stone’s throw from his beloved Tolkien, Strat was crucial to helping direct (if not inaugurate) substantive scholarship on the positive influence Catholicism had on the literary greats of modernity and is responsible for collecting and, for a time, housing the Chesterton archive which is now under the curatorship of the University of Notre Dame (at its London Global Gateway). 

He was a deep reader, thinker, and committed Catholic as passionate about Catholic Social Teaching as he was about formation, the gift of the Eucharist, and authentic inter-religious dialogue.

When he passed away seven years ago, he left behind countless friends and fellow scholars from around the globe who saw in him not only a thinker of penetrating insights informed by a deep life of prayer but also a mentor and friend.”

Housing his personal collection will not only serve as a benefit for those who take part in events with the CHC. It will also provide insight for scholars who wish to gain a deeper insight into Strat as thinker–after all, you can judge a scholar by his bookshelves!

Stratford’s library includes not only a breadth of important philosophical and theological volumes stretching from the Fathers of the Church to the 20th century, but also a collection of important writings from the Eastern Orthodox tradition, as well as a library of writings by Lewis, Tolkien and other of the Inklings. A complete set of the Chesterton Review is also present.