Saints of the Week

SAINTS OF THE WEEK were “Perpetua and her companions” and “Geoffrey A. Studdert Kennedy.” Perpetua was among a group of new converts who lost their lives in a purge of Christians around 203 C.E. I confess to feeling embarrassed by the legendary account of Perpetua’s martyrdom, according to which she “guided the executioner’s sword” to her own throat.” Her eagerness to embrace a martyr’s death strikes me as less exemplary than pathological. But it was the passionate faith of the martyrs that got the world’s attention in those cynical times. If Perpetua were more moderate and conciliatory (like me), Christianity would most likely have joined other mild-mannered religious movements on the ash heap of history.

A Saint closer to my own mentality is Geoffrey A. Studdert Kennedy, whose experiences as a chaplain in the British army during WW I inspired him to produce volumes of religious poetry, as well as to become an activist for peace and justice until his death in 1929. Studdert Kennedy’s poetry is deeply “incarnational”, meaning that he struggled to see God present in the human misery and shared suffering of trench warfare. The act of putting himself in harm’s way, in solidarity with others, is a kind of “martyrdom” I can whole heartedly admire, and seek (however moderately) to emulate. When such an act gives rise to poems of great sensitivity and ironic humor, it becomes even more authoritative in my eyes. Below are some examples of his work…

Missing -- Believed Killed: On reading a Mother's letter

1'Twere heaven enough to fill my heart

2 If only one would stay,

3Just one of all the million joys

4 God gives to take away.

5If I could keep one golden dawn,

6 The splendour of one star,

7One silver glint of yon bird's wing

8 That flashes from afar;

9If I could keep the least of things

10 That make me catch my breath

11To gasp with wonder at God's world

12 And hold it back from death,

13It were enough; but death forbids.

14 The sunset flames to fade,

15The velvet petals of this rose

16 Fall withered -- brown -- decayed.

17She only asked to keep one thing,

18 The joy light in his eyes:

19God has not even let her know

20 Where his dead body lies.

21O grave, where is Thy victory?

22 O death, where is Thy sting?

23Thy victory is ev'rywhere,

24 Thy sting's in ev'rything.

Indifference

When Jesus came to Birmingham they simply passed Him by,

6They never hurt a hair of Him, they only let Him die;

7For men had grown more tender, and they would not give Him pain,

8They only just passed down the street, and left Him in the rain.

9Still Jesus cried, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do,"

10And still it rained the wintry rain that drenched Him through and through;

11The crowds went home and left the streets without a soul to see,

12And Jesus crouched against a wall and cried for Calvary.

Notes

22] See 1 Corinthians 15: 51-57.