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Dom Columba Cary-Elwes
MY FIRST INSTINCT--AND WHO
KNOWS, IT MAY WELL be the right one-tells me to ignore this request
for information. It results in self-advertisement. If people
want to read my books, let them; if they don't, well, leave them
alone. It is all very humble. But I did write the books so that
as many people as possible should read them, as I was persuaded-and
still am--that in them would be found something useful and important.
Besides, people nowadays read such trash and are not ready to
launch out into less flighty material without a little push from
behind. So here goes, the instinct notwithstanding.
I have written four books and
edited another. The first was The Beginning of Goodness, publishing
in England and America, and, strangely enough, translated into
Polish. Why did I write it? It was written during the second
World War, at Ampleforth, while I was a house master of St. Wilfrid's
House (1937-51), and written for the boys who left there and
went into the world. Let me explain. Ampleforth is one of the
large English Benedictine monasteries whose history goes right
back behind the Reformation until it is lost in the mists of
the very early Middle Ages. Attached to it is a large boarding
school, divided into houses-or dormitories. As I watched the
boys under my special care grow up and emerge into a world torn
by war I felt that they needed a reminder of all that they had
learned at school, a vade mecum for the young man in the world
who wanted to bear witness for Christ in his life. So between
classes and late at night this was written.
Were the boys an intolerable
interruption in writing this and other books? It is true that
they shared my room at the house. They played their chess, read
the paper, played the gramaphone or radio, talked quietly-sometimes
not so quietly. I found that music was almost helpful, unless
it became a song in the modern idiom. Then either it had to stop
or I.
My second book, Law, Liberty
and Love (Devin-Adair, 1951) came out of my studies at Oxford,
my teaching religious knowledge at Ampleforth and my long rambles
with Professor Arnold Toynbee, who for so many years was a near
neighbor of the Abbey, living at Ganthorpe. During the six years
(1927-33) that I passed at Oxford studying modern languages (French
and Spanish) and their literature, later following the theological
course of studies at Blackfriars at Oxford, and also reading
in sociology under the benign guidance of Father Leo O'Hea, it
was clear to me that one of the major obstacles to a return into
the fold of the Church was a false idea of liberty and an absurd
fear of obedience. Reading St. Thomas, Rousseau and Leo XIII
within a short time of each other brought the problem to a head
and gave me some idea of how to resolve it. I tried to show the
true meaning of law, liberty, and love in an historical perspective
and at the same time attempted to show how at the Reformation
the true nature of liberty and of obedience faded from sight.
I follow these ideas through the New Testament, St. Augustine,
St. Benedict, St. Thomas, and St. Francis, Boniface VIII, Machiavelli,
Luther, St. Thomas More, St. Ignatius, Rousseau, Leo XIII, St.
Therese of the Child Jesus, and others. Arnold Toynbee summed
up much of our conversations in his masterly little preface to
the book.
The reason for my writing The
Sheepfold and the Shepherd (Longmans, 1956) is quite
simple: I would pray and work for the return of the dissident
Christians into the fold of the Church. Like so many other presentday
Catholic families in England, last century it was almost entirely
Anglican-Episcopalian, but the Oxford Movement, led by
Cardinal Newman, a number came back into the Church. I can still
remember a dear old great aunt who remained a staunch and pius
Anglican. She would put me up when I as a young man was invited
to a party in London. Every evening before dinner she would lead
household prayers. In the far background of the family history
was a martyr, but in the middle distance were Anglican archdeacons
and bishops. The reunion of Christendom was never far from my
thoughts. On two occasions I had the privilege to meet some of
those most active in this important field, once when invited
to an international meeting at Rome to discuss the whole problem
and another time likewise an international meeting near Geneva,
but on this occasion with an equal number of non-Catholics. This
book then is the outcome of thoughts and conversations on this
important theme. The main part of the book is concerned with
the nature of the Church and the authority within it. Now that
we have a Roman Pontiff whose primary aim is this very matter:
the return of all Christ's sheep to the one Fold, this book becomes
very to the point.
How did I ever come to write
a tome on the Chinese missions, never having been there? China
and the Cross (Kenedy, 1957). China and its mission has almost
always had a fascination for me, not only because it has presented
the greatest challenge to the Church for centuries and because
it is one of the mightiest conglomerations of humanity upon this
earth, but also for a personal reason. Two previous priests in
the family, both Jesuits, one an uncle and the other a great
uncle, had longed to be sent on the Chinese mission. They were
both disappointed of that, though one went as a missionary among
the native tribes of South Africa and the other was sent to evangelize
the Indians in the hinterland of British Guiana. However, I decided
that I could not force God's hand either, and so became a Benedictine
(1924) at Ampleforth, and now I am helping in founding a monastery
near St. Louis in the heart of the United States. Meanwhile,
however, I have been reading about the Chinese missions since
1930 or even earlier. The more I read the more enthralled I became
and wider became the horizons that opened up. First it was the
medieval Franciscans that took my fancy, that opened the door
to the whole Mongol story, to the great medieval travelers such
as Marco Polo; but behind the Franciscans one found the Nestorian
missionaries of the seventh century, and linked with them was
the rise of Islam. No one who reads anything of the subject could
help, either, to discover the gentle and wise Confucius, then
northern Buddhism, Taoism, and the immense question of the rise
of Manicheism. For years I read the accounts of that greatest
of the chapters of the Jesuit missions, of Father Ricci as well
as St. Francis Xavier, and so on to modern times. China provides
a sample of all the major missionary problems. Wherever I went
it was always one of the first enquiries I made, was there a
library and had they any old book on China. Pinkerton I found
in a second-hand bookshop in York, kind persons and the London
Library provided the rest. The book, written in hall-hour stretches,
one almost might say, took twenty-five years and more to write.
I remember so well having to learn Italian in order to read the
great Commentarii and letters of Father Ricci. One Christmas
time, the boys gone home, I borrowed the work from the ever kind
London Library and with this open on my knees and a miniature
Italian-English dictionary between the leaves, I began. As time
went on, the number of words one had to look up per page diminished.
It is a regret now that I have no longer any reason to research
upon this grand subject.
It was less laborous editing
Ampleforth and Its Origins (Bow, 1952), as somehow or
another I managed to persuade others to write the whole book
except for half of the preface and half of the epilogue which
are mine. The aim of this book was to give in miniature the history
of the Benedictine Order by choosing one monastery that had continuity
from almost the time of St. Benedict to the present day. One
such is Ampleforth, a house of the old English Benedictine Congregation.
So the book begins with an account of St. Benedict himself, carries
on through the mission of St. Augustine of Canterbury, medieval
Westminster--the motherhouse of Ampleforth-Dieuleward, whither
Englishmen went during persecution times; the flight from there
back to England and finally Ampleforth itself.
It is hard enough writing books
while teaching and running a "house"; it is proving
somewhat more difficult to do so helping to found a new monastery.
But there are one or two books up my sleeve, and perhaps, God
willing, they too will see the light.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Dom Columba
was born Charles Evelyn Cary-Elwes, in London, Nov. 6, 1903;
educated by the Jesuits at St. Michel, Brussels, 1913-14, by
the Benedictines at Ampleforth, York, 1914-22; joined the Benedictines,
1924; at Oxford, 1927-33, B.A. 1930, continuing studies there,
taking theology under the Dominicans; returned to Ampletorth,
1933, in which year he was ordained, and where he was housemaster,
1937-51, claustral prior, 1951-55, St. Louis (Mo.) Priory, 1955
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Originally
published in The Book of Catholic Authors, Walter Romig,
Sixth Series, 1960.
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