Category: Weblogs

Hey! Tim Jones here.

 

Saint Gilbert?
Bereft of any terribly original or helpful thoughts of my own, I would like to draw your attention to recent posts by Sean Dailey at the Blue Boar, and Eric Scheske at The Daily Eudemon, as well as this news story at Catholic Online, all highlighting a small but solid and growing movement for the sainthood of G.K. Chesterton.

It seems clear to me, and to many of Chesterton's readers, that of course
he was a saint, but it is not clear to all. Old stereotypes die hard,
and for some the picture of a rotund, hearty, jocular, wine-bibbing
Englsih journalist does not fit their idea of sainthood – never mind
the luminous spirituality underlying his prose and poetry, and the many
people (like C.S. Lewis) he inspired to see afresh the truths of the
ancient creed.

He was not a missionary or a cloistered religious.
He was not a priest, a theologian or a martyr. He was enthusiastic
about books, beer and bacon. He was no slayer of infidels, but a slayer
of heresies… he slew them with his pen. We hardly need to look around
for definitive arguments against the modern heresies that most plague
the people of the West… G.K.C. dealt them the death blow a century
ago, though many of them continue to walk around like zombies. For the
most part, in all seriousness, we need not invent new arguments against
these varied insanities, we need only to blow the dust off of
Chesterton's eloquent defense of reason and common sense.

I
remember well the moment at last year's Chesterton conference when the
audience was rather stunned to hear from speaker William Oddie that not
only was there no "cause" being championed for G.K.C.'s sainthood in
his home country, but that the idea was pretty well dismissed with a
kind of condescending chuckle by church officials in his home diocese.
It seems they, too, were influenced by stereotypes, or perhaps were too
close to Chesterton's roots to consider the idea… "Only in his
hometown and in his own house is a prophet without honor.".

For
my part, I find myself more often, now,  calling on G.K.C. for prayer
and intercession, along with other favorite patron saints (Fra
Angelico, Catherine of Bologna, Luke the Evangelist, Augustine…). I
think I might also add J.R.R. Tolkien to that list, if I am going to
teach. I am pretty confident that he, too, is in a position to hear and
to help.

(Cross-posted on Tim Jones' blog Old World Swine, for double your blogging pleasure)