More
years ago than I care to remember, I was a teenager at Wimbledon College in
south-west London, a boy’s Catholic Grammar School, administered by the Jesuits
(Society of Jesus). In the middle years it was customary for the boys to attend
a Retreat lasting two or three days, the object being to reinforce knowledge and appreciation of our Catholic
faith. The Retreat was given by a Jesuit priest, not necessarily from the
school, and on two occasions in separate years, I was fortunate to attend a
Retreat given by Fr Bernard Basset S.J., a well - known and much sought after
Retreat Master. Father Bassett was an excellent speaker with the ability to
capture and retain the attention of his young listeners on spiritual matters,
no mean feat, with light-hearted humour a potent weapon in his armoury.
Recently I came across a copy of an
old book entitled ‘The Seven Deadly Virtues – and other Stories’, by Bernard
Basset S.J. published by Sands & Co. London. The stories are a delight to
read and not too long, and I offer you one that I think you will enjoy and
appreciate; an antidote to the current
helping of gloom and doom within the
Church, which of course is but a glitch
in its divine mission, and one which will pass.
These stories first appeared in
Stella Maris and the Southwark Record, with permission granted for the author
to publish them in book form.
Mr.
Bumbleby’s Outburst
The
Church recommends that we should spend fifteen minutes in making our
thanksgiving after Holy Communion, and the story is told of St Philip Neri that
he once sent two altar boys with lighted candles to escort a culprit who had
darted off the moment Mass was done. Of
course we all agree with the Saint, and would not ourselves cut away without a
suitable thanksgiving, but if two acolytes with lighted candles came and stood
by us while we arranged our thoughts after Holy Communion, we might better
appreciate the honour which is ours.
As it is, we must all admit with
some confusion that our knees are often more impressionable than our minds and
hearts at that time of the morning, and that with the best intention in the
world we find it very difficult to pray. That at least is what we think, and
when five minutes have taken half an hour in passing, we find it hard to
believe that it is worthwhile struggling with distractions and hunger any more.
Perhaps it might help someone if I
set down Mr. Bumbleby’s views on thanksgiving after Communion, for though I
know all the theory and was already a weekly communicant on paper before I talked
to him, yet he certainly helped me a great deal. Up to that time, Marjorie and I, suffering
from the common complaint of inability to feel holy or prayerful before
breakfast, had alas, become remiss about going to early Mass.
For six days in the week we proudly
grouped ourselves among the regular congregation for the eight o’clock Mass on
Sundays, and I would even stay in bed a wee bit longer on Saturdays to
compensate for rising early on the next day. Yet by Saturday evening I
invariably had a scraping feeling behind the nose, or a tooth which might give
trouble, and I would decide after much humming and hawing that it would be
inviting trouble to go to early Mass.
Marjorie used to laugh at my
complaints but she too had a battery of excuses on occasion, the children
looked peaky, or she was so behind with her housekeeping, and after all, she
must sometimes think of cook. Why cook should have a figure in our spiritual
pie was a question that I could never answer, but Marjorie seemed satisfied,
and in the end, after a long discussion, I would announce that we’d better go
to late Mass just for this once, while Marjorie would say, “No, let’s leave it
till the morning and we’ll see what the day is like.” We both know what that meant.
Now Mr. Bumbleby was the newsagent
from whom I always bought the Sunday papers on my way home from Mass. This was easy, for Mr. Bumbleby had no shop
but used to open his pitch on the pavement not far from the church. His glaring posters were strapped to some
railings, his stock of papers screamed their headlines at you from the
tarpaulin cover on which he had laid them, while Mr. Bumbleby sat by the side
reading all about the latest murder, hoping that no purchaser would remove the
last copy before the police had inspected the body. I had seen Mr. Bumbleby inside of the church
on occasions, for he was a Papist, but usually he was already doing a brisk
trade on the pavement before we arrived for Mass.
It so happened on the particular
Sunday in question that I had for once overcome the temptation which beset me,
and had struggled from bed to early Mass. Either the children were looking
peaky or cook was being thought of, for Marjorie had remained at home. I remember feeling that I might as well have
stayed at home myself, for after Holy Communion I found it almost impossible to
pray. And this disturbed me, for if you firmly believe as a Catholic that Our
Lord is truly present on the altar, and that He comes to you in the literal
sense at Holy Communion, then it is very humiliating when the mind pops off on
to trivial subjects at the most sacred moment of His arrival.
Well, my mind was certainly on the spree that
morning, though I clutched firmly at my prayer book, rattled my rosary,
compiled a long list of petitions to be asked for, and generally set about the
duties of prayer. I thought of Marjorie and cook, Jimmie’s bad leg, Joe Stalin
and Tottenham Hotspurs, and then returned with shame to my own lack of
gratitude and respect. Unfortunately my rosary on the seat in front served
admirably as a rough map of the Mediterranean,
and in the midst of remorse I was planning naval dispositions. Within five minutes it was clear to me that
progress in prayer was no longer possible,
and following the mood of the moment I swept the Mediterranean coastline
into my pocket, seized my hat and went.
Mr. Bumbleby was in position when I
bounded across the road to greet him, but he was not reading the paper as I had
expected, but was sitting on his heels beside his posters with a huge prayer
book in his hands. He was so busy that
he did not notice me until I had said good morning, and then he shut his book and whipped off his
glasses.
“Hello” said I, speaking without purpose or consideration.
“don’t tell me you are saying your prayers?”
Mr. Bumbleby was not in the least
embarrassed by my stupid question, but replied with alacrity that was exactly
what he was doing, for what with the
blooming trains running late, and the R.C.s
going to church so early, he’d had the very dickens of a rush to open up
in time anyhow, and that he had had to cut away from church with his
thanksgiving half unsaid.
“What’s more” he added, pointing
menacingly at the newspapers with his glasses, “it ain’t ‘arf ‘ard to be saying your prayers squatting on
the public pavement with all them latest London editions to be read.”
Partly from surprise, partly as a
result of my own experience in church that morning, I agreed that it was very difficult to make
an adequate thanksgiving after Holy Communion, but my admission seemed to
affect Mr. Bumbleby in a most unexpected way.
“That’s just where you’re wrong,”
said he, looking fiercely in my
direction, and then he flung open his battered prayer book, licked his
forefinger and began turning over the pages as though they were treasury notes.
“I used to think it was hard,” he
said, “ in the days when I was always
fussing about my own feelings, because if I didn’t happen to be in the mood,
then my prayer was a washout from the start.
That’s what you think too, and you’re wrong. After all we’d never get nowhere in ordinary
life if we only thought of ourselves. When
the Master comes to us in Communion, He’s not thinking of Himself, is He? No, He’s out to give us a big help and
pleasure, and so we in our prayers shouldn’t think about ourselves but about
Him. It’s because we’re always watching
ourselves, worrying how it’s going,
wondering if it’s doing us good and can we possibly fill up the quarter
of an hour, that we get all knotted up in five minutes.
“ ‘Let Him look after me, and I’ll look after
Him.’ That’s how I see it now, but mind you, I’ve not always ‘ad the sense to
see it. And then there’s far too much
asking in our prayers. Of course, He
told us to ask, that’s just like Him, and we have every right to do so, but it
seems to me that we oughtn’t to overdo it, because ‘Hallowed be Thy Name’ comes
well before ‘Give us this day our daily bread’ in the Lord’s Prayer. Our first job in prayer is to stage a sort of
reception, such as a town might give to His Majesty, the King, God bless Him,
with a guard of honour, streamers, flags and the like fluttering about. Now we can’t be waving no flags in church I
know, though the flowers and vestments and our best clothes are for the same
purpose, and there are one or two prayers that take the place of ‘God Save the King.’”
Mr. Bumbleby had been turning over
the pages of his book while he was speaking and at last he found the required
place.
“Ever heard mention of the song of the
three young men in the furnace?” he asked fiercely, and then went on without
giving pause for reply.
“I can’t rightly pronounce their
names, not being educated, and I ain’t ever been in a fiery furnace myself
either, but it seems to me that it is ‘ardly the ideal place for a spot of
quiet prayer.
Well,
there they were those three, all crammed into the blaze because they wouldn’t
worship no idols, and instead of calling on God to help or preserve them they
started singing about His glory for all they were worth. If they could do it then, we can do it in the
cool of the church or even out here on this blooming pavement, and we can use
their very words. That is what Holy
Church thinks anyway for she gives their song in full for the priest to say
after Mass.
“And that is what I was doing when
you came along, for it’s an easy prayer to say when you’re stuck for words or
don’t feel able to make much effort, for you’ve only to run through the list of
hills and seas and mountains, and say O.K. to each one of them and see how good
and how powerful God is to have made them all.
‘Mountains and waters bless the Lord, praise and exalt Him above all for
ever; all ye priests bless the
Lord, praise and exalt Him above all for
ever; Ernest Bumbleby bless the Lord,
praise and exalt Him above all for ever’.”
Mr. Bumbleby slammed the book and
began fishing about for my Sunday paper.
“That’s prayer,” said he,
“real prayer, and it don’t matter a hoot what you feel while you’re
saying it because you are calling on the mountains and other creatures to
praise God, and mountains don’t have no moods like you and me. Just you stick to the song of the young men,
whose names I can’t pronounce though I’ve said them every Sunday morning this
last decade, and when that song is sung then move on to the next psalm in the
prayer book, all about praising God with harps and cymbals and the rest of the
band.
“We forget that we all look one way
in church, Jesus Christ from the altar looks the other way. What does He see? He sees Mrs. Somebody in the front bench praying for a whole list of odds and
ends and maybe He gives her some of them’,
and further back He sees Mr. Somebody else and a crowd of others all
asking for things, and because He’s so kind He listens. But right at the back or even out here on
this blooming pavement He sees an old sinner like me saying ‘Glory be to the
Father’ over and over again, and you may be sure that He’ll give me what I need
too.
“Now I don’t say He isn’t pleased
with all the others, because He’s bound to appreciate their effort, but I know what sort of prayer would give me
most pleasure were I in His position,
and what I would like best He would like best also, for Jesus Christ is
God, but He’s a human being after all.”
Mr. Bumbleby resumed his prayer, and
as I walked away I did not read the paper but I opened my missal and called on
the mountains and waters to praise and exalt the Lord. It was certainly easy and I dawdled as I read
so that I was very late for breakfast and Marjorie had to fall back on her
favourite admonition, “We must think of cook, sometimes.”
Ack. 'The Seven Deadly Virtues & Other Stories' by Rev. Bernard
Basset S.J. published by Sands & Co. London. These stories first appeared in Stella Maris and in the Southwark Record, with permission for the author to publish in book form.
