Which Way to St. Willibrorus’s Chapel?

Henri Nouwen’s father, Laurent J. M. Nouwen, wrote a book-- St. Willibrorus: Holy Diplomat or Diplomatic Saint—in Dutch about the 7th century monk who Christianized parts of Germany, Belgiulm and the Netherlands for the Roman Catholic Church. Did Willi do so by force or by diplomacy, power or presence, I wanted to know?

Willibrorus's 6th century shrine and chapel is only a 40- minute walk from Laurent Nouwen’s house where we were staying. On Sunday we walked in the rain down a chestnut covered path under the protection of a green canopy of old trees until we came to a sacred circle in the center of a 700 hectare forest, west of the village of Geijsteren in the Dutch province of Limburg.

I counted six pilgrim pathways leading to the six-sided chapel, which unfortunately was closed on Sunday. Next to the chapel is an ancient water well from the 4th or 5th century, and a border post dating from 1551, separating the pre-christian lands of of Cuijk and Kessel. Around the medieval chapel, various pre-Christian customs have been honored, including the Thunder god’s marriages the those who became goddesses.

 I tried to imagine missionary Willibrorus in the 8th century finding the sacred pagan well, dipping his monastic staff in the water, and baptizing converts to the Christian faith. Some say he also seized pagan statues and plowed them into the ground. Whatever his method of evangelism, he was successful and soon became the first Bishop of Utrecht.

Willi seems to be remembered fondly by the Dutch, and though I had not heard of him before, I now need to add him to my book of saints.

Intrigued, I later I googled St. Willbrorus and here’s what I found in Wikipedia:

Willibrord (Latin: Villibrordus; c. 658 – 7 November AD 739) was a Northumbrian missionary saint, known as the "Apostle to the Frisians" in the modern Netherlands. He became the first Bishop of Utrecht and died at Echternach, Luxembourg. A Life was written by Alcuin and dedicated to the Abbot of Echternach. Bede also makes mention of Willibrord. Nothing written by Willibrord can be found save a marginal note in the Calendar of Echternach giving some chronological data. A copy of the Gospels under the name of Willibrord is an Irish codex no doubt brought by Willibrord from Ireland. In 752/753 Boniface wrote a letter to Pope Stephen II, in which it is said that Willibrord destroyed the Frisian pagan sanctuaries and temples. In the Life written by Alcuin are two texts about Willibrord and pagan places of worship. In one he arrived with his companions in Walcheren in the Netherlands where he smashed a sculpture of the ancient religion. In the second text passage Willibord arrived on an island called Fositesland where a pagan god named Fosite was worshipped. Here he despoiled this god of its sanctity by using the god's sacred well for baptisms and the sacred cattle for food. I will add Willi to my Notebook of Saints as well as read Laurent J.M. Nouwen’s book on St. Villibrordus in translation.

A Haunted Castle in Holland?

 Stumbled upon a medieval castle today on my bike ride to neighboring village.  

Kasteel Well is located in the historical village of Well in southeastern Holland near the German border, not far from where we are staying in Gijerstern. An ancient “sweet water” well,  within a watchtower built in 975 A.D, encased by a 14th century castle,  surrounded by a double mote, once was the domain of Duke Geldern in 1275 AD.  

Inspired by the Crusades, the Duke envisioned the castle as a place of sanctuary inspiration and personal quest. Since 1275 ten regal families have lived in the castle until 1905 when family members had to sell it.  

The German Army seized the castle during WWII, used it initially as a command center and then as a hospital for Nazi soldiers.  Allied bomber crews were imprisoned there until they could be taken to P.O.W. camps.  After the war, the castle became a refuge and temporary shelter for thousands of people who returned to the village of Well without a place to live.

Today, Kasteel Well is a Dutch National Monument and a place of learning.  Emerson College, in Boston, purchased it in 1988 as their “study abroad” campus. I saw two Emerson students walking around the castle campus mote today and I asked one of them:  “Do you like studying here?”

She said, “I’m not sure. There’s some bad vibes.  Nazis used to stay here and there’s still an old weggie board inside, so you can definitely contact the devil.”

I left it at that and rode back to the village where I’m staying, wondering if the castle was indeed haunted.     

Where is Henri Nouwen buried?

I’m currently staying in Henri Nouwen’s father’s house in Holland on a writing retreat, thanks to the generosity of Laurent Nouwen who owns the house now.  Henri’s parents—Laurent J. M. Nouwen and Maria Nouwen--lived here in Geijsteren--a small, historic, quiet Dutch village in Eastern Holland on the border with Germany—known as a pilgrimage site for St. Willbrorus, a missionary from Ireland who Christianized what is now the Netherlands.

Memorial Marker in Geijsteren

Earlier this week, on crisp autumn day amid leaves falling from the trees, I visited Henri’s parents’ gravesite in the old churchyard of St Willibrordus Church.  Inscribed below their names is Henri Nouwen’s name in memorium.  I breathed a prayer of gratitude for my beloved teacher.  Though he was born in the Netherlands and died here in this beautiful country, Holland is not where his body is buried.  There was a bit of a controversy about where best to lay him to rest.

On September 15, 1996, Henri left Daybreak, his community near Toronto, for St. Petersburg, Russia, to work with a film crew on a Dutch documentary on Rembrandt’s painting “The Return of the Prodigal Son.”  He flew through Europe, making a stopover at Schiphol Amsterdam Airport on September 16^th and checked into a nearby hotel in Hilversum for the night.  Sometime during the day, he had a cardiac arrest and somehow was able to alert the hotel management.  He was brought by ambulance to the hospital at Hilversum, east of Amsterdam. 

“It was from the hospital that we (brother Paul and I) were called with the disturbing news that Henri had suffered a heart attack,” Laurent remembers. “That same day we (Paul, sister Laurien, my father at the age of 93, and I) visited Henri at the hospital.  I stayed with him overnight and every day thereafter…“

While in recovery from the first he suffered a second sudden heart attack during the night. His family was informed by staff shortly after he died in his hospital room on September 21, 1996.  

I remember getting a distressing call from a mutual friend after his first heart seizure, and again after he had died. I was on a faculty retreat in New Jersey at which I could no longer fully participate after hearing the sad news…Henri had been my professor and mentor at Yale Divinity School, and I had kept in touch with him after my graduation and during his journey to South America, Harvard and L’Arche.   But I was unable to attend his funeral.

The first of three funeral Masses for Henri Nouwen was held on September 25th 1996 at St. Catharina Cathedral in Utrecht (the same church where Henri was ordained in 1957) with a eulogy offered by his friend and mentor, Jean Vanier. It was decided by members of his family and representatives of L’Arche Daybreak that Henri should be buried close to his community in Richmond Hill, near Toronto.

Henri’s spiritual home was with his extended family at L’Arche Daybreak.  After the funeral Mass in Holland, his brother Laurent flew Henri’s body to Toronto for a full night wake at Daybreak and the next day for a full-day wake at St. Mary Immaculate Catholic Church in Richmond Hill where more than a thousand people paid their respects.  This was followed by a second funeral Mass at the Slovak Catholic Cathedral of the Transfiguration in Markham, Ontario on September 28.  A third memorial service occurred a month later at St. James' Episcopal Church on the Upper Eastside of Manhattan (which I attended and where I met Robert Jonas, John Dear, Wendy Greer, and many others who were grieving the loss of our great teacher and friend).

Henri’s body was laid to rest in a simple pine coffin built in the Daybreak wood shop, colorfully decorated by members of the L’Arche community.  There was a dispute between the leaders of Daybreak and the Catholic Bishop of Toronto about where Henri should be buried.  The Bishop insisted that Henri as a Catholic priest should be buried at a Catholic cemetery. Indeed, Church Law requires that Roman Catholics in good standing be buried in consecrated ground, blessed by a priest in communion with the Roman Catholic Church. The nearest qualifying cemetery was one in the city of King, about a half-hour drive from Richmond Hill where Daybreak was located.

Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Cemetery 

Henri properly was buried at Sacred Heart Catholic Cemetery in King City north of Toronto on September 28 the after the second funeral Mass. The name of the cemetery--“Sacred Heart”—symbolizes Henri’s spirituality of the heartland the cause of his untimely death from cardiac arrest. However, the restrictions of Sacred Heart Cemetery do not aptly symbolize Henri’s large, open, inclusive, ecumenical heart… 

In his books and in private conversations, Henri expressed his desire to be buried with the friends he lived with at L’Arche Daybreak in Richmond Hill.  Not all of his friends and community members were Roman Catholic.  The right to burial at Sacred Heart Cemetery was restricted to members of the parish, former parishioners and their families, and other members of the Catholic faith.  As a pastoral provision, a new plot of land was purchased and donated by the Augustinian Fathers in 1996, with a plan to expand Sacred Heart Cemetery to include core members of the L’Arche community when they died.  However, the new section was neglected, the plan to expand the Sacred Heart cemetery was scrapped, and no more sites were made available to the community after Henri was buried.

Henri’s brother, Laurent, after visiting the Sacred Heart burial site in Kings, remarked to Sr. Sue Mosteller, executor of Nouwen’s literary estate:  “I just feel badly because we haven’t really done what Henri asked. ”  Namely, to be buried near his Daybreak friends and family members.  

St John's Anglican Cemetery

In July 2010, fourteen years after his death, Henri’s remains were moved from Sacred Heart Catholic Cemetery north of Toronto to St. John’s Anglican Cemetery in Richmond Hill-- closer to L’Arche Daybreak and where the community was able to buy 20 plots to accommodate the needs of an aging group of Catholic and non-Catholic members.  A simple wooden cross was planted, made by a carpenter at Daybreak and inscribed by Laurent with “Henri Nouwen 24 Jan. 1932 -- 21 Sept. 1996.”About 100 community members gathered at the new gravesite to pray, sprinkle holy water, and remember Henri. (I remember being there shortly after with other members of the Henri Nouwen Society board.  How fitting it was for him to be buried in a cemetery named after John the Beloved (the disciple Jesus loved), one of Henri’s favorites saints.

“It would be wonderful if it could have been a Catholic cemetery,” Sr. Sue Mosteller admitted after his body was moved.  “But it was Henri’s desires, and his family’s wish to honor those desires, that made St. John’s the right final resting place,” she said. Laurent Nouwen agreed:  “Indeed family members were not happy with his place at the cemetery at King.  We were very happy when Henri found a final place of rest amid his deceased friends from Daybreak at St. John’s Anglican  (Jefferson) Church Cemetery.

Pastorally motivated rather than institutionally driven, claimed by family and friends on three continents as one of their own, Henri is remembered as a "catholic" (in the sense of universal) priest.  An ecumenical pastor/priest and spiritual director with open hands and a wide heart.  In life and death, he wanted to be close to those in his community, whatever their faith experience or tradition. He now rests among four of his close friends from Daybreak--Bill, Carol, Rosie and Peter--in the south/east section of St. John’s cemetery, 12125 Yonge Street, Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada.  Time for a new Bishop to consecrate the sacred, ecumenical ground.  

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Henri's Native Netherlands

I remember what Henri once said and deeply believed:  “When I die, my spirit will be accessible to my friends…”  Staying in his father’s home, enjoying his brother Laurent, knowing that Henri was with his father, sister and brothers before he died, as well as with community members, I feel particularly close to my beloved teacher today.  In this special place, surrounded by family photographs, framed icons, many books and paintings, I am reminded of Henri. I’m grateful for his life and mission, and very glad he is finally home.--MJC  

Herni's final resting place at St. John's 

C. S. Lewis on Scripture revisited

What can thoughtful Christians today learn from an old, frumpy Oxford don and literary critic--C.S. Lewis--about the Bible as inspired exposition on divine revelation?

Then and Now (what 40 years will do)

I wrote my first book—C. S. Lewis on Scripture—as a senior Honors Project at Point Loma Nazarene University in 1977).  The late 1970's was a time when Evangelicals in America were heatedly engaged in a “battle for the Bible.” Evangelical writers at the time, such as Harold Lindsell and Francis Schaeffer, attempted to make verbal inerrancy a watershed issue.  “He who denies the doctrine of infallibility,” Lindsell declared, “cannot truly be an evangelical Christian.”  In similar fashion, Francis Schaeffer, founder of the influential L’Abri Fellowship in the Swiss Alps, taught young evangelicals (like me) that the church must “draw the line with love and tears” at the point of belief in inerrancy, even if it results in cleavage the ranks.  “The Bible is without error in all that it affirms,” (including science, history, biographical facts, and figures), Schaffer insisted. “Those who cannot affirm the full truth of what the Bible teaches, even when it touches on history and science,” he said, are not being faithful to the Word of God. >I was surprised and pleased that my work contributed to both the popular and scholarly debate about the nature of inspiration, the role of revelation and the question of inerrancy.  Forty years and 30k+ copies later, the book is still in print.  But it needs a tune up.

Walter Hooper, the executor of the Lewis estate at the time, had greatly encouraged me to publish it back in 1978, and was pleased with the final product.  When I saw him again in Oxford three years ago, over tea and cookies at his home, he said that he thought my book was still relevant and useful to the Christian world and strongly urged me to revise and expand it—taking into account the Collected Letters of Lewis and any recent scholarship on Lewis’ view of biblical authority and inspiration.  Recently retired from full-time teaching and administration, I now have time to do this very thing.

As Senior Fellow in the Scholars in Residence program at Lewis’ historic home in Oxford known as the Kilns, I am re-writing my old book this summer—and I finding several gems in the archives to incorporate into the new edition.

For example, I found four new personal letters from Lewis to friends with whom he shared this thoughts about the problematic areas of scripture, and how to interpret difficult texts in light of their intended genres and limitations, and why he did not hold to a Fundamentalist view of literal inspiration and verbal inerrancy, nor a Liberal view of the Bible as ordinary literature.

Most thrilling for me, or for any literary researcher, is to troll through archival deposits of famous author and find a fragment or full manuscript of unpublished material that might be interesting to others.  This week at the Bodleian Library at Oxford University, alerted by another scholar, I found and transcribed a handwritten chapter from Lewis’s last completed book manuscript intended for publication before he died.  For some reason, one chapter was omitted from the published book, released two months after this death. 

This unpublished material contains Lewis’s most mature, considered, and undoubtedly controversial thoughts on the nature of divine revelation, biblical inspiration and historical criticism.  In it he explains why he disbelieves in biblical inerrancy and yet believes in miracle stories in the Gospels.  And what he thinks about Liberal Christianity and Fundamentalism (and how to find a middle path).

Combined with the four personal letters from Lewis that touch on the subject of verbal inspiration, the unpublished chapter of new material may change the way C.S. Lewis fans read their Bible; and may in fact move him out of the conservative Christian camp to be shared with those closer to the middle of the theological spectrum, at least in regard to his view of inspiration.

I’m excited about incorporating these new findings into my old book, patching some sections and adding new ones, in what I hope will be published next year as C.S. Lewis on Scripture, revised and expanded for a new generation.

If you've read this far and would like a copy of my paper on this topic (which I presented earlier this month at the Academic Round Table at Oxbridge C.S. Lewis Summer Institute in Cambridge) just drop me a line and I'll send you a pdf.   mchriste@pointloma.edu 

Old Jeffery, Ghost of Epworth

While touring the Old Rectory of Rev. Samuel and Susanna Wesley in Epworth (England) on August 15, 2017, I asked the guide to tell me more about the latched door at the top of the staircase that read “To Jeffery’s chamber.”

“Old Jeffery is what the Wesley girls called the ghost sounds they heard at night coming from the attic,” she said.  “Some tapping… a bit of rattling, and some broken dishes.”

“That’s all?” I asked.  

“That’s was all there was too it, and it only lasted a couple of months,”  she said, obviously minimizing the phenomena John Wesley compiled and published as “An Account of the Disturbances in My Father's House” (Arminian Magazine 7, 1784):

“When I was very young I heard several letters read, wrote to my elder brother by my father, giving an account of strange disturbances, which were in his house at Epworth, in Lincolnshire.  When I went down thither, in the year 1720, I carefully enquired into the particulars. I spoke to each of the persons who were then in the house, and took down what each could testify of his or her knowledge.”

JW then proceeded to detail a series of disturbances over a two month period beginning Dec. 2, 1716 and ending at the end of Jan. 1717: “Dismal groans…strange knockings… and loud rumblings above stairs or below; a clatter among a number of bottles, as if they had all at once been dashed to pieces; footsteps as of a man going up and downstairs at all hours of the night; sounds like that of dancing in an empty room, the door of which was locked; gobbling like a turkey-cock; but most frequently a knocking about the beds at night and in different parts of the house.”—according to Wesley family members.

Distinct tapping’s, knockings, and broken dishes…

At some point after the disturbance began, John returned home from school and took it upon himself to interview friends and family members, and compile family letters and statements in order to thoroughly document what he called the “Supernatural Disturbances “  The kind and quality of the evidence John compiled included four eye-witness accounts and collaborating stories contained in the following documents:

• Mrs. Wesley's letters to Samuel
• Mrs. Samuel Wesley's statement to her son John
• Emily Wesley's account to her brother John
• Molly Wesley's account to her brother John
• Susannah Wesley's account to her brother John
• Nancy Wesley's account to her brother John
• The account of the Rev. Mr. Hoole, Vicar of Haxey
• The account of Robin Brown, manservant to John Wesley
• Summary Narrative drawn up by John Wesley and published by him in the     Arminian Magazine

Given its significance to John Wesley and his readers at the time, and the extraordinary detail of its documentation during his life lifetime, the “Disturbances” at the Epworth Rectory in 1717 became a permanent part of the Wesley Family story and the legacy of Methodism. The Epworth Case, 200 years later, according to biographers and researchers, constituted “one of the best authenticated case studies in history of psychical research” (“The Epworth Phenomenon” by Dudley Wright, 1917).

Here’s a summary of what we know about the Wesley family ghost story, based on  John Wesley’s’s account of the “Disturbances” in this family home in Epworth, and some standard Methodist remarks: http://archives.gcah.org/bitstream/handle/10516/5866/MH-1992-October-Discovery.pdf?sequence=1

Most interesting to me is the political leanings of Old Jeffery which the ghost made known when Samuel Wesley prayed for the King.

You see, John’s parents did not see eye to eye on matters of religion and politics. 

Samuel insisted that the Wesley family pray for the King in their evening prayers at home. Susanna did not believe that King William was the rightful King of England and therefore could not in good conscience say "Amen" to her husbands prayers for the king.  So serious was the disagreement that the couple separated for a year. 

Old Jeffery years later seemed to agree with Susanna Wesley.  Whenever Samuel prayed for the King, the disturbances in the house turned violent, the ghost apparently “knocking loudly and fiercely at the mention of King George.”

When Samuel stopped praying for the King, the hauntings ceased—a possible clue to solving the mystery of the Ghost of Epworth.  “That Samuel labeled the ghost a Jacobit,” writes Wesleyan scholar Kelly Deihl Yates, “suggests that the ghost was a symptom of the family’s anxiety over the Hanover ascension [the succession of an illegitimate German King rather than a legitimate Jacobite King to the English Throne], and perhaps a symbol of the entire country’s angst over the political instability of the times.”  (“Jeffrey the Jacobite Poltergeist: The Politics of the Ghost that Haunted the Epworth Rectory in 1716-17”, Wesleyan Theological Journal  Nov 1, 2015)

Note: A Jacobite in early 18^th C England was a political supporter of James II of Scotland as the rightful King of England, not the German line of the reigning King.

I can't help but think how families are politically divided today in America over whether the current President of the United States is the legitimate leader of the country.  What would Jeffery say?