Thank you for this. I have only ever (first as an English major, then much later as a Catholic) read about Hopkins as a poet, not as priest. I'm also currently reading Malachi Martin's book on the Jesuits and it is good to be reminded of how solid the Jesuits were for so long.
It is amazing, isn't it? The Jesuits were a bulwark of orthodoxy and evangelization for centuries. I love reading about the heroes of the order...St. Edmund Campion, St. Peter Faber, Sts. Jean de Brebeuf and Isaac Jogues, and Father Pierre DeSmet, among others. Their courage and their love for Christ is so inspiring!
Consider coming along (and bringing students!) on the Pilgrimage for Restoration from Lac du Saint Sacrement (Lake George) to the North American Martyrs' Shrine at Ossernenon ,(Auries ville, NY) in late September! Ss. Isaac Jogues and Companions, pray for us!
Amen! I have wanted to go on the Pilgrimage for Restoration for years! In our neck of the woods, we have the Three Hearts Pilgrimage to Clear Creek Abbey. It has truly changed my life. All for Thee, O Hearts Three!
I have been blessed to serve on the medical team - The Company of St. Rene Goupil - for this pilgrimage for the past couple of years. I did a write up for it on onepeterfive.
One of these days I *will* make it to Clear Creek!
Thank you for sharing this! What a heartbreaking story. I remember studying one of his poems in literature class, but I really knew nothing else about him.
I once traced the progression of Father Hopkins' life as a poet, using these three samples.
I then read a modern biography of Hopkins by Robert Bernard Martin.
How sad to learn that his most trusted admirers and friends were two heretics - Dixon and Bridges - and that Chief among those who misunderstood and devalued him were his own family members - by blood and in Religion.
I have yet to find the sketch that I was told is extant, wherein Father is pictured crawling on all fours in his classroom to avoid the mob of young boys standing on their desks and throwing things at one another, but... He was a scotist; how much (if any) nominalism did he get on him? Sickening was the insinuation that he may have been tempted by the J. Martin sin. I still enjoyed the classical form of the Escorial. The Deutschland as an allegory for the spiritual life in the modern world. The Sonnets as sentiments id sometimes been afraid to utter.
The Ode to Brother Alfonso on the occasion of his canonization, though! WOW! Be the soldier of Christ behind the enemy line. Let everybody else get their glory on the field of battle and you fight your war within.
That was years ago. Back then, I had recently finished the long retreat of the Spiritual Exercises and intended to apply to the Society of Jesus. I'd taken an interest in Hopkins, having read every biography of St. Ignatius I could get my hands on and every Jesuit Saint after him.
Decades later, I wondered: sprung rhythm? Was that really something to celebrate? What is wrong, exactly, with traditional meter? How proximate was Father Hopkins to the foul-souled heretic G. Tyrrell, SJ who was also an English Jesuit?
Finally, a decade after those considerations, YOUR essay! I had previously looked back in lot the secular consideration of GM Hopkins to find jesuit-ness and didn't find it. In your words, Mrs. Cuba, I finally see the Ignatian spirit. See it? Ha! I instantly recognize it! May I suggest that, if you write further on Father Hopkins, that you trace him through the three foundational prayers of Father Ignatius' Exercises? The Anima Christi (first week), the Prayer for Generosity (weeks two and three), and finally the Suscipe (week four)?
In the meantime, your essay has prompted me to consider Father Hopkins' poem on St. Alphonsus Rodriguez, porter of Majorca, one MORE time - now with all that I have soaked in about traditional liturgy and spirituality and discipline and custom that was unavailable to me when I wrote that first paper and read that biography...
Let everybody and everything go on their way. You? Without consideration for the outcome - which is in God's hands -, you just do your job!
"...world without event, while [Marco] watched the door."
Mark, my journey with Hopkins has been similar. I have a deep fondness and gratitude for him, especially because it was mainly through the process of writing my Master's thesis on The Wreck of the Deutschland that I came to Tradition.
Hopkins came to the Faith in a fascinating time in English history, and in the history of the English Catholic revival. In many ways, his life in the Church mirrored Newman's, who was his mentor. It was certainly a complex time to be a Catholic in England (I suppose it has been ever since 1534!). While the Church experienced explosive growth and waves of talented converts, the advance of modern ideologies and decadent hedonism ate away at the foundation of civilization. No one was more realistic than Newman about the death-dance of sin and the soul of modern man, but he also had no equal in intellectual openness and courage. It was a difficult balance that only he could make...the hierarchy could not follow him to the heights, so they tried to keep his influence in check, and tried to focus the laity on the sure things: a solid devotional life, works of charity, and tending their own garden. I see a great providence in that fact that Hopkins and Newman (both generational geniuses) were misunderstood by their peers; in a way, they are men for our time even more than they were for their own.
There are definitely a few strange anecdotes floating around about Hopkins' teaching. I used the biography of Paul Mariani in my research. It is probably the biography which respects Hopkins' interior life the most. He weaves in some stories like the one you've mentioned, so if you're hunting, it might be a good place to start.
I am not a philosopher, so Hopkins' fascination with "the rarest-veined unraveller" has always been a mystery to me. I think it's important to keep in mind that Hopkins also had a thorough training in St. Thomas. I do believe that Hopkins' love of Scotus came in tandem with an attempt to understand the very particular "this-ness" of things within the creative power and Divine mind of the Logos. I think this keeps him from falling headlong into nominalism or pantheism.
Through the years, I have tried to be realistic about Hopkins' personal life. It was certainly tormented, but it is amazing to consider that in an elite culture saturated in the hedonism of Oscar Wilde (he and Hopkins were in Dublin at the same time), Hopkins was devoted to chastity and purity. After his death, his friends and associates all noted his love of innocence as one of his most distinctive characteristics. We can say that he struggled, he fought a bloody fight, and in the end, he died with the Sacraments. I give thanks to God because of it and pray very much for his soul .
Hopkins knew that his poetry was very experimental, written in spare moments as his priestly duties allowed him. Sprung rhythm is very complicated, and it would take another essay to even give it a decent overview, but the crux of Hopkins' motivation is that the popular English poetry of his day is not metrical enough. He wants to invigorate his poetry with the rhythms of Greek, Welsh, and Anglo-Saxon, as well as polyphonic counterpoint. You should see the notebooks sometime...the meter is apportioned line by line in counter-point mathematical ratios, and he even invented musical notation for his sprung rhythm. The skill and exquisite ordering is quite breathtaking, and I find it very different from modern deconstructionism.
Hopkins did know George Tyrell, as they were in the novitiate together, although at different stages. From what I have read in the Letters and Journals, it seems their relationship was mostly incidental to community life. I haven't looked into this too much though.
I really appreciate all your thoughtful commentary. Thanks also for the suggestion for a future essay. There's so much good work which has been done on Hopkins and Jesuit spirituality, so it would be really great to dive into that.
Beautiful and heartbreaking 💔
Thank you for this. I have only ever (first as an English major, then much later as a Catholic) read about Hopkins as a poet, not as priest. I'm also currently reading Malachi Martin's book on the Jesuits and it is good to be reminded of how solid the Jesuits were for so long.
It is amazing, isn't it? The Jesuits were a bulwark of orthodoxy and evangelization for centuries. I love reading about the heroes of the order...St. Edmund Campion, St. Peter Faber, Sts. Jean de Brebeuf and Isaac Jogues, and Father Pierre DeSmet, among others. Their courage and their love for Christ is so inspiring!
Consider coming along (and bringing students!) on the Pilgrimage for Restoration from Lac du Saint Sacrement (Lake George) to the North American Martyrs' Shrine at Ossernenon ,(Auries ville, NY) in late September! Ss. Isaac Jogues and Companions, pray for us!
Amen! I have wanted to go on the Pilgrimage for Restoration for years! In our neck of the woods, we have the Three Hearts Pilgrimage to Clear Creek Abbey. It has truly changed my life. All for Thee, O Hearts Three!
I have been blessed to serve on the medical team - The Company of St. Rene Goupil - for this pilgrimage for the past couple of years. I did a write up for it on onepeterfive.
One of these days I *will* make it to Clear Creek!
Thank you for sharing this! What a heartbreaking story. I remember studying one of his poems in literature class, but I really knew nothing else about him.
“No wonder of it…sheer plod makes plough down sillion shine. And blue bleak embers, ah my dear, fall, gall themselves and gash gold vermillion.”
The Escorial. Deutschland. The Terrible Sonnets.
I once traced the progression of Father Hopkins' life as a poet, using these three samples.
I then read a modern biography of Hopkins by Robert Bernard Martin.
How sad to learn that his most trusted admirers and friends were two heretics - Dixon and Bridges - and that Chief among those who misunderstood and devalued him were his own family members - by blood and in Religion.
I have yet to find the sketch that I was told is extant, wherein Father is pictured crawling on all fours in his classroom to avoid the mob of young boys standing on their desks and throwing things at one another, but... He was a scotist; how much (if any) nominalism did he get on him? Sickening was the insinuation that he may have been tempted by the J. Martin sin. I still enjoyed the classical form of the Escorial. The Deutschland as an allegory for the spiritual life in the modern world. The Sonnets as sentiments id sometimes been afraid to utter.
The Ode to Brother Alfonso on the occasion of his canonization, though! WOW! Be the soldier of Christ behind the enemy line. Let everybody else get their glory on the field of battle and you fight your war within.
That was years ago. Back then, I had recently finished the long retreat of the Spiritual Exercises and intended to apply to the Society of Jesus. I'd taken an interest in Hopkins, having read every biography of St. Ignatius I could get my hands on and every Jesuit Saint after him.
Decades later, I wondered: sprung rhythm? Was that really something to celebrate? What is wrong, exactly, with traditional meter? How proximate was Father Hopkins to the foul-souled heretic G. Tyrrell, SJ who was also an English Jesuit?
Finally, a decade after those considerations, YOUR essay! I had previously looked back in lot the secular consideration of GM Hopkins to find jesuit-ness and didn't find it. In your words, Mrs. Cuba, I finally see the Ignatian spirit. See it? Ha! I instantly recognize it! May I suggest that, if you write further on Father Hopkins, that you trace him through the three foundational prayers of Father Ignatius' Exercises? The Anima Christi (first week), the Prayer for Generosity (weeks two and three), and finally the Suscipe (week four)?
In the meantime, your essay has prompted me to consider Father Hopkins' poem on St. Alphonsus Rodriguez, porter of Majorca, one MORE time - now with all that I have soaked in about traditional liturgy and spirituality and discipline and custom that was unavailable to me when I wrote that first paper and read that biography...
Let everybody and everything go on their way. You? Without consideration for the outcome - which is in God's hands -, you just do your job!
"...world without event, while [Marco] watched the door."
The doors! The doors! In wisdom, let us attend!
Mark, my journey with Hopkins has been similar. I have a deep fondness and gratitude for him, especially because it was mainly through the process of writing my Master's thesis on The Wreck of the Deutschland that I came to Tradition.
Hopkins came to the Faith in a fascinating time in English history, and in the history of the English Catholic revival. In many ways, his life in the Church mirrored Newman's, who was his mentor. It was certainly a complex time to be a Catholic in England (I suppose it has been ever since 1534!). While the Church experienced explosive growth and waves of talented converts, the advance of modern ideologies and decadent hedonism ate away at the foundation of civilization. No one was more realistic than Newman about the death-dance of sin and the soul of modern man, but he also had no equal in intellectual openness and courage. It was a difficult balance that only he could make...the hierarchy could not follow him to the heights, so they tried to keep his influence in check, and tried to focus the laity on the sure things: a solid devotional life, works of charity, and tending their own garden. I see a great providence in that fact that Hopkins and Newman (both generational geniuses) were misunderstood by their peers; in a way, they are men for our time even more than they were for their own.
There are definitely a few strange anecdotes floating around about Hopkins' teaching. I used the biography of Paul Mariani in my research. It is probably the biography which respects Hopkins' interior life the most. He weaves in some stories like the one you've mentioned, so if you're hunting, it might be a good place to start.
I am not a philosopher, so Hopkins' fascination with "the rarest-veined unraveller" has always been a mystery to me. I think it's important to keep in mind that Hopkins also had a thorough training in St. Thomas. I do believe that Hopkins' love of Scotus came in tandem with an attempt to understand the very particular "this-ness" of things within the creative power and Divine mind of the Logos. I think this keeps him from falling headlong into nominalism or pantheism.
Through the years, I have tried to be realistic about Hopkins' personal life. It was certainly tormented, but it is amazing to consider that in an elite culture saturated in the hedonism of Oscar Wilde (he and Hopkins were in Dublin at the same time), Hopkins was devoted to chastity and purity. After his death, his friends and associates all noted his love of innocence as one of his most distinctive characteristics. We can say that he struggled, he fought a bloody fight, and in the end, he died with the Sacraments. I give thanks to God because of it and pray very much for his soul .
Hopkins knew that his poetry was very experimental, written in spare moments as his priestly duties allowed him. Sprung rhythm is very complicated, and it would take another essay to even give it a decent overview, but the crux of Hopkins' motivation is that the popular English poetry of his day is not metrical enough. He wants to invigorate his poetry with the rhythms of Greek, Welsh, and Anglo-Saxon, as well as polyphonic counterpoint. You should see the notebooks sometime...the meter is apportioned line by line in counter-point mathematical ratios, and he even invented musical notation for his sprung rhythm. The skill and exquisite ordering is quite breathtaking, and I find it very different from modern deconstructionism.
Hopkins did know George Tyrell, as they were in the novitiate together, although at different stages. From what I have read in the Letters and Journals, it seems their relationship was mostly incidental to community life. I haven't looked into this too much though.
I really appreciate all your thoughtful commentary. Thanks also for the suggestion for a future essay. There's so much good work which has been done on Hopkins and Jesuit spirituality, so it would be really great to dive into that.
Happy feast of the Sacred Heart, and God bless.