by the Unseen Hook with a Twitch Upon the Thread

I've been watching the PBS Masterpiece Theater mini-series "Brideshead Revisited." Quite the Easter treat. One of the most poignant scenes is when Lady Marchmain is reading aloud the passage below from Chesterton's The Innocence of Father Brown to the family gathered in her drawing room.

The Evelyn Waugh-ite irony of this tableau is that the unspoken subtext is the group wondering how to respond to scoundrel son Sebastian's drunken binge behavior.

My own ironic delight is to think of us all as the thief-

each and all wandering a-stray,

but pulled back to penitence through the great Unseen Hook.

Long live Waugh!
Long live Chesterton!
Long live the God who seeks us all!

"Hallo, there!" called out the duke. "Have you seen anyone pass?"

The short figure did not answer the question directly, but merely said: "Perhaps I have got what you are looking for, gentlemen."

They paused, wavering and wondering, while he quietly went to the back of the cloak room, and came back with both hands full of shining silver, which he laid out on the counter as calmly as a salesman. It took the form of a dozen quaintly shaped forks and knives.

"You--you--" began the colonel, quite thrown off his balance at last. Then he peered into the dim little room and saw two things: first, that the short, black-clad man was dressed like a clergyman; and, second, that the window of the room behind him was burst, as if someone had passed violently through. "Valuable things to deposit in a cloak room, aren't they?" remarked the clergyman, with cheerful composure.

"Did--did you steal those things?" stammered Mr. Audley, with staring eyes.
"If I did," said the cleric pleasantly, "at least I am bringing them back again."
"But you didn't," said Colonel Pound, still staring at the broken window.
"To make a clean breast of it, I didn't," said the other, with some humour. And he seated himself quite gravely on a stool. "But you know who did," said the, colonel.

"I don't know his real name," said the priest placidly, "but I know something of his fighting weight, and a great deal about his spiritual difficulties. I formed the physical estimate when he was trying to throttle me, and the moral estimate when he repented."

"Oh, I say--repented!" cried young Chester, with a sort of crow of laughter.
Father Brown got to his feet, putting his hands behind him. "Odd, isn't it," he said, "that a thief and a vagabond should repent, when so many who are rich and secure remain hard and frivolous, and without fruit for God or man? But there, if you will excuse me, you trespass a little upon my province. If you doubt the penitence as a practical fact, there are your knives and forks. You are The Twelve True Fishers, and there are all your silver fish. But He has made me a fisher of men."

"Did you catch this man?" asked the colonel, frowning.

Father Brown looked him full in his frowning face. "Yes," he said, "I caught him, with an unseen hook and an invisible line which is long enough to let him wander to the ends of the world, and still to bring him back with a twitch upon the thread."

This Dying Year and Our Mother

"Here lies another day during which I had eyes, ears, hands and the great world around me, and tomorrow begins another. Why am I allowed two?
- G. K. Chesterton

As we get closer to the end of the Church Year, I always feel a pull on my heart, resonating with all of the apocalyptic, "end-of-time" scripture readings.


This is not because I believe the Second Coming of Christ is going to happen any time soon. I lived through that 'Hal Lindsey" phase in my teen-age years (the early 1970's if you are counting). I even wanted to go to a Bible School rather than a "real" accredited college because accreditation didn't really matter if the end was nigh.

As I have gotten older I have realized that there is a far more important fact to be faced, and we humans are loathe to do so. Death is inevitable....

No matter what the external world indicates we will all,
all of us without exception, face death and the final reckoning.

I know that statement sounds a little morbid, but this insight is very real to those of us who have known death in our families and among our friends.

And in a supreme irony of fate, the simple recognition of that sobering fact makes the stars shine a little brighter, the frost nip a little nippier on the nose. The recognition that some day all of this will be gone (at least for us) makes us more thankful than ever for what we do have, right now, where we stand in this life.

Do you remember the character Emily in the Thornton Wilder play, Our Town? Every passing Autumn I feel a little more empathy with her anguished, unheard cries from beyond the grave in Grover's Corners, New Hampshire.

"Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?—every, every minute?"

Life passes so very quickly, doesn't it?

But I also have a new Companion on my journey this year. She has helped me face my own mortality, because of Her own journey to the Father. I hope you will find Her too. She is a great Companion in Sorrow. Here is a quote about Her from that saint whose doily-laced Holy Card forms the header to this post:

Love Mary! She is loveable, faithful, constant. She will never let herself be outdone in love, but will ever remain supreme. If you are in danger, she will hasten to free you. If you are troubled, she will console you. If you are sick, she will bring you relief. If you are in need, she will help you.

She does not look to see what kind of person you have been. She simply comes to a heart that wants to love her. She comes quickly and opens her merciful heart to you, embraces you and consoles and serves you. She will even be at hand to accompany you on the trip to eternity. -

Saint Gabriel of the Sorrowful Mother