“It is not the high summer alone that is God’s. The winter also is His. And into His winter He came to visit us. And all man’s winters are His—the winter of our poverty, the winter of our sorrow, the winter of our unhappiness—even ‘the winter of our discontent’.”
— George MacDonald
I’m working on a long essay about the Inklings, and so I spent all of the last two weeks reading books by and about George MacDonald. I like MacDonald, but I wasn’t reading him for my enjoyment or improvement. It was just research. Then, on Ash Wednesday, I thought to myself, “That was an odd way to prepare for Lent.”
George MacDonald is one of the most important writers of the 19th century. Chesterton said that MacDonald’s book The Princess and the Goblin “made a difference to my whole existence.” Lewis called him “my master.” In his letters, Tolkien named him as a chief inspiration for The Hobbit. He was good friends with Lord Tennyson, Lewis Carroll, Mark Twain, and too many other luminaries to count. His admirers include all the greatest writers of the 20th century, from J. M. Barrie to W. H. Auden.
He was also a universalist, a believer in universal salvation, a “no-Heller.” MacDonald wasn’t like us modern Christians, though. We think that everyone who dies instantly becomes an angel. Hell might not be totally empty. Hitler’s probably down there somewhere. But as long as you were basically a good person, St. Peter should wave you through the Pearly Gates. Even if you weren’t a good person, it probably wasn’t your fault. Maybe your father didn’t hug you enough. Maybe you were lactose intolerant. Maybe you just don’t like people. God’s not going to hold that against you.
That wasn’t MacDonald’s idea of universal salvation. His view was very much like Gregory of Nyssa’s. Gregory believed that, instead of eternal damnation, we’d have a period of apocatastasis, a “reconstitution.” The soul is dropped into the fires like gold into a furnace. It’s refined, purified—not punished per se.
In other words, MacDonald believed in purgatory.
MacDonald clearly passed on his idea of apocatastasis to C. S. Lewis, who wrote in Letters to Malcolm:
Our souls demand Purgatory, don’t they? Would it not break the heart if God said to us, “It is true, my son, that your breath smells and your rags drip with mud and slime, but we are charitable here and no one will upbraid you with these things, nor draw away from you. Enter into the joy.”? Should we not reply, “With submission, sir, and if there is no objection, I’d rather be cleaned first.” “It may hurt, you know”—“Even so, sir.”
This was the attitude MacDonald himself took. Like any Catholic, he believed that our earthly trials may take time off of our sentence in purgatory. The more we can “reconstitute” ourselves as Christ-like beings in this life, the less we’ll have to suffer in the next.
“I for my part would not go without one of my troubles,” he wrote in a letter to his father. “I have needed every one.”
Maybe some Christians would be uncomfortable reading MacDonald because he was a universalist. We each have to follow our own conscience on these things. But I think it would be a mistake to shun him. His idea of salvation is remarkably like the one taught by the Catholic Church. We both agree that the race needs to be run. We agree that it will be grueling. We even agree on the course. It’s just that MacDonald thinks everyone will make it to the finish line… eventually. We Catholics aren’t so sure.
But I do suggest that you make good use of MacDonald, especially the little selection of his writings Lewis edited. I’ve never profited more from my Lenten readings than I have from MacDonald’s, and totally by accident.
Take just one example from his sermon “Self-Denial” (it’s a doozy, but please read the whole thing. You won’t regret it):
I will allow that the mere effort of will, arbitrary and uninformed of duty, partaking of the character of tyranny and even schism, may add to the man’s power over his lower nature; but in that very nature it is God who must rule and not the man, however well he may mean. From a man’s rule of himself, in smallest opposition, however devout, to the law of his being, arises the huge danger of nourishing, by the pride of self-conquest, a far worse than even the unchained animal self—the demoniac self.
True victory over self is the victory of God in the man, not of the man alone. It is not subjugation that is enough, but subjugation by God. In whatever man does without God, he must fail miserably—or succeed more miserably. No portion of a man can rule another portion, for God, not the man, created it, and the part is greater than the whole. In effecting what God does not mean, a man but falls into fresh ill conditions. In crossing his natural, therefore in themselves right inclinations, a man may develop a self-satisfaction which in its very nature is a root of all sin.
Doing the thing God does not require of him, he puts himself in the place of God, becoming not a law but a law-giver to himself, one who commands, not one who obeys. The diseased satisfaction which some minds feel in laying burdens on themselves, is a pampering, little as they may suspect it, of the most dangerous appetite of that self which they think they are mortifying.
That’s quite a lot, and if you read all of that, feel free to go do something else. You’ve finished your spiritual reading for the day. But if it’s of interest I’d like to emphasize two points.
1. “True victory over self is the victory of God in the man, not of the man alone. It is not subjugation that is enough, but subjugation by God. In whatever man does without God, he must fail miserably—or succeed more miserably.”
I’ve never heard this point made in quite this way, but it’s a life-changing insight. It also touches on a concern I have with the movement to reclaim Catholic manhood.
Now, we should reclaim Catholic manhood. I believe that with all my heart. And I admire the men who glorify God and serve His Church by cultivating manly self-discipline. But we should at least warn them beforehand that they’re going to fail—and that their failure is also God’s glory.
On this point, too, Lewis was clearly influenced by MacDonald. In Mere Christianity, he writes,
Now we cannot . . . discover our failure to keep God’s law except by trying our very hardest (and then failing). Unless we really try, whatever we say there will always be at the back of our minds the idea that if we try harder next time we shall succeed in being completely good. Thus, in one sense, the road back to God is a road of moral effort, of trying harder and harder. But in another sense it is not trying that is ever going to bring us home. All this trying leads up to the vital moment at which you turn to God and say, “You must do this. I can’t.”
Amen.
Fr. Chad Ripperger has warned traditional Catholics that our sins of pride are leading us to sins of impurity. We spend so much time patting ourselves on the back for choosing the narrow path that we lose our footing and fall into the briars.
Part of the problem is that we frame traditional Catholicism as a choice of ancient virtue over modern decadence. Which it is! But once we choose virtue, how do we actually get it? The answer is, we don’t. God gets it for us. He frees us from the slavery of sin. We can’t break the chains. Still, we have to try—if only so we can fail. If only so we can say to Him, with true resignation, “You must do this. I can’t.”
2. “The diseased satisfaction which some minds feel in laying burdens on themselves, is a pampering, little as they may suspect it, of the most dangerous appetite of that self which they think they are mortifying.”
The point of mortification is to weaken our defenses, to help God can achieve His victory over our self. But there are plenty of Catholics (e.g., yours truly) who instead see penance as a way of proving how much stronger and more righteous we are than the average, decadent Westerner.
When I was a new Catholic, I asked my spiritual director if I could practice self-flagellation. He’s a wise man, and so he question didn’t phase him. He just asked, “How often do you fast?” Father already knew the answer: basically, never. I was young and single. I drank most nights; I ate at Taco Bell at least once a week. The only reason I wasn’t obese was because I smoked like a chimney. So, we dropped the subject.
It amazes me: this mystique around disciplines and cilices that’s grown up since the premier of The Da Vinci Code. Really, those are the easiest penance a Catholic might do. It’s just a little pain! Most of us (men especially) would find it much harder to go an entire day without eating. We neglect the harder, quieter penances—ones that that diminish the self to make room for God.
Well, that’s my spiel. If you’d like to give George MacDonald a try, I recommend you start with the following:
1. The Princess and the Goblin, a children’s fairy tale.
2. Phantasies, a grown-up’s fairy tale.
3. George MacDonald by C. S. Lewis, a selection of MacDonald’s non-fiction.
4. Unspoken Sermons, a collection of MacDonald’s religious writings.
5. George MacDonald in the Age of Miracles by Timothy Larsen, a superb critical study.
I hope you’re all having a happy and holy Lent, everyone.
Peace and the Good!