After the Second Vatican Council, not only were mystics and saints all but absent, but so also were the sort of new and vital religious orders to help spread and disseminate the teachings of the Council. However, as history has shown, pendulums do swing. St John Henry Newman’s “New Spring” is at last on the horizon; of this I am absolutely certain.

Thanks to the words of St Bernadine of Siena and the Franciscan hermit who inspired me, I was able to see with clarity why the introduction of the new liturgy had not had the impact that was expected. Now, in addition to lectures on the liturgy with the help and inspiration that I received from Fr Angelo, I began to re-double my efforts in my own personal prayer life. I wrote my first book on prayer and began to give talks on prayer to those who participated in the courses on Biblical Theology, Liturgy and Church history. Job done you might think, as I thought myself, but I was wrong. What I was trying to do was being undermined by an extremely powerful “spiritual” trend that received a shot in the arm immediately after the condemnation of Quietism. It was a trend that had been slumbering in the wings for generations, but in the aftermath of the anti-mystical witch- hunts it began to take centre stage and to dominate Catholic Spirituality so effectively that the witch-hunters could retire sure in the knowledge that the fruits of their labours would be guaranteed to remain intact.

In order to explain myself, remember that in the early Church the Philosophical religions that thrived in parallel with the Christian spirituality of love, like Gnosticism in its many forms, Neoplatonism, and Stoicism, all had one thing in common. For them all the pathways to perfection depended on their own personal endeavours alone, and that is why they never succeeded. Unfortunately, this attitude of heart and mind continued to live on like a parasite when some new converts brought it with them after their conversion to Christianity. This was especially true when the consequences of Arianism and Macedonianism meant that Christ and his love was no longer at the centre, nor the heart and soul of Christianity, as it was in the earliest centuries. One of the greatest promoters of this do-it-yourself attitude who began to infiltrate Catholic spirituality with his ideas was the British monk Morgan, given the name Pelagius, with his Catholic stoicism, Pelagianism. Although St Augustine spent the latter part of his life trying to combat Pelagius’ teaching, he could do no more that force it to retreat backstage, from where it continued to make centre stage appearances in subsequent centuries, and no more blatantly than in modern times, as I was about to discover.

It was at the Renaissance that these ideas began to make their way into the spotlights once again in what I can only describe as Catholic Stoicism. It was the Catholic Stoicism that we have seen entering into the Christian educational system thanks to John Colet whom I mentioned earlier, from the schools this insidious form of Pelagianism seeped into noviciates, seminaries and other houses of religious education. When, after the demise of Catholic mystical theology that put all its emphasis on God and his action as the major agent in remaking and transforming a human being, and prayer as the means of receiving that love, Pelagianism or semi-pelagianism returned thanks to the Renaissance. It has been with us to the present day, unbeknown to me, at least until what happened next in my personal story. The older religious orders such as the Benedictines, the Dominicans, the Franciscans and the Carmelites, for instance, whose foundations preceded the Renaissance, emphasized the action of God in their theology in general and in their spirituality in particular. Whilst congregations founded after the Renaissance, and the rise therefore of humanism, tended to emphasize human action in their spirituality. However, since the condemnation of Quietism most religious orders have been infiltrated with semi-Pelagianism too, although its influence is usually seen as more pronounced in the activity-centred congregations founded during and after the Council of Trent.

When in the 1970s the Dominican order decided to do something to renew themselves, they started a course in Rome for Dominicans from all over the world. After attending some of my talks the director of this renewal course invited me to Rome to lecture at the Angelicum on mystical theology. This enabled me to see that what I discovered from my questionnaires was echoed throughout the world. The problem was that the response to Quietism went so deep and was so widespread that virtually all monks, friars, nuns religious and priests were gradually weaned from any form of prayer that could lead them to mystical contemplation. And those few who, despite the anti-mystical ethos that was against them, did get through and progressed alone into the mystic way, had no one to help guide or support them, and as my inquiries enabled me to see, many sadly drifted off course. Those effected included even the great scholars, the biblical theologians, the scripture scholars, the liturgist and the spiritual historians whose presence was so influential at the Second Vatican Council. No wonder there was no special document on the spirituality which was the source of the inspiration that animated the liturgy with the profound mystical prayer as practised by our earliest Spiritual ancestors. This was not true of other great reforming councils that dramatically renewed our Church in the past. It is time for us to learn from the past and particularly from successful renewals in the Church in previous centuries. The great reforming councils of the past owed their very existence and their success to myriad mystics and saints who were steeped in prayer, as were the new orders that they founded.

One of the most successful of all Councils called to reform the Church, the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) was so successful, that its moral and spiritual ethos successfully spread all over Christendom and beyond. It was through the new mendicant orders like the Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelites and the Austin friars founded by great saints and mystics that was imbued with the moving theology of St Bernard that was founded on the humanity of Christ. These Orders were teeming with saintly men and women who are still household names today, like St Francis of Assisi, St Anthony of Padua, St Bonaventure, St Dominic, St Albert the Great, St Thomas Aquinas, St Clare, St Margaret of Cortona, St Angela of Foligno and so many others canonized for their transparent and heroic holiness.

The other great reforming Council of the last millennium was the Council of Trent (1545–1563). This too was preceded by great saints, like St Angela Merici, St Teresa of Ávila, St Peter of Alcantara, St Philip Neri and so many others. While older orders were reformed, new orders were raised up to embody and disseminate the spirit and the teaching of the Council. Orders like the Jesuits, Barnabites, Theatines, Capuchins, Discalced Carmelites and Oratorians, and myriad congregations of men and women were filled with apostolic zeal. After the Council there was ongoing theological and spiritual guidance by such goliaths as St Robert Bellarmine, St Francis de Sales, St Vincent de Paul, and St John of the Cross, as I have already explained. It was in the hands of such great leaders as these that for more than a hundred years after that Council, the Church continued to thrive and prosper, surcharged from within by the profound mystical prayer that had animated and inspired the Church since the great St Bernard. After the Second Vatican Council, not only were similar mystics and saints all but absent, but so also were the sort of new and vital religious orders to help spread and disseminate the teachings of the Council, and the existing religious orders diminished in personnel on a scale not experienced before since the Black Death in 1348.

As subsequent years passed by the problem simply exacerbated, as fewer and fewer were left to minister to the needs of the faithful. The quality of preaching the faith diminished and more and more people voted with their feet. Without the inner mystical life developed in the deep and prolonged prayer that inspired and animated their first Christian forebears, their spiritual lives gradually declined, not just to their own spiritual impairment, but to that of others too, who looked to them for leadership. Without the same inner life and love that animated Jesus, they were unable to generate the infused virtues and moral standards that shone through everything that he said and did. Nobody can acquire these virtues merely by desiring them. They are the gifts of the Holy Spirit, given during and after deep mystical purification.

However, as history has shown, pendulums do swing. St John Henry Newman’s “New Spring” is at last on the horizon; of this I am absolutely certain.

This essay is chapter twenty-eight of The Primacy of Loving and is published here by gracious permission of the author.

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The featured image is a photograph of John Henry Newman by Herbert Rose Barraud, taken Unknown date, probably between circa 1885 and circa 1890. This file is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.