Evelyn Underhill
When I was ordained a deacon, which was twenty years ago today [am I that old, now?], this was not yet the feast day of a woman who, through a great body of careful and compelling writing, helped mightily to restore our tradition of prayer and meditative centeredness. I am delighted that this anniversary for me is now her feast day, as she was a feisty and vociferous supporter of that which was so vital and so lacking in the church of her time. I pray that I bear a fraction of her energy and passion in fulfilling my duties.
Evelyn Underhill, who was a friend to some of the most flamboyant characters in Victorian society, was born in 1850. Her writings on worship and mysticism in Christian tradition are so learned and well-written that her book, Mysticism, which was first published in 1911, is still in print and on the reading lists of many of the seminaries and divinity schools in the United States.
The following is from a letter she wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1930:
“I desire very humbly to suggest with bishops assembled at Lambeth that the greatest and most necessary work they could do at the present time for the spiritual renewal of the Anglican Church would be to call the clergy as a whole, solemnly and insistently to a greater interiority and cultivation of the personal life of prayer….We were convinced that the real failures, difficulties and weaknesses of the Church are spiritual and can only be remedied by spiritual effort and sacrifice, and that her deepest need is a renewal, first in the clergy and through them in the laity; of the great Christian tradition of the inner life.
The Church wants not more consecrated philanthropists, but a disciplined priesthood of theocentric souls who shall be tools and channels of the Spirit of God: and this she cannot have until Communion with God is recognized as the first duty of the priest. But…more and more emphasis has been placed on the nurture and improvement of the intellect, less and less, on that of the soul.
I do not underrate the importance of the intellectual side of religion. But all who do personal religious work know that the real hunger among the laity is not for halting attempts to reconcile theology and physical science, but for the deep things of the Spirit.”
The more things change….
Underhill died on this day in 1941.
Evelyn Underhill, who was a friend to some of the most flamboyant characters in Victorian society, was born in 1850. Her writings on worship and mysticism in Christian tradition are so learned and well-written that her book, Mysticism, which was first published in 1911, is still in print and on the reading lists of many of the seminaries and divinity schools in the United States.
The following is from a letter she wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1930:
“I desire very humbly to suggest with bishops assembled at Lambeth that the greatest and most necessary work they could do at the present time for the spiritual renewal of the Anglican Church would be to call the clergy as a whole, solemnly and insistently to a greater interiority and cultivation of the personal life of prayer….We were convinced that the real failures, difficulties and weaknesses of the Church are spiritual and can only be remedied by spiritual effort and sacrifice, and that her deepest need is a renewal, first in the clergy and through them in the laity; of the great Christian tradition of the inner life.
The Church wants not more consecrated philanthropists, but a disciplined priesthood of theocentric souls who shall be tools and channels of the Spirit of God: and this she cannot have until Communion with God is recognized as the first duty of the priest. But…more and more emphasis has been placed on the nurture and improvement of the intellect, less and less, on that of the soul.
I do not underrate the importance of the intellectual side of religion. But all who do personal religious work know that the real hunger among the laity is not for halting attempts to reconcile theology and physical science, but for the deep things of the Spirit.”
The more things change….
Underhill died on this day in 1941.
posted by Vicar at 5:51 AM
<< Home