I read Godden’s In This House Of Brede some while back, at the behest of a whole bunch of people, and found that they were Not At All Mistaken. It’s a fabulous book. Since I’ve been on the lookout for more Godden, but she simply isn’t in the bookstores I frequent.

The other day we were dropping some kids’ books off at the library and I had a wild flash of inspiration: why not try the library? They’ve got books, right? They have books that are no longer in print, right? They’ll have something, won’t they? For me, this was (I blush to confess) a radical thought. But in I went, and to the stacks I hied myself, and yea, verily, they had three or four Goddens, of which this is one. All of them were in library bindings, so there were no blurbs to read; so I picked this one more or less at random, opened to the first page, and read:

The Garden Committee had met to discuss the earth; not the whole earth, the terrestrial globe, but the bit of it that had been stolen from the Gardens in the Square.

And I said to myself, “Yes, I think this will do.” And I took it home, and it did.

The story begins in the once posh confines of the Square, but it mostly takes place in the adjoining London neighborhood of Catford Street, a poor street, though proud, a street which is always grimy and in which almost nothing grows except children. The war is but recently past, and many lots up and down the street are filled with mounds of rubble, the site of the “camps” of gangs of older boys; and in one sits the local Catholic church, a temporary structure whose interior is punctuated with the stumps of the pillars and walls of the old church destroyed in the bombing.

At one spot on Catford street is a restaurant called “Vincent’s”; and in a hired room at the back lives a little girl named Lovejoy, the daughter of a travelling lounge singer, who has more or less been abandoned to the care of Mr. and Mrs. Cobbie. And this, really, is her story. It’s the story of Lovejoy’s search for Beauty in Catford street, her passionate and devoted and extravagant and persevering attempt to create a thing of beauty; and along the way she discovers something about Truth and Goodness as well (and receives not a little Grace in the bargain).

This is a very different book than In This House Of Brede, less deep (or perhaps merely less overtly deep), and I found it a little slow at the beginning; but I think it’s going to stick in my memory.

Sparrows was published in 1955, and although Godden did not convert to Catholicism until 1968 this strikes me as a deeply Catholic book. Although Catholicism is known for its creeds and dogmas and liturgies and obligations, it should never be forgotten that the Church (and Christianity in general, of course) is primarily about knowing Christ, not as an academic subject, but as a person, an individual, who loves us and who reaches out to us before ever we reach out to him. And though this is completely unstated in the text of Godden’s novel, nevertheless this is what we see in Lovejoy’s search for beauty, and in the various incidents along the way: Christ reaching out, through the parish priest (a largely unseen presence); through Tip Malone, leader of one the gangs, who Lovejoy draws into her work; through a cheap plaster statue of the Virgin Mary. And in the end there is, allegorically, death, purgatory–and the resurrection to come, though, fittingly, the latter is (though certain) still to come when the last page is turned.

I find, from a glance at Wikipedia, that Godden kept writing right up to her death in the late ’90’s, and has a surprisingly large body of work; at the rate at which I’m finding them, I expect it will take me quite a few years to work my way through them all.

Martin’s book has gotten a fair amount of attention recently; I’ve seen it mentioned two or three places, including Happy Catholic, Et Tu, and Palmetto State Thoughts.

So happens I was on jury duty last week; and so happens the courthouse was a block away from the Cathedral of the Queen of Angels (an unlovely building, but very conveniently located); and so happens the Cathedral has a large gift shop with a nice collection of books I don’t see in other bookshops, including this one. So I got it and brought it home and more or less devoured it.

What it is, more or less, is the spiritual autobiography of Fr. Martin; but it’s also the story of sixteen or so saints who have been instrumental in Fr. Martin’s life, from St. Joan and St. Therese of Lisieux to St. Thomas Aquinas to St. Joseph to St. Mary. The list includes a number of folks who haven’t been canonized, and thus aren’t officially saints, including Dorothy Day and Pedro Arrupe, former leader of the Jesuit order, but I won’t quibble. He includes as one group the Ugandan Martyrs; I was glad to hear more of their story, as long-time readers will remember we have a connection with Uganda–and twenty-three of the forty-five martyrs put to death by the King of Baganda were Anglicans.

I have a suspicion, based on an elliptical comment or two, that Fr. Martin is more towards the progressive end of the spectrum, and quite possibly more so than I’d be comfortable with; it was the progressives who made the Episcopal Church what it it is today, after all. But Fr. Martin’s deep and abiding love of God, his saints, and all his little ones in the world shows clearly through every chapter. I learned quite a bit, and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

If you’ve ever wondered what saints are all about, even casually, this would be a great book to read, even if you read nothing else.

Around the turn of the century, then Cardinal Ratzinger spent three days with German journalist Peter Seewald in the Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino. This was Seewald’s second interview with Ratzinger; the first became the book Salt of the Earth, which I might review at a later date. That interview had primarily concerned the challenges facing the Catholic Church at the end of the 20th century; this one is a broad overview of Church practice and doctrine.

For three days the two had a wide-ranging conversation, with Seewald asking questions both planned and spontaneous, and Cardinal Ratzinger answering them off-the-cuff, and therein lies the book’s charm. During his days as head of the Confraternity for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), Ratzinger was viewed by the media as Pope John Paul II’s enforcer, as “God’s Rottweiler”. He was viewed as tough, stern, and intolerant. That isn’t at all the impression I’ve gotten from this book. Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, though very definite about the content of the Faith (as he should be), comes across as mild, generous, gentle, and loving—and very, very smart.

Many of the folks in the Catholic blogosphere have a serious devotion to Pope John Paul II. It’s not uncommon to hear him called John Paul the Great, and I recall one blogger (alas, I don’t remember which) speaking of John Paul as “his” (or it might have been “her”) pope. My experience was different. When John Paul was elected pope I was in high school, and not very serious about my faith; he was just one more pope. For the next nine years I more or less ignored him, except insofar as he was mentioned on the front page of the daily paper or in the homily on Sunday; and then, of course, I joined the Episcopal church. Nowadays, with internet access, it’s much easier to follow the Pope’s doings; back then, it was much harder. So although I was aware of John Paul II and his role in the world, I was both ignorant and indifferent.

By 2005 I was already beginning to have a renewed interest in Roman Catholicism (though not, at that point, any real notion of reverting). Then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI—the man responsible for preventing in Catholicism the sort of zeitgeist-driven doctrinal creep that has gutted the Episcopal Church was now the Pope. Catholicism was safe, for awhile at least. (Now that strikes me as a silly statement: of course the Church is safe. The Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church, and preserves the Bride of Christ from error.) So I approved of Pope Benedict on general principle.

And then I started learning more about him, from blogs mostly at first, and then from some of his books. I tried his Introduction to Christianity, which I found nearly incomprehensible, alas; it isn’t particularly introductory. But through his books Jesus of Nazareth, Salt of the Earth, and God and the World, I came to know him, and found him to be a good teacher, as well as wise and gentle, with a deep and abiding and intellectual and not at all mystical faith. (I’ve nothing against Christian mysticism; but my own approach to the faith is much more intellectual, which should surprise no one.) I read the first two while still an Anglican; my reading of the third began several months before my reversion and ended a few days ago.

In short, Benedict’s witness played a significant role in my return to the Catholic Church. I’m glad to call him “my” pope; and reading this present book, all 460 pages of it, is an outstanding way to become acquainted with him and learn from him. Moreover, because of its question and answer format it’s a great book for devotional reading, as it’s easy to read a little bit every day without losing the thread.

If you’re Catholic, go and get a copy. If you’re not, but you’d like to know what Pope Benedict thinks is important, go and get a copy.