25. Christ’s bride

25.

The majesty! what did she mean?
Breathe, arch and original Breath.
Is it love in her of the being as her lover had been?
Breathe, body of lovely Death.
They were else-minded then, altogether, the men
Woke thee with a we are perishing in the weather of Gennesareth.
Or is it that she cried for the crown then,
The keener to come at the comfort for feeling the combating keen?

The Wreck of the Deutschland
By Gerard Manley Hopkins

 

 

 

The following three stanzas all try to interpret what the nun meant with her calling. Hopkins asks that the Holy Spirit will guide him (Breathe, arch and original Breath). He asks if she was happy to meat her death (as in the litany of St Gertrude the Great where there is an invocation to the Blessed Virgin Mary for a happy death). Furthermore, in the perspective of the nuptial mysticism of St Gertrude a sister is a bride to Christ and isn’t death then another word for life with the groom?

Or were the sisters hesitant and else-minded? Even the disciples where weak on the stormy lake of Gennesareth in Matthew 8:24. but the faithful will be keen when the finally meet him, as in the last line. Was the nun keen for the crown of Martyrdom?

Only four of the nuns where found. Probably one of them climbed out on deck only to be swept away by a wave. The four nuns behind her probably decided to try to stay put. They and other dead bodies where lying around on the floor in the cabin area.

 

 

Thanks to my son here are another photo of my cuttings from the Illustrated London News. This cutting pictures the SS Deutschland aground on the Kentish Knock on the Thursday morning. The tug Liverpool is seen approaching on the right.

 

 

During lent I will publish the stanzas from the Wreck of the Deutschland, one by one. Sometimes with a small commentary or with some aspect about the poem. Hopefully someone will be able to use this as a form of prayer during Lent. Click here to get to the first stanza.

 

24. On a pastoral forehead of Wales

24.

Away in the loveable west,
On a pastoral forehead of Wales,
I was under a roof here, I was at rest,
And they the prey of the gales;
She to the black-about air, to the breaker, the thickly
Falling flakes, to the throng that catches and quails
Was calling ‘O Christ, Christ, come quickly’:
The cross to her she calls Christ to her, christens her wild-worst Best.

The Wreck of the Deutschland
By Gerard Manley Hopkins

 

 

 

While passenger and crew fought for their lifes, Hopkins was on a pastoral forehead in his beloved Wales. At The Jesuit house of St Beuno. It was here he studied to become a priest and it was here some of his most loved poems where created. When you read his letters you can clearly see that this time of his life is when he was as most in a rest with himself and his destiny. His ancestry on his mothers side where also from Wales and he confided in her that he always felt partly Welsh and partly English.

At the same time, early on Monday morning the single screw steamer SS Deutschland hit the sandbank the Kentish Knock and the single screw propeller broke. Distress rockets were fired. Other vessels where spotted, but no help arrived. 42 people, among them five Franciscan sisters, lost their lives during the 30 hours when the ship was stranded in the storm until the tug Liverpool reached the stranded vessel and rescued the survivors.

We can clearly see that the call of the nun is at the absolute center of the poem. It all revolves around this moment and it is described from different perspectives in all the surrounding stanzas. Here, for the first time, we get to know what the words was, when she called to God.

We can also see how closely Hopkins followed his source information:

In an article in the Times from the 11th of December the nuns are described: Five German nuns, whose bodies are now in the dead-house here, clasped hands and were drowned together, the chief sister, a gaunt woman 6 ft. high, calling out loudly and often ‘O Christ, come quickly!’ till the end came.

In an report from the of 13 December the scene described is even more closely linked to the poems narrative: One, noted for her extreme tallness, is the lady, who, at midnight on Monday, by standing on a table in the saloon, was able to thrust her body through the skylight, and kept exclaiming, in a voice heard by those in the rigging above the roar of the storm, ‘My God, my God, make haste, make haste!’

One eyewitness, Adolf Hermann described the sisters calling as: “They prayed aloud that God would send them a speedy death, and so end their misery: Ach Gott! Mach es nur kurz, wenn wir schon sterben müssen!

According to another eyewitness, Leick, the tall nun shrieked: Mein Gott! mach es schnell mit uns! Ach Christ! mach es schnell mit uns.

 

 

 

During lent I will publish the stanzas from the Wreck of the Deutschland, one by one. Sometimes with a small commentary or with some aspect about the poem. Hopefully someone will be able to use this as a form of prayer during Lent. Click here to get to the first stanza.

 

23. Whenever an angel appears…

23.

Joy fall to thee, father Francis,
Drawn to the Life that died;
With the gnarls of the nails in thee, niche of the lance, his
Lovescape crucifed
And seal of his seraph-arrival! and these thy daughters
And five-livèd and leavèd favour and pride,
Are sisterly sealed in wild waters,
To bathe in his fall-gold mercies, to breathe in his all-fire glances.

The Wreck of the Deutschland
By Gerard Manley Hopkins

 

 

 

The nuns drowning is pictured together with their own St Francis of Assisi. Hopkins continues the theme of sake - things being outside of itself - and stigmata. St Francis was the father of the five nuns order. He must have felt bliss when he received the stigmata, the joy must have fell on him in bearing the scape of the life that died, marks of the nails and the niche of the lance. The scape is a Lovescape, the visible pattern of God’s love (as in the marks from being crucified for us).

The seal of his seraph-arrival refers to when St Francis first had the mark of Christs wounds. During a 40 days fasting in preparation for Michaelmas the suffering of Christ became the great focus for St Francis. On the feast of Exaltation of the Cross - while praying on the mountainside of Monte Penna (La Verna) in the Tuscan Apennines - he had a vision of a seraph with six wings carrying the image of a man crucified. After the vision he found the stigma in the hands, feet and side, perfectly corresponding to the wounds that Christ had received.

So the Lovescape of Christ’s suffering appeared both in the wounds of St Francis and on the the Franciscan daughters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus. They were floating like rose leafs - The Cinquefoil (stanza 22) may also refer to a five petaled rose and in this line the rose is leaved - in the wild waters. Bathing in the terrible Grace of Christs suffering like a sisterly seal, like Fall-gold mercies. They lived and leaved in wild waters, in his all-fire glances.

In the last chapter of her book “Gerard Manley Hopkins and the Victorian Temper” Allison G Sulloway has a hypothesis that the Wreck of Deutchland is interlinked with the revelation, from beginning to end. She writes: Whenever an angel appears before St John in his dream, to announce destruction at sea, the prophecy is accompanied by the fire-blood-water imagery of red and white. When gold is combined with the red and white, St John is indicating the divine element present in the destructive plan.

In this stanza we inherit the scarlet red rose from the previous stanza by the image of the five-lived and leaved favour. We also inherit the white from the previous snow that whirls around. In this stanza the fall gold is introduced: So we got red and white and Gold, we got the blood from the stigmata, the waters and the all-fire. Hopkins uses the coloring from the Apocalypse:

And I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks: And in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, one like to the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the feet, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. And his head and his hairs were white, as white wool, and as snow, and his eyes were as a flame of fire, And his feet like unto fine brass, as in a burning furnace. And his voice as the sound of many waters. (Apocalypse 1:12)

 

 

During lent I will publish the stanzas from the Wreck of the Deutschland, one by one. Sometimes with a small commentary or with some aspect about the poem. Hopefully someone will be able to use this as a form of prayer during Lent. Click here to get to the first stanza.

 

22. The fifth wound

22.

Five! the finding and sake
And cipher of suffering Christ.
Mark, the mark is of man’s make
And the word of it Sacrificed.
But he scores it in scarlet himself on his own bespoken,
Before-time-taken, dearest prizèd and priced―
Stigma, signal, cinquefoil token
For lettering of the lamb’s fleece, ruddying of the rose-flake.

The Wreck of the Deutschland
By Gerard Manley Hopkins

 

 

 

Five. Christ had five main wounds: the ones in each Foot, the wounds in each Hand, and the wound in His side. There where also five nuns: One for each wound. The nuns order was that of St Francis, A saint famous for his stigmata. The patron saint for nuns, Gertrude, also wore the stigmata. The gift of Stigmata is a grace of Christ where those he chooses receive Christ’s mark: both by invisible suffering and by visible wounds.

To more fully understand Hopkins perception of these kinds of signs or marks from God - it might be helpful to look at his understanding of the word sake, as a kind of opposite to inscape, (as in the inner being of things): It is the sake of ‘for the sake of’, forsake, namesake, keepsake. I mean by it the being a thing has outside itself, as a voice by it’s echo, a face by its reflection, a body by its shadow, a man by his name, fame, or memory, and also that in the thing by virtue of which especially it has this being abroad, and that is something distinctive, marked, specifically or individually speaking, as for a voice and echo clearness; for a reflected image light, brightness: for a shadow-casting body bulk; for a man genius, great achievements, amiability, and so on.

In this way the finding and sake refers to how we by discovering patterns can see reflections of God. We can cipher the suffering of Christ and this is one way God reveals himself to us. There are no difference between Stigmata on one person or - as on board the SS Deutschland - one Sister for each wound of Christ: - Because they are both sakes, they reflect the same supernatural truth. The Five Sisters are in themselves an open stigma: - They became the sacrificed word, the lettering of the lamb, The Stigma, signal, cinquefoil token. Each of them one wound on the body of Christ - as a gift.

It is Christ himself that inflict these wounds (in scarlet) on those most dear to him (his own bespoken). Compare these lines with the following words of St Paul in the Epistle to the Ephesians: As he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted in his sight in charity. Who hath predestinated us unto the adoption of children through Jesus Christ unto himself: according to the purpose of his will: Unto the praise of the glory of his grace, in which he hath graced us in his beloved son. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the remission of sins, according to the riches of his grace.

One of the five wounds was however special: one of the soldiers with a spear opened his side, and immediately there came out blood and water (John 19:34). According to tradition the soldiers name was Longinus and he was converted by a drop of the precious blood spurting from the wound. It is easy to see this water as the holy waters issuing out from under the temple mentioned in the prophecy of Ezechiel.

The fifth wound with its life-giving, grace-bearing water, brings us back to the tall sister and the significance of her calling. She is the sake of the wound that flushed the man in stanza eight; that poured from the veins of the mountain voel in Stanza four, that spread Grace as tears from a melting heart in stanza eighteen. She is the sake of the wound that poured Grace over the world.

 

For those interested there are a Chaplet of the Five Wounds which was instigated by the Passionists as a means to promote devotion to the Passion of Christ in the hearts of the faithful. The chaplet is arranged in five sections of five beads each. On each bead one Glory be to the Father is said, and between the sections one Hail Mary in honor of the Sorrowful Virgin. During each of the sections the Wounds of Our Lord Jesus Christ are piously meditated upon. (Pope Leo XII Dec. 20 1823)

 

 

During lent I will publish the stanzas from the Wreck of the Deutschland, one by one. Sometimes with a small commentary or with some aspect about the poem. Hopefully someone will be able to use this as a form of prayer during Lent. Click here to get to the first stanza.

 

21. Dr. Adalbert Falk & the Anti-Catholic laws

21.

Loathed for a love men knew in them,
Banned by the land of their birth,
Rhine refused them, Thames would ruin them;
Surf, snow, river and earth
Gnashed: but thou art above, thou Orion of light;
Thy unchancelling poising palms were weighing the worth,
Thou martyr-master: in thy sight
Storm flakes were scroll-leaved flowers, lily showers―sweet heaven was astrew in them.

The Wreck of the Deutschland
By Gerard Manley Hopkins

 

 

 

I read this particular text as being the stanza of martyrdom, apart from being banned by the land of their birth in the opening line, they are exiles by the Falk Laws - as in the dedication in the beginning of the poem. Here Hopkins also refers to them as being unchancelling. The chancel is the part of the church where the altar stands. Poising palms could mean out of God’s hands, so with unchancelling poising palms were weighing the worth he probably means bringing good from the bad and measuring what being martyred (by the martyr-master) and exiled is worth: The metamorphosis is already complete in heaven, In the last line the suffering is transmuted into beauty.

Hopkins must have seen the delayed rescue as that England abandoned the SS Deutschland. Even though the distress rockets where seen, it took 30 hours before helped arrived. Rhine refused them, Thames would ruin them. So it easy to see the English betrayal but what about the German equivalent? Why where these German Sisters exiled from their Fatherland?

 

The second German Empire was formed in 1871. Under Bismarck’s leadership it distanced itself more and more from the Roman Catholic Church. The Catholic political party, Zentrumspartei, was the second largest party in Germany in 1871 only superseded by Bismarck’s Liberal party. In the liberals mind the Zentrumspartei was a dangerous enemy in the battle of power between the state and the religious denominations. In the seventies Bismarck set out to destroy this supposedly dangerous party of Catholics, and this struggle came to be known as the Kulturkampf, the struggle of cultures where the Zentrumspartei was seen as running an international agenda (read Roman), whilst the other German parties were fighting for the German nation.

At the very core of this was the newly declared infallibility of the pope. Many nations through out Europe mistook this as that Catholics would be more loyal to the pope than to their own nation in all matters when in fact the infallibility was restricted to Catholic dogma. In many protestant countries Catholics were to be regarded almost as enemies of the state. For instance Bismarck declared the Catholic party as being Reichsfeinde. Windhorst, leader of the Zentrumspartei gave a famous reply: ‘The Chancellor is not the state’.

 

In his efforts to destroy the political force of the Catholics Bismarck practiced, what he called ‘policy of negative integration’ in which he tried to unite a majority against a common enemy of the people. As this enemy he chooses the Catholics. Fifty years later another German Chancellor in a third German empire, choose the same approach but in a far greater and more inhumane scale.

In 1872 the Reichstag dissolved the Society of Jesus and exiled its members from Germany and the next year was the May laws, (also called the Falk laws) introduced by the Prussian minister Adalbert Falk. All Catholic education and even appointments of priests was supervised by the German state. Catholic weddings did no longer have any legal rights and all religious orders were dissolved, some nursing orders was however allowed under restrictions as they where helpful during wartime. All Prussian Catholics lost their civil and legal rights and had to report monthly to the police. Rebellious clergy, even Bishops were imprisoned or exiled. Between January and April 1875 241 clergy was imprisoned. In May 1875 it was decreed: All religious orders and similar groups are to be excluded from the territories of the Prussian state. New foundations are prohibited; those already existing are to be disbanded within six months. Since Mother Clara’s order was partly devoted to nursing they could still keep some of their organization in Germany but since they also was dedicated to teaching, Mother Clara determined that their work must be carried on elsewhere instead.

 

 

On another note, the star constellation Orion is named after a hunter. McChesney suggests that Hopkins is referring to God who dwells apart, yet who pursues the destiny of men. There are other interpretations though.

Some critics have elaborate explanations of that Orion sounds like other words, e.g. Organ. In stanza 18 the word bower, sounds like bowel, and by organ and bowel Hopkins, according to them can be referring to the heart (in John 7:38 the belly is used as a reference to the heart as in out of his heart shall flow rivers of living waters) and the womb. Again in stanza 18 the word Madrigal is etymological derived from Matrix, which means womb in Latin which in its own turn is derived from mater, mother. To me this sounds a bit too imaginative, but then again, in the journals Hopkins made these kinds of play with words himself.

However I have my own odd and personal explanation: Orion is the brightest master of the winter skies and is therefore of better poetic use than Cancer, however it is a phenomenon in Cancer that is in Hopkins mind when he is writing this. In his letter to his mother on Christmas Eve 1875 he seems quite occupied by it, and this must have occurred when he was writing as most intensely. Do you know if anything is said of a comet? I have seen one three nights. It appears to be in Cancer. It is small and pale, but quite visible. If it is not a comet it must be a nebula and then it is strange I should not have noticed it before but its appearance is in all respects that of a comet. At ten o’clock it is well visible in the northeast, not high; later it would be higher.

A few months later in a letter dated March 2 1876, he talks about it again: What I took for a comet (do you remember?) turned out to be a wellknown nebula of great size, Praesepe it is called, in Cancer. Perhaps this is of some relevance for the Orion and the line Starlight, wafting him out of it in stanza 5? Here is a picture of the M44 constellation Praesepe.

 

 

During lent I will publish the stanzas from the Wreck of the Deutschland, one by one. Sometimes with a small commentary or with some aspect about the poem. Hopefully someone will be able to use this as a form of prayer during Lent. Click here to get to the first stanza.

 

20. Christ’s lily and beast of the waste wood

20.

She was first of a five and came
Of a coifèd sisterhood.
(O Deutschland, double a desperate name!
O world wide of its good!
But Gertrude, lily, and Luther, are two of a town,
Christ’s lily and beast of the waste wood:
From life’s dawn it is drawn down,
Abel is Cain’s brother and breasts they have sucked the same.)

The Wreck of the Deutschland
By Gerard Manley Hopkins

 

 

 

Nowhere in the poem are any of the nuns called by name, even though their names where published and must have been known to Hopkins. Instead he introduces the name Gertrude as an alter ego especially for the tall nun. St Gertrude is the patron saints of the nuns and is - as Henrica Fassbender and her sisters - from Germany.

In the poem the tall nun is called a prophetess in stanza 17, also St Gertrude had the gift of prophecy. Another interesting aspect is that St Gertrude wrote her own Exercitia spiritualia, (Spiritual Exercises) a book of instructions, meditations and prayers. Hopkins might have felt especially close to the nuns by this connection of the Sisterhoods Spiritual Exercises through St Gertrude with the Jesuit brotherhoods Spiritual Exercises through St Ignatius of Loyola.

By referring to Deutschland as being double desperate Hopkins meant both the ill fortune of the steamer SS Deutschland, but also the state of Bismarck’s German Empire. But the doubleness have more implications. St Gertrude where raised close to the town of Eisleben - as the monk Luther was a couple of hundred years later. Good and evil exists side by side, just as the good Abel and the poor Cain where nursed by the same mother, both the divine saint and the evil Heretic came from the same town. The ultramontane Hopkins saw them as Christ’s lily and the beast of the waste wood.

 

The nuns at the abbey of Helfta took in the orphan Gertrude when she was only five years old. It is said that she from the very first was a very lovable child and she kept this gift of charm throughout her life. Gertrude devoted herself to study (according to her self she studied so hard in her early life that she neglected her spiritual development). She became a nun in her teens but continued her profane studies in Latin and Rhetorics. She had her first vision at the age of 26 when she saw Christ who said to her: “Do not fear. I will save you and set you free“. After this St Gertrude committed herself to spiritual and theological growth. She was exceptionally boundless in her charity and embraced both high and low. And it is said that her humility was so profound that she wondered how the earth could support so sinful creature as herself. She promoted the devotion of the sacred heart and is also famous for her concern for those in purgatory.

St Gertrude died the 17 November 1302 (her feast day is the 16th though). Pope Benedict XIV gave her the title “the Great” to distinguish her from Abbess Gertrude of Hackeborn and to recognize the depth of her spiritual and theological insight. You can read more about her here.

 

 

During lent I will publish the stanzas from the Wreck of the Deutschland, one by one. Sometimes with a small commentary or with some aspect about the poem. Hopefully someone will be able to use this as a form of prayer during Lent. Click here to get to the first stanza.

 

19. A sister is calling

19.

Sister, a sister calling
A master, her master and mine!―
And the inboard seas run swirling and hawling;
The rash smart sloggering brine
Blinds her; but she that weather sees one thing, one;
Has one fetch in her: she rears herself to divine
Ears, and the call of the tall nun
To the men in the tops and the tackle rode over the storm’s brawling.

The Wreck of the Deutschland
By Gerard Manley Hopkins

 

 

 

The last verses in stanza 17 introduced the tall nun, the towering prophetess with the virginal tongue. Here we are back in that moment when her voice overshadow the roar from the storm and Hopkins notes how close they are, two servants serving the same Master, a Franciscan sister, a Jesuit brother.

In one early Hopkins biography the author John Pick writes: This seer Has one fetch [Dialect word meaning a deep painful breath or inspiration] in her: she rears herself to divine Ears… In heaven above Christ was waiting, waiting for her to respond to His grace, to flee to Him, “to the heart of the host”, to recognize in this trial a message for her to come to Him.

Her response is so clearly directed, her attention so undivided, so focused. She’s blinded but she can still see. Her faith in Christ overcomes the storm. I can’t help thinking of another boat on stormy waters:

And when he entered into the boat, his disciples followed him: And behold a great tempest arose in the sea, so that the boat was covered with waves, but he was asleep. And they came to him, and awaked him, saying: Lord, save us, we perish. And Jesus saith to them: Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith? Then rising up he commanded the winds, and the sea, and there came a great calm. But the men wondered, saying: What manner of man is this, for the winds and the sea obey him? (Matthew 8:23-27)

 

 

During lent I will publish the stanzas from the Wreck of the Deutschland, one by one. Sometimes with a small commentary or with some aspect about the poem. Hopefully someone will be able to use this as a form of prayer during Lent. Click here to get to the first stanza.

 

18. The waters of the sanctuary and the heart as mediator

18.

Ah, Touched in your bower of bone,
Are you! Turned for an exquisite smart,
Have you! make words break from me here all alone,
Do you! ―mother of being in me, heart.
O unteachably after evil, but uttering truth,
Why, tears! is it? tears; such a melting, a madrigal start!
Never-eldering revel and river of youth,
What can it be, this glee? the good you have there of your own?

The Wreck of the Deutschland
By Gerard Manley Hopkins

 

 

 

Here Hopkins puts the narrative on hold and take some time off for inner reflection. He is addressing his own heart, inside his ribcage - the bower of bone. He asks for (or states) its response from being touched by the dreadful story: Are you! Have you! Do you!

Hopkins expresses how sincerely touched he is by the nun’s destiny, but then - in the last line - he finds that his heart feels joy and delight instead of sorrow. His heart can feel a glee there on its own: Shouldn’t it be melting of tears instead of rejoicing through them?

God touches him internally and words break from him (like water). His heart is a truthful mediator bringing deeper truth on the divinity to the scene than the poet first can grasp consciously. Even though his heart bears the stain of original sin (is unteachably after evil) it receives God’s gift and mediates. Perhaps this is the good his heart have there of it’s own?

A parallel interpretation is that the poet (his heart) rejoiced for the eternal bliss the nun was about to achieve. Yet another one is that the dreadful news made the poet write poetry again (as in “words break from me“) and that the deep sympathy for the nuns is a muse for composing songs (as in “tears; such a melting, a madrigal start!“).

I find it fruitful to compare the image of the mountain roped by water as veins (sic!) in stanza four, to the image of the heart with tears melting around it. The crying heart and the bleeding rock: Both radiates grace.

To me Hopkins brings the image of grace through the tears of the melting heart even more legible in the metaphor of water in a river of youth, as if the tears are life-giving tears. A Never-eldering revel (as in receiving eternal life) that intertwines this image with the meaning of water in Catholic symbolism: The water of life and a passage into heaven. E.g. The baptism of Christ and his grace as it is mystically explained in the vision of the holy waters issuing out from under the temple in the Prophecy of Ezechiel (47:1-12).

 

 

During lent I will publish the stanzas from the Wreck of the Deutschland, one by one. Sometimes with a small commentary or with some aspect about the poem. Hopefully someone will be able to use this as a form of prayer during Lent. Click here to get to the first stanza.

 

17. Daughters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary

17.

They fought with God’s cold―
And they could not and fell to the deck
(Crushed them) or water (and drowned them) or rolled
With the sea-romp over the wreck.
Night roared, with the heart-break hearing a heart-broke rabble,
The woman’s wailing, the crying of child without check―
Till a lioness arose breasting the babble,
A prophetess towered in the tumult, a virginal tongue told.

The Wreck of the Deutschland
By Gerard Manley Hopkins

 

 

 

In this stanza Father Hopkins continues the narrative part of the poem by looking at another, even fuller, way to face disaster, to respond God. The first narrative lines prepares a background based on reports from the papers: The agonizing shrieks and sobbing of the women and children Hopkins collected from the Times and Captain Brickenstein description of how passengers and crew where chilled by the cold wind, falling upon the deck, where they where washed off by the waves and some where washed down the hatchways Hopkins could read about in the Illustrated London News.

- But then: on a background of Chaos, a lioness appears, the voice of a divine, prophetess breaks through the roars of the night! This voice, spoken with a virginal tongue, belongs to a sister: One of the five Franciscan nuns that was mentioned in the dedication at the beginning of the poem.

The five nuns belonged to the order “Franciscan Sisters, Daughters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary” which Mother Clara Pfaender had founded 1860 in Olpe, Germany. The aims of the order where directed both towards spiritual and worldly needs. Besides continual prayer and contemplations the Sisters raised and educated orphans and cared for the sick. They where trained in nursing and fifteen sisters, including Mother Clara, went to the front in Bohemia in the Austro-Preussian wars of 1866 - And about 60 nursing sisters where sent for the Franco-Preussian wars of 1870-71.

In the founding constitutional document Mother Clara stated: Following the example of our divine Saviour and his holy Mother Mary, the congregation of the Sisters of St Francis, Daughters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, endeavors to integrate the contemplative and active life so that the latter is nourished and strengthened and supported through the former, and thus becomes itself rich in blessings.

Shortly after the foundation of the order the mother house moved from Paderborn to Salzkotten. In 1872 a daughter house was founded in the U.S. and shortly thereafter it become evident that it was impractical to govern the American mission from Germany and it was decided to make the American province independent.

In Salzkotten Mother Clara appointed Sister Henrica Fassbaender as provincial Superior and she, along with four other sisters (Sisters Barbara Hueltenschmidt, Norberta Reinkober, Auria Badziura and Brigitta Damhorst) where sent to their new homeland. This is how Mother Clara’s biographer, Sister Brunilde Probst, described the appointment of Sister Henrica in her book The Burning Seal: Intelligence, prudence, motherliness and piety were the excellent qualifications which Sister Henrica possessed. Indeed, the commission was hard for both Mother and daughter. They were truly devoted to each other. Mother Clara lost in Sister Henrica a promising source of strength for work in the fatherland, but the welfare of the community surpassed all personal considerations and desires on the part of the Superior General.

 

In late 19th century and early 20th century the headquarters for the U.S. Province of St. Clara where located in St Louis but today they are located in Wheaton, Illinois and the Sisters are known as the Wheaton Franciscans. In 1994, the Wheaton Franciscans dedicated a chapel to the five Sisters. You can read more about the Sisters at their homepage

 

 

During lent I will publish the stanzas from the Wreck of the Deutschland, one by one. Sometimes with a small commentary or with some aspect about the poem. Hopefully someone will be able to use this as a form of prayer during Lent. Click here to get to the first stanza.

 

16. Every man for himself

16.

One stirred from the rigging to save
The wild woman-kind below,
With a rope’s end round the man, handy and brave―
He was pitched to his death at a blow,
For all his dreadnought breast and braids of thew:
They could tell him for hours, dandled the to and fro
Through the cobbled foam-fleece, what could he do
With the burl of the fountains of air, buck and the flood of the wave?

The Wreck of the Deutschland
By Gerard Manley Hopkins

 

 

 

In all major disaster events there are incidents of selfishness almost beyond civilized peoples comprehension. However civilization is a very thin layer in our personalities and none of us really knows how we would act if we where in a similar crisis. Most people, probably both the writer and many of the readers of this blog, would in many cases not always come out on the right side.

This was also true for crew and passengers of the SS Deutschland: One survivor describes how he asked for some information that could help him, but no one bothered to answer. He said it was a feeling of every man for himself up on deck. Another survivor, a young man from Cleveland, described how he saw many people tied rope around their waists, when he asked another man if he could use some of his rope, the man refused, even though there where plenty to share. Shock and fear can steer us into truly sad behavior.

On the other hand some people are admirable in case of disasters. This is one of the themes at the very core of this poem: How we, God’s children, respond to the horrors of God’s world. This stanza deals with a terrible incident where one man tried to save another passenger’s life and instead lost his own. Hopkins read about the incident in the Times:

One brave sailor who was safe in the rigging went down to try and save a child or woman who was drowning on deck. He was secured by a rope to the rigging but a wave dashed him against the bulwarks, and when daylight dawned his headless body, detained by the rope, was seen swaying to and fro with the waves.

A man tries to save a another passenger; God does not let him do this. Instead the other passenger dies and the rescuer is decapitated… Surely God is absent here. A caring God would not let such a thing happen. However such an interpretation would be the wrong perspective in which The faithful waver, the faithless fable and miss as Hopkins talked about in stanza six.

It’s all too easy to sit on dry land, dealing with our own spiritual issues, explaining each and every thing: God is just (or Satan unjust). Nothing happens without Him knowing it (or he was absent). The dying child did penance… The rescuers somehow deserved this… - How presumptuous aren’t we, when we try to judge Gods actions like that, looking at this world as the beginning and end of everything? What do we know about His reasons?

All we can do is look at the Christian way to face disaster: With love for God. The Love of God demands the love for our fellow human beings. No matter the consequences.

 

 

During lent I will publish the stanzas from the Wreck of the Deutschland, one by one. Sometimes with a small commentary or with some aspect about the poem. Hopefully someone will be able to use this as a form of prayer during Lent. Click here to get to the first stanza.