by Father John O'Brien, OFM Profiles in Catholicism
“Oh! pleasant exercise of hope and joy!
For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood
Upon our side, we who were strong in love!
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven!”
These are the words of Wordsworth recalling his earlier
enthusiasm for the French Revolution. He saw it as the
dawning of a new age of hope where all people were free
and equal and lived in harmony. He went to live in
France to experience the new society. However paranoia
and fear gripped the new revolution. War was
threatened. The Reign of Terror had begun. It became
a dangerous place for the young English poet and he left
France.
He returned to England a sadder man. However he did
not lose his dreams. He decided to use his poetry to
express his ideals. He wandered through England
gathering the stories of ordinary people and these
inspired his poetry. These were his heroes. He would use
emotion and psychological truth in his poetry. He was
told emotion was not to be trusted, as many of us were,
but he saw emotion as a central part of our makeup.
In one of his poems ‘The Ruined Cottage’ he tells the
story of how a family was ruined, how the husband
deserted his wife, Margaret. She is broken and in despair.
Wordsworth describes her watchfulness at her husband’s
desertion:
“On this old Bench
For hours she sate, and evermore her eye
Was busy in the distance, shaping things
Which made her heart beat quick.”
(Ruined Cottage MS b 490-3)
She looks to the horizon hoping to see her husband,
Robert, come home but he never does. She is powerless
to save her children or herself. This is a tragic narrative
to the social and political context of its time. Margaret
and her children perish.
Yet for Wordsworth she is not dead. She is alive in
Wordsworth’s poem. To those who read his poetry she is
alive. Even though unnoticed by the world Wordsworth
brings her to life and stirs the conscience of his readers.
Wordsworth is regarded as the poet of nature. In 1790
he went to the Alps. He was struck by the majesty of the
mountains. He could feel his own smallness. The beauty
of the Alps, he imagined, helped him touch eternity. This
vision of the sacredness of nature would never leave him.
He believed that by helping people appreciate nature
their spirits would be refreshed. Their spirits would be
free. This was also a protest against the dehumanising
effects of the Industrial Revolution. The opening line of
his poem ‘Tintern Abbey’ show us this love for nature:
“Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur.–Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.”
His early poetry was not, seemingly, religious as such but
yet it lifted the spirits of people and it led some to faith.
Our appreciation of nature, our appreciation of sunsets
comes from Wordsworth and the others in the Romantic
movement. They opened our eyes to the beauty around us.
St. Francis:
For St. Bonaventure the world is the perfect expression
of the Father. It expresses the Word (Logos) who is the
exemplar. The cosmic order is a vast symbol in which
God speaks his majesty. The world is a symbol that is
meant to be read. Wordsworth would have approved. For
St. Bonaventure this symbolic dimension of all things is
disclosed through the incarnate Word of God (Logos),
Jesus the Christ. He sees St. Francis as the one who,
through his fidelity to the incarnate Word, is able to
interpret mystical meaning within the great symbol of
creation.
“Aroused by all things to the love of God, he rejoiced
in all the works of the Lord’s hands and from these
joy-producing manifestations he rose to their lifegiving
principle and cause. In beautiful things he saw
Beauty itself and through his vestiges imprinted on
creation he followed his Beloved everywhere, making
all things a ladder by which he could climb up and
embrace Him who is utterly desirable. With a feeling
of unprecedented devotion he savoured in each and
every creature – as in so many streams – that
Goodness which is their fountain source.”
On June 18, 2015, Pope Francis issued an encyclical
focused on the environment called ‘Laudato Si’. He took
the title from St. Francis’ ‘Canticle of the Creatures’. He
tells us that in nature God has written a precious book
“whose letters are the multitude of created things present
in the universe” (Laudato Si, paragraph 85). He cites the
hymn of St. Francis showing us our interconnectedness.
In expressing our unity we have a responsibility to care
for the earth and the poor. The interdependence of
people and the planet is described in the phrase “integral
ecology”. Wordsworth would have been happy to see this
day.