Some who see the title to this inspirational piece may wonder who is Graham Greene? Greene was an English novelist who died in 1991. I never met him, but would dearly have loved to meet him. I met him through his novels. I also know he was a playwright and journalist, among other things. He studied at Oxford and converted to Catholicism in 1926. He worked for the London Times for a period and then spent three decades running around the world as a journalist. Many of the themes for his books stem from this period of travels.
The first novel of his I think I read was Brighton Rock (1938). I like how the Encyclopedia Britannica describes it: “…the protagonist is a hunted criminal roaming the underworld of an English sea resort---but explores the contrasting moral attitudes of its main characters with a new degree of intensity and emotional involvement.” Many would say his novel, The Power and the Glory (1940), was his best piece. This is a moving story of a priest on the run in Mexico because the Catholic Church is official banned.
The priest is hardly a paradigm. He is an alcoholic, morally suspect and so forth. And yet the priest remains committed to his sacred duties as he roams from town to town surreptitiously to celebrate communion and risk capture. He is both attractive and unattractive. Again, we see Greene working with the issue of religious relevancy in a culture of atheism. Clearly, there are comparable issues in our own day.
Perhaps my favorite novel is The Heart of the Matter (1948). This one is set in the middle of Africa. We watch a British colonial officer balance duty to marriage and a mistress that eventually ends in suicide. Finally, A Burnt-Out Case (1961) tells the story of an architect who travels to Africa running away from fame only to find himself in a leper colony. Greene is able to write the story in such an engaging fashion we feel like we are there, too. When the end comes tragically, we feel it keenly.
Sin, evil, the church and spiritual struggle are all over the place in Greene’s novels. Surely, there was some autobiographical material woven into these works. That is why I would have enjoyed thoroughly being with Greene in an English pub and engaging him in conversation. I wanted to know the man and know what made him go where he went and begin thinking the things that appeared in the novels.
Oddly, all this brings me to a friend whom I have never met. Father Gerard is a Benedictine monk living near St. Louis. He is also a poet. We have become pen pals of sort. He sends me some of his poetry, which I really enjoy reading. And he reads a bit of my stuff. Someday I dearly hope to meet him. Until then, I will continue receiving and reading his poetry. Recently, he sent me a poem about Graham Greene. He entitles it, “I Offered Mass for Graham Greene Today.”
Father Gerard begins by saying, “I offered Mass for you today, Who burned your candle at three ends, As you fled boredom all your life…” Clearly, this is a reference to Graham Greene in his travels and his searching. Was he the pathetic priest? Or was he the burnt-out architect in an African leper colony/ I suspect he was some of all of these.
Our own Benedictine priest and monk suspects something like this, I think. His next line comments: “To pleasures none of which would last, Belief in flux, but not your faith, You thought that you were far from him, Distancing him by all your sin.” I wonder if there is not some of the characters in us too. I know what it is to distance from God---through sin or otherwise.
Skipping one section, I go to another few lines of poetry, I am fairly sure our monk is describing the God who is available to all of us---Greene, you and me. “His love for you was infinite, Not one precious drop of blood less, He there with you, though to you unknown, Till he brought you finally home.” Is this a reference to Jesus and his redemptive love and care for all human beings, regardless of situation or station in life. I hear Father Gerard telling Greene and us that God’s love is for us, even if that God is unknown to us. That is surely the definition of grace!
The next few lines of the poem tell us what awaits us at the end of life. “To know that peace knew not here, In this your sort of life on earth, Where you could feel, feel only pain, But not his grace that still remained.” Indeed, this is a story of grace. We are God’s children and there is nowhere we can go and nothing we can do that ultimately distances us from the one who loved us into being.
Interestingly, Father Gerard ends the poem with the same four lines that affirm that God’s love is infinite---not one precious drop of blood less. We are reassured that God is there with us, even though God may be unknown. It is finally a matter of faith. And finally, finally, we all will be home. A dream maybe; a reality for sure.
Those of us who have read theology or, perhaps, those who are people of faith and are old enough might well recognize this title as a reminder of the late Jewish philosopher and theologian, Martin Buber. I remember reading Buber’s book, I and Thou , when I was in college in the 1960s. It was already a famous book by then. I am not sure I fully understood it, but that would not be the last time I read it. It has been a while since I looked at the book. Buber came up in a conversation with a friend who asked if I had seen the recent article by David Brooks? I had not seen it, but when I was told about it, I knew I would quickly locate and read that piece. I very much like what Brooks decides to write about and what he contributes to societal conversation. I wish more people read him and took him seriously. Brooks’ article focused on the 2016 contentious election. He provocatively suggests, “Read Buber, Not the Polls!” I think Brooks puts
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