| Writing in reminiscent vein, Fr. Peter Pillai describes in the following article, heart-warming little episodes in the life, of that wizard of the pen — J. P. de Fonseka. None, perhaps, among the countless admirers and friends knew J. P. so intimately and for so long as Fr. Peter Pillai. His reminiscences of the great days when Catholic intellectual life was dominated by the Chester-Belloc school will be read with interest by all those who look back with a certain nostalgia to those epic times. |
J. P. held such a large place in the lives of some of us that in those sad days that followed his death we could not have trusted ourselves to put pen to paper and give an objective account of the work of this great Catholic writer.
Now that a few months have passed, it is possible to view his work in perspective and assess with the necessary degree of detachment his contribution to letters in general and to Catholic literature in particular.
I first began to know him intimately when he came to Cambridge in 1926 to prepare for his M. A. degree. He had not then made a name for himself as a writer, though his articles in Blue and White had revealed potentialities of a high order. In those early days he wrote little as he was devoting all his attention to his studies. But he was getting his initiation into the splendour of the liturgical life.
Glory of the Liturgy
Our chaplain at Cambridge, Fr. John Lopes, a former High Church clergyman, was an ardent Dominican tertiary and an enthusiast for the liturgy. Every evening, congregation or no congregation, he would chant Vespers or Compline, fully vested and with all the perfection of ritual, assisted by his servant who was also a Dominican tertiary. J. P. and myself used to steal into the Chapel on some of these occasions, and he used to tell me afterwards that it was there he began to get a glimpse of the wonders of the liturgy of which he was such a devotee in later life.
When J. P. went afterwards to London, he used to live near Westminister Cathedral and he began to follow the daily office of the Cathedral chapter. On his return to Ceylon, he was a familiar figure at the liturgical ceremonies at the Seminary and the Scholasticate on the eve of All Souls, on Christmas Night, and during Holy Week. He used to say parts of the Breviary every day, and towards the latter part of his life lived the liturgical life of the Church in its entirety.
He loved the liturgy and foremost no doubt because it was the voice of the Spouse, but he also lived it for its hoary antiquity for It» majesty, its drama and its poetry. The music of the Preface fascinated him and he would have given anything for the privilege of being able to chant that magnificent hymn of praise before all the faithful.
First Literary Efforts
At Cambridge then it was the liturgy that J. P. began to appreciate. But after a short time J. P. moved over to London and it was here that the Catholic thesis first began to take hold of him. He had come over to London in order to be in the centre of the literary world. Everyone is aware that J. P. became the friend of such well-known writers as G, K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, Robert Lynd, E. V. Lucas, Philip Gibbs, Maurice Baring, Eric Gill etc. He had begun to write articles to various reviews and then during the latter years in England, he edited, two of Chesterton’s collections of essays. During this period he undoubtedly had ambitions of making for himself a literary career in England and if he had been able to remain there a little longer he might have succeeded. He had however to return to Ceylon before that early ambition was fulfilled owing to reasons connected with his family. But in the midst of his literary preoccupations-he began to feel the attraction of the Church. Chesterton, Belloc and Eric Gill had so discovered the Church before him. The meaning of the Incarnation as the centre of human history began to force itself on his attention. The Church as the complement of Christ and as the instrument of Christ’s redemptive scheme began to appear before him in all its glory. And this vision grew upon him.
Chester – Belloc
He had admired the genius of Newman that had in the last century forced the hostile English public to give Catholicism a respected hearing. But he was fired with enthusiasm at the sight of these two generals, Chesterton and Belloc, who no longer apologised for the faith, but who carried the war into the enemy’s camp, and who in the name of reason and common sense asked their countrymen to show cause why they should not accept the faith. It was indeed a glorious period when every other day Chesterton or Belloc would bring out some new work, exposing the shams and pretentions of the pseudo-scientists as in Belloc’s “Companion to Well’s Outline of History, “or Chesterton’s “Everlasting Man , or pointing out the unique claims of the Church as in Chesterton’s “The Thing” or “The Well and the Shallows.” People of this generation will never understand the exhilaration and the joy of life that we used to feel in those days when our Catholic intellectual life was dominated by the literary output of those two giants who symbolised in their outward form the magnitude of their Catholic achievement.
It was impossible for J. P. not to be profoundly affected by the grandeur of this new form of apologetics which disclaimed any and every appearance of apology. He gradually moved away from the ideal of pure literary excellence to that of great literature which is at the same time completely and unreservedly Catholic. It took a long time for the transformation to be completed and he only achieved it fully during the last years of his life. But in the late twenties that I am referring to now, the evolution was in its initial stages.
In my affection for J. P. I was naturally impatient that the changeover was not proceeding rapidly enough, and I remember how one day I stopped him on one of the London streets (as he himself used to relate the story long afterwards it was supposed to be in the middle of the street where we were almost run over, and where in any case we caused a traffic block), and asked him why there was not enough Christ-colour in his writings. He never forgot that, and in his later days, when there was nothing else but Christ-colour in his articles, whereas there was hardly any in my own writings in “Social Justice”, he used to take an unholy joy in repeating the story to my own discomfiture^
Sentire Cum Ecclesia
J. P. had always been an ardent Catholic, but it was from about this time that in addition to accepting the faith in its integrity he also began to feel with the Church, that he made his own the sentire cum Ecclesia, which is absent from so many of the so-called liberal Catholics. When he came back to Ceylon he gave himself more and more to Catholic journalism, although, in the early days he very often wrote for the secular press.
But little by little he lost all interest in purely secular literature, and he could neither read nor write except what had reference to the great Catholic Thing. He was beginning to see every-thing sub specie aeternitatis. The purely worldly was being burned up within him. He had often confessed to me in recent times his sheer inability to concern himself any longer with what was not strictly religious. Like St. Paul he had seen the vision of Christ in his Church on the heights, and he would not and could not come down any more to earth.
The Catholic Man of Letters
When I returned from Europe in 1936, almost the first two to meet me after the formal handshakes at the jetty were over, were L P. and Fr. Hugo Fernando. These two had already become inseparable companions and with one voice they gave me the welcome assurance that they were ready to offer their services as well as all that they had in the great cause.
At that time both non-Catholics and even Catholics, were woefully ignorant of the riches of Catholic social doctrine, while on the other hand Communism was rearing its head and beginning to mislead our people. So the Catholic Social Guild was founded and an intense study programme \$as undertaken. Soon the need was felt for a paper to popularise sane and healthy social doctrines and the “Social Justice” was launched as the organ of the Social Justice movement.
Many writers joined the movement immediately. S. J. K. Crowther promised his support and never went back on his word. He was then and he is now the greatest journalist in Ceylon and his articles were read as much for their substance as for the masterly quality of the writing. G. B. Ekanayake came in almost from the very beginning.
Contributions to Social Justice
But the one who wrote in every issue without exception was J. P. Fr. Hugo corrected the proofs, stimulated us with fresh and original ideas, and gave us invaluable encouragement. But J. P. it was who carried the paper on his shoulders — broad and ample shoulders they were — and who by the witchery of his pen won for the paper a name not only in Ceylon but in India, England, and America. Many of his back page articles were reproduced in various Digests.
Some of J. P.’s most brilliant writing is undoubtedly to be found in Social Justice and one day please God, we shall choose the best and publish them in the form of an anthology. He used to write much more than the last page article. Most of the poems were by hint, many of the quodlibets, some of the editorial notes and all of the Mrs. Bambarawitarne series. It was chiefly due to the excellence of his writing that Social Justice won such encomiums from persons such as Arnold Lunn, Maisie Ward, Frank Sheed, C. C. Martindale, and others. J. P. as everyone knows, could write on any subject whatsoever, and as a consequence was in demand everywhere by all sorts of persons for all kinds of things. But in Social Justice he was at his best, for he was not writing to order on some subject in which he had no interest whatever, but he was on the contrary writing on what to him was most vital, viz: the true social philosophy which at the same time was identical with the fine flower of Catholic thought, Not only was he writing on what to him mattered so much, he was also given free rein to write on it in his own characteristic manner. He saw the humorous side of it all as Chesterton and Belloc had done, before him, and also like these two laughing cavaliers, he did not hesitate to turn the laugh on himself.
The Humour of Orthodoxy
Ah the labour we expended on the little paper of ours was more than compensated for by the uproarious fun we got out of it all. When we saw what a poor, miserable, grim, humourless creature the Communist was, we felt that J. P.’s humour was a necessary corrective and thus a distinct contribution to the happiness of mankind. We even hoped that the man in the communist would be able to see the joke against himself and thus sec Communism as the inhuman thing that it appeared to us.
Now that Social Justice is about to “continue its life once again after a period of suspended animation, the absence of J. P.’s humour will be felt most intensely. We shall be able to find others who know and can expose the doctrine as well as he. But we shall never find another who can express it in quite the same inimitable manner.
Knowledge of Thomist Philosophy
During all this time that J. P. was writing for Social Justice, he was becoming more and more enamoured of the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. His love for St. Thomas had its beginning during his sojourn in England, probably as a result of Chesterton’s own enthusiasm for Thomist philosophy. Gradually, as he began to realize the deepest significance of Catholicism, the fundamental position of the philosophy of St. Thomas as the bulwark of human reason and the only solid basis for human thought began to force itself on his attention and he began to dream of writing one day some great work on Thomistic philosophy.
I had introduced him one day to a Professor of the Papal Seminary as a Catholic author who desired to write on St. Thomas. The Professor who at that time knew nothing of J. P. was heard to remark that this was not a suitable subject for a layman. J. P. was not angry, for he could not get angry, but he never forgot that remark and on many occasion when he had written some particularly brilliant article on Thomist philosophy or theology in Social Justice or the New Review St some other maga7ine, he asked me whether he was not to send a copy of the article to this Professor.
He longed to emulate his master G. K. Chesterton who without any knowledge of the technicalities of Thomist philosophy has nevertheless written a work on St. Thomas which so truly and so accurately goes to the heart of the matter, that it is the despair of the professional philosopher who has spent a life-time in the study of the text of St. Thomas. Is it any wonder that I could not think of a better birthday present for him than a volume of Farrell’s Companion to the Summa of St. Thomas Aquinas.
Love of the Gospels
The more J. P. began to appreciate the Faith, the more he desired to go to the sources of doctrine. That is why he collected not so much the commentaries on St. Thomas, as the works themselves of the Angelic Doctor. That is also why he began to disdain the mere commentary on the Gospels and went back to the text itself of the Gospels. The love of the Gospels grew on him till it became a passion. Hence it was that he poured forth a torrent of articles one after another on the Gospel story, all based on the text. He would no doubt read such works as those by Lagrange, Grandmaison, Lebreton, Didon, Goodier and Meschler, but only after writing his article and not before lest the freshness and originality of his own approach to the Gospel be affected by his familiarity with the professional commentators. He was not concerned with erudition. There was never a footnote to anyone of his articles. But he did want with all his being to give testimony to the simplicity as well as the grandeur, the appositeness as well as the universality of the Gospel message. There is no reason why we should not admit that his writings did not always maintain the same high level of felicitous insight and mastery of expression. It was impossible that one should write so often and not sometimes leave the heights. When I affectionately remonstrated with him on the frequency of his output which was bound to have an adverse effect on the high quality of his literary work, he would not be stayed, for at this stage he was so possessed by the splendour of the Gospel message, that he no longer cared if his literary reputation suffered. He felt he had a mission and he was resolved to dedicate his entire self to it.
The Papal Honour
Of course J. P. had to love the Holy See. His life would have been meaningless otherwise. Christ without His Church, and the Church without the Holy See were both patently absurd to his logical, Thomist and Catholic mind. Hence his all-absorbing love of the Holy Father. He has in his affection for his friends done everything humanly possible to obtain for them honours from the King, although he himself would not have touched them at any cost. But it was almost childish that he accepted the honour of being made a Papal Chamberlain. Those who know their Newman will remember that, humble and holy as Newman was he accepted the offer of a cardinalate with great thankfulness as it set the seal on his Catholic orthodoxy. J. P. cherished this gift from His Holiness above all things, and was eagerly preparing to go to Rome to be a Chamberlain in fact and thus to be near the Holy Father.
And now he has his heart’s desire, for, from above he will be able to do more for the Holy Father and for the Church and for all of us than he was ever able to achieve while on this earth. May his spirit live with us for ever.
Fr. Peter Pillai., O. M. I., Blue and White, 1949.
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The Ceylon Catholic Messenger, Sunday March 6th, 1949