Gwendolen Greene: “‘To sanctify is the biggest thing out.’ These words . . . express what he was, what he meant, what he wished most to do. His whole life lies in them. He tried to find truth, to teach us God, to sanctify our lives. He loved, and he wanted to teach us to love.”Footnote 1
These words from Gwendolen Greene highlight the centrality of spiritual formation in Baron Friedrich von Hügel's life and work, particularly during his final decade of life. This article traces the role of history in the Baron's spiritual formation of five individuals. History is not a commonly emphasized component in contemporary discourse about spiritual formation, but interestingly, engaging with history was a central component of Friedrich von Hügel's spiritual direction. This is hardly surprising, given history was part of von Hügel's three “Elements of Religion,” which was the controlling paradigm for his life. He viewed history as an essential safeguard and enrichment for mystical experience. Von Hügel wanted his spiritual directees to develop an expansive worldview and grow in discernment through reading the great spiritual figures of the past.
The Baron's use of history in formation was slightly different for each spiritual directee, highlighting different ways history can be utilized to support spiritual growth. For Evelyn Underhill, focusing devotionally upon the historic Christ led her to “encounter” Christ; for Gwendolen Greene, reading secular history enabled her to think critically and appreciate the contrasting worldview presented by Christian mystical writings; for Henri Garceau, exposure to biblical history and catechism gave rise to his confirmation. The Baron's formation of two young women also involved history but did not yield such positive results. These failures, however, can be primarily attributed to von Hügel’s insensitivity to the developmental needs and personalities of both directees, and his provision of unsuitably difficult historical readings. Pressuring Juliet Mansel to make history her vocation and suggesting historical books to read while nursing on the war front was clearly counterproductive. Pushing his daughter Gertrud into the complexities of biblical historical criticism and leaning on her emotionally caused her breakdown.
This research contributes to the existing literature in two ways. First, drawing extensively upon von Hügel's unpublished letters and diary entries provides a window into his formation of individuals that has not been captured in the existing scholarly literature. Second, no substantial discussion of the Baron's use of history to nurture individuals has been written to date. These five stories of von Hügel's spiritual direction are uncovered from original research from several British archives: University of St. Andrews, Special Collections, Downside Abbey archive, King's College London archive, The House of Retreat Pleshey archive, plus two British family archives.
This article builds upon previous research about von Hügel as a spiritual director by Douglas SteereFootnote 2 and Ellen Leonard.Footnote 3 Both scholars provide penetrating observations but have relied entirely on published letters and acknowledge “room” for further research of the Baron's spiritual counsel.Footnote 4 Though Hinson, Maeder, Mitchell, and Maddock emphasize the value of von Hügel's soul care, they only provide general overviews, include no unpublished letters or diary entries as source material, and do not focus upon history in the Baron's soul care.Footnote 5 Johns' recent chapter, entitled “Historically Ungrateful,” highlights von Hügel's critique of a lack of history in the writings of George Fox, but does not mention this concept in the Baron's own spiritual direction.Footnote 6
In our increasingly complex world, the study of history is more important than ever. History has the potential to provide us with both perspective and wisdom through learning from figures more prayerful than most moderns, observing how they approached similar challenges. Also, seeing the big picture historically can help us more understand the present. But in recent decades, history has sometimes been viewed as an “irrelevant” luxury.Footnote 7 At a time when the importance of history is often downplayed, sidelined, or diminished, it is timely to consider the role of history in spiritual formation.
Introducing Baron Friedrich von Hügel (1852–1925)
Baron Friedrich von Hügel was described in his day as the “most learned man living” and a “religious genius.”Footnote 8 But despite these accolades regarding his academic acumen, the Baron's biographer, Bedoyère, argues that von Hügel's scholarship and learning were the least of his claims on posterity. “Far beyond them” was his contribution as a “unique personal explorer and guide into the deepest things of the spirit” and his “special genius . . . offering help and guidance to so many.”Footnote 9 The Quaker philosopher, Douglas Steere, echoes this view, describing von Hügel's “spiritual counselling” as the “central axis” setting the frames for his intellectual contribution, thus he should be “chiefly remembered . . . as a guide and encourager of souls.”Footnote 10 The Baron's own debt to his spiritual director, Abbé Huvelin, and the seventeenth-century scholar-saints, provided some of the impetus for his desire to similarly enrich others’ lives. His “supreme interest” lay in “souls and their growth.”Footnote 11
Von Hügel's childhood involved immersion in rich contexts, full of history. His father was a Rhineland Baron in the Austro-Hungarian diplomatic service, so von Hügel lived in Florence for his first eight years. The Baron reflects upon how he developed a vivid sense of a “mysterious divine Presence in the churches of Florence. Thus historical religion was with me . . . from the first.”Footnote 12 His next decade was lived in Brussels, then he spent most of his adult life in London. This cosmopolitan upbringing awarded him fluency in several languages. The Baron never attended school, so his own formal, historical knowledge was gained through home tutors, plus his own wide reading as a gentleman-scholar, with the inherited title, Baron of the Roman Empire. Though he never attended University, von Hügel was awarded honorary doctorates from the Universities of Oxford and St Andrews, plus an invitation to present the Gifford lectures. Von Hügel's lack of formal education helped him develop an originality in his thinking, plus a freedom from fads in scholarship that can occur in particular locations. C. C. J. Webb acknowledged the Baron's “more free and individualised flowering of his intellectual and emotional, richly human nature.”Footnote 13 Von Hügel's delicate health forced his scholarship to be balanced with rest, daily walks, conversations, church visits, and deep prayerful reflection. This provided his writings time to percolate, allowing, in his words, the opportunity for “living and growing into it.”Footnote 14
History and the Three “Elements of Religion”
Von Hügel declared he could not live without a religion “full of history.”Footnote 15 This conviction is clearly revealed in his magnum opus, The Mystical Element of Religion, published in 1908.Footnote 16 He chose to portray a “large-souled pre-Protestant, post-Medieval Catholic,” Catherine of Genoa.Footnote 17 Von Hügel's motive was to have “long, close contact with a soul of most rare spiritual depth” who presents the “greatness, helps, problems and dangers of the mystical spirit.”Footnote 18 He insisted that history possesses a “method, type and aim” quite different from the physical sciences, with an “irreplaceable function” in the development of the “fullest spiritual life,” including its “consolidation” and “growth.”Footnote 19 The Baron wanted to discover how a soul who had developed such a taste for God, still makes room for the historical, institutional, and intellectual elements in her religious life.Footnote 20
In volume I, von Hügel outlined his “Three Elements of Religion,” and this became an organizing principle for both his life and his spiritual direction. Crudely put, the “Three Elements” are the “Intellectual Element” (rational and theological), “Mystical Element” (experiential and devotional), and “Institutional Element” (church involvement, the sacraments, community, tradition, and history). The Baron argued that having all three elements operating in creative tension is necessary, and to omit one element impoverishes our response to God. Von Hügel was a living example of the need for an “active, intellectual, and mystical life.”Footnote 21 Even though his two-volume tome has the Mystical Element in its title, von Hügel spent more time discussing the Institutional Element, and history is a fundamental aspect of that element.
History and the “Institutional Element of Religion”
Earlier, in his 1905 paper “The Place and Function of the Historical Element in Religion,” von Hügel argued that though the natural sciences have “greater clearness” and “transferableness,” the historical sciences have “indefinitely greater vividness, depth and reality.”Footnote 22 He believed that religion requires “close and insuppressible” relations with history; we need to include the historical for religion to “express itself,” so it needs to be studied “according to the method, categories, and ideals of History.”Footnote 23 The Baron believed all genuine religion requires “really happened Historical Facts and Persons,” thus Christianity's greatness resides in its “all-pervasive and persistent Incarnational trend”; “God, the Eternal Spirit, here reveals Himself to us, and touches us, in Duration and through Matter.”Footnote 24 This idea of historicity was most evident in von Hügel's focus upon the historical Jesus of Nazareth, as outlined in an essay on Christ: “Our souls are only awakened to the presence of spiritual realities when a contingent and historical stimulus from without excites them. . . . The central affirmation to which we adhere is the Incarnation of God in man—and this is in a unique and definitely historical manner.”Footnote 25
In his first volume of Essays and Addresses, the Baron reiterated that Christianity is the “original awakener of the deeper Historic sense,” given the centrality of the incarnation.Footnote 26 He even dedicated his volume to Dante “in lively gratitude for inspiration and support throughout some sixty years of spiritual stress” and emphasized how the “Golden Middle Age markedly deepened” our “apprehension” of what it is to be human.Footnote 27 In his biblical articles, von Hügel also emphasized the necessity of rigor coupled with freedom in historical criticism.Footnote 28 History and the Institutional Element were also highlighted in his second book, Eternal Life, published in 1912.
History and the Cultivation of “Eternal Life”
In Eternal Life, von Hügel not only provided a meticulous history of “Eternal Life,” but he emphasized history as the “crux” of Christianity. He wrote, it is “only in and through History, only by means of concrete happenings in time and space,” that humanity can awaken and apprehend God.Footnote 29 One of the aims in his spiritual nurture was helping people cultivate an awareness and sense of this abiding presence of God, as the primary means to growth. In describing the soul, which “practises and experiences Eternal Life,” von Hügel implicitly suggested that being aware of God's presence is something that can be nurtured.Footnote 30 Von Hügel wrote that the functioning of Eternal Life in the believer requires “Duration, history; Space, Institutions; Material Stimulations and symbols, something sacramental.”Footnote 31 The Baron clearly held the conviction that history is important in spiritual growth.
Von Hügel wrote that to experience Eternal Life is to live a qualitatively different life; it is the experience of “a Living One . . . Who, touching me, the inferior, derivative life, can cause me to live by His aid and for His sake.”Footnote 32 Von Hügel's idea that “intimations” of eternal life can be experienced in our present lives if we are spiritually alive points to his understanding of the mystical element of religion.Footnote 33 He believed the indwelling of eternal life gives us a double sense of reality, for we live in two worlds, the seen and unseen, and this double sense will “make us profoundly concrete, historical, incarnational, ontological, real.”Footnote 34 This idea of experiencing eternal life now is a crucial concept underlying von Hügel's theology of spiritual formation, and history clearly plays a crucial role.
The Role of History and Mysticism in von Hügel's Life
History and mysticism were significant for von Hügel, both in the context of Catholic modernism and in his life more generally. Despite his desire for “elbow room” and freedom in critico-historical studies of scripture from as early as 1884 and his subsequent modernist involvement, it was the Mystical Element rather than the Historical Element that was most operative throughout the Baron's life. Recent scholarship, such as Talar's Modernists and Mystics, highlights the “incongruous combination” of modernism and mysticism in von Hügel, who looked forward in terms of historical critical studies of Scripture, but simultaneously was constantly looking back to the past mystical tradition of the church; he was a modernist with a “mystic turn.”Footnote 35 Another recent commentator, Stoll, explores the importance of mysticism and “religious experience” in von Hügel's life, similarly emphasizing the influence of historical mystics plus Protestant contemporaries such as William James and Ernst Troeltsch.Footnote 36 Kallistos Ware highlights the importance of the Mystical Element for the Baron, not simply in terms of the “subjective experience,” but also as the “objective truth which that experience mediates”; hence mysticism requires “an expression of theological fact” concerning God, as revealed historically in the incarnation.Footnote 37 So we see some streams of contemporary scholarship highlighting this weaving together of both mysticism and history in von Hügel's lived reality.
Earlier commentators have similarly emphasized the importance of the mystical element in the Baron's life and writings. Barmann argues we can only truly see von Hügel if we consider him in a “larger context” than Catholic modernism.Footnote 38 He contends that it was the “mystical dimension” that most “attracted” von Hügel, enabling him to “flourish”—informing and guiding his critical biblical studies, which were just one aspect of his “over-all pursuit of God.”Footnote 39 Similarly, Leonard emphasizes the necessity to see the Baron's critical biblical study alongside his study of mysticism, given that the “creative tension” and “friction” of his attempts to integrate the three elements lie at the heart of his spirituality and are part of his spiritual legacy.Footnote 40 Kelly also argues that von Hügel stressed the primacy of the mystical element, but never lost sight of the fact that religion is always “mediated and has an external historical component of God addressing his people in words and deeds, in flesh and blood.”Footnote 41 Sherry highlights the importance of God's transcendence for the Baron, hence the necessity for religion to be dependent on “historical facts” to safeguard against subjectivism; God has “acted in history,” hence the “happenedness” of historical facts.Footnote 42 A recurring underlying conviction for von Hügel was that the eternal is mediated through events, hence the Mystical Element is both an encounter and historic actuality.
History was always vividly operative in the Baron's life, and the historical/institutional element of religion was particularly significant for him as a Catholic living in England. Von Hügel represented European Catholics who had brought their international flavor and breadth to English Catholicism.Footnote 43 But Anglican-Catholic controversy had already emerged powerfully during the nineteenth century. Von Hügel was in correspondence with John Henry Newman during the very years when we see William Gladstone's Rome and the Newest Fashions in Religion and John Henry Newman's Reply to Mr. Gladstone's Pamphlet. Footnote 44 Alongside these church controversies, the Baron also operated in a context when historical biblical criticism was beginning to shake religion's traditional authority. As church attendance began to decline, mysticism began to flourish.Footnote 45
The Revival of Mysticism
In von Hügel's day, the growing emphasis on critical historical analysis of scripture was coupled with a revival of interest in mysticism. Houston views this turn toward mysticism as a “cultural reaction” to the Enlightenment's rationalism, which had “suppressed the human spirit” through emphasizing “thinking rather than living.”Footnote 46 In 1899, W. R. Inge's Bampton Lectures were published as Christian Mysticism, followed by the Baron's two-volume tome, The Mystical Element of Religion in 1908, then Evelyn Underhill's Mysticism in 1911. International names promoting mysticism at the time included the American Quaker, Rufus Jones; the Swedish Lutheran, Nathan Söderblom; the German philosopher, Rudolf Otto; and the American psychologist, William James. This shift became the first “reinvention” of mysticism since the seventeenth century when Michel de Certeau had enabled mystical texts to emerge as a distinct class.Footnote 47 The experiential was again beginning to be taken seriously, but past misrepresentations of mysticism meant scholars were careful to make the distinction between “abnormal” and “normal” mystical experiences, explicitly distancing themselves from theosophists and occultists.Footnote 48 Von Hügel was deeply disturbed by theosophy and spiritualism, and was vividly aware that religion that neglects the historical can produce “emaciated and twisted stereotypes and patterns of emotional religion.”Footnote 49 Though he emphasized intuition and the experiential, he always recognized the “place of history as a science” with its “purifying and deepening role,” and emphasized historical revelation.Footnote 50 As Steere notes, von Hügel planted “the nail-marked foot of Jesus Christ” in the “door of any such excess” that demanded a “reckoning.”Footnote 51 Also, the Baron believed we can only live “deeply and faithfully” in the ‘Present' if we are profoundly and affectionately rooted in the Past,” for we are “only awakened, by the Past,” hence religion requires “factual happenings . . . contingencies in time.”Footnote 52 So von Hügel brought the life of the spirit into creative tension with the historical, through a meticulous exploration from all angles coupled with a prayerful learning posture, open to whatever truth there was to find. Central to this work was the Baron's ongoing reliance on historic models in mysticism. History, for von Hügel, meant attentiveness to the Community of Saints. On All Saints Day, he would “look up” at the “glorious, touching company”; he was animated by those “heroic souls” of former times.Footnote 53
Von Hügel's Formation through Historical Figures: “One Torch Lights Another”
History was key to the Baron's ongoing personal integration, as he was inspired by saintly models who had lived before him. It is hardly surprising his daily devotional reading included à Kempis's Imitation and Augustine's Confessions.Footnote 54 Von Hügel's devotional life, with its rich dependence on these historic readings, enabled him to grow in openness and prayer, so that the mystical could truly flourish in his life.Footnote 55 The Baron believed “souls—all human souls—are deeply interconnected,” hence the human need to be rooted in a community of faith, particularly in the historic “invisible” church.Footnote 56 Von Hügel called this the “sacred torch race across the ages” whereby “one torch lights another.”Footnote 57
The primary “torch” for von Hügel was Abbé Henri Huvelin (1838–1910), who confirmed his pursuit of the mystical dimension. The Baron wrote, “I learnt all I know from Huvelin.”Footnote 58 The Abbé led von Hügel towards “large-souled,” seventeenth century, French scholar-saints such as Fénelon, Grou, and de Sales, who became powerful models regarding spiritual nurture.Footnote 59 Von Hügel later reflected, “I have been immensely helped by the St. Francis de Sales-Fénelon-Grou type and hence have worked to put these helps within the reach of others also.”Footnote 60 The Baron was constantly aware of wanting to learn from the “great minds of the past.”Footnote 61 He believed that “standing upon their shoulders” he would be able to “see still further than they did,” but on his “own feet alone” he would “certainly see much less far than any of them saw.”Footnote 62 But this was not simply hagiography. These historical figures provided von Hügel with powerful examples of the mixed life of historical scholarship and mystical experience, which became central to his life.Footnote 63 Recognizing how the Quietist movement had devalued historical, incarnational Christianity, the Baron looked to what Lash calls the “forgotten tradition of ‘wholeness’” of pre-Reformation Catholicism as a correction.Footnote 64 His historical work on St. Catherine of Genoa revealed the limitations of a mysticism that did not give enough attention to the institutional.Footnote 65
The Baron repeatedly highlighted the importance of history as a safeguard to mysticism in his spiritual direction. As a gentleman scholar, von Hügel had time to provide spiritual direction and was highly sought after. It seems the Baron's insights were in demand because he could “penetrate” and “vivify” souls and “discern” spirits, and he possessed a “spiritual persuasiveness” that pointed to the reality and “loveliness of God.”Footnote 66 Of the five spiritual directees discussed in this article, Underhill, Garceau's parents, and Mansel's grandparents requested his guidance. The other two directees, Greene and Gertrud von Hügel, were invited to read with von Hügel.Footnote 67 We now turn to examine von Hügel's spiritual direction of five individuals, particularly focusing on the role of history in their formation.
History and Christ: Evelyn Underhill (1875–1941)
Evelyn Underhill: “I owe him my whole spiritual life.”Footnote 68
Evelyn Underhill was not brought up on religion, and though confirmed an Anglican at boarding school, it had meant little to her.Footnote 69 She read philosophy books in her father's library as well as making annual trips to Italy where encounters with religious art and architecture gradually opened up for her the unseen, mystical reality. Around 1903, she became a member of an occultic brotherhood, the “Hermetic Society of the Golden Dawn,” but by 1905, she had lost interest and left the group. In 1907, Underhill went on a retreat at the Franciscan Convent of Perpetual Adoration at Southampton. Gradually “the net closed in” as she was “driven nearer and nearer to Christianity” and was “converted” quite suddenly, convinced that Catholicism would be her home. But her fiancé's opposition halted her conversion and she wandered for over a decade without a Church home and experienced “spiritual troubles.”Footnote 70 During the war she “went to pieces” for her abstracted, disembodied mysticism could not sustain her through the war's harsh realities.Footnote 71 While researching Jacopone da Todi in 1918, Underhill started to perceive the limitations in her neo-Platonic worldview, encountering a Christocentric spirituality that began to take her beyond her philosophically based Theism.Footnote 72
Underhill had been a successful writer in Christian mysticism for many years by the time she asked von Hügel to help with her “spiritual views” and “practices” in 1921.Footnote 73 Von Hügel replied he had been praying and longing for her to be readied by God.Footnote 74 Being vividly aware of Underhill's wide influence and readership, he hoped she would become “more harmonious and more deep in herself” so she would do “much pure good” rather than in his words, “a little harm mixed with some good.”Footnote 75 Straight away he asked Underhill to write a report concerning “where she stood,” then responded with a “rough set of rules and proposals.”Footnote 76
Von Hügel diagnosed Underhill's affliction with “pure mysticism,” which had led to her drifting towards a vague “inwardness.”Footnote 77 The Baron recognized Underhill had read and thought a great deal, leading to an excess of the Intellectual Element, coupled with a spirituality disconnected from the historical Christ and the church. Von Hügel believed she needed “deintellectualising,” for too much blood was lodged in her brain,Footnote 78 plus she required balancing through the Institutional Element, particularly with a Christocentric focus. Her mysticism needed to be brought into tension with both the institutional and historical, so history became a key component in von Hügel's development of Underhill's Christocentricity. History would provide the essential “corrective against the delusions of a false Mysticism.”Footnote 79 For the Baron had a “horror of Pantheism” and believed we escape it “through Christ,” thus he emphasized a “transcendent immanentism something that we do not make but find.”Footnote 80
Underhill had known von Hügel for a decade before asking him for spiritual direction in 1921. They first met in 1911, when von Hügel visited her to discuss her book, Mysticism. It is striking that even at this early stage, the Baron's critique highlighted Underhill's lack of attention to “institutional, historical . . . religion.”Footnote 81 Two months later, Underhill wrote: “I have become the friend (or rather the disciple and admirer) of von Hügel. He is the most wonderful personality I have ever known—so saintly, so truthful, sane and tolerant. I feel safe and happy sitting in his shadow.”Footnote 82
In the following decade, we see several mentions of Underhill in von Hügel's diaries. Many of these contacts involve his encouragement to take history seriously. For instance, von Hügel answered her questions about “New Testament Mysticism,” dropping in written articles to her.Footnote 83 In 1913 after Underhill published The Mystic Way, von Hügel wrote her an encouraging note, saying, “[H]ow carefully you seem to have borne in mind the all important place and function in religion of liturgical acts, of the Sacrament, of the Visible, of History.”Footnote 84 Von Hügel provided occasional encouragement to Underhill over the following six years, until he was invited to be her spiritual director.
From 1921, von Hügel spiritually directed Underhill twice a year via letter, providing explicit direction and had her write a report each six months. He “purposely” decided not to see her in-between, despite the fact she lived only a short walk from him.Footnote 85 Underhill came to von Hügel with a Unitarian mindset with no practices of Christocentric prayer and with only a distant respect for the Incarnation.Footnote 86 A focus on the historical Christ was key in her transformation from her “pure mysticism.” The Baron told her that some historical happenings are required in Christianity, so he encouraged her to gently drop her nonhistorical approach, inviting her to view Christ as the revelation of God. She was to try to develop a religion of a “definitely historical kind” that includes Christ's life and death.Footnote 87 Gradually, Underhill came to the point of being able to write to von Hügel:
Historical values in religion. Yes! I now fully and solidly accept your position. . . . The main historical happenings . . . especially the Passion—are absolutely necessary to Christianity as I understand it. . . they now mean a great deal more to me. Also as regards Holy Communion, the historical link comes in strongly, and at least part of what it seems to me . . . is the feeling of being linked with, and doing the same thing as all the others who have really cared, right from the beginning—and through them, stretching back to the beginning, too.Footnote 88
Von Hügel wrote in response that he was “delighted” with her “growth here.”Footnote 89 Thereafter Underhill made history part of her Rule of Life in 1921: “Try to set about humble, full, definite development of principle of God found in history, here and now . . . and make this part of the rock of personal faith. Realise that all powerful and personal religion requires some historical happenings as essential to its completeness. Strive to eliminate a merely philosophically based Theism in favour of real Incarnationalism.”Footnote 90
The Baron urged Underhill to “feel the factualness, the happenedness [sic] of our Lord, of His Passion, and of the Holy Communion” and thus “feed and articulate the Christocentric movement.”Footnote 91 She was to try to work “wholeheartedly” making “Historical Happenings” the “chief beams” of her “spiritual edifice, part of the rock, known and willed at all times of your faith” for such belief he deemed “necessary.”Footnote 92 Underhill was told that God manifests Himself through “historical happenings,” through Christ in the manger and on the cross; it was crucial to “gain” that incarnational mindset, by “at least thinking of Our Lord at Holy Communion.”Footnote 93 But Underhill found it impossible, declaring she could not “do” Christo-centric devotion.Footnote 94 The Baron was firm, arguing that her “hopelessly Theocentric mind and practice” required Christocentric devotion; she should try to nurture a “sensible, contingent, historical, incarnational current,” since it had been “starved, and if she could not pray to Jesus as “God Incarnate,” she should simply pray to “God Unincarnate” affectionately pondering “Nazareth, the Lake of Galilee, and/or Calvary, where so much love was shown . . . for God and by God.”Footnote 95
Gradually, a shift began to occur from Underhill's “purely mystical, philosophic” stance, to a more “Catholic Incarnational” spirituality and practice; “the two currents being gradually interwoven, with special care given to the Incarnational and Sacramental,” given it had been “specially starved.”Footnote 96 By 1922, Underhill began to “bridge the gap between theism and Christian devotion,” and felt her “universe” was “all in one piece again” with the “transcendental and incarnational currents . . . woven together,” but Underhill admitted the “incarnational current” was still weak.Footnote 97 With time, the “Christocentric side” nearly dominated, becoming “deeper and stronger.” She wrote to the Baron with joy:
I never dreamed it was like this. It's just beginning now to dawn on me what the Sacramental Life really does involve: but it is only in flashes of a miraculous penetration I can realise this. . . I have never known before such deep and real happiness, such a sense of at last having got my real permanent life and being able to love without stint where I am meant to love. It is as if one were suddenly liberated and able to expand all round. Such joy that it sometimes almost hurts. All this, humanly speaking, I owe entirely to you.Footnote 98
In 1927, looking back, Underhill wrote of how prior to meeting with von Hügel, she had been a “convinced Theocentric,” a “Unitarian” who thought Christocentric language and practice “sentimental and superstitious” and had “no experience” of Christ. She continued: “Somehow by his prayers or something, he compelled me to experience Christ. He never said anything more about it—but I know humanly speaking he did it. It took about four months—it was like watching the sun rise very slowly—and then suddenly one knew what it was.”Footnote 99
Thereafter Underhill found her experience of God centering with “increasing vividness” on Christ; the New Testament, which she had never been able to “make much of” or meditate upon, became “full of things never noticed,” becoming “more alive and compellingly beautiful.” Holy Communion became more “wonderful.”Footnote 100
Though Underhill is unequivocal about the positive value of the Baron's spiritual direction, questions remain concerning the place of patriarchal “obedience” in this nurture. Sarah Coakley identifies ways that gendered relationships often include roles of “power” and “submission.”Footnote 101 Though Underhill appears to accept von Hügel's insistence that she needs “deintellectualising,” at times his language as spiritual director indicates forceful control. For example, “So long as you choose to remain under my Direction, you will, please never think of any confessions.”Footnote 102 He was similarly authoritative when instructing her about retreat attendance: “I do not recognise your right (given that you choose to have me for your spiritual advisor) to go without consulting me.”Footnote 103 Underhill does not appear to be uncomfortable, declaring in a facetious way, “I have kept on my collar-and-chain.”Footnote 104 Despite this throwaway line, the Baron's dominance toward Underhill appears to sometimes have authoritarian and somewhat suffocating overtones. It is worth balancing this, however, with von Hügel's repeated more freeing words to other directees to ignore unhelpful advice: “Leave out all that does not help you.”Footnote 105 So perhaps von Hügel was unusually forceful and assertive with Underhill, who told Menzies the Baron could be severe: “You should see my old man.”Footnote 106
Despite these lingering questions, Underhill spoke in glowing terms of von Hügel's “rich and balanced vision”Footnote 107 and the “depth of the riches which he had to bestow” as “father of souls.”Footnote 108 The importance of history and the incarnation was central to von Hügel's formation of Underhill, helping her gain a Christocentric focus that she retained for the rest of her life. Inclusion of instruction about Christ's historical life during spiritual direction is hardly surprising. What is less usual is the inclusion of pagan history, as evident in von Hügel's nurture of Gwendolen Greene.
Secular History and Spiritual Formation: Gwendolen Greene (1878–1959)
Gwendolen Greene: “To my Uncle I owe, under God, all I see.”Footnote 109
Gwendolen Greene was the second daughter of the British composer, Sir Hubert Parry, and Lady Elizbeth Hubert, and was von Hügel's niece. She grew up among the “Souls,” amidst the heart of late Victorian artistic and musical society with dinner party guests like Beatrix Potter, Oscar Wilde, and numerous composers.Footnote 110 Greene was an accomplished violinist who married the baritone singer Harry Plunket Greene in 1899. They had three children, but the marriage was abusive, so she left him in 1919. Three years earlier, the Baron had invited Greene to read with him. Greene reflects, “I welcomed this reading, and we started . . . with a history of Rome.”Footnote 111 Von Hügel nurtured Greene until his death in 1925. His nurture is captured through seventy-seven of the letters he wrote to her (117 in total), published in Letters from Baron von Hügel to a Niece, plus entries in his daily diaries during these years. In her thirty-eight-page “Introduction” to the volume, Greene adds her perceptive reminiscences. After the book was published, Greene received letters from people all over the world asking her how to “live” the letters. Her book, Mount Zion, was her attempt to answer their questions.
The Baron was explicit about his nurture of Greene primarily through history. He wrote: “I want to teach you through history. History is an enlargement of personal experience, history pressing the past. We must have the closest contact with the past. How poor and thin a thing is all purely personal religion! . . . You must get a larger experience—you gain it by a study of history. . . . I want you to learn about the great souls that lived through all those tracts of time. . . . Religion to be deep and rich must be historical.”Footnote 112
Through an immersion in history, von Hügel sought to help Greene avoid an “individualistic, sectarian, single Bible-texts, point of view,” for he told Greene, “You cannot get these great questions solved . . . except through much history, institutions, Church appurtenances.”Footnote 113 Greene describes first hand the Baron's method: “He wanted to try and strengthen my character, feed my soul: and I was to learn through history.”Footnote 114 This historic approach to spiritual direction through engaging freely and rigorously with secular readings appears to have been fairly original. Certainly, Greene's subsequent spiritual director, Father Bede Jarrett, did not utilize this method.Footnote 115
Von Hügel began Greene's historical education with a great deal of pagan history, beginning with Roman history and poetry, and the persecution of the Christians, then moving onto Greek historians and philosophers.Footnote 116 Von Hügel had very clear reasons for beginning this way. First, he wanted to help Greene develop a large, historical world-view as a basis for later introducing Christian readings. Second, he wanted her to recognize the factuality and historicity of Christianity against the backdrop of ancient Rome.Footnote 117
Third, his desire was that Greene understand the context and background within which Christianity arose in order to help her see more clearly the differences between Gnostic and Pagan thinking and the Christian thinking that followed it. He hoped that when she later read religious books, they would “penetrate and purify a whole mass of not directly religious material and life,”Footnote 118 and that she might recognize the difference between Socrates's tone and the teaching of the Christians.Footnote 119 He told Greene that exposure to Gnostic works was designed to “bring home the reality, the irreplaceableness, of Christianity” and to “protect” her through the “self-expansion we can attain by history, from the Esoteric Buddhists, the Spiritualists” and “Gnostics of our day.”Footnote 120
Fourth, von Hügel felt that intertwining this “double current” of the “directly religious” and “directly not religious” would help Greene be less reactionary to issues.Footnote 121 Such a “double current” was designed to enable Greene to critique the “windy impulsions” and “wild rootlessness” of politicians. Von Hügel wrote: “The habitual living in a world steeped in history, in knowledge of the human heart—your own, first and foremost, and, above all, in a sense of the presence, the power, the prevenience of God, the healing Divine Dwarfer of our poor little man-centred, indeed even self-centred schemes.”Footnote 122
Fifth, exposing Greene to this intertwined history was to help her become “self-trained in the fruitful art and virtue of gathering roses amidst thorns, and of discerning jewel eyes in a toad's head. I want my niece to end up becoming such a discriminator.”Footnote 123 Sixth, von Hügel wanted Greene to be able to see the big picture historically so she could more fully understand the present. He commented, “I am trying to get such words as ‘Rome,’ ‘Athens,’ etc. to mean a great rich world to you.”Footnote 124
When von Hügel finally introduced Greene to Christian writings,Footnote 125 she complained that they made nonreligious subjects “insipid.”Footnote 126 Von Hügel replied, “Ignore, and vigorously . . . react against, this mentality,” encouraging her to continue pursuing this “double current” of religious and nonreligious reading.Footnote 127
The Baron also nurtured Greene through historical spiritual writings. Greene reflected that she “learnt of the true spirituality of great Christian souls, and was taught something of the practice of religiously consecrated and devoted . . . hidden historic lives, hitherto utterly unknown” to her.Footnote 128 For example, Greene “never forgot” the “spiritual ancestry” of Huvelin, who she spoke of with reverence—“those brave spirits who owe their formation to Huvelin”—practicing “silence and stillness.”Footnote 129
As well as sending Greene books and articles, von Hügel also taught her how to read historical works. Lamenting the “excess of analysis over synthesis” in his day and the focus on microscopic enquiry rather than “to become and to be . . . to adore and to will,” the Baron emphasized that to “see things in the large and upon the whole . . . is what we all require.”Footnote 130 Von Hügel also helped Greene adopt a “frame of mind” when reading, particularly Christian books, so she would “grow in insight, love and fruitfulness.”Footnote 131 He told her the “chief reason why so few minds grow in their outlook” after early adulthood is that they are “so busy, pompously affirming to themselves and others that they don't and can't see this or that” that they “harden down” into their “narrow, stuffy little world.”Footnote 132 By contrast, von Hügel encouraged Greene to be “very humble, very certain that there exist oceans of reality—of things and laws beautiful, true, good and holy, beyond this our present insight and operation.”Footnote 133 He also taught Greene a “double system of annotation” to make “the reading sink ever so much more lastingly” into her.Footnote 134 He suggested Greene write on fly leaves at the beginning of books points she loved or had learned from, then write on the fly leaves at the back of books what she had not appreciated or objected to.Footnote 135
Despite Greene describing these discussions and letters from the Baron as the “greatest privilege and joy” and that if she has “learnt anything, it is from him that I learned,” it is worth highlighting the asymmetrical, patriarchal aspects of the relationship.Footnote 136 The physical organization for face-to-face meetings reflects this reality. Von Hügel told her, “Sit on a footstool here, by me, Daughter; and I will try to give you . . . interior things,” so she always sat on the “same little low chair.”Footnote 137 He believed that “people always listened best when they did something with their hands” and was “never quite comfortable speaking to a woman unless her fingers are busy meanwhile.”Footnote 138 So Greene would always sit quietly knitting during sessions. This is a vastly different model from more contemporary models of spiritual direction where the director provides “attentive listening” and asks perceptive questions.Footnote 139 Clearly the Baron's deafness was a factor here, making normal dialogue difficult, which might also account for his preference for writing letters of spiritual direction.Footnote 140 Maude Petre confirms that talks with von Hügel were “mainly monologues” but adds, “But what monologues! They seemed to have been divined beforehand, and now to have the one purpose of satisfying your special need of the moment, a need of which perhaps you had never been fully aware until that moment.”Footnote 141 Despite this, Greene reflects, “I always felt like a child with my uncle, and I never attempted to be anything else.” This is further reflected in him addressing his letters to her as “My ever darling Gwen-child” or “darling Child mine,” closing with “Loving old, Uncle-Father.”Footnote 142 But we sense Greene's frustration at being silenced when she wanted to express her desire to convert to Catholicism: “I do blame myself for not showing him. . . . I was so used to listening and accepting, not explaining.” The fact that she “blames” herself for not speaking up when she was told that her role was to listen is slightly troubling; surely the Baron's role as spiritual director was to carefully attend to Greene and draw out her concerns and longings, rather than lecture her.
So though von Hügel introduced his niece to secular history, expanding her understandings so she could more fully appreciate the wonders of Christian mystical writings when they were later introduced, her being silenced in their interactions in addition to her positioning as a child raise questions around the effectiveness of his approach. Another directee that the Baron introduced to secular and biblical history was Henri Garceau.
History and Education: Henri Garceau (1904–1930)
Lady Mary: “You are too tired for the boys tonight, you have worked too hard.” Von Hügel: “No, let them come: they are one of my most important works in life.”Footnote 143
Von Hügel's love for children was expressed through his endless commitment of time and devotion as spiritual guide. As Bedoyère observed, the Baron “loved the chance of educating aright to God . . . minds still unspoilt.”Footnote 144 Between 1915 and 1923, von Hügel gave spiritual nurture to Henri Garceau and to his brother, Gilbert, from 1919 until von Hügel's death.Footnote 145 The Garceau brothers lived across the square from the Baron in Vicarage Gate, London. Their mother and aunt were both child prodigy pianists, famously known as “the little Doustes,” and were summoned by royals to perform.Footnote 146 Henri Garceau's father was in the French reserves and was recalled to France in 1914, so von Hügel became a father figure in Garceau's life. In 1915, the Baron had been asked to undertake their son's catechism so he gave Henri thirty-minute, biweekly lessons on Wednesday and Saturday evenings.Footnote 147 Von Hügel described this spiritual nurture: “I am having . . . a boy of twelve—to instruct in religion. . . . I have . . . to clothe the selections in childish imagery, illustration . . . and then he understands what I say.”Footnote 148 Throughout the following eight years of von Hügel's diaries, we see constant mentions of his lessons with Garceau and the content covered, including biblical history.Footnote 149
Garceau's school education had been with private tutors but the Baron felt he should attend school. After interviewing headmasters, he chose St. Paul's School, prepared Garceau for the entrance exam, and paid his school fees. Von Hügel took a thorough interest in Garceau's school reports, went through notes given by his teachers, helped him prepare for his Latin and Greek exams, and always noted Garceau's exam dates and results in his diary.Footnote 150 He often took Garceau on educational outings to London museums and galleries, such as the British Museum, as part of this historical formation.
After an initial five months of meetings, von Hügel took Garceau to the priest for confirmation and his first confession.Footnote 151 At his first Communion, von Hügel wrote to Garceau affectionately: “It is for love that He touches you . . . so that by loving Him more and more you may be increasingly happy . . . the heart of Jesus, so gentle and humble, will help you all your life.”Footnote 152 Garceau joined von Hügel in his pew for Mass, and von Hügel became Garceau's godfather when he was confirmed in February 1923.Footnote 153 For Garceau's eighteenth birthday, von Hügel bought him a silver watch with the inscribed words “Ad hoc” to remind him of the principles he had sought to instill.Footnote 154 Garceau's mother wrote: “The Baron wished to give him something that would be a constant reminder to the lad of those principles of work and morals upon which his youth had been built up: a perpetual souvenir for those ‘happy hours’ during which his preceptor had watched the unfolding of the man whom he desired to shape.”Footnote 155
Von Hügel had sold his father's gold watch chain to buy the watch, thereafter wearing only a leather guard.Footnote 156 The following year he gave Garceau a Douai-Rheims English Bible for his birthday.Footnote 157 In October 1923, Garceau gained a scholarship to Cambridge and von Hügel's meetings with him ended, but he still loaned him books.Footnote 158 Garceau's father twice thanked von Hügel “most cordially” for his son's nurture.Footnote 159 Tragically, just five years after the Baron's death, Garceau was killed at age 26 while playing football. His father's pain was vividly expressed through the words, “Our eyes remain to us for weeping!”Footnote 160 But von Hügel's spiritual nurture through history did not always yield such positive results, as evident in his nurture of another schoolchild, Juliet Mansel.Footnote 161
History and Vocation: Juliet Mansel (1893–1982)
Von Hügel: “I so love to give you, or to do for you, things . . . that rejoice and expand you.”Footnote 162
Juliet Mansel was the granddaughter of Adeline Chapman, an Anglican friend of von Hügel's. Mansel stayed with the von Hügels during holidays while she attended The Abbey School, High Wycombe, and her young life was the “greatest concern” to the von Hügel family.Footnote 163 Looking back on her life at age fifty-eight, Mansel described herself as a “shy, moody child” who suffered from an “uneasy upbringing by parents” with “little stability” due to “ever-present money troubles and conflicting loyalties.”Footnote 164 By marked contrast, Mansel's relationship with von Hügel involved reading with him each evening (when staying overnight), coupled with his “extraordinary understanding” with no detail of her life “too small for his attention.”Footnote 165 Mansel recalls how the Baron “took this raw girl under his special care, guiding her in her studies, opening her eyes to the spiritual life and giving her . . . his deep understanding and fatherly love.”Footnote 166
Von Hügel's relationship with Mansel can be traced through the letters he wrote to her; twenty-eight of the seventy-nine letters mentioned in his diaries, are still extant. We also have the Baron's copious diary entries about Mansel (1909–1924). Von Hügel's interaction with Mansel was particularly extensive between 1909 and 1911, when Mansel lived in the von Hügel home during vacation periods while attending school. In mid-1910, von Hügel suggested they write to each other fortnightly.Footnote 167 As early as 1909, von Hügel talked with Mansel about the possibility of studying history at the University of London.Footnote 168 Having assessed Mansel's “solid, well-balanced reason,” the Baron held academic expectations and hopes for Mansel, so he encouraged her “not to sulk, or drift” but to throw herself into schoolwork.Footnote 169
When he learned Mansel was going on a trip to Rome, von Hügel wrote five long papers for her on “a fruitful trip to Rome.”Footnote 170 In these papers, von Hügel was quite prescriptive about the exact pages of texts he wanted her to read and how to study Roman history, geography, and ideas. For example, “Read also carefully with the notes at the end, and learn by heart, the verses of Ennius, in the Latin Anthology.”Footnote 171 Similarly, “Make notes of everything that specially strikes or puzzles you . . . when we meet I should explain to you whatever is at all foggy in your mind.”Footnote 172 He also encouraged Mansel to examine ancient coins, asking her to observe the heads on them.Footnote 173
In a similar way to the study of history encouraged in Greene, the purpose of studying Roman history was to help Mansel to eventually develop a Christian worldview. Von Hügel wrote:
Keep your mind, when you can, simmering in combinations of the facts, and dwelling upon the lessons, of this Roman history period. You will see how intensely modern, still in the throes of being born, the problems, helps, complications given and left to us by Rome are, when we come to Christianity and the Church in conflict with, and then taking over, the Roman Empire. But for this I trust you are able to understand all my allusions.Footnote 174
Mansel was encouraged to “penetrate a little into the souls, the motives, the spirit of these . . . early Republican Romans, who thus acted and who thus built.”Footnote 175 Similarly, the Baron emphasized:
We need not wonder at the slow and costly, but sure and unique, humanising power of such long occupation with Roman studies. . . . We shall never then fully understand our own spiritual and mental origins and the forces that still are, so largely, moulding us, unless we come to have some true, living insight into, some real touch with, Rome, in its original Italic instinct; in its Hellenised phase; and its Christianised spirit and activity.Footnote 176
Gradually, however, despite the Baron having repeated discussions about the possibility of studying history at King's College London, it became evident that Mansel was not interested.Footnote 177 In 1922, von Hügel had to adjust and he “agreed” to eighteen months training as an actress.Footnote 178 The fact that von Hügel uses the word “agreed” in his diary perhaps indicates some sort of control, perhaps an implicit desire for “obedience” as her spiritual director. Mansel asked von Hügel to convince her grandmother that pursuing acting was an acceptable path.Footnote 179 Von Hügel was a safe confidant, as Mansel lived through her “growing pains” of discerning vocation and love life, and they had many “long talks” about her “plans, social & scholastic.”Footnote 180 When she became secretly engaged, Mansel confided in the Baron, too afraid to tell her father.Footnote 181
But as Mansel matured, relational intimacy with von Hügel decreased, and from 1919, she was disinterested in Christianity. Von Hügel suggested they read together every Friday, but following this initiative, Mansel arrived over an hour late, having “done little or no reading.”Footnote 182 The Baron invited Mansel to spend time with them at Clonboy in the summers of 1920 and 1922, but after accepting, Mansel cancelled, having found a better offer.Footnote 183 Von Hügel's diaries reveal that his relationship with Mansel declined further in the years 1920–1924: “Juliet telephoned herself off from lunch with us today”;Footnote 184 “Juliet did not turn up for night”;Footnote 185 “I went out . . . waiting for her . . . giving her up.”Footnote 186 In 1921, von Hügel noticed Mansel smoking.Footnote 187 He thought her “broken down . . . nerve-health” resulted from her “heroic war work,” when in fact it was an “unhappy, love affair.”Footnote 188 But at times Mansel still turned to von Hügel: “She wrote piteously for my company so I went off at once.”Footnote 189
In the midst of Mansel's depression, von Hügel told Mansel that her healing would come through returning to Christ.Footnote 190 He mentioned Mansel's “true” and “false self,” reminding her of four years earlier, when she had returned to Communion after having drifted:
Oh! I just loved that . . . the humility and frankness and, above all, the sense of need of that dear strength not your own. . . . I want you to be doing all the wise things, all that will help you get well . . . that incident represents your permanent deepest self . . . whatsoever brings . . . articulation to your deepest self will directly promote recovery.Footnote 191
Von Hügel emphasized the link between spirituality and emotional health, urging Mansel not to think she should get well first and then consider religion. Tthis would be putting “the cart before the horse. We require harmony and happiness as a cause precedent to health and operative towards health.”Footnote 192 Von Hügel emphasized that “at His feet you get your strength . . . with little peaceful turnings to Christ.”Footnote 193 Through engaging with Christ, she would
. . . get a unity and drama, a reality and awakeness, a depth, steadiness and tenderness into your life which nothing else ever can or will of itself supply . . . simply nothing you could ever do will give me so complete a joy as if you . . . restart . . . building up of interior unity in the daily watch and ward against the false self.Footnote 194
Von Hügel closed his letter describing how fishmongers slit soles from head to tail, leaving the fish “truly broken up.” Similarly, “human souls . . . do not even begin to attain to their true identity . . . until they are divided up—until the spirit within them begins to discriminate itself against the petty self.”Footnote 195
His closing words provide a window into his attempts to encourage Mansel: “In the Scottish rivers the salmon will leap and leap. . . . Jump, Child, jump: I jump with you, look we both manage it!”Footnote 196 But perhaps the Baron's attempts to urge her to jump up “into the higher reaches” suggest implicit pressure plus his lack of acceptance for her present state. We repeatedly read in the Baron's diaries of his hopes she will return to faith. For example, his eager anticipation that Mansel would “communicate next Sunday,” which never occurred.Footnote 197 Later that year he described Mansel: “Looking well, full of the acting. But spoke as tho’ rel[igion] had not been growing.”Footnote 198 The following year, von Hügel sadly observed “no sign of religion.”Footnote 199 It seems the Baron was unable to celebrate and accept Mansel's life choices and provide unconditional love and acceptance. As early as 1911 he had written, “You . . . have . . . become part of my true self, and whom . . . I will cherish to help to grow.”Footnote 200 But perhaps he was unable to see past his own hopes to enable this young woman to live her own dreams and decisions concerning vocation and religion.
Despite these critiques, as a woman in her late fifties, Mansel reflected, looking back and writing in the third person:
The infinite pains, the immense time that Baron von Hügel gave in teaching this girl of fifteen the way to study and the way to pray still fills her, now an elderly woman, with astonishment and a sense of her unworthiness. With him every detail of her life, every facet of history or literature or art, was a means of apprehending the existence of God. The presence of God was virtually his only preoccupation, and all subjects, whether intellectual or banal, led him back to that preoccupation.Footnote 201
But despite Mansel confessing that von Hügel was “opening her eyes to the spiritual life,”Footnote 202 his choice of historical gifts was not always appropriate. In 1922, Mansel's mother returned to von Hügel the two volumes of Ranke's Weltgeschiehte, which he had given Mansel for her twenty-first birthday.Footnote 203 Another unsuitable book choice was Gifts of Civilisation, a lecture on the Brahman “Vedas,” for Mansel's sixteenth birthday. Despite this, Mansel's mother thanked von Hügel for “helping” her daughter, in “matters where she herself knows not how.”Footnote 204 However, the Baron's original letters to Mansel provide visual evidence that at some stage in her life, Mansel felt angry, resentful, and resistant to the Baron's attempts to mold her.
Originals of von Hügel's letters to Mansel reveal her negative reaction toward his nurturing control. The same light-blue pencil is used on several letters, including one written as late as 1921, presumably indicating that all of the letters were annotated over a similar period in the early 1920s. In several letters, we see light-blue pencil crossing out of von Hügel's terms of endearment for Mansel. In the 1921 letter, the words “Sweet” and “My Sweet” are crossed outFootnote 205; two 1911 letters have “my Darling” and “Sweet” crossed out, a large cross through each page, plus a line through the sentence, “I am looking forward hugely to your week here in December”Footnote 206; similarly, von Hügel's 1910 letters bear the same light-blue pencil crossing out markings.Footnote 207
Kelly's interview with Mansel in 1974 sheds some light on this negative reaction. Mansel reported that von Hügel did not seem to appreciate her pain at her fiancé's death, or the “change the war had wrought on her,” since the Baron was “basically unaffected” by the tragedy of war.Footnote 208 Kelly wrote, “Juliet spoke in a rather reserved way about von Hügel, not as though he were a friend . . . and indicated that while she had been utterly changed by the war experience, he still related to her as before . . . it didn't seem to have affected him or his manner of relating to her—or . . . his spiritual advice.”Footnote 209
Beatie similarly critiqued von Hügel for sending Mansel letters during the war, “filled with suggestions of things to read,” when Mansel was “up to the middle in mud nursing at the front.”Footnote 210
Our current pandemic reminds us of the traumatic effect of Spanish Flu at the end of World War I. As a nurse, Mansel probably would have witnessed incredible devastation and pain. In a similar vein, Bedoyère wrote that von Hügel's “spiritual insight” and “feelings” were unaffected by the war: “Contacts with phenomena and problems outside his personal and individual spiritual quarrying were either treated academically . . . or else rather naively.”Footnote 211 The Baron appeared to be blindsided by his own inclinations and attempted to control Mansel's decisions through an implicit requirement of “obedience” to his approval of her life choices. Mansel's reaction perhaps reveals how terms of endearment became painful reminders of a complex, pressuring, patriarchal relationship. Sadly, a naïve attempt at spiritual formation through history failed due to inappropriately advanced historical readings as well as a lack of consideration of Mansel's developmental needs, temperament, and need for autonomy. Tragically, a similarly counterproductive attempt at formation through history occurred through the Baron's nurture of his daughter, Gertrud von Hügel.
History and Trying to Accelerate “Growth”: Gertrud von Hügel (1877–1915)
Baron von Hügel: “Our dearest eldest daughter . . . the one I tried most extensively to help and to make grow.”Footnote 212
Gertrud von Hügel was the Baron's oldest daughter and his “sympathiser, companion,” and “confidant.”Footnote 213 Von Hügel described her as the “soul closest” to him in his “intellectual work, plans and trials,” hence her early death in 1915 left a “void” nothing could replace.Footnote 214 Von Hügel nicknamed her “True,” describing her as a “religious genius” who was “awake to modern conflicts,” yet this “awakening” came at a cost.Footnote 215
The Baron uses the phrase “make grow” when describing his intentions with Gertrud von Hügel, which perhaps indicate a forceful impatience. The Baron desired a conversation partner as he grappled with intellectual questions, but he introduced his daughter to religious problems beyond her years, tragically causing her personal breakdown in 1897. The Baron later sorrowfully reflected on how he had “selfishly” “leaned” on Gertrud, the “one” he should have “carried” and “guarded” but instead had “dropped.”Footnote 216 He recognized he had been too “engrossed” in his own problems, so had unthinkingly “leant, too directly” upon her “sensitive soul.”Footnote 217 Some of his discussion with his daughter occurred while he was engaged in the Catholic Modernist crisis, hence the issues naturally centered around historical criticism of Scripture. Forgetting he was 25 years her senior, coupled with his daughter's complex “richness of character,” von Hügel poured out on her his “impressions, irritations,” as he would have with a “contemporary who had already fought through his battle.”Footnote 218 He later lamented the “pace” he took “thoughtlessly” and “selfishly” with Gertrud, due to his “thirst for intellectual and heart sympathy.” He had “put difficulties and criticism so over abundantly and prematurely before” her, hence they naturally took on “much bigger dimensions” in her mind.Footnote 219 He confessed to Gertrud he “did not realise what he was doing” to her “young, impressionable mind.”Footnote 220 It is unclear exactly what actually happened, but it seems that von Hugel's daughter had a breakdown of sorts and then she had a period of time apart from the family, receiving spiritual direction from both George Tyrrell and Abbé Huvelin to help her heal.
Von Hügel never ceased to feel the “keenest regret” at having placed “more “strain” upon her mind and heart than she could “bear.”Footnote 221 This error was the “biggest cross” of his life: “I . . . put out my True's spiritual eyes. I . . . so strained and perplexed that very sensitive young soul . . . bereft her for years . . . of all peace, of all conscious faith.”Footnote 222 He had “presupposed too much maturity, too much carrying power.”Footnote 223 Von Hügel described it as “miserable, blind work” and wrote to his daughter apologizing for his “unwisdom” in forgetting her youth and “individualities,”Footnote 224 plus the inappropriate “pace and quantity” of his teaching: “The tumultuousness of my tone, the pouring out of my mind, impressions, irritations . . . the pace I took thoughtlessly, selfishly, from thirst for intellectual and heart sympathy. . . . I have, alas, put difficulties and criticism so over-abundantly and prematurely before you.”Footnote 225
Von Hügel repeatedly confessed his guilt regarding his daughter’s breakdown in health to his close friends. He identified his “triple fault” here: “dwelling so constantly and freely on the detailed humanities in the Church; drawing out and giving full edge to religious difficulties; [and]. . . making too much of little intellectual and temperamental differences between himself and most Catholics, near relations included.”Footnote 226 Fortunately, Gertrud von Hügel returned to faith, and just before her death, the Baron recorded “every trace of the braininess and of self-mirroring which undoubtedly hid, for a while, her deeper self, had thoroughly disappeared. . . . these last 5 months revealed her, more and more, not as a brain, but as a soul, deliciously childlike, delightfully humorous, elastic and fresh.”Footnote 227
Following her death, von Hügel described Gertrud's “deepest gifts and graces” as having “blossomed into a most touching, most generous profusion.”Footnote 228 Despite the positive ending, his daughter's breakdown was a scar von Hügel carried into all of his subsequent spiritual direction relationships.
But despite this, we see a recurring error whereby von Hügel incorrectly assessed what was appropriate for a directee's age and stage, misjudging their “ripeness,” hence overstraining directees with advanced historic readings or practices.Footnote 229 He spoke of how much he “loved” youth, then he would discover “with pain” that he had “put too much upon them”!Footnote 230 He confessed, “I often make that sort of mistake.”Footnote 231
Even though the Baron described spiritual growth as “slow,” arguing that “a spirituality of the little-by-little is not an enfeebled spirituality” and that stampedes and panics are of no earthly use,”Footnote 232 he impatiently tried to force the pace with several spiritual directees. At one stage the Baron was “straining” Greene's “brain,” but he later reminded her of Sabbath rest,Footnote 233 and that even when unwell, “What a lot we can grow spiritually” and become “solidly anchored” in God's peace through “resigning ourselves” to resting and doing nothing.Footnote 234 But despite glimpses of a “leisurely” spirituality, at times he still pushed quite hard, and clearly his attempts at accelerating Gertrud's growth were counterproductive.
Coda
Contemporary discourse about spiritual formation rarely highlights history as a key element in spiritual nurture. A critical examination of von Hügel's spiritual formation of five individuals reveals the central role of history, though it operated differently in each case. A focus upon the historical Christ transformed Evelyn Underhill from a vague mysticism to experiences of Christ, and thereafter her writings became more Christocentric. Gwendolen Greene was enriched, broadened, and became more discerning through the Baron ushering her into secular history, then Christian historical writings thereafter. Exposure to biblical history was formative in Henri Garceau's decision for confirmation. In these three cases, the directees were enriched; however, questions remain about the hierarchical, patriarchal nature of his direction and his implicit desire for obedience. The Baron's attempts at the spiritual formation of Mansel and his daughter, Gertrud, were less productive, but these outcomes indicate both personal and contextual factors the Baron did not consider sufficiently in his spiritual nurture. In particular, he was insensitive to the developmental needs and personalities of these two young women, and he chose inappropriately difficult historical readings. The Baron found it difficult to look beyond his own dreams of Mansel becoming a historian and was not sufficiently attentive to her needs for affirmation, acceptance, and freedom. Complicating the mind of his daughter, Gertrud von Hügel, with the complexities of historical criticism of scripture, leaning on her emotionally, and trying to accelerate her “growth” led to her breakdown and loss of faith. Though the Baron was adamant that personally, he could not have a religion without much history, clearly that was not the case for all his directees. More discernment on the attrait of each directee, plus alternative approaches to soul care were required, as well as listening to their needs and desires, and empowering them to make their own choices. This article has only examined the Baron's soul care of five individuals, but his spiritual direction reached way beyond this tiny sample. We close with affirming words from Evelyn Underhill, regarding the broad impact of his spiritual nurture. She argued he possessed “a spiritual creativeness; a capacity for reaching, penetrating, vivifying souls, which did not stop short with those who knew him in the flesh. . . . The full number of his spiritual children will never be known; nor the extent to which his generously given advice, teaching and support are ultimately destined to fertilise the most distant corners of the Christian field.”Footnote 235
