The grumpy saint

It has been stated of quite a few saints that they were, how shall I put it delicately?.......less than warm hearted?........not one of nature's chucklers?.....downright bad tempered?

Father Vincent McNabb OP
 8th July 1868 - 17th June 1943
RIP 

Father Vincent McNabb OP., whose anniversary it is today, was one such man (his cause for canonisation is a work in progress as they say). I hasten to add that I never met this great man, he died long(ish) before I was born, but I had a great Dominican Friar friend (Fr Donald Proudman OP) who regaled me with stories of Fr McNabb and his notoriety, certainly within the community, of being a shade grumpy - a grouch is how they might put it in the USA.

But grumpiness, in this instance, was part of his spirituality. Fr McNabb had his mind set on God; not just for a few hours each day in front of a crucifix or the Blessed Sacrament, but a full on 16 or 17 hours of his being awake was dedicated to deep meditation on the Almighty. If a fellow monk passed him in the cloisters, Fr McNabb would respond testily to any greeting or approach of any kind. I wonder what form that took? I doubt it would have been along the lines of "Push off four eyes and leave me alone!" More like a grunt of disapproval at being interrupted; a harumph or growl like noise designed to keep further conversation at bay. After all, it was interrupting a conversation with God Almighty; who would not issue a harumph or two if faced with an inane "Morning Father" from some young novice when you were deep in a debate with the Lord.

Monsignor Ronald Knox once said of Fr McNabb:

 "Father Vincent is the only person I have ever known about whom I have felt, and said more than once, 'He gives you some idea of what a saint must be like.' There was a kind of light about his presence which didn't seem to be quite of this world."

This extract from Catholic Authors...

"Father McNabb was born in 1868 in Portaferry, County Down, Ireland, within a few miles of the rock that covers the bones of St. Patrick. "My father," wrote Father McNabb, "was a master 'Mariner' (to give him his noble title) and my mother, a dressmaker." Vincent, who was proud he was the seventh son and the tenth of eleven children, spent his schooldays at the diocesan seminary of St. Malachy's College, Belfast. When asked by the editor of The Catholic Times to lend assistance to Ireland during one of the last crises, Father McNabb wrote in his scalpel-like way that both peoples alike, the people of England and the people of Ireland have been martyred by the same imperious few. He said that he loved Ireland like a mother and England like a wife".

His great friend, GK Chesterton wrote of him: 'Nobody who ever met or saw or heard Father McNabb has ever forgotten him." That statement was certainly true of his period as an orator at Hyde Park's Speakers Corner on a Sunday afternoon. Those were the days of emerging communism in Great Britain and Fr Vincent was adept at cutting down to size any red who had the temerity to heckle from the safety of the crowd.

In 1913 he embarked on a successful lecture tour of the States and just four years later he was rewarded by the Master of Divine Theology degree. He taught, from 1929 to 1934 at the London University Extension where his subject was the Summa of St Thomas.
He wrote over thirty books including 'Where believers may doubt', 'The decrees of the Vatican Council' and 'Eleven Thank God!' an account of  his Catholic  mother and upbringing.

Fr McNabb held somewhat unorthodox beliefs regarding the social and economic structre, he abhorred technology and yearned for a countryside that could produce food and clothing with a high level of employment and a quality of life for all - not a bad philosophy at all and well summed up by this comment from him:-

 

"Buy boots you can walk in. Walk in them. Even if you lessen the income of the General Omnibus Company, or your family doctor; you will discover the human foot. On discovering it, your joy will be as great as if you had invented it. But this joy is the greatest, because no human invention even of Mr. Ford or Mr. Marconi is within a mile of a foot." 

Faced with an oncoming death he said:

 "I don't see why I should make a tragedy of this; ­ it's what I have been preparing for all my life. I am in the hands of my doctors, ­ or better, in the hands of my God."

 

  Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and

  let perpetual light shine upon him.

  May he rest in peace. Amen

This prayer is one of many composed by the great man.....

Lord Jesus Save Me

"Lord Jesus, the one whom Thou lovest is sick" (Jn 11:3).

The one whom Thou lovest is strayed.
I have lost Thee.
I cannot find Thee.
Find me.
Seek me.
I cannot find Thee.
I have lost my way.
Thou art the Way.
Find me, or I am utterly lost.
Thou lovest me.
I do not know if I love Thee;
but I know Thou lovest me.
I do not plead my love, but Thine.
I do not plead my strength, but Thine.
I do not plead my deed, but Thine.
The one whom Thou lovest is sick.
I dare not say:
The one who loves Thee is sick.
My sickness is that I do not love Thee.
That is the source of my sickness which is approaching death.
I am sinking.
Raise me.
Come to me upon the waters.
Lord Jesus, "the one whom Thou lovest is sick."