Ut Migraturus Habita

The summer proper ended on Sherkin on the evening my Fiona fell off the style and broke her collarbone. It was one of those perfect evenings, August 11th; then the old west wind set in, cool and pleasant, but blustery and with the odd bit of rain. In addition to working away at finishing the West Room, I now find myself nurse, cook and housekeeper; it is my privilege and pleasure to be looking after herself for a change, but a shock to the system nonetheless, and a reminder of our mortality.

     When Ken Thompson came to visit us in our cottage in Somerset nearly 50 years ago, he spent most of his time chiselling Migraturus Habita across the large stone chimney breast. It means something like 'Live as one about to migrate'. I suppose he had the final journey in mind, but perhaps he didn't want us to get too comfortable where we were either, though I doubt if he foresaw that we would up and go to live in Ireland. Nonetheless, it is unlikely that we would have done so without his influence. I remain most grateful, even more so lately. I always felt that I was banging my head against a brick wall in Blighty. Nowadays, bad and all as it is to be watching the B saga from here, it would simply do my head in to be so arbitrarily deprived of my European citizenship. Had we stayed, I would not rate the chances of either my sanity or my marriage being in one piece very highly.

     Ireland is far from perfect, but especially here in the West I find myself on firmer ground. Our island home is better still.  Then there is the sea, which prevents us from getting too

Landfall, Galicia, 2007.

introverted. Over the horizon as we look out to the south is Santiago de Campostella. I find that very many people these days do not even know where the South is, but you may be sure the dear little swallows do, as they head that way so bravely; and just as surely, there is a sixth sense in every human being that tells them of that City over the far horizon which they yearn for even if they do not realise it. In fact every human society worth the name is like a ship's crew, bent towards that goal; otherwise they will soon be nothing but a mere brawling rabble, and their destination will be wreck upon the rocks.

     The inescapable life-task of a person, however dimly perceived, is to understand that far city more clearly and to relate to it more nearly, which necessarily entails sharing this perception with our fellow crewmen. Like any image of God and His Kingdom, such perception is necessarily very partial; but we have to try to share it with everyone whom we encounter, while respecting any concept they may have which enables them to steer a good course in more or less the right direction. As a Catholic I may believe that the Church actually holds the coordinates, though even this fact can bring on a kind of pride that takes us astray. As one approaches the Port of God's City, the entrance is fraught with danger; yet we have available to us the Supreme Pilot, who will not let us down. The wise ship's captain will trust this pilot, listening for his commands!

     Yet a funny thing happens, in any ship that is under good command, the crew working well together as they sail toward that far haven - which actually as it were comes to meet them, materialises even in their midst. The good ship already partakes of the life of her distant destination. That destination turns out to be something more than a city - it takes on the form of a person with a face. We may become caught up in the dynamic of the Trinity. God is both in His far, transcendent city, and in the here and now. But meanwhile vessels tack about with all kinds of strange ideas born of the longing deep within the breasts of their companies.

     I used to think that the 'Roman' bit added to the term 'Catholic' was rather an unfortunate prefix born of the need to distinguish us English Roman Catholics from our 'Anglo-Catholic' brethren, with their insistence on the outstanding classic English formulation of  'having one's cake and eating it'. Now I think it is much more valid and important, for it is this little prefix Roman that actually and genuinely situates the universal religion in history and the here and now. If we cannot identify it so, in our story and our human relationships, Heaven becomes pie-in-the-sky, hardly to be preferred to the fantasies of, for example, some workers' future utopia, a consumerist cornucopia or a myth of National Destiny.

     Messrs Johnson and Farrage are correct in identifying the EU with its Roman predecessor; there is a noble aspiration there that keeps cropping up in different forms. It's such a pity that they, and so much of contemporary culture, cannot appreciate the wonderful formula whereby the essential and positive spirit was in principle long since detached from the will of proud men, and remains available to form the basis of a new world. It is interesting that even the British Empire, having turned its back on 'the ghost of the Roman Empire', nonetheless continued to educate in the Latin language, to use it for mottos and scientific terms, and even to copy classical architecture. The awareness lingered that it remained embedded in the foundations of our later buildings. It was only in the death throes of the British Empire that the requirement to study Latin was dropped, if one was to study in the leading universities; it hardly helped in my working life that I was just in time to learn it, but I am grateful now.

    Our blessed Saviour drew a red line in history - no more narcissistic rulers setting themselves up as god-kings-emperors. However, they keep trying. Prophets who stand up to them and criticise them are being jettisoned again, though in this part of the world at least, they generally keep their heads on their shoulders nowadays. But must ships be actually wrecked before they are found to have been right? It's rather like watching drunken alcoholics going on a bender - how bad does it have to get before they pull themselves together? Or will they even manage to do so at all?