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A World Within The World
by Fr. David Jones
Format: Paperback
Publication date: 04th March 2010
ISBN: 978-1-907179-52-5
Price: €15.00
The present volume is one of a series of poetic journals, kept by the author since 1980. It covers the period 1984-1988, in which year Dr James Hogg published the English verse written up till then (the Welsh was handled separately, in Wales). Being based in Salzburg, he inserted the verse written in the Carthusian period (1976-1984) in the Analecta Cartusiana collection, edited in that city, and that written in the Trappist period (1984-1986) in the Salzburg Studies in English and American Literature series. This would explain how the attention of one of his most promising students was drawn to the recent publications in the late eighties. Eva Mörwald decided to concentrate on this work for the purpose of her doctoral thesis, which she successfully completed, defended and published at Salzburg University, under the guidance of Dr Hogg. She travelled to Wales to pursue the subject in greater depth and to situate it in its cultural context. The result was an impressive work of scholarship, which might bear reprinting, as it handles many issues, both literary and spiritual, with great competence.
The current volume covers the period of Cistercian life and the short period of searching in Wales and England that followed. It is hoped to reprint shortly the volume that takes up where this leaves off, and which leads back to a Celtic context, in Wales and Ireland, whither he was sent by his good spiritual father, the late Dr John Ryan, OMI, a scholar of Welsh and Irish spirituality, whose chalice was passed onto him after his death.
Under obedience, putting the watch back on my wrist
Thou hast been silent long, mine ancient friend,
And these thy little hands have idle been.
Thy tiny voice these years no sound would send
Across the silence that now lies between
The Past, that this thy hand did with me beat
Too quickly—for in bliss thou changest speed,
And as I burned, thy pulse did with mine heat—
And this the Present that again I heed
In thy small chatter, slowly as it goes
To join each second thou dost rebaptize.
Almighty friend! Thy visage hourly shows
The one sole Truth that none will recognize.
For here I am, and here I ne’er will be—
Where thou in two dost saw eternity.
About the Author
The author, currently living as a hermit in Duleek, Co. Meath, a spot already hallowed by the Celtic Saints, was for many years completely enclosed in the silent life in France. Being a Celt, he was sent to Roscrea in Co. Tipperary, which was a blessing, as the kind Fathers there favoured and used the poetic output, which had ceased as it had not been regarded as entirely in keeping with the pursuit of Trappist silence.
The period covered by the present volume reflects precisely the double pull of absolute solitude and silence and that of human communion. It was to take several years for this to be resolved, and when it was it was again due to the openness of the Irish spirit, able as it was to see the possibility of uniting two conflicting pulls in a harmonious whole.
The Bishop of Meath echoed the wisdom of the Abbot of Roscrea in the solution found, again in the old unhurried peace of Erin.
