Welcome to the maiden voyage of God’s First, where I will endeavor to share regular commentary on the Church and the world from my vantage point as a former Anglican cleric and current movie-watcher, Europhile, adopted Texan, husband, dad, wine-bibber, and late Gen-X conservative-ish inquisitor.
In all seriousness, I pray this column will be edifying for me to write and for you to read.
“God’s first” is the end of the famous quip from the patron saint of this column, one of my heroes, Thomas More: “I die his majesty’s good servant, but God’s first.” Or anyway, that’s the way Robert Bolt wrote it for Paul Scofield in A Man for All Seasons. More’s life, epitomized by his parting words, resonates with me for so many reasons. As the greatest English statesman and humanist of his age, More’s faith was anything but escapist and his temperament anything but rigidly doctrinaire. He was a wise man of the world, who had his dream job (until he didn’t), and his Catholic faith rested on what his countryman John Henry Newman would later immortalize on the cusp of modernity – namely, the priority of a well-formed conscience. There was no such thing as a split between his private religious identity and public workplace persona. More was willing to lose his head to maintain his one integrated self, and when it came right down to it, he knew what he was about, come what may: God’s first.
“God’s first” has been particularly on my mind in the aftermath of a life-changing trip to England that I recently had the privilege to take. I was accompanying my then-boss, Bishop Robert Barron of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries (more anon), and along with various others, we planted a new flag for the Kingdom of Heaven in old London. I had not been back since I lived there in 2003-2004, when I was very much an Anglican, and very much a young Romantic; so part of me was a little worried that my impressions of Blighty would be a little disappointing through the steely convert eyes I have today. Not so.
Bishop Barron celebrated and preached at Westminster Cathedral, gave a speech on the terrace at the Houses of Parliament, re-enacted the Beatles’ walk across Abbey Road, and toured the National Gallery with me and a band of other staffers in tow; but the most impressive event of all was a private visit to St. Thomas More’s cell at the Tower of London, where the lusty tyrant Henry VIII sent his Chancellor in 1534 upon the occasion of his refusal to swear allegiance to the Act of Succession, which effectively abolished Catholicism in the realm for over two hundred years. In More’s cell – the very place where I stood – he responded to his fate by writing A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation, which is something of a fictitious pre-amble to the profound quip he uttered before lowering his neck to the chopping block.
After eight extraordinary days in London that felt more like a retreat than work, it was time to come home, and as a parting gift, my friends at Catholic Voices U.K. gave us beautiful prayer cards with – mirabile dictu! – an image of More and “God’s First” emblazoned at the top. I keep mine in my Daily Office book and I look at it twice a day to keep my priorities straight.
