Caryll Houselander
Mystic (b.1901–d.1954)
Caryll Houselander, an English laywoman, had a definite sense of her vocation: to awaken others to the presence of Christ in the world. This conviction was implanted from her childhood by a series of mystical experiences that continued throughout her life. The most striking of these experiences occurred one day in her adulthood, while she stood on a crowded train in London. As she looked at the people around her, “quite suddenly I saw with my mind, but as vividly as a wonderful picture, Christ in them all . . . living in them, dying in them, rejoicing in them, sorrowing in them.” When she left the train “it was the same . . . in every passerby, everywhere—Christ.” This vision lasted for several days and altered her life completely.
Houselander supported herself by woodcarving and decorating churches. Later she wrote poetry and children’s books. Her true mission, however, consisted in her relationships with others—not just friends, but strangers, neurotics, friendless people whom others avoided. Simply through attention and friendship, she sought to awaken them to a sense of their own divine spark. Eventually her writing mission took over. During the Second World War she offered a message of consolation to those struggling with their faith, sharing the good news that Christ was truly present in the sufferings of the world. “We have to stretch Christ in us to fit the size of this war, the cross overshadowing the whole world.”
Houselander died of breast cancer on October 13, 1954.
“It is amazing to think that in heaven when everything is understood we shall keep on saying to one another ‘How astonishing that we should ever have doubted the mercy in it all.’”
—Caryll Houselander
Remembering the way in which Caryll Houselander lived her life is a healthy reminder that we too can be mystics in a world that often shuns the extraordinary and the mystical. As to the manner in which Caryll left this world, it is especially poignant to recall that today is National Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Day. http://mbcn.org/october-13-national-metastatic-breast-cancer-awareness-day/. Let us lovingly encourage one another to practice greater self-care and schedule regular mammographies and be proactive about visits to our physicians. As well, it would do our society a good turn to be strong advocates for accessible healthcare and affordable medical opportunities for all, regardless of their ability to pay.
Sheed & Ward books by or about Caryll Houselander:
- This War is the Passion (1941); republished by Ave Maria Press (2008)
- The Reed of God (1944); republished by Ave Maria Press (2008)
- The Splendor of the Rosary by Maisie Ward, prayers by Caryll Houselander (1945)
- Houselander’s prayers reprinted in The Essential Rosary published by Sophia Institute Press (1996)
- The Flowering Tree (1945)
- The Dry Wood (1947)
- The Passion of the Infant Christ (1949); republished as Wood of the Cradle, Wood of the Cross: The Little Way of the Infant Jesus by Sophia Institute Press (1995)
- The Passion of the Infant Christ, critical edition edited by Kerry Walters (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2017)
- Guilt (1951)
- The Comforting of Christ (1954)
- A Rocking-Horse Catholic (1955); republished by Aeterna Press (2015)
- The Stations of the Cross (1955), illustrated with fourteen wood engravings by Houselander
- The Way of the Cross, retitled and revised edition (inclusive language changes and use of a different Biblical translation for scriptural quotations) published by Liguori Publications (2002)
- Inside the Ark (1956)
- Terrible Farmer Timson and Other Stories (1957); republished as Catholic Tales for Boys and Girls by Sophia Institute Press (2002)
- The Risen Christ (1959); republished by Scepter Publications (2007)
- The Letters of Caryll Houselander: Her Spiritual Legacy (1965), edited by Maisie Ward
- Reproachfully yours; with a foreword by Caryll Houselander by Lucile Halsey