Holy Saturday 2025: " O night, my finest invention ..."

 If we read the last pages of Charles Peguy's The Portal of the Mystery of Hope we might, at a first glance, feel that he is ending his poem about "the little girl hope" with a reflection on the death and burial of Jesus. However, if we start our reading a few pages earlier, we encounter the beginning of a reflection on the theme of night that becomes, at the end, to focus on one night alone.

He starts with night as a part of God's creation - remember that it is the voice of God who speaks through the narrator of the play that is The Portal .. :

Nights follow each other and are linked together and for the child, 

nights are continuous and form the very basis of his being.

He falls back on them. They are the very basis of his life.
They are his being itself. Night is the place, night is the being 

wherein the child bathes, wherein his is nourished, wherein he is 

created, wherein he is made....

 

Night is the place, night is the being wherein he rests, wherein he 

retires, wherein he collects himself.

Wherein he comes home. And leaves again refreshed. Night is my most 

beautiful creation...

Night is for my children and for my young

Hope what it is in reality. Children are the ones who see and who 

know. My young hope is the one who sees and who knows. 

What being is.

And a couple of pages later there is an announcement of night as the place of hope :

O night, my finest invention, my most noble creation of all.

My most beautiful creature. Creature of the greatest Hope.
You give the most substance to Hope.

You are the instrument, you are the very substance and the 

dwelling-place of Hope.

And also, (and thus), you are ultimately the creature of the greatest 

Charity.

Because it's you who gently rock the whole of Creation
Into a restoring Sleep.

 And in the last two pages, the hymn to that one night that was like no other:

But above all, Night, you remind me of that night.
And I will remember it eternally.
The ninth hour had sounded. It was in the country of my people of 

Israel.

It was all over. The enormous adventure.
From the sixth hour to the ninth hour there had been darkness 

covering the entire countryside.

Everything was finished. Let's not talk about it anymore. It hurts me to 

think about it.

My son's incredible descent among men.
Into their midst....

Those three years that he was a sort of preacher among men.
A priest.
Those three days when he fell victim to men.
Among men.
Those three nights when he was dead in the midst of men
Dead among the dead....

It was then, o night, that you arrived.

O my daughter, my most precious among them all, and it is still before 

my eyes and it will remain before my eyes for all eternity.

It was then, o Night, that you came and, in a great shroud, you buried
The Centurion and his Romans,
The Virgin and the holy women,
And that mountain, and that valley, upon which the evening was 

descending,

And my people of Israel and sinners and, with them, he who was 

dying, he who had died for them.

And the men sent by Joseph of Arimathea who were already a

approaching

Bearing the white shroud.

The Church celebrates that night which gives substance to Hope in the Easter Vigil, where the Exultet sings its praise with the repeated invocation - "This is the night" - and its praise of the "night that shall be as bright as day",  the "truly blessed night", the night that is "your night of grace".

Good Friday 2025: "And it's from us that God awaits the crowning or the uncrowning of one of his hopes"

 The following passage from Charles Peguy's The Portal of the Mystery of  Hope (pp.82-84 in David Schindler's translation) seems appropriate for Holy Week. The startling suggestion that God himself has to place a hope on his part in sinners is placed in the context of references to the texts of St Paul's Letter to the Philippians read at Mass on Palm Sunday and to the Passion narratives of Palm Sunday and Good Friday. 

Such is the situation in which God, by the virtue of hope
In order to wager hope,
Allowed himself to be placed.
Before the sinner.
He stands in fear of him, because be fears for him.
You see what it is I'm saying: God stands in fear of the sinner, because he fears for the sinner.....

That is the situation that God made for himself.
He who loves becomes the slave of the one who is loved.
Just by loving.
He who loves becomes the slave of the one he loves.
God did not desire to evade this universal law.
And by this love he becomes the slave of the sinner.....

God put himself in this situation. As the most miserable creature was freely able
To slap freely the face of Jesus,
So the least of creatures is able to make God to be a liar
Or to make him speak truly.
Terrible delegation of power.
Terrible privilege, terrible responsibility.
As Jesus through centuries of centuries has given over his body
In the poor churches
To the discretion of the least of the soldiers.
So God through centuries of centuries has given over his hope
To the discretion of the least of the sinners.
As the victim surrenders his hands to the executioner,

So Jesus has abandoned himself to us.

As the prisoner abandons himself to the prison guard,

So God has abandoned himself to us.

As the least of the sinners was able to slap Jesus,

And it had to be so,

So the least of the sinners, a miserable, weak creature,
The tiniest of sinners is able to bring to failure, is able to bring to fulfilment

A hope of God;

The tiniest of sinners is able to uncrown, is able to crown

A hope of God.

And it's from us that God awaits

The crowning or the uncrowning of one of his hopes

Jubilee 2025: The little girl Hope

Charles Peguy's The Portal of the Mystery of Hope (Le porche de mystere de la deuxieme vertu in its original title) appears a necessary read for the Jubilee 2025. The extracts below are taken from the early pages of David Schindler's translation, and offer a kind of taster for the whole.

The faith that I love the best, says God, is hope.

Faith doesn't surprise me.
It's not surprising.
I am so resplendent in my creation....

Charity, says God, that doesn't surprise me.
It's not surprising.
These poor creatures are so miserable that unless they had a heart of stone, how could they not have love for each other ....

But hope, says God, that is something that surprises me.
Even me.
That is surprising.
That these poor children see how things are going and believe that tomorrow things will go better....

What surprises me, says God, is hope.
And I can't get over it.
This little hope who seems like nothing at all.
This little girl hope.
Immortal....

It's faith that is easy and not believing that would be impossible. It's charity that is easy and not loving that would be impossible. But it's hoping that is difficult.

The little hope moves forward between her two older sisters and one scarcely notices her....

In his translator's preface, David Schindler explains that the Portal is not just a poem but in fact a play. The "portal" refers to the entrance of a medieval cathedral, above whose doors might be depicted a Christian mystery. The cathedral portal was also the place where mystery plays were typically enacted. 

If we keep in mind that the Portal is a play, we are better able to appreciate the conversational quality of the writing. Madame Gervaise, God's "mouthpiece" in the poem, address her monologue to the young Joan of Arc, who remains silent throughout. She speaks in short phrases, pausing after each one as if to make sure that "Jeanette" has understood it.

The presence of Joan of Arc can be presumed from Charles Peguy's earlier work The Mystery of the Charity of Joan of Arc.

David Schindler also observes that Charles Peguy approaches the Christian mystery by way of the experience of it in life, a theme that Hans Urs von Balthasar explores in greater detail using the term enracinement, to articulate a rootedness of Christianity in history and time (cf The Glory of the Lord vol III pp.465 ff):

His language is filled with images drawn from the basic experiences of life, rather than sophisticated argumentation aimed at an elite few. There is no trace of condescension in his tone: God does not speak from the sublime heights of heaven, looking down on the world from an infinite distance. Rather, having assumed everything human, he speaks from within the world; he speaks, as it were, as "one of us".

An endnote to the penultimate extract cited above makes the suggestion that we might see the inspiration for the image of the "little girl hope" in Charles Peguy's own daughter, who would have been nine years old at the time of the writing of the Portal. This would perfectly exemplify the author's approach.