War-Time Insight

Many of those who have gone before us down the frightening corridors of war and terrorism, have left us the security that can be found only in God's faithfulness. This weekly column will help us touch for ourselves the faith of Christians, Jews, and Moslems, many of whom have suffered death at the hands of terrorists, even at the hands of each other. The radiance of their peace shines a light on the world's fragile path.

Frances Caryll Houselander was born in England to Gertrude Provis and Willmott Houselander on Oct. 29, 1901, the second of two daughters, and was considerably unlike the outgoing, attractive and athletic parents who bore her. She was not expected to survive for more than a day, and so was baptized in haste at the insistence of her uncle, a gynecologist who assisted with the birth.

She was named after this uncle, and the yacht, "Caryll," upon which her mother had spent the last several months of her pregnancy. She went on to survive her first day, and indeed many more after that, though her health continued to be poor throughout her life.

Caryll Houselander lived in England and was in London throughout the bombings of the Second World War.

"For us, the war is the Passion of Christ. There is no need to dwell on its cruelty, we shall not be able to forget that. To the natural eye it seems that out of this war [World War II] nothing could possibly result but bitterness, hatred and ruin; and indeed, nothing else could result from it were it not for one Person-Jesus Christ our Lord.

Because He made each one of us "other Christs," because his life continues in each one of us, there is nothing that any one of us can suffer which is not the Passion he suffered. Our redemption, though it was achieved completely by our Lord, does, by a special mercy of his, go on in us. It is one unbroken act which goes on in the mystical body of Christ on earth, which we are.

These things are mysterious, we can't understand them in our brains, but now everyone is going to learn to understand them in sorrow, in courage, and in sacrifice. Now the time has come for each of us to prove our Christhood."