Henry and Cato by Iris Murdoch Page B

It was the first time since he had joined the family of his order that he had been on his own. Of course there was, for a time, Gerald, but his mild alienation from his companion made him feel more alone. He thought a lot about his father and wished that that wound could be healed, he thought about his sister and wished that he could see her more often. The local parish priest, Father Thomas, provided no company, since he had from the start regarded the Mission as a wrong-headed adventure and an intrusion on his territory. The secular priest and the monkish priest are always likely to be at loggerheads, since the former regards the latter as decorative rather than useful, while the latter can hardly help feeling superior and ‘more dedicated’. The general practitioner and the specialist are natural enemies. Father Thomas thought that Cato, Gerald, Reggie and the other members of their order were spoilt idle over-educated prigs, always off on holidays to monasteries abroad, always blowing in and out of places where the real work was done, drinking sherry and showing off their knowledge of Latin and Greek and of the finer points of theology. While Cato tended to find Father Thomas’s conversation rather dull, and resented his assumption that Cato was a frivolous amateur. Of course Cato and Father Thomas, being decent sincere men of God, recognized their prejudices as prejudices. But this did not stop them from quietly feuding.
    The majority of the people who came to the Mission were uneducated, some of them illiterate. This did not surprise Cato who had already learnt how in a rich and civilized society large numbers of citizens can be not only miserably poor, but unable to read a newspaper. Of course he had not come to Paddington to keep cultivated company or enjoy luxuries of private contemplation. It was now difficult for Cato to follow any strict regular devotional routine, since in the house he could never rely on being alone even at night. But he knew that a priest must maintain his life of prayer against the unceasing clamour of the world, making his cell of solitude even in crowded streets or underground trains. Thus prayer is strengthened and deepened; and he had seen in Father Milsom the results of a life-time which indissolubly combined trivial nagging practical activity with an absolute quietness in the presence of God. Cato hoped soberly and confidently for grace, the power when tested to live more deeply in and through the ground of his being.
    When this hope seemed to be disappointed Cato was not at first alarmed. He ascribed the spiritual dullness which he felt to all sorts of natural causes, tiredness, lack of solitude, the irritations of his exposed existence or simply to the mysterious rhythms which, as he already knew, govern the spiritual life. The dullness, the blankness was a phase which would pass. It was just proving harder than he had expected to enjoy loving Christ without more frequent tête-à-tête. However the phase did not pass, and Cato woke up one morning with the absolute conviction that he had been mistaken and that there was no God. The conviction faded; but from that moment Cato began to treat himself carefully, almost tenderly, like someone who has discovered in himself the symptoms of a serious disease, and for whom the world in consequence is totally altered. Brendan came on a flying visit. Cato said to him, ‘Oh by the way, I’ve lost my faith.’ ‘Rubbish.’ ‘God is gone. There is no God, no Christ, nothing.’ ‘I expected this.’ ‘You expect everything.’ ‘That darkness comes to us all.’ ‘I knew you’d say that. But suppose the darkness is real, true?’ ‘Hold on.’ Brendan went away, then wrote him a wonderful letter, but the darkness persisted.
    It was all very well for Brendan, born into a Catholic family, educated at Downside, inhaling the faith with his first breath. Those born