I went on a Cardinal Newman pilgrimage at the weekend. We took a coach from London and spent most of the day in Oxford.
The first stop, just outside Oxford itself, was the site of Newman’s reception into full communion with the Catholic Church. This is how Roderick Strange describes it in his John Henry Newman: A Mind Alive.
When people speak of Newman’s conversion, they are usually referring to the events of 8 and 9 October 1845, that windswept night when Father Dominic Barberi, drenched by rain from his journey exposed to the weather, arrived in Littlemore, the village where Newman had made his home after resigning as Vicar of the University Church and retiring to lay communion as an Anglican. He began to hear Newman’s confession that evening and it continued the following morning. Then he received him into the Roman Catholic Church.
You can see the room where he slept and thought and wrote so many letters; the chapel where he prayed; the library where he and his friends studied and talked.
But what moved me most? His stand-up desk! I’ve used one for the last year, and this is the first time I’ve ever seen someone else’s. I felt an immediate bond. Mine is an improvised affair, consisting of four metal waste paper baskets from Rymans placed on my normal office desk, with a piece of wood I found in the attic balanced on top. I put the computer on the raised table, and it is just the right height for me to type standing up. I get some funny looks when people walk into my office, but they are getting used to it.
Why do I risk the humiliation? I was getting some back-ache from sitting in the same position for so long; I went to an orthopedic furniture shop to get a fancy chair, and they suggested I try standing up to vary the posture. It has worked like a dream. You can move and stretch and relax without getting stuck in some awkward position for hours; then sit down for a change when you are tired. I highly recommend it to anyone. And the bins (£2.99 each) were cheaper than the chairs (which started at about £400). Apparently, you can get electric desks that go up and down, so you can move from sitting to standing at the flick of a switch; but I think they are out of my league.
Newman’s is a fine wooden desk: The top slopes down towards you so you get a nice angle. The height is adjustable. There is a length of wood at the bottom of the slope to stop the paper sliding off. What more could you want? I’m sure this was the secret of his success.
There is a nice religious note to add as well. When Fr Barberi wanted to celebrate Mass the next day there was no suitable altar (the chapel they used was simply an oratory, and the eucharist would not have been celebrated there). So they brought in this stand-up desk, flattened it and lowered the top as far as it would go, and used it for the altar. So it was from this extraordinary piece of Victorian furniture that he received his first Holy Communion as a Catholic. Out of reverence for this sacred moment, he never used it as a desk again.
Any plans to say Mass at your desk, Fr.? And I’d wager that Fr Faber never had a stand-up desk…
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Too bad my computer/monitor is too large to be put on “stilts”, but I am going to research the stand-up desk solution. Thank you for the idea.
Brilliant innovation, so totally Heath Robinson. We have lots of Heath Robinson moments in our house, at the moment as a totally temporary measure we have a champagne cork on a chain, tied to the mechanism inside the cistern, because the push button flush went on the loo. All created by me and works perfectly. My bedside cabinet has piles of books with shelves balancing upon them, its always tricky trying to get books to match up in height, especially when you suddenly need one from the middle of the pile. :0/
I think if you have a tendency to be a writer, the desk that you sit and contemplate and work at is such a special place. Mine is an old Georgian afternoon tea table, Low enough so that I can lay my forearms on it whilst sitting tall. I often contemplate the wealthy family who it used to serve, and the afternoon conversations that took place around it. Alas I too get a bad back, your standing desk seams like a great option.
It always saddens me when I treat myself to a potter at the reclamation yard and discover altars and candle arbours and crucifixes and other sacred relics waiting to be Loved again. To think that these were once a part of mass somewhere intrigues me.
Isn’t it AMAZING and reaffirming when little miracles happen (like discovering that an inspiring person has similar ways) or a similar desk. A huge miracle happened to me this week and It totally reinforces my faith, that by following my inner truth, I am indeed walking down the right path. Funnily enough a path that seams to reveal itself in hindsight. Totally amazing.
I found your reaction to your visit very interesting because last month I wrote a little (as yet unpublished) article for a Passionist newsletter in which I mentioned that what moved me most when I visited Littlemore was seeing Newman’s desk on which Dominic had celebrated Mass.
On a practical note, a friend of mine with back trouble found a simple desk in Ikea, about two feet square, which is just the right height for standing at when using his computer.
I hope you get the article published. Thanks for the Ikea idea.
Perhaps in not too short a while and perhaps at the same time we’ll see the canonisations of Blessed John Henry, the great English theologian and Blessed Dominic, the Italian Passionist theologian who received him.
Father Wang’s comments on his improvised desk have just brought back some childhood memories of my father’s study. He constructed his desk from a long unused leaf from our diningroom table which was laid on three wooden orange boxes. These used to be given away free by greengrocers and formed his shelves on which he would put his various manuscripts. He thus had six shelves although I do remember that at one time he told me he was working on seven books at once!
Oh What a wonderful day. We Just did the Newman Pilgrimage, we had Mass in the oratory, and when we said The Hail Mary the flame that was perfectly serene in front of our lady began to dance and flicker. What a special day to have had Mass there.
I Loved the spiral staircase pulpit in the church and I just had to feel the old wooden hand rails even though we couldn’t climb the stairs, just to know he probably held those rails every time he climbed to read his sermon.
But best of all was the romantically perfect Littlemore, with it’s beautiful garden, the converted barns and that desk which I remembered absolutely from your description, the storm lashed fireplace confession, His life long Love affair with the Truth. His private room and the personal heart wrenching letters which evoke both deepest sadness and greatest happiness. And the beautifully prayerful intimate chapel. Such a special day after going to his beatification. I even got to kiss the relic. A lock of his hair. Cardinal Henry Newman…..Pray for me x