A quiet sanctity for all seasons

Basil Hume was as firm as he was gentle,
remembers Cardinal Thomas Winning IT WAS THE WORDS Of Leonardo da Vinci that put into context, for me, the life and death of my friend, George Basil Cardinal Hume.
"As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well-used brings happy death," wrote Leonardo. Cardinal Hume's life — or perhaps I should say Jives — were just that, wellspent.
I use the plural advisedly. The life of the Cardinal was a combination of the roles of the ascetic monk, the astute policy adviser, the gentle pastor and the prince of the Church: a man for all seasons.
It never ceased to amaze me that he could seem just as at home in the company of a royal princess over afternoon tea as in that of an alcoholic rough-sleeper over a mug of Bovril. That he could attend to both appointments within a few hours proved the depth of his versatility.
He was able to do that because he looked past appearances. To him the princess and the pauper were equal in dignity. Both were, first and foremost, children of God.
Strangely, it was in the wake of another death that I first met the former Abbot of Ampleforth. I had travelled from Glasgow to London to take part in the ordination ceremony of the about-to-be Archbishop Hume, and also to visit my predecessor as Archbishop of Glasgow who had just retired to London. On my arrival I was told the stunning news that my predecessor, Archbishop Scanlan, had died quite unexpectedly.
That afternoon we prayed for my late colleague at Basil's ordination Mass. Things have come full circle, today, as we pray for the happy, peaceful and eternal repose of the soul of Basil himself.
In the course of those 23 years, it would be true to say that the position of the Catholic Church in Britain has changed dramatically for the better. That is due, in no small measure. to Basil Hume the establishment figure, Basil Hume the diplomat, Basil Hume the wise counsellor, but most of all because of Basil Hume, the holy monk.
It was that quality of gentle, genuine goodness, which, I think, appealed to people of all faiths and none.
His SANCTITY was not ostentatious. He wasn't in the miracle-working business. (Although he might have wished he had been, as he watched his team, Newcastle United, emerge as runners up in the FA Cup or the Premiership just once too often!) His was a quiet sanctity, quintessentially English one might say, yet it was a massive and powerful force for good throughout the country. He last visited Scotland in January, when he was kind enough to come to a special Mass to mark my 50th anniversary as a priest. Despite a hectic schedule, and a workload which would have crippled many a man half his age, he was insistent that he wanted to travel north for the occasion.
Of course he was given a great reception. That unmistakable mop of white hair, the slightly stooped appearance and the clasped hands made him an immediately recognisable figure. To Glaswegians who had never met him, and who lived far from his circle of friends, he was a welcome visitor, a genuine ambassador of God and his Church.
THAT DEVOTION to the Church was a little recognised but essential part of his complex personality. Although widely credited for having developed what some commentators call an "English Catholicism" he was nevertheless a very Roman Catholic.
I recall well his firmness in doctrine. In recent years when pressure was growing for what is known as "inter-communion" (i.e. an open invitation policy between Christian Churches to each others' Communion services) he was quite determined that no such policy could be allowed.
He knew that the Catholic understanding of the real, historical presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist was quite different from the beliefs of the reformed tradition, and so, despite the lure of easy popularity and a rapidly developing bandwagon he refused to jump aboard. With a heavy heart, he said no to easier inter-communion.
His attitude was not the result of any kind of spiritual superiority complex. Rather, it was borne of the realisation that what was being proposed was simply not right, that it went against the teaching of the Church. And so, with a degree of sorrow he set his face against any change in practice.
That rigour was apparent in other ways too. Many bishops from England and Wales speak, half jokingly, wholly in earnest, of the very real opprobrium which he would mete out to any prelate attempting to "play truant" from a meeting of the episcopal conference!
Ironically it was that very rigour which first alerted his colleagues to his illness. He missed a few sessions of the annual post-Easter meeting of the English and Welsh bishops this year, sparking immediate concern among his fellow prelates.
As the media have since reported the diagnosis was both shocking and fmal: an inoperable cancer and a very short period of life left to live.
One of his staff told me that he went straight to his desk and wrote that marvellous note to his clergy, explaining very simply his condition and asking for "no fuss".
I admired greatly Cardinal Hume's decision to go public about his terminal illness. The witness of his words, steeped as they are in the hope of resurrection, can do a massive amount of good in sensitising people to the reality of death and also to the reality of eternal life. Cardinal Terence Cooke in New York and Cardinal Joseph Bernardin in Chicago also gave a very valuable witness to the eternal life we are in the business of proclaiming in the manner in which they died in recent years. Both chose to go public about their terminal condition, and both lived their final weeks, amid huge public interest, with great dignity and serenity.
The witness of someone facing death, not as annihilation or disaster, but as a gateway to eternity is just the antidote needed for the poison of secular humanism and atheism which is making dramatic inroads into our society.
I think Cardinal Hume recognised that in dying he could give a unique and unforgettable witness to the reality of eternal life. In that now famous letter to his clergy he wrote: "You may have heard that I have recently been in hospital for tests. The result: I have cancer and it is not in its early stages. I have received two wonderful graces. First, I have been given time to prepare for a new future. Secondly, I find myself — uncharacteristically — calm and at peace.
"I intend to carry on working as much and as long as I can. I have no intention of being an invalid until I have to submit to the illness. But nevertheless I shall be a bit limited in what I can do. Above all, no fuss. The future is in God's hands. I am determined to see the Holy Year in." Alas, that final wish was not gianted, at least not in the way Cardinal Basil had hoped.
THE HOLY YEAR he will not celebrate with us on earth will be as nothing to the Jubilee he will celebrate in heaven, where his "new future-, to use his own words, lies.
In his life Basil Hume preached the Gospel truth of God's merciful love and the reality of life after death. In his approach to and experience of death, he has practised exactly what he preached. "As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death."
May his gentle soul rest in peace.