P. Gorazd Cetkovský, O.Carm.
When John of Jenštejn, the former archbishop of Prague, honored later by the Pope with the honorary title of Latin Patriarch of Alexandria, died in Rome on June 17, 1400, his prominent contemporaries both at home and abroad honored his memory with great seriousness, and some seemingly looked towards the possibility of his future beatification. However, the tumultuous events of the following decades of the Hussite wars and their consequences diverted the attention of the Czech church completely in a different direction.
I do not want to provide a biography of John of Jenštejn here. You can look it up, for example, in the book Bohemia sancta, published by the Czech Catholic Charity in 1989, which is readily available in most parish libraries or private libraries of priests. We even read from this book during this year's exercises at the table. But you could similarly pick up A Summary of the Church History of the Czechs by Dr. Jaroslav Kadlec, or other sources. Mentions of John of Jenštejn can also be found in works about St. John of Nepomuk because St. John was the general vicar, thus a close collaborator, of this archbishop. The martyrdom of John Nepomuk is closely related to his loyalty to the archbishop. And it was not long before Wenceslas IV helped in the martyrdom of John of Jenštejn himself.
I will therefore not provide a biography of John of Jenštejn. However, I would like to share with you a testimony of how this man's life story speaks to me even after a distance of six centuries. This testimony concerns several values.
First and foremost, it is about a deep relationship with the Eucharist. John of Jenštejn personally lived an intense Eucharistic devotion and also spread it as a shepherd of the church. When Pope John Paul II wrote during the preparation of the celebration of the Great Jubilee: “The year 2000 will be a deeply Eucharistic year...”,1 we can with gratitude and pride remember the Prague archbishop, who at the height of the Middle Ages allowed even laypeople to receive the Eucharist often, even daily. And it is worth noting – not only for lovers of history but also for practical spiritual life – that this was not an isolated personal initiative of Jenštejn, but that he as a shepherd supported and protected under his authority a broader reform movement that was then flowing within the Czech church. Ondřej M. Petrů, OP, wrote about this more thoroughly in his study The Most Beautiful Flower of the Czech Reform Movement of the 14th Century.2
Today, we gratefully accept the wise words of the preacher of reform, Matthew of Janov: “In relation to frequent reception it can be observed in the soul the holy struggle of humility and love: humility despises the reception, pointing to human wretchedness and sinfulness, while love relies on the infinite goodness and mercy of Jesus. Humility fears eternal damnation for such boldness, but love insists the opposite, that precisely the one who receives often will enter heaven. But in this holy struggle, love, the mistress of all virtues, must prevail, so that – according to the words of Scripture – love drives out fear.”3
The Lord rewarded His servant, Archbishop John, by receiving him before His face precisely on the feast of Corpus Christi in 1400.
The second distinctive feature of the spiritual life of John of Jenštejn is his Marian devotion. It manifested itself not only in his fervent relationship with the Madonna of Roudnice but also in a number of Latin poems by Jenštejn, which he composed for the prayer of the office on various Marian feasts. The most famous is his contribution to the establishment of the Feast of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary, but for us Carmelites, it may be interesting that besides promoting this and other Marian feasts, at the diocesan synod in 1385 he ordered the feast of Our Lady of the Snows to be celebrated among us and composed a complete office for it. To what extent the archbishop John was in contact with the Prague Carmelites, whose church bore the title of Our Lady of the Snows, in this context? Such a question must be answered by expert historians.
What can enrich us is John's conviction that a relationship with Mary (but also with God, with another person in general), if it is to be alive, must naturally be expressed through concrete external manifestations. And not just once, in isolation, but best in a certain regularity, rhythm, and in a certain continuity. Just as various Marian commemorations and feasts repeat annually and complement and intertwine throughout the liturgical year. And here it may be appropriate to repeat what we mentioned once during the exercises: it seems that today only older believers live the church year more sensitively, while for the younger generations, it is unfortunately seen as too much of a demand. Yet through the experience of the church calendar, each of us is offered a beautiful space for a personal approach to God and for the “inventiveness” of love that discovers and embraces the breadth and depth of the mystery of salvation, the rich eloquence of the quiet life of Mary, the multifaceted examples of the saints, and the entire colorful diversity of our own lives – so that we may open ourselves to the power of the presence of God in all this variability.
Moreover, through the encounter with Marian devotion, as presented by Jenštejn's biographers, we can be led to reflect on the deepest roots of our own relationship with Mary. If William Bitnar writes in his work,4 that Jenštejn turned so fervently to Mary because he did not dare to turn to Christ in his prayer, this explanation may come from Bitnar himself and thus stem from the piety of the first half of our century, but it is more likely a message borrowed from older biographies of John, perhaps from Peter the Clarifier, thus a testimony of a writer from the 14th century. In any case, we today intentionally strive to have the most immediate relationship with Christ, of whom we profess that out of love for us He accepted our humanity and became our brother; therefore, we cannot base our connection with Mary on such a reason as mentioned by Jenštejn's biographer. Our relationship with Mary arises from different roots. From what?... – To ask this and strive to give ourselves an answer will always be a blessing. Jenštejn's approach has “initiated” us for this.
Both aforementioned emphases, both Eucharistic and Marian, were actually viewed in the church's and Christian Europe's situation at that time as means of salvation! From the destruction that spread due to the schism in the church. The division of Christianity into two camps under two popes was internally eroding the church, becoming an excuse for the ambitious ambitions and opportunistic tricks of individual feudal lords and clerics, and driving many believers into despair, as there were no prospects for removing the scandal. John of Jenštejn unequivocally sided with the Roman Pope Urban VI after the outbreak of the schism and did not mind that he did not always receive gratitude from Rome. He was not deterred by the king Wenceslas IV's apathetic attitude or the resistance of that part of the Czech clergy, which stood with the anti-pope. He strove for obedience to Pope Urban VI and promoted respect for his authority as archbishop. We may rightly ask what this testimony of John shows us today, when bishops draw attention to polarization in our church, when the cohesion and solidarity of the flock of believers, renowned from the times of totalitarian pressure, remains a memory, when fluctuations of individual personalities or groups “to the right” or “to the left” are showcased and many of us are tempted by feelings of confusion and disgust. Jenštejn is an example of striving for a clear, courageous stance and respecting authority in the church.
Moreover, I consider it encouraging – even if it may sound surprising – when we read in his biography (and biographers do not readily admit such things) that Jenštejn's awkwardness in negotiations, his excessive severity, and lack of healthy diplomacy were also at play at that time. Thus, Jenštejn could not follow in the footsteps of his great predecessor, Archbishop Ernst of Pardubice, and ultimately remained abandoned not only by the king and his supporters but also by most clergy and monasteries which he so earnestly tried to bring to reform. Who among us does not occasionally experience the same bump against our own ineptitude, which we ourselves sabotage with the results of our efforts? In parish work, in raising children...
Another element of Jenštejn's testimony that I see for us is his conversion and the subsequent life of great asceticism. Although the features drawn here are probably those that contemporary biographers deliberately exaggerated: the radical change after a worldly period of life and acts of severe self-denial (described in frightening detail), and thus the drama of these accounts we will moderate, the message of John's conversion due to a severe illness, the rumors of the tragic death of the Archbishop of Magdeburg, and thoughts about eternity speaks clearly and compellingly even to today's person. And John’s ascetic rigor (which obviously relates to the whole contemporary view of humanity, the value of human life, suffering, etc.) brings us – I believe – to a deeper reflection on the significance of asceticism for Christian life as such, thus beyond the framework of a certain historical period and also for the postmodern today. And perhaps references to John’s severity can lead us to the realization that without wanting to defend extreme practices of medieval asceticism, we catch ourselves today in the opposite extreme. The theme is very sensitive; we may have encountered various exaggerations and have been affected by them, our opinions can vary, and we may still need refinement through dialogue with others or confrontation with new situations... But I am already grateful at this moment that John of Jenštejn presents the issue of self-denial before our eyes with his radicality. His firmness is an encouragement to me to approach my struggles courageously.
The last prompt I would like to highlight in connection with the anniversary of John of Jenštejn is his connection to the Augustinian monastery in Roudnice and the spiritual current that spread from there to other monasteries and countries. After his recovery from a serious illness, Archbishop John came here to seek spiritual guidance, and his conversion continued here. He truly found spiritual guidance and support in the Roudnice monastery, and prior Peter the Clarifier also wrote his biography after John’s death. Researchers have increasingly pointed out that the famous devotio moderna – "modern piety," which enriched all of Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries from the Netherlands, and whose most precious fruit is the "golden book" The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis, most likely has its roots in the Czech Augustinian milieu. “A certain similarity is also shown between The Imitation of Christ and the spiritual writings of Peter the Clarifier (+ after 1402), the Roudnice prior and spiritual leader of Archbishop John of Jenštejn.”5
If you agree, the anniversary of John of Jenštejn may also be an opportunity for us to return with renewed expectation – whether through a brief browsing or a continuous reading – to the spiritual wealth of the slim book of Thomas à Kempis. If those who lived for God and with God in times before us called The Imitation of Christ the “golden book,” they likely wanted to express primarily the value this book held for them, how much it gave them. But an important characteristic of gold is precisely that its value does not diminish over time, it does not succumb to decay and rust. At most, it just gathers dust, but that can be easily dealt with. I was delighted when The Imitation of Christ speaks clearly and succinctly about the difficulties we experience as the pains of our time, with which it is so difficult for us to wrestle that we tend to think our predecessors could not have had any idea about something like this... P. Ulrich Dobhan, in the article we are publishing in this issue of our magazine, speaks about how the mentality of our contemporaneity focuses on performance and utility. Let us supplement this with the words of Thomas à Kempis.
“People ask how much someone accomplishes; they no longer care so much about the purity of the motive behind the action. It is examined whether one is brave, rich, beautiful, competent, or a good writer, a good singer, a good worker; but often, how simple-minded, patient, gentle, pious, and inwardly full one is is neglected.
Nature is concerned with the external appearance of a person, grace turns to the inside. The former is often mistaken, the latter hopes in God so as not to be disappointed.”6
We Carmelites should not overlook how significant the book The Imitation of Christ was for St. Thérèse of Lisieux. It is said she nearly knew it by heart, and according to her own words, this book along with the Scriptures represented the most essential source for her spiritual life, even in moments of dryness.
“How much light I have drawn from the writings of our holy father John of the Cross!... At the age of 17 and 18, I had no other spiritual nourishment. But later all the books left me dry, and I remain in this state to this day. When I open a book written by a spiritual author (even the most beautiful, the most touching), I immediately feel my heart tightening, and I read, hardly understanding... or when I do understand, my mind stops and cannot contemplate... In this helplessness, the Holy Scripture and The Imitation come to my aid. In them, I find solid and entirely pure nourishment. But above all, it is the gospel that sustains me in moments of inner prayer. In it, I find everything my poor soul needs. I uncover ever new lights, hidden and mysterious meanings...”7
And if we strive to make this year a “deeply Eucharistic year,” let us also remember that the entire fourth book of The Imitation of Christ deals with the Sacrament of the Altar. Recognizing how beneficial it is for us to prepare for Mass and for Holy Communion with a separate personal prayer, how blessed it is for us to then remain in gratitude, we can find valuable nourishment for this personal prayer in The Imitation of Christ.
Let us conclude again with the words of John Paul II:
“The great honor that all churches will give to Christ at the threshold of the third millennium will be a demonstration of the omnipotent presence of the Redeemer through the fruits of faith, hope, and love in many men and women of all nations who followed Christ in various vocations of Christian life.” (TMA, art. 37.)
In the Czech church, this multitude of witnesses includes also the man who walked so closely in the footsteps of St. Wenceslaus – Archbishop John of Jenštejn.
