A twitch upon the thread

When the English novelist G.K. Chesterton created the Father Brown detective series, he based the character on the priest in his native Bradford who was involved in his own conversion to Rome in1922. Chesterton was undoubtedly one of the finest English novelists of the first half of the twentieth century and inspired many others.

In particular, Evelyn Waugh drew on Father Brown when giving the title to the third book of his acclaimed novel Brideshead Revisited. The title, "A twitch upon the thread", comes from the Father Brown novel "The Queer Feet". After catching a criminal, hearing his confession and letting him go, Father Brown says, "I caught him, with an unseen hook and an invisible line which is long enough to let him wander to the ends of the world, and still to bring him back with a twitch upon the thread". A metaphor for the grace in the lives of the main characters, it describes their freedom to wander the world until they are ready and receptive to God's grace. At this point God acts in their lives to effect their conversion.

Waugh himself was received into the Catholic church in 1930 just before embarking for Abyssinia (Ethiopia today) to cover the coronation of the Emperor Haile Selassie who is a figure of reverence for the Rastafarians. Brideshead Revisited is unquestionably a novel of the highest order and is one to which I return periodically to remind myself what a great writer Waugh was. Set between the wars, it deals with the slow disintegration of the social class system and the relentless rise of nihilism and rejection of faith. An old Catholic family occupy the backdrop to the story which is told through the eyes of Charles Ryder. He becomes infatuated first with Sebastian the youngest son and then with Julia the eldest daughter. Throughout his involvement with the family of Lord Marchmain, Charles maintains his staunch agnosticism. This belief is held right up until the end of the novel when Julia calls a halt to their plans to marry. The turning point for Julia is when Charles professes the presence of a priest at the deathbed of Lord Marchmain to be "mumbo-jumbo".

Just before this point, the family doctor calls in to see Lord Marchmain and when he has finished, Charles sees him out to his car. Charles remarks, "what a marvellous will to live he has" in reference to the dying Lord Marchmain. The doctor begs to differ and counters, "I would say he has a great fear of death". It is an interesting exchange which makes you appreciate that there are usually two ways of looking at anything. That two rational men can view mortality with such apparent difference is a real eye opener. The novel ends with the conversion of Charles to a faith against which he has always passionately railed.

When Nietzsche first predicted the rise of godlessness, he created a storm of controversy and was roundly chastised. Last Sunday, I went to Holy Eucharist and surveyed the ageing and dwindling congregation around me. In the same church where my family had to arrive quarter of an hour early thirty-five years ago (just to be sure of a seat), people can now stroll in with a minute to spare safe in the knowledge that they can sit anywhere. I wonder how many missing members will, like Charles, be returned to their faith by a twitch upon the thread. The central point is that my faith persuades me that it is inevitable that people will return to faith even if they never professed any in the first place. I have read that people return to their faith when confronted, like Lord Marchmain, with their own mortality. Perhaps people have more freedom now and the thread is just longer. Maybe it was a taste with my own mortality which twitched my thread. But maybe I needed no twitch and my faith has always been strong enough. Either way, I remain mindful of the words of the enigmatic Father Brown.