Almost another John the Baptist?

As played by Michael Grennell

"If a face-to-face meeting was meant to intimidate Throckmorton, Cromwell and the King had misjudged their man.  Sir George . . . turned the King’s talk of his conscientious scruples in an even bolder direction than Temys:  'I feared if ye did marry Queen Anne, your conscience would be more troubled at length, for that it is thought ye have meddled with the mother and the sister.'  Caught badly off guard by this breathtaking directness, the King retorted defensively, 'Never with the mother,' while Cromwell lashed out in an effort to save the situation, 'Nor never with the sister neither, and therefore put that out of your mind.'
     "So Henry had admitted adultery (or, in his eyes, fornication) with Mary Boleyn, though not the Countess of Wiltshire."

     Diarmaid MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer:  a revolutionary life (New York:  Viking, 2018), 167.  From p. 166:  Sir George Throckmorton

came from a family inclined throughout the sixteenth century to express their often sharply contrasting political opinions with pugnacity.  His literary style in letters to Cromwell is marked by its brisk straightforwardness, and he was not afraid to strike out on his own line against Crown interests on matters of local administration:  all around, not a man to be trifled with.

(But this all came from a confession extracted from Throckmorton in the Autumn of 1637.  What is more, Throckmorton's "breathtaking directness" "beyond Parliament" was to cost another, his friend Sir Thomas Dingley, his life (167).)
     Cf. the pugnacity of Throckmorton to that of the Observant Franciscans.

"The intolerability of the thought that man is preserved in being"

"There was . . . no place in the thought of antiquity for a [(for the post-Scholastic, modern)] concept of self preservation [(Selbsterhaltung)]....
     "The Middle Ages left behind a question of which antiquity was unaware.  The Middle Ages put the question—in all truth brought it forth—because it believed that it had the answer to it.  The answer created the need for the problem.  The answer was the extravagant claim of a constant, inward, and most radical dependence of the world on God [(einer ständigen, innigsten, radikalsten Abhängigkiet der Welt von Gott)].  He is not only its once and for all creator, its regent and administrator.  He must also be its 'preserver [(Erhalter)]' in the strictest sense.  The concepts of continual creation and divine concursion [(der creatio continua und des concursus divinus)], peculiar to the Middle Ages, arose from a consistent conformity to this answer.  In the face of the entire stock of ideas which it had received from ancient metaphysics, the Middle Ages forced itself to conceive of nothing, or the void (nihil), almost as the normal metaphysical state of affairs and to think of the creation from nothing [(die creatio ex nihilo)] as a miracle [(Wunder)] constantly effected against this normality.  This [post medieval, modern] return from the abyss of contingency could not bring about a restoration of ancient indubitability.  The new answer to the question (which itself had since been radicalized) had to be even more radical in the sense of assuring its rationality.  The material which the reception of Stoicism offered did not meet this need."

     Hans Blumenberg, "Self-preservation and inertia:  on the constitution of modern rationality," Contemporary German philosophy 3 (1983):  218 (209-256), a translation of "Selbsterhaltung und Beharrung:  zur Konstitution der neuzeitlichen Rationalität," in Subjektivität und Selbsterhaltung, ed. Hans Ebeling (Frankfurt:  Suhrkamp, 1976), 145-207, in which this occurs on pp. 156-157.  The heading comes from p. 216/153 ("Die Unerträglichkeit des Gedankens, der Mensch werde im Dasein erhalten").

Pseudo-Thomas More: "Grant me, O Lord, good digestion, and also something to digest"

"Grant me, O Lord, good digestion, and also something to digest. Grant me a healthy body, and the necessary good humour to maintain it. Grant me a simple soul that knows to treasure all that is good and that doesn’t frighten easily at the sight of evil, but rather finds the means to put things back in their place. Give me a soul that knows not boredom, grumbling, sighs and laments, nor excess of stress, because of that obstructing thing called 'I'. Grant me, O Lord, a sense of good humour. Allow me the grace to be able to take a joke and to discover in life a bit of joy, and to be able to share it with others".

     I have my suspicions about this one, "attributed" to St. Thomas More by Pope Francis in the Apostolic Exortation Gaudete et Exultate, and often elsewhere, but, if The Center for Thomas More Studies' Cumulative Concordance of Thomas More's English Works, which is supposed to be based on the 1963-1997 Yale Edition of the Works ed. Syvester and the 1947 Princeton edition of the Correspondence ed. Rogers, is any indication, apparently not present in at least those sectors of his œuvre (though I have not yet done due diligence with the Cumulative Concordance of Thomas More's Latin Works, or looked for it in, for example, his early biographers).

     27 January 2019:  Since composing the paragraph above, I have uncovered Frank J. Mallett's "favorite poetic prayer, found, I believe, on a tablet in Chester Cathedral, England" ("Humor in pulpit and pew," Review & expositor 34, no. 3 (July 1937):  301 (294-301)).  The relation is obvious, and of course Pope Francis was born on 17 December 1936.  So this version, at least, attributed to the "tablet in Chester Cathedral," has been in print his whole life:

Give me a good digestion, Lord,
And also something to digest.
Give me a healthy body, Lord,
With sense to keep it at its best.

Give me a healthy mind, good Lord,
To keep the good and pure in sight,
Which seeing sin is not appalled,
But finds a way to set it right.

Give me a mind that is not bored,
That does not whimper, whine or sigh,
Don’t let me worry overmuch,
About the funny thing called I.

Give me a sense of humor, Lord,
Give me the grace to see a joke,
To get some happiness from life,
And pass it on to other folk.

     With that (e.g. the reference to Chester) in hand, additional pages pop up more readily, e.g. this one:  the Abbé Germain Marc'hadour's "Most famous of More's spurious prayers:  'Give me a good digestion, Lord,'" or "Apocyrphal More," Moreana:  Bulletin Thomas More 9, no. 4 =no. 36 (December 1962):  93-96, re-posted at http://www.amici-thomae-mori.com/, which confidently attributes the following—following, supposedly, a card sold by the Cathedral and placed in evidence by its brand new Dean, the Very Reverend George W. O. Addelshaw (1962-1977)—to Thomas Henry Basil Webb (1898-1917):

Give me a good digestion, Lord,
     And also something to digest;
But when and how that something comes
     I leave to Thee, Who knowest best.

Give me a healthy body, Lord;
     Give me the sense to keep it so;
Also a heart that is not bored
     Whatever work I have to do.

Give me a healthy mind, Good Lord,
     That finds the good that dodges sight;
And seeing sin, is not appalled,
     But seeks a way to put it right.

Give me a point of view, Good Lord,
     Let me know what is, and why.
Don’t let me worry overmuch
     About the thing that’s known as 'I'.

Give me a sense of humour, Lord,
     Give me the power to see a joke,
To get some happiness from life
     And pass it on to other folk.

     This same article by the Abbé Germain Marc'hadour gives another version, along with a few of the many variants in circulation at that time (including one of those substituting "soul" for "mind"), and a reference to a version in French (cf. Fernando de Mello Moser, "More's spurious prayer (Portuguese version)," Moreana 13, no. =no. 49 (February 1976):  51-52):

Give me a good digestion, Lord,
And also something to digest.
Give me a healthy body, Lord,
With sense to keep it at its best.

Give me a healthy mind, Lord,
To keep the good and pure in sight,
Which, seeing sin, is not appalled,
But finds a way to set it right.

Give me a mind that is not bored,
That does not whimper, whine or sigh;
Don’t let me worry overmuch
About the fussy thing called I.

Give me a sense of humor, Lord,
Give me the grace to see a joke,
To get some happiness from life
And pass it on to other folk.

     I have neither 1) attempted to verify the information supplied by the Dean of Chester, nor 2) looked back behind 1937 with the help of these other versions supplied by the Abbé Marc'hadour.
     It would be interesting, for example, to know where "stress" (so strikingly modern, though More did use the term in this sense at least once) first comes in.

     2019 January 28:  I now see that Moreana maintains a list of its articles (with, often, PDF) on apocryphal prayers by More, according to which nos. 4, 36, and especially 79/80 (November 1983) all have to do with this one.  No. 79/80 speaks of its "mille avatars," and connects it up temporally with the famous prayer erroneously attributed to St. Francis.

Those "two exuberant fontinells"

"why hath nature given to Women two exuberant fontinells, which, like two Roes that are twinnes, feed among the Lilies, and drop milk like dew from Hermon, and hath invited that nourishment from the secret recesses, where the infant dwelt at first, up to the breast where naturally now the childe is cradled in the entertainments of love and maternall embrances; but that nature, having removed the Babe, and carried its meat after it, intends that it should be preserved by the matter and ingredients of its constitution, and have the same diet prepared with a more mature and proportionable digestion?  If nature intended them not for nourishment, I am sure it lesse intended them for pride and wantonnesse; they are needlesse excrescencies and vices of nature, unlesse employed in natures work and proper intendment."

     Jeremy Taylor, "Discourse I, Of nursing children in imitation of the Blessed Virgin-Mother" 9, The great exemplar of sanctity and holy life according to the Christian institution.  Described in the history of the life and death of the ever blessed Jesus Christ, the saviour of the world.  With considerations and discourses upon the several parts of the story, and prayers fitted to the several mysteries ([London]:  R. N. for Francis Ash, 1649), 36.  This occurs also on pp. 35-36 of vol. 2 of the standard Whole works of 1822.  I was put on to this by Diarmaid McCulloch, The Reformation:  a history (New York:  Viking, 2003), 629.

Faith of our fathers, Mary's prayers, and Erin's saints

"Faith of our Fathers.  For England"

Faith of our Fathers!  Mary's prayers
Shall win our country back to thee;
And through the truth that comes
          from God
England shall then indeed be free.

"Faith of our Fathers.  For Ireland"

Faith of our Fathers!  Mary's prayers
Shall keep our country fast to thee;
And through the truth that comes from God
O we shall prosper and be free!

     Stanza three in the original in both cases.  Frederick W. Faber, Jesus and Mary:  or, Catholic hymns for singing and reading (London:  Richardson and Son, 1849), 135-139.  "For England":  four stanzas; "For Ireland":  seven stanzas, including, in stanza five, the line, "But Erin's Saints shall fight for us, | and keep undimmed thy blessed light."

From inchoation to perfection

"O God, who in your kindness begin all good things and bring them to fulfillment, grant to us, who find joy in the Solemnity of the holy Mother of God, that, just as we glory in the beginnings of your grace, so one day we may rejoice in its completion.  Through."

"Deus, qui bona cuncta inchoas benignus et perficis, da nobis, de sollemnitate sanctae Dei Genetricis laetantibus, sicut de initiis tuae gratiae gloriamur, ita de perfectione gaudere.  Per."

     Apart from the 20th-century insertion of "de sollemnitate sanctae Dei Genetricis laetantibus" (1 January), this is taken word for word from the "Leonine" or Veronese sacramentary (and, according to Corpus orationum, no subsequent!), where it (no. 1006 in the modern critical edition) functions as a post-communion "in natale episcoporum" for the month of September.  The pre-1956 scholarship cited by Mohlberg dates it to between 537 and post-560, depending, attributing it to Leonine (?) anti-semi-Pelagianism, to Vigilius, to Pelagius I, etc.

"I have guarded them, and none of them is lost"

"Much further north, east of Budapest, beyond the Danube frontier of Rome, a skeleton was found at Hács-Béndekpuszta that still clasped in its hands a [late 5th-century] leaden tablet inscribed with verses of the Gospel of Saint John taken from the Gothic translation of the Bible made by Bishop Ulfilas [(c. 311-383)].  They are the prayers of Jesus for protection for his followers (John 17:11-12):  'Holy Father, keep them in my name. . . .  I have guarded them and none of them is lost.'  The part-runic Gothic writing, held in the grave, gave mute protection to a 'barbarian' on the edge of the steppes of Eastern Europe, in the same way it would in the catacombs of Rome itself."

     Peter Brown, "A world winking with messages," The New York review of books 65, no. 20 (December 20, 2018):  53 (52-54).  Brown cites pp. 40-41 of Carla Falluomini, The Gothic version of the Gospels and Pauline Epistles:  cultural background, transmission and character (de Gruyter, 2015), which says that the skeleton was that of a young man, and that the tablet, first uncovered in 1955/1958 but since lost, was dated to the last third of the 5th century.  Only in 1996 was it recognized that the text it bore was that of Jn 17:11-12.
     Image is a scan of a scan of most of Plate 17 in D. Székely, "A lead tablet with inscriptions from Hács-Béndekpuszta," Mitteilungen des Archäologischen Instituts der Ungarischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 7 (1977 [1978]):  41-43 and Plates 17-20 (which was published before the text had been deciphered, and compares it to the script of the Gothic Lord's Prayer in the University of Upsala's Codex Argentus).