This week’s saint is female Anglican mystic Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941).
In brief:
Underhill was baptised Anglican at birth but raised without religion. She did not come to faith in Christ until she was 32. She spent the next four years reading over 1000 books on mysticism and writing her famous book Mysticism, which was published in 1911. She found much beauty in the Roman Catholic Church, especially after a trip to Italy, but felt that she could not become Roman Catholic because of its complete rejection of modernity and her own ecumenical spirit.
She was not drawn to the Church of England at first, either, because she found it unbeautiful. Eventually, however, she found a home in Anglicanism and served as a leader of retreats for almost twenty years of her life. She wrote numerous books on mysticism and is one of the 20th century’s best-known guides to the mystical life of the Christian.
For a change, here are some quotations from our weekly saint (most are from Quote Websites and so I don’ t have references for them all; sorry):
The reality of the Church does not abide in us; it is not a spiritual Rotary Club. Its reality abides in the One God, the ever-living One whose triune Spirit fills it by filling each one of its members. –The School of Charity: Meditations on the Christian Creed
If God were small enough to be understood, He would not be big enough to be worshiped.
Spiritual reading is a regular, essential part of the life of prayer, and particularly is it the support of adoring prayer. It is important to increase our sense of God’s richness and wonder by reading what his great lovers have said about him.
Adoration is caring for God above all else. Charity is the outward swing of prayer toward all the world … embracing and caring for all worldly interests in God’s name.-Ways of the Spirit
To finish, here are the links to some of her works available online:
Classically Christian 