Caryll Houselander, patron of artists, mystics, neurotics, and…

On October 12, 1954, Caryll Houselander died, a British laywoman with an unusual name and an unusual story. When writer and publisher Maisie Ward wrote Caryll’s biography, Ward subtitled the book “Divine Eccentric,” an apt way to describe her longtime friend.

Caryll was a painter, woodcarver, letter writer, poet, and author. That is, she was one of those rare people who have such an abundance of creativity that it seems to flow through their veins, out of their bodies, and into every available artistic medium.

Caryll began her career by painting homes, decorating household items, and crafting items such as artificial roses. Later, through wood carving and painting, she created works of art. She also had a way with words. Through her writing, she encouraged friends, expressed herself in poetry (which she called rhythms), and wrote magazine articles and books to support herself.

Of course, art is generally not a lucrative profession. As a young woman, Caryll entered a high-end shop and discovered that a lampshade she had painted was for sale. Although she had been paid only a few shillings to create it, it now had an expensive price tag.

Caryll eventually became a successful author, but she did not choose easy or cheery topics to write about. It was during 1941 when she wrote This War is the Passion, encouraging her countrymen to see the fear and horrors of World War II through the lens of the Passion of Christ. Although she had no professional training in theology, her works were profoundly and uniquely Christocentric.

Being a Catholic in early twentieth century England was not an easy choice either. She had been baptized into the Church as a child, but she left the faith as a teenager and only returned at the age of twenty-four. But once she was back inside the Church, she made Catholic friends, who began to think of her as a mystic.

After all, Caryll did not simply create Christian art and write Catholic books. It was as if she was constantly looking for Jesus Christ and allowed the Holy Spirit to tell her which corner to turn so that she could discover him.

This pursuit of Christ probably began when she was only seventeen and was not really seeking him at all. She was walking through streets on an errand for her mother when she looked up and saw a large Russian-style icon of Jesus Christ filling the sky above her. Later that day, she learned in a newspaper that the Russian czar had been assassinated. The face of the czar in the newspaper photograph was the same face she had seen in the sky. That was not the last vision she received.

Caryll’s pursuit of Christ led her into a Catholic literary movement that was growing in England at the time. These intellectuals and Caryll’s other friends noted her deep prayer life, her astonishing humility, and her sensitivity to the needs of others. In fact, she was so sensitive—perhaps through some supernatural or extraordinary gift—that friends privately wondered if she could read their minds, even from a distance. Her comforting phone calls seemed to come at just the right moment. She could also make unnervingly accurate evaluations of someone’s character from that person’s handwriting.

Although she always lived as a laywoman—and dismissed the idea that she had a religious vocation—she fasted, prayed, and made personal sacrifices with the devotion of a vowed religious. However, one could argue that some of these practices might have been a result of her poverty.

Unlike most of the British but like any true ascetic, Caryll delighted in the poverty of life that was inflicted upon her by World War II. Eating plain food, disregarding the class distinctions of polite society, and welcoming personal sacrifices due material shortages were exactly the sort of sacrifices she believed every Christian should joyfully accept. Caryll had already formed a group of friends who pooled their meager financial resources and anonymously gave the money to individuals in need in their community. She also worked grueling hours as a First Aid worker during the war—like many others in England at the time—and tried to bring the presence of Christ to her work and her coworkers.

Another unusual opportunity to help the needy was offered to Caryll during World War II. The prominent psychologist Dr. Eric Strauss realized that he did not seem to be making progress in helping some of his boy patients, particularly those had been deeply wounded by loss and grief. Dr. Strauss asked Caryll if she would try to help them. She agreed to meet with these children, and through art (such as woodcarving), music, and gentle listening, she was able to help many of these seemingly lost boys begin to heal. “She loved them back to life,” Dr. Strauss later said.¹

Caryll was an artist and a mystic, but she was also neurotic, and it’s not difficult to understand why. She was sickly from birth, not considered particularly attractive, painfully shy, and extremely sensitive. In other words, she was the complete reverse of her outgoing, quirky father and her no-nonsense, athletic mother.

In an age when divorce was unheard of in British society, Caryll’s parents decided to divorce. Caryll’s contact with her father thereafter was limited, and her relationship with her mother was always difficult because of their personality differences. The bitterness of the nine-year-old girl’s broken home left a deep wound in her heart. After the divorce, she frequently suffered from panic attacks when she had to meet strangers.

Caryll fell in love only once in her life and then with the most unlikely of figures: Sidney Reilly, a Russian-born secret agent working for Scotland Yard who became a world-traveling master spy. Reilly was also married. Although the relationship was apparently chaste, Caryll’s heart was broken when Reilly left England. She offered up that loss and her other personal losses to Christ, and she incorporated those sufferings into her writing and in her efforts to comfort others.

Caryll had some habits that were common for the time. She smoked, and she drank. She also had a cat, close friends, and a love for practical jokes. And she often came home from social events chastising herself for saying exactly what she thought, which was generally perceived as bad-mannered and rude.

Caryll Houselander is not currently even in the process of canonization. But if she is ever named a saint, she will be the perfect heavenly patron for those who feel painfully awkward in social situations; those who have been wounded by broken relationships; those who yearn to find Christ in their daily prayers and in their fussy neighbors; and those who are sometimes deeply moved by the power of beauty. That just about covers all of us, which is why we should not be afraid of being considered at least a little eccentric, as she was, for God’s sake.

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