Studies in Spirituality 23, 135-200. doi: 10.2143/SIS.23.0.3007316 © 2013 by Studies in Spirituality. All rights reserved. ROBYN WRIGLEY-CARR THE ABBÉ AND THE BARON Henri Huvelin’s Spiritual Nurture of Friedrich von Hügel ‘I learnt all that I know from Huvelin. I learnt it from him. What a great saint he was! And what he taught me!’ (Friedrich von Hügel)1 SUMMARY – ‘Spiritual direction’ is an area currently receiving much atten- tion in both sacred and secular circles. Publications abound concerning tech- niques, theoretical approaches and essential personal qualities for directors. However, few in-depth studies of exemplary spiritual direction have been written. This paper provides a case study of Abbé Henri Huvelin’s spiritual direction of Baron Friedrich von Hügel, from 1884 until 1910. Huvelin has been described as ‘one of the greatest spiritual directors of the nineteenth century’ and he was sought out by many intellectuals of his day.2 In this paper, the Abbé’s influence on von Hügel is explored through examining Huvelin’s letters, sermons and ‘Sayings’. Here we explore who Huvelin was and how he influenced von Hügel, before raising some critical questions con- cerning Huvelin’s role as a spiritual director and his spiritual nurture. 1. VON HÜGEL’S DEBT TO HUVELIN Huvelin is repeatedly described by Friedrich von Hügel (1852-1925) as the person who had the greatest impact on his life. Von Hügel writes ‘I owe more to this Frenchman than to any man I have ever known in the flesh’.3 A significant 1 Gwendolen Greene (Ed.), Baron Friedrich von Hügel’s letters to a niece, London: Dent, 1929, xv. (Hereafter LN). 2 Maurice Nédoncelle, Baron Friedrich von Hügel: A study of his life and thought, London: Longmans, Green & Co, 1937, 4. 3 Friedrich von Hügel, Essays and addresses on the philosophy of religion. First series, London: Dent, 1921 286 (hereafter EA I). He also describes Huvelin as someone ‘whom I owe incalculably much’, see Essays and addresses on the philosophy of religion. Second series (ed. Edmund Gardner), London: Dent, 1926, 96 (hereafter EA II). 136 ROBYN WRIGLEY-CARR conversion came for von Hügel through Huvelin: ‘the final depth attained so far was mediated (…) by a physically suffering, spiritually aboundingly helpful, mystical saint’.4 Or again, in a letter to Maude Petre: ‘he, naturally, stands out, undimmed, as the deepest and most salutary influence exercised upon me by any man known to me in the flesh’.5 The only place we find von Hügel wanting to disconnect himself from Huvelin, is when he fears that being too closely connected to him, might negatively impact Huvelin’s chances of being beatified.6 Despite this, given von Hügel’s comments about his debt to Huvelin, it is hardly surprising that Hügelian experts, such as Bedoyère and Barmann, draw attention to Huvelin’s importance.7 2. THE ABBÉ HUVELIN Abbé Henri Huvelin was born at Laon in Picardy, France, on October 7, 1838. He studied at the École Normale and also in Rome. On his return to Paris in 1867, he was ordained a priest and sent to teach at the junior seminary at Saint-Nicolas du Chardonnenet. One of his duties there was to discern and select which students had a true vocation for the priesthood. Following this teaching post, he was appointed as a curate at the church of Saint-Eugène in the Rue Sainte Cecile, where he remained for seventeen years. In 1875, Huvelin became curate at the church of Saint-Augustin in Paris, remaining there for thirty-five years until his death on July 10th 1910. 4 Letter to Miss Fogelklou, 11th January, 1911, in: Douglas Steere, Spiritual counsel and letters of Baron Friedrich von Hügel, New York: Harper & Row, 1964, 3-4. 5 Von Hügel continues, ‘And any limits or defects in my outlook or performance I ever feel not to come from him, to be indeed still, thank God, in process of being sweetened and softened by that splendid light and warmth from beyond the veil whither that strong suffering saint has now gone’. Von Hügel to M.D. Petre, 15-16 December 1910, see James J. Kelly (Ed.), The letters of Baron Friedrich von Hügel and Maude D. Petre: The modernist movement in Eng- land, Leuven: Peeters, 2003, 121. 6 Von Hügel writes to Algar Thorold about not wanting to be ‘too definitely connected with him [Huvelin] in print. Not that I am most gratefully proud of all that I owe him; but that I want not to thwart his cultus: I want him eventually to be beatified, yet this might be adjourned, if the timid (95% of our practising Catholics) get scared by his breadth’ (4th December, 1921, quoted in Michael de la Bedoyère, The life of Baron von Hügel, New York: Scribner, 1951, 339). 7 Bedoyère sees Huvelin as the most significant living influence on the Baron’s ‘deepened and enlarged spiritual formation’ and that Huvelin’s ‘breadth of outlook, coupled with intensity of spiritual life in personal suffering, so deeply influenced the baron’s whole course of life’ (Bedoyère, The life of Baron von Hügel, 50, 251. Barmann goes as far as arguing that it was Huvelin, more than any other, who ‘confirmed the Baron in the pursuit of this mystical dimension of his Chris- tian life’ and helped him develop it. Lawrence Barmann, ‘The modernist as mystic’, in: Darryl Jodock (Ed.), Catholicism contending with modernity: Roman Catholic modernism and anti-modern- ism in historical context, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, 213-247: 225. THE ABBÉ AND THE BARON 137 Figure 1: Abbé Henri Huvelin8 Huvelin’s spiritual direction was celebrated in his day and was sought out by many, including Henri Brémond and Maurice Blondel. These Modernists, feeling alien- ated from the Roman Catholic church, were received and nurtured by Huvelin. The Abbé also gave spiritual direction to other prominent figures including Emile Littré and Charles de Foucauld. Huvelin’s skill in converting Foucauld was alone enough to establish Huvelin as a unique spiritual director and give him a ‘cult status’.9 Huvelin’s custom was to receive visitors from two to five every afternoon.10 However, Steuart claims that Huvelin saw people for sometimes twelve or four- teen hours out of each day and that his correspondence grew out of control: ‘his scanty leisure hours at home had to be surrendered to a ceaseless stream of visitors (…) who came to consult him’.11 These people queued for long stretches of time outside his door in the Rue de Laborde to receive his spiritual counsel. Gibert-Lafon helps us picture the scene: [O]ne would wait first of all in a narrow room, surrounded by books, and often full of visitors. At last one found one’s way into the room where the Abbé Huvelin 8 Photo of a photo in St. Augustin’s Church, Paris, taken by the author. 9 Bedoyère, The life of Baron von Hügel, 42. 10 Adeline, Duchess of Bedford, ‘The Abbé Huvelin: A sketch’, in: The English Church Review, Jan 1911, 34. 11 R. Steuart, ‘The Abbé Huvelin’, in: Idem, Diversity in holiness, London: Sheed & Ward, 1938, 150-157: 151-152. 138 ROBYN WRIGLEY-CARR was seated in his invalid chair, his back to the window, before a great desk laden with books and papers.12 Adeline, Duchess of Bedford, describes how Huvelin often lay on his couch in his darkened room, overcome with physical suffering from gout, but never refusing a visitor.13 Von Hügel writes that despite Huvelin ‘…always suffering and ill, he sat in a chair radiating joy and support to all of us’.14 Adeline echoes this: ‘once in contact with souls, the fire of his spirit leaped up, and burnt deep into the conscience of his hearer’.15 As von Hügel records in his diary: ‘[I] found him very gouty, but as movingly spiritual and great as ever’.16 Figure 2: Huvelin’s apartment at the Rue de Laborde, Paris17 12 E. Gibert-Lafon, ‘Characteristics of Abbé Huvelin’, in: Henri Huvelin, Addresses to women (transl. Margaret Smith-Masters, ed. Abbé E. Gibert-Lafon), London: Burns, Oates & Washbourne, 1936, 1-9: 9. (Hereafter ATW). 13 Adeline, Duchess of Bedford, ‘The Abbé Huvelin’, 34. 14 LN, xxiv. 15 Adeline, ‘The Abbé Huvelin’, 34. 16 Von Hügel’s diary, 12/4/1907April 12, 1907 (hereafter D). Von Hügel’s 43 diaries are located in St Andrews University Library Archive (hereafter SAUL), ms36362. 17 Photo by the author. THE ABBÉ AND THE BARON 139 Von Hügel first met Huvelin on the 16th of June, 1884. He was von Hügel’s spiritual director for twenty six years until Huvelin’s death. Von Hügel’s visits to Huvelin were most frequent between 1884 and 1893,18 and he had regular written correspondence with Huvelin from 1884 until 1904.19 Even beyond his death, Huvelin had a massive influence on von Hügel. As Bedoyère argues, Huvelin’s ‘breadth of outlook, coupled with intensity of spiritual life in per- sonal suffering, had so deeply influenced the baron’s whole course of life (…) his influence remained permanently absorbed’.20 Huvelin chose to ‘write in souls’, leaving no published works behind him.21 The only evidence of what he preached was collected by his ‘disciples’ who wrote down his sermons from 1868-1909.22 Von Hügel possessed some of these publications.23 The main evidence of the spiritual direction von Hügel received are sixteen letters that Huvelin wrote to him between 1884 and 1904, plus Huvelin’s ‘Sayings’ to von Hügel during two week-long visits in 18 Von Hügel’s diaries reveal the frequency of visits to Huvelin: 26th Oct 1984, 19th May 1895, 23rd Apr 1896 (plus two more visits that week), 2nd Nov 1896 (plus two more visits that week), 6th May 1897 (plus another visit that week), 22nd November 1899, 30th May 1900, 1 June 1900.