Caryll Houselander
Born: September 29, 1901
Died: October 12, 1954
The core of Caryll Houselander’s faith comes through her writings, which can be summarized in her own words: “Christ is everywhere; in him every kind of life has a meaning and has an influence on every other kind of life.”
Her life and books attest to this belief by the compassion she offered to those who bore any kind of suffering. The foundations of this spiritual practice evolved from her own experience with affliction, from the doctrine of the Body of Christ, and from her mystical visions.
Houselander certainly had plenty of suffering to lead her toward empathy for others’ pain. Her frail health began at birth, when she was not expected to live. She had an undiagnosed diseased appendix that led to severe illness in elementary school, know the trauma of childhood scrupulosity, suffered the divorce of her parents when she was 9, and lived through two world wars with air raids and bombings as part of her daily life in London. In her writings Houselander compared the experience of war to the Passion of Christ. Her final suffering came with breast cancer, which eventually took her life at age 52.
More about Caryll Houselander:
Caryll Houselander calls us to Christlike compassion
Houselander’s belief that we are all extensions of the wounded Christ inspires us to have compassion for all, says Joyce Rupp.
Image: Used with permission of Notre Dame Archives
