The Pilgrimage of Anastasius, Gratian’s autobiography, translated by Fr Stephen Watson, OCD, has only just been published. This is timely, as interest in Gratian’s life and writings is growing. The book is four hundred and eighty-eight pages long, containing not only his autobiography but also forty pages of notes, along with appendices and an introduction that alone would justify buying this book. There is also a very helpful chronology of his life. If you want to know this contemporary and friend of St Teresa, there is no better book.
Pilgrimage of Anastasius was written in an autobiographical and apologetic style, which was popular at the time Gratian was writing. It consists of a dialogue between “Anastasius” and “Cyril”, both of whom are Gratian’s mouthpieces to express his thoughts and feelings. His book is not straightforward: the first seven chapters follow on chronologically but the last nine are a mixture of writings from accounts of his interior tribulations and consolations to his studies and writings.
The content is fascinating because the period in which he lived was Spain’s golden era, and because he knew one of the greatest saints and spiritual writers in the history of the Church; not only that but his own life was fascinating. I only wish he had written more about that. I would also love to know more about his feelings. However, he wasn’t St Teresa, who wrote as she spoke and often from her heart. Gratian was an academic and a scholastic scholar who was trained to write objectively.
This book is an important historical resource, a mine of information about the people and events following the death of St Teresa: not much has been written of this period. The official chronology of the Order didn’t begin until over forty years after her death. Gratian fills in the gaps. His chapter on the Foundations he made is priceless for the information it gives. It is much shorter than Teresa’s work on the same subject but complements what she wrote.
The chapter entitled “Revelations” is equally important. It confirms what Teresa herself had said about their extraordinary relationship. He kept many of her letters and quotes from them. He also quotes Teresa’s account of what happened after they first met, how Christ appeared to her and told her to take Gratian as her lifelong director.
In Fr Stephen’s early years in Carmel, he read Gratian’s autobiography. He wrote: ‘I felt that I had found someone who could give me a deeper understanding of my vocation. […] it is Jerome Gracián who has given me the widest and deepest vision of this same vocation, a vision that is exhilarating and breath-taking’ (p. xxxiv). Everyone has heard of St John of the Cross but Gratian is as authentically Carmelite as that great saint. John was always presented as the model for us male Carmelites. Gratian, however, offers another model. John was sometimes critical of Gratian, who loved nothing more than to preach. But in the end the two saw eye to eye. I don’t think I am wrong when I say that Gratian understood Teresa better than John. Yet in my formation years in Carmel, I was never introduced to Gratian. His cause for beatification is proceeding, albeit slowly. I asked the then Postulator General of the Order, Fr Ildefonso Moriones, how Gratian’s cause was proceeding. He told me it was going nowhere until he was better known. Fr Stephen’s translation will certainly make him better known. Just a small point about the spelling: is it Gratian or Gracián? I prefer the former, Fr Stephen the latter. It doesn’t really matter. I am so grateful to Fr Stephen: during our time together in Rome, we encouraged each other to tell Gratian’s story, which until recently was never told.
