Catholic Themes

Photo of Marty Barrack

Shakespeare’s plays, because they mirror our life experience, teach us much about Christianity. Government schools, however, do not teach Catholic themes. Let us look at English literature, for brevity confining our attention to a single theme within Shakespeare’s Hamlet, that the tragic consequences are far greater in the life to come than in this life:

In Act I Scene 5 the Ghost of Hamlet’s father comes to Hamlet to tell him of Claudius’ treacherous murder and demand vengeance.

I am thy father’s spirit
Doom’d for a certain term to walk the night,
And for the day confin’d to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purg’d away. But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison-house,
I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres...

The Ghost has clearly come from purgatory, since he refers to foul crimes that have to be “burnt and purg’d away.” Further, when Claudius murdered King Hamlet in his sleep he gave the king no opportunity to prepare himself for death as a Catholic should through the last rites:

Cut off even the blossoms of my sin,
Unhousel’d, disappointed, unanel’d,
No reckoning made, but sent to my account
With all my imperfections on my head.
O horrible! O horrible! most horrible!

”Reckoning” is an archaic term for the Sacrament of Confession, “anel’d” for the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick and Dying, and “housel’d” for the Sacrament of Holy Eucharist. King Hamlet had to suffer the pains of purgatory because his murderous brother did not allow him to prepare himself as a Catholic should for death. Claudius had killed his brother and usurped his throne, but his callousness as to his brother’s eternal fate was a far worse tragedy.

The Ghost called on Hamlet to avenge this foul murder.

Let not the royal bed of Denmark be
A couch for luxury and damned incest.

But his final words to Hamlet were,

Adieu, adieu, adieu. Remember me.

We remember the poor souls in purgatory by praying for them. Prince Hamlet swears to remember, but when he says, “I’ll go pray,” Horatio immediately responds that these are “wild and whirling words.” Evidently, Hamlet meant to ask strength for vengeance, not for his father’s soul.

Hamlet’s vengeance specifically included sending Claudius to hell. At Act III Scene 3, Hamlet, bent on revenge, comes upon Claudius, kneeling in the appearance of prayer. But Claudius’ restless soul, under the heavy weight of sin, cannot bring himself to pray.

Claudius begins by placing his sin in the context of salvation history.

O! my offense is rank, it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest curse upon’t;

The primal eldest curse, of course, was the curse of Cain. Gen 4:11 “And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.”

Then Claudius reflected that he was still holding on to his crown.

My fault is past. But, O! what form of prayer
Can serve my turn? ’Forgive me my foul murder?’
That cannot be; since I am still possess’d
Of those effects for which I did the murder,
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.

If we truly detest our sin, we do what we can to return our ill-gotten goods to their rightful owner. Claudius could have abdicated in favor of the rightful heir, Prince Hamlet. Instead, aware that even if he received sacramental absolution he would still have to pay a terrible price in temporal punishment, Claudius asks,

May one be pardon’d and retain the offence?

Claudius knows that in this life we often fake rectitude.

In the corrupted currents of this world
Offence’s gilded hand may shove by justice,
And oft ’tis seen the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law; but ’tis not so above;

But he also knows that when we stand before God all is truth.

There is no shuffling, there the action lies
In his true nature, and we ourselves compell’d
Even in the teeth and forehead of our faults
To give in evidence.

Hamlet’s soliloquy shows us that the real tragedy is the eternal destiny of King Hamlet and King Claudius. Hamlet says that merely killing Claudius and sending him to heaven would be “hire and salary, not revenge.” Claudius took his father “with all his crimes broad blown.” Hamlet’s deliberate plan is to kill Claudius “when he is drunk asleep, or in his rage, or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed ... that his soul may be as damn’d and black as hell, whereto it goes.”

A villain kills my father; and for that,
I, his sole son, do this same villain send
To heaven.
O, this is hire and salary, not revenge.
He took my father grossly, full of bread;
With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May;
And how his audit stands who knows save heaven?
But in our circumstance and course of thought,
Tis heavy with him: and am I then revenged,
To take him in the purging of his soul,
When he is fit and season’d for his passage?
No!
Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid hent:
When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage,
Or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed;
At gaming, swearing, or about some act
That has no relish of salvation in’t;
Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,
And that his soul may be as damn’d and black
As hell, whereto it goes.

Claudius, meanwhile, is still unable to pray. His lament is one that every Catholic should recall while praying the Act of Contrition:

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

God wanted to give Claudius, and all sinners, a lifetime to reflect and return to Him. If Hamlet had killed Claudius then, objectively speaking, Claudius’ soul would have gone straight to hell. But because God did allow Claudius the appearance of prayer, Hamlet mistook it for prayer and stayed his hand. At the end, in Act V Scene 2, the pile of bodies -- Claudius, Gertrude, Hamlet and Laertes, left the mostly Protestant Elizabethan audiences speculating on whether each died serving good or evil and where each would end.

Shakespeare wove many other Catholic themes into his plays. For example, receiving information we have no right to possess killed Polonius, the very sin of pride through which our first parents brought death into the world.

When we teach our children Shakespeare, we need to teach his Catholic themes. When we teach our children anything, we need to teach its Catholic themes. Every breath we take brings us one breath closer to the Author of Life, who wrote: Dt 6:5 “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children.”