Pádraig McCarthy: The Greatest Drama?

From now to Easter we have what might be considered the most dramatic season in the Liturgy.

In my teens I knew of Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957) as a writer of detective novels. I knew nothing then of her Christian writings. She was born in Oxford, daughter of the Rev Henry Sayers and his wife Helen “Nell” Mary, née Leigh. Her paternal grandfather was Rev Robert Sayers, from Co Tipperary.

In 1941-1942 the BBC broadcast her series of 12 radio plays: The Man Born to be King, based on the gospel narratives. She was working on a translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy. She had completed the Inferno and the Purgatorio, and had started on the Paradiso when she died in 1957. C S Lewis wrote A Panegyric for Dorothy Sayers.

Before Easter 1938, she wrote “The Greatest Drama Ever Staged Is the Official Creed of Christendom” for the Sunday Times. Just 1995 words, her fresh thinking could present a challenge to us. Her writing has a mischievous humour. The opening paragraph is as follows:

“Official Christianity, of late years, has been having what is known as ‘a bad press.’ We are constantly assured that the churches are empty because preachers insist too much upon doctrine – ’dull dogma,’ as people call it. The fact is the precise opposite. It is the neglect of dogma that makes for dullness. The Christian faith is the most exciting drama that ever staggered the imagination of man – and the dogma is the drama.”

The final paragraph:

“Perhaps the drama is played out now, and Jesus is safely dead and buried. Perhaps. It is ironical and entertaining to consider that once at least in the world’s history those words might have been spoken with complete conviction, and that was upon the eve of the resurrection.”

The full article is at 

https://www.plough.com/en/topics/culture/holidays/easter-readings/the-greatest-drama-ever-staged.