John Donne
1572-1631 17th century Feast day: March 31
Shared frailty that binds the living together, and the longing to be wholly seized by God.
Who was John Donne?
An English poet raised in a persecuted Catholic family, he knew ambition, passion and ruin before being ordained a priest of the Church of England in 1615. As Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in London he became one of the great preachers of his age. Brought near death by a grave illness, he wrote the Devotions, where awareness of human frailty opens onto the solidarity of all.
In their own words
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Batter my heart, three-person'd God.