Excited high-pitched voices were evidence enough to the neighbours that Miss Menzies was having one of her children's parties. The little back garden of No 41 North Castle Street, at the touch of her 'green fingers', had become an old-world profusion of colour between ancient stone walls. And there, in the midst of half a dozen delighted youngsters, was their even more delighted hostess talking to her small friends in her soft husky Scots way.
Although not described by her adult friends as good-looking, her purely physical features were transformed by her rare character. Miss Menzies' appearance gave some people the impression of her being slight and frail, although she was neither, and no doubt it was her humble and total selflessness that made her seem as one who would most easily pass unnoticed in a crowd. Her hair by now was greying, in these last years of her retirement in the old town of St Andrews, but when she smiled her frequent friendly smile - nothing else was noticed.
No 41 is typical of the rows of attached two- or three-storeyed cottages that constitute much of the old-world charm of Scotland's smaller ancient burghs. "Is Miss Menzies at home?" we ask. Perhaps she is in one of her small attic rooms, writing a book, typing letters for the rector, coping with her vast correspondence - chiefly on spiritual and personal matters - perhaps in the sunny sitting room, dispensing coffee to a visiting friend, or perhaps in her other room, the oratory.
Lucy Menzies had moved to this house in order to be close to her church. So we cross the narrow street, enter the paved sunlit courtyard of All Saints' Church under a golden shower of laburnum branches, and are swallowed up in the cool silent stillness of the low-ceilinged nave. Only the sanctuary lamps glow before the altar in this superbly furnished house of God. The "Fisher Kirk", as it used to be called, was built originally for the folk who once lived around the harbour nearby. Times change, and fishing there has declined. But All Saints' has kept its character as a church for local people. And Lucy Menzies liked that.
We walk softly across the back of the nave. Beyond is the chapel, very small. A lamp burns before the Blessed Sacrament on the altar. Sculptures of kneeling seraphim, in the attitude of prayer, are set high on the sanctuary arch. There is a great stillness. Someone is kneeling in prayer, unnoticed, just behind the entrance screen on the left.
It was said of the great St Seraphim (d. 1833) that he "upheld Russia with his prayer. During his lifetime the Lord preserved Russia because of his prayer ..." In the Middle Ages we are told that Abbot Kennoch of Jedburgh "kept the peace between Scotland and England for ten years by unceasing prayer." that such remarks can be made by those who understand the ways of the Spirit is at least impressive; and in a world that judges everything by worldly results may help many to begin to recognise the debt of gratitude the church and world may well owe to yet another person who spent many hours daily on her knees.
Retirement to St Andrews had been for Lucy Menzies a return to the place of her Presbyterian childhood. Although she had been born in the Carse of Gowrie, her minister father's professorship in Biblical Criticism at St Andrews, had necessitated the family's removal from Inchture into the university town. Lucy and her sister were educated by their father at home. Then she widened her outlook further during holidays abroad, studied at a finishing school in Heidelberg, returned to gain a degree in music, and by that time knew several languages. Father and daughter must have found each other very companionable, not only for their shared scholarship and breadth of education, but also for that spicy Scots humour, and sense of fun, that Lucy retained to the end of her days.
'Knowledge for knowledge's sake' was certainly not the Menzies' family motto. Knowledge was to be gained in order to make people educated - people who were learning to understand the meaning of life. And how can life be understood without knowledge of its Creator and his purpose? Lucy Menzies was very well aware of this, and then - by chance it seemed - was lent a copy of a book written by Evelyn Underhill. Now this well-known Anglican authoress did more than anyone else to make available to English-speaking Christians the spiritual treasury of the whole church. Grasping the fact that the church is a God-given living organism spanning this world and the next, whose glory is revealed in its Christ-filled saints - our companions - she made readily available the teachings of those who best knew the Lord. "Her writings opened a new world. No one else ever made me conscious of God as she did." These words might have been written by many other but, coming as they did from Lucy Menzies, they were the words of one who had become her most intimate friend and disciple.
After six years of correspondence the two women, whose path were to be interwoven so closely, met in 1933; and in due course the younger, Scotswoman, was to find "great peace of spirit" in Confirmation. For a while both of them belonged to a lay fellowship "for those to whom the search for union with God is the chief quest of their lives," and its originator lived a life of prayer, like the medieval anchoresses. Evelyn Underhill's study of the spiritual life had taught her clearly that true withdrawal for prayer is no form of escapism. As a recent writer put it, "Prayer is the most costly offering we can make to God in response to his vocation, his call to a way of life wherein we may be enabled to fulfil to the uttermost his purpose for us." (Gilbert Shaw)
Miss Underhill's lifework extended far beyond her writing, to those people who naturally sought her advice and to whom, in that superb description of the Celtic church, she became their 'soul friend' or spiritual adviser. Naturally many of these, and other, sought her guidance at those retreats - or times of withdrawal for silence and prayer - which she so frequently conducted. And if Lucy Menzies was to become in future also a spiritual adviser to many, in the meantime her help with retreats was to become her chief work.
Everyone appreciates a holiday, for physical and mental recreation. More nd more people are coming to realise the supreme need for spiritual re-creation as well. The modern speed of life and its countless distractions necessitate for most men and women a regular withdrawal to a place of peace where one's attention can fully rest on God for a few das at a time. "Come ye yourselves apart," said Christ to his disciples, and for many people it is on those occasions that they become aware of the presence of God - of being face to face with reality - as never before. Whether they go into a retreat privately, or make use of the addresses given by some retreat conductor, the ultimate purpoe is the same. Then they return to daily routine, in a busy world, inspited by a new vision of the greatness of life and a clearer sense of their vocation, and are refreshed by the renewed knowledge of God's constant and intimate companionship.
Not long ago an experienced retreat conductor said that of all the retreat houses he knew it was at Pleshey, in Essex, that he found the most spiritual, prayerful atmosphere. And it was here, for ten years before the second world war, that Lucy Menzies served as warden, and often acted as hostess to her friend's retreatants.
It is a fine spring day in the 1930s, and some men and women from every walk of life have managed to get a weekend off, and are going to spend it very profitably. In ones and twos they are arriving on this Friday evening at Pleshey Retreat House in the Essex countryside. The front door is opened, and with the most welcoming of smiles and old-world courtesy the warden ushers them in. Miss Menzies has been up, as usual, since six a.m. She has had an hour's - or less - rest after lunch, and will eventually get to bed at midnight. It is her usual routine, and during the day, and late into the night, retreatants will find themselves drawn to go and speak with her about their problems, their anxieties, or their doubts.
Church people are frequently concerned about methods of evangelism, or ways of conveying the Gospel or "Good News" to a largely unheeding world. "Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you", was a piece of our Lord's teaching that Lucy Menzies had grasped, and by which she lived. "Sir, we would see Jesus," said some Greeks to St Philip at Jerusalem. When people came to Miss Menzies they discovered that "she spoke to the heart, and was a Presence."
What was it about her that made her the kind of person to whom our Lord could bring people? Lucy Menzies always had time for everyone; "she was so interested, genuinely, in you, that she got you to talk about yourself," has commented one who visited her during her time at Pleshey. Uncritical, quick to see your point of view, utterly humble, very rarely speaking about herself - probably hardly ever thinking about herself - such a person's lack of self-assertion puts others at their ease. Then, all she had to give was at anyone's disposal, and those who sought her advice discovered that she had the most level-headed understanding of life. Her certainty had been achieved through suffering patiently borne.
Some of her rare remarks about herself have been recorded, and one is particularly revealing. "All my life," she explained, "I have found very great difficulty in prayer: it is really a matter of blood and tears ... though I know prayer is everything, I find it almost impossible." If such an encouraging admission reveals something of her humility, it also shows fortitude and faithful perseverance in the face of severe difficulty. Those who God can lead into more intimate friendship with Himself have their character developed by such trails.
That this Divine training was proving successful is further revealed by two surprising remarks of hers. "I'm a lazy creature by nature," was the seventeen-hour-day worker's opinion of herself; and no one ever suspected the "extreme irritability" to which - to her friends' similar extreme astonishment - she confessed. Latterly depression and pain were disguised, despite their cruel increase. Her beautiful calm and gentleness were never a mask for weakness or for self-deception, only for rock-like spiritual strength. Nothing and nobody ever got past her when she felt that the truth was concerned.
After ten years at Pleshey the Warden had to resign owing to failing eyesight. It was only one of the many ailments from which she was to suffer increasingly during her last years. To a correspondent she wrote, "God gives us our circumstances and environment to make something of. It is within these circumstances that we are to achieve sanctity. ..." Her circumstances were those of semi-invalid retirement accompanied latterly by almost continual pain, and deafness. "Yes, I'm sure redemptive suffering is the answer to it; and it's a good vocation really." This was her attitude. So she accepted her suffering, and offered it to God on behalf of those for whom she prayed - which, we are told by the saints, is the greatest form of prayer for others. Her advice to another who knew great pain was, "Don't try to understand: just be in God." Hence her perpetual cheerfulness. With that selfless outlook she faced her last years, and whatever trials befell her, the joy always shone through.
Article by: Martin Reith, Company of the Servants of God