4 June, looking towards Corpus Christi: A Broken Altar.

A broken chapel in Herefordshire

The Altar by George Herbert 1593-1633.

George Herbert died before the friction between Charles I and Parliament descended into Civil War. He was a Church of England minister and Cambridge don. This was the time when the King James Bible, sponsored by Charles’ father, was becoming familiar from being read at Anglican Church services. This poem, ‘The Altar’, was written to be printed as shown to represent the silhouette of an altar like that in the Sanctuary in Jerusalem. But more than the altar was broken in the Church and Nation, and we are still looking through the damaged parts to see how best to rebuild a united church, a united nation; and how and when we can share the Eucharist at one table, one altar. May God’s grace continue to help us Christians to be ever closer to each other.

God told Moses to use only uncut stone when building an altar (Exodus 20:25).

A  broken  ALTAR,  Lord, thy servant rears, 
Made of a  heart  and  cemented with  tears: 
Whose  parts  are   as   thy hand  did  frame; 
No  workman's  tool  hath touch'd the same. 
A      HEART     alone 
Is    such    a    stone 
As      nothing      but 
Thy  pow'r   doth cut. 
Wherefore each part 
Of  my   hard    heart 
Meets in this frame,  
To   praise thy name 
That    if   I   chance    to      hold    my  peace 
These stones to     praise  thee may not cease.
Oh,   let  thy  blessed SACRIFICE  be  mine 
And    sanctify   this   ALTAR   to   be   thine.

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3 June: Our devout, noble undertaking.

Procession with Music and dancing, St Maurice, Switzerland, Uganda Martyrs pilgrimage. Today is their feast.

from a homily of Bishop Erik Vardy for Pentecost 2023.

…

The Church is a mixed-voice choir. What shows Christ present in her is the miracle that all these voices are tuned to symphony.

There is a variety of gifts, but one Spirit; all sorts of service, but one Lord; different manifestations of power, but one good purpose. Unity is, in the Church, a criterion of authenticity. When the Church is truly herself, a single sublime Keynote resounds through all her different voices. Jan van Ruusbroec liked to speak of Christ as the Church’s Cantor. We can, I think, go further and say that he is the Keynote. He, the Word by whom all things were made, is the unifying principle of the universe. Likewise he is, at the level of the Church, the foundion of all harmony. To be a Christian is to grow towards perfect pitch …

To speak about communion is easy and pleasant. To live out communion, to deliver oneself to it, is very demanding. To live as a member of Christ’s Body is to breathe the Spirit of Jesus, who emptied himself unto death, giving his life for his friends. We talk a lot about synodality these days. It is an excellent term, but we need to understand it correctly. The Tower of Babel was preeminently a synodal undertaking, though self-destructive, which is why the Lord undermined it. To be on the road together is a fine thing, but what really matters is where one is bound and whose lead one follows. Anyone who claims to be a bearer of the Spirit, and thus to abide in Christ, ‘must walk just as he walked’ (1 John 2.6). Else he or she is a fraud.

Any new melody must harmonise with the Keynote that is from everlasting, otherwise it is but a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal  (1 Corinthians 13.1). Today the Lord gives us his Spirit by which he would renew the face of the earth.

May we, then, be renewed as human beings and become true Christians, messengers of Christ’s hope to the world. And may our devout, noble undertaking find credible expression in our lives. Amen.

1 June: Three humans hanging on in there.

Maynard’s Spittal, alms houses for aged persons, XVI Century, Canterbury.

From Visitation III.

And, hearts heavy with the weight of hope they carry,
Mary, Elisabeth and her good old husband
Go to sit, the three together, on the doorstep,
Filled with shadow and silence, hands on their knees.

Far away, filmy fields fade into filmy sky:
Its crop of golden stars will soon be flowering.
Elisabeth, tired, wonders if she’s feeling pains.
They look at the evening, dream, wait, and wait again.

From Hanging on in there, an essay in meaning.

Selected poems of Marie Noël. p80.

Marie Noel (1883-1967) is new to me. An unmarried provincial French woman, she had the gift of poetry and an incarnational theology, evident here in the last two stanzas of this poem. The story and yesterday’s feast of the Visitation will be for me all the more lively for this image of three tired human beings at the end of their day, sitting in silence under God’s good heaven, watching the stars, maybe watching and waiting for one star in particular.

Waiting, not for Godot who never comes, but for God’s son and his herald; every day let us watch and wait, and prepare the way of the Lord.

27 May, 1803: Oh, for a speaking tube!

A speaking tube in Canterbury’s Victoria Park. Not too practical at 300 miles (480 km) distance! E Morris.

Charles Lamb is in London, writing to Samuel Taylor Coleridge in the Lake District. Lamb is overseeing the publication of a volume of his friend’s collected poetry and wants to inform Coleridge of what he has decided, with the advice of the publisher, Longman, and Wordsworth, a great friend of Coleridge. He has changed a line in one poem, so that:

… Here is a new, independent, and really a very pretty poem. In fact … I have even dared to restore [the words] “If ‘neath this roof thy wine-cheer’d moments pass,” for “Beneath this roof if thy cheer’d moments pass.” “Cheer’d” is a sad general word; “wine-cheer’d” I’m sure you’d give me, if I had a speaking-trumpet to sound to you 300 miles. But I am your factotum, and that (save in this instance, which is a single case, and I can’t get at you) shall be next to a fac-nihil—at most, a fac-simile.*

I have ordered “Imitation of Spenser” to be restored on Wordsworth’s authority; and now, all that you will miss will be “Flicker and Flicker’s Wife,” “The Thimble,” “Breathe, dear harmonist” and, I believe, “The Child that was fed with Manna.”

From The Letters of Charles and Mary Lamb, 1796-1820, edited by E. V. Lucas.

Coleridge was not happy with all that his factotum did, and reversed some of the changes in later editions. We live in a different world! Corrections and changes can be made from 300 miles away – and much further – instantly, onto the computer application that the printer can manipulate in all sorts of ways. The 300 mile speaking tube exists as well. We should be grateful, and we should use these technologies wisely.

* Facere, Latin for make or do; fac-totum, do everything; fac-nihil, do nothing; fac-simile, make or do something similar.

21 May; Our Blessed Lady’s Lullaby, VI: the ensuing blessed race.

Thee sanctity herself doth serve,
Thee goodness doth attend,
Thee blessedness doth wait upon,
And virtues all commend.

Sing, lullaby, my little boy,
Sing, lullaby, my lives joy.

Great kings and prophets wished have
To see that I possess,
Yet wish I never thee to see,
If not in thankfulness.

Sing, lullaby, my little boy,
Sing, lullaby, my lives joy.

Let heaven and earth, and saints and men,
Assistance give to me,
That all their most occurring aid
Augment my thanks to thee.

Sing, lullaby, my little boy,
Sing, lullaby, my lives joy.

And let the ensuing blessed race,
Thou wilt succeeding raise,
Join all their praises unto mine,
To multiply thy praise.

Sing, lullaby, my little boy,
Sing, lullaby, my lives joy.

And take my service well in worth,
And Joseph’s here with me,
Who of my husband bears the name,
Thy servant for to be.

Sing, lullaby, my little boy,
Sing, lullaby, my lives joy.

‘The ensuing blessed race’, that means us! We succeed to Mary’s generation on this earth, as Charles III succeeds, not just to his mother but to ancestors going back to Alfred and beyond. If Rawlings could use such words, living in exile, then the more should we join our praises unto Mary’s, and assist her in proclaiming the joy of her life, her little boy.

20 May: Our Blessed Lady’s Lullaby, V: the fairest son to see.

Chichester Cathedral

Mary’s thoughts in this section of the poem are a carol based on the infancy narratives in the Gospels.

The shepherds left their keeping sheep,
For joy to see my lamb;
How may I more rejoice to see
Myself to be the dam.

Sing, lullaby, my little boy,
Sing, lullaby, my lives joy.

Three kings their treasures hither brought
Of incense, myrrh, and gold;
The heaven s treasure and the king
That here they might behold.

Sing, lullaby, my little boy,
Sing, lullaby, my lives joy.

One sort an angel did direct,
A star did guide the other,
And all the fairest son to see
That ever had a mother.

Sing, lullaby, my little boy,
Sing, lullaby, my lives joy.

This sight I see, this child I have,
This infant I embrace,
O endless comfort of the earth,
And heaven’s eternal grace.

Sing, lullaby, my little boy,
Sing, lullaby, my lives joy.

17 May, Our Blessed Lady’s Lullaby, II: my child, my choice.

Mother of Good Counsel, Plowden, Shropshire.

In this section of his poem, Rawlings celebrates the bond of love between Mary and her babe, her bliss, her child, her choice. Let us pray for those mothers whose children are not their bliss and joy but a source of worry and despair, mothers who feel they have no choices.

My wits, my words, my deeds, my thoughts,
And else what is in me,
I rather will not wish to use,
If not in serving thee.

Sing, lullaby, my little boy,
Sing, lullaby, my lives joy.

My babe, my bliss, my child, my choice,
My fruit, my flower, and bud,
My Jesus, and my only joy,
The sum of all my good.

Sing, lullaby, my little boy,
Sing, lullaby, my lives joy.

My sweetness, and the sweetest most
That heaven could earth deliver,
Soul of my love, spirit of my life,
Abide with me for ever.

Sing, lullaby, my little boy,
Sing, lullaby, my lives joy.

Live still with me, and be my love,
And death will me refrain,
Unless thou let me die with thee,
To live with thee again.

Sing, lullaby, my little boy,
Sing, lullaby, my lives joy.

16 May, Our Blessed Lady’s Lullaby, I: his love sustains my life.

Richard Rowlands was a Catholic convert when that was not a comfortable position in England, under Elizabeth I and James I. He did not graduate from Oxford University so as not to take the Oath of Allegiance to Elizabeth and soon made his way to the Low Countries where he assumed the surname of a branch of his family, Vestegen. He became a prolific author in both English and Dutch. This is the beginning of his long meditative song for Our Lady, mother of the infant Jesus. The rest of the piece will follow over the next few days.

Our Blessed Lady’s Lullaby

By Richard Rowlands, c1601.

Upon my lap my Sovereign sits,
And sucks upon my breast;
Meanwhile his love sustains my life,
And gives my body rest.

Sing, lullaby, my little boy,
Sing, lullaby, my lives joy.

When thou hast taken thy repast,
Repose, my babe, on me.
So may thy mother and thy nurse,
Thy cradle also be.

Sing, lullaby, my little boy,
Sing, lullaby, my lives joy.

I grieve that duty doth not work
All that my wishing would,
Because I would not be to thee
But in the best I should.

Sing, lullaby, my little boy,
Sing, lullaby, my lives joy.

Yet as I am and as I may,
I must and will be thine,
Though all too little for thyself
Vouchsafing to be mine.

Sing, lullaby, my little boy,
Sing, lullaby, my lives joy.

14 May: Before the paling of the stars.

‘BEFORE THE PALING OF THE STARS’

Before the paling of the stars,
  Before the winter morn,
Before the earliest cockcrow
  Jesus Christ was born:
Born in a stable,
  Cradled in a manger,
In the world His hands had made
  Born a stranger.

Priest and king lay fast asleep
  In Jerusalem,
Young and old lay fast asleep
  In crowded Bethlehem:
Saint and Angel, ox and ass,
  Kept a watch together,
Before the Christmas daybreak
  In the winter weather.

Jesus on His Mother’s breast
  In the stable cold,
Spotless Lamb of God was He,
  Shepherd of the fold:
Let us kneel with Mary maid,
  With Joseph bent and hoary,
With Saint and Angel, ox and ass,
  To hail the King of Glory.

Mary cannot have known what the cockcrow would represent thirty years on from this morning. . . A few hours of half-sleeping, and now it is time to face the rest of her life. Before long she will be tossed about emotionally, Jesus’ glory hidden, Joseph urging all haste down to Egypt. The poem is by Christina Rossetti.

Photograph by Constantina.

13 May: Mary, whom his lips caress

Mary Mother from Hales Place Jesuit Chapel, Canterbury

A Carol by Christina Rossetti

Lo! newborn Jesus,
Soft and weak and small,
Wrapped in baby’s bands
By His Mother’s hands,
Lord God of all.

Lord God of Mary,
Whom His Lips caress
While He rocks to rest
On her milky breast
In helplessness.

Lord God of shepherds
Flocking through the cold,
Flocking through the dark
To the only Ark,
The only Fold.

Lord God of all things,
Be they near or far,
Be they high or low;
Lord of storm and snow,
Angel and star.

Lord God of all men,–
My Lord and my God!
Thou who lovest me,
Keep me close to Thee
By staff and rod.

Lo! newborn Jesus,
Loving great and small,
Love’s free Sacrifice,
Opening Arms and Eyes
To one and all.

It’s May but we have not celebrated Mary yet, except in the company of her husband, Joseph. We have also been neglecting poetry, so let’s turn to Christina Rossetti. Childless herself, she captures the sensuous intimacy of the helpless baby, caressing his mother with his kisses. As a baby he opens his eyes and hands to the one he can see clearly; As Saviour he will look with love on each of us; as Good Shepherd he will gather the lost sheep into his arms.

May we follow him, even through the valley of darkness, into the fold that he has made ready for us.