Dear friends,

The Fourth Sunday in Lent is traditionally a moment of relief in this penitential season.   The colour changes from purple to rose, and the Entrance Antiphon marks the difference in tone: "Rejoice, Jerusalem, and all who love her!"

This is also Mothering Sunday.   Our poem today is another one from Malcolm Guite, and this is his own commentary:

The fourth Sunday of Lent happens also to be Mothering Sunday. Continuing in my series of sonnets for the Church Year I have written this one for Mothering Sunday. It’s a thanksgiving for all parents, especially for those who bore the fruitful pain of labour, and more particularly in this poem I have singled out for praise those heroic single parents who, for whatever reason, have found themselves bearing alone the burdens, and sharing with no-one the joys of their parenthood.

Mothering Sunday
By Malcolm Guite

At last, in spite of all, a recognition,
For those who loved and laboured for so long,
Who brought us, through that labour, to fruition
To flourish in the place where we belong.
A thanks to those who stayed and did the raising,
Who buckled down and did the work of two,
Whom governments have mocked instead of praising,
Who hid their heart-break and still struggled through,
The single mothers forced onto the edge
Whose work the world has overlooked, neglected,
Invisible to wealth and privilege,
But in whose lives the kingdom is reflected.
Now into Christ our mother church we bring them,
Who shares with them the birth-pangs of His Kingdom.

I didn't get this to Justin in time for a reading, but you can find Malcolm's own recitation here.

Dear friends,

In today's poem, George Herbert relishes the thought that God has nothing better to do than pour out his love into the human heart.  Such is the essence of He Who Is.  This is a spectacular poem, one of those that makes me physically shiver when I've reached the end.   As you know from my sermons, I'm not much for analogies but... reading this is as if you're getting the cream that has settled on the top of years of attention, love and prayer.    

Yesterday we looked at the first canticle of the day in the cycle of Christian prayer.   The hymn writer Izaac Walton tells us that in Herbert's little parish of Bemerton, he and his household (and several of the local people) would enter the Church every morning to sing Mattins and every evening for Evensong.   He recounts that the farmers and other labourers of the surrounding area would put down their tools whenever the bells would ring "to join Mr Herbert in prayer."  

This poem is so beautifully simple and clear it hardly needs any commentary.  I will say, from yesterday: I wonder if the repeated use of "heart" in this poem is a response to Herbert's daily singing of the Venite, exultemus Domino at Mattins: "O that today you would listen to his voice, harden not your hearts."  And the last of the versicles he would have sung before the Collect of the day: "O God, make clean our hearts within us."  It raises the question: "My God, what is a heart?"


Mattins
By George Herbert

I cannot ope mine eyes, 
But thou art ready there to catch
My morning-soul and sacrifice: 
Then we must needs for that day make a match.

My God, what is a heart? 
Silver, or gold, or precious stone, 
Or star, or rainbow, or a part
Of all these things or all of them in one? 

My God, what is a heart? 
That thou should'st it so eye, and woo, 
Pouring upon it all thy art, 
As if that thou hadst nothing else to do? 

Indeed man's whole estate
Amounts (and richly) to serve thee: 
He did not heav'n and earth create, 
Yet studies them, not him by whom they be.

Teach me thy love to know; 
That this new light, which now I see, 
May both the work and workman show: 
Then by a sun-beam I will climb to thee. 

Dear friends,

The first canticle in the daily cycle of Christian prayer, since time immemorial, has been the Venite, exultemus Domino, Psalm 95: O Come, let us sing unto the Lord..."  Near the end of the Psalm there is a plea to us as we prepare for another day, which is partly why it has always been the first song of the morning:

O that today you would listen to his voice, harden not your hearts.

In today's poem, American Dorianne Laux doesn't want to teach us anything in particular, or use her words to reflect on any theological or philosophical theme.  She begins by telling us, calmly, a story.  

She went to bed and she had a thought - perhaps something about herself - and she sensed it was the voice of God.  We all have those moments of insight at night, and we know we should get up and write them down - but we usually don't.  She didn't either.

Her description hints at a similar theme to when God spoke to Elijah from the first book of the Kings (19.11-13)

"And God said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.  And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle..."

In Laux's words, her memory of God's voice was "not like food, sweet or sharp.  More like a fine powder, like dust."

She closes with a few words that come close to lesson for all of us.  It appears as more of an admission of our shared lack of attention to the truth: "That’s how it is sometimes —  God comes to your window,  all bright light and black wings, and you’re just too tired to open it."

O that today you would listen to his voice, harden not your hearts.

Dust
by Dorianne Laux

Someone spoke to me last night,
told me the truth. Just a few words,
but I recognised it.
I knew I should make myself get up,
write it down, but it was late,
and I was exhausted from working
all day in the garden, moving rocks.
Now, I remember only the flavour --
not like food, sweet or sharp.
More like a fine powder, like dust.
And I wasn’t elated or frightened,
but simply rapt, aware.
That’s how it is sometimes --
God comes to your window,
all bright light and black wings,
and you’re just too tired to open it.

Dear friends,

One of the gifts that we have inherited from patristic and medieval times is a very sustained study of what we might call the "hierarchy of virtues."   Humans have always recognised that there is good and evil (it's right there in the Garden of Eden), but we also recognise that it isn't simply actions that make something good or evil, it is the spirit behind the action.  In our Lord's words: 

"A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things." (Matthew 12.35)

The ancients recognised that some virtue, or goodness, was purely human in origin.  They called these the "Cardinal Virtues."  These are prudence, temperance, fortitude, and justice.  But they also recognised that there were other virtues which had their origin not in the human person, or in the world, but in God himself.  They called these the "Theological Virtues."   S Paul was the first to articulate them clearly:

"And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity." (1 Corinthians 13.13)

Faith, Hope and Charity are the three virtues which are gifts of God.   But they are more than just good qualities, they are the means through which our salvation is experienced, or "worked out" in S Paul's words.  If one pays attention to so many of the prayers of the Church, one of the regular themes is that we pray for an increase of these three gifts.  Today's poem is built around these three gifts, and reflects on how they operate within us toward the "renewal of mind" that was our theme a few days ago.   

The poem brings in a medieval Italian word that Dante invented in the Paradiso: transumanar.  It strictly means "transhumanised," and suggests "to pass beyond the human."  To learn faith, hope and charity is to "pass beyond the human" into the life of God himself.

Renewed in Mind
By Robert Crouse

There can be no return to Eden. 
The natural good can be restored and sustained, 
the beast can be tamed, but…
only by the gifts of grace 
in the supernatural virtues of faith, hope, and charity. 

Paradise is possible only if the soul is “transhumanised” 
(“transumanar” is Dante’s word); 
only if the intellect is enabled by faith 
       to fix its vision upon the eternal Good; 
only if the will is strengthened by hope 
       to pursue that Good; 
only if the powers of the soul are united in that eternal Charity, 
       that divine amor which moves the sun and the other stars.

Dear friends,

In the sixteenth chapter of the book of Leviticus we read these words:

And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send [him] away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness: And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness.

Strangely (or not, I'm not sure) the Old Testament image of the Scapegoat is never used in the New Testament to describe the passion and death of Christ.  Anthropologists, in particular Rene Girard, point to the Scapegoat as an almost universal phenomenon in human cultures - ancient and modern.   In brief, the theory goes something like this... the volatile turmoil within human communities (which is inescapable whenever we try to live together) grows and grows and instead of destroying the community, the tension is finally released through a sacrificial victim - either an individual or a group of people.   The victim, usually innocent, takes upon itself all of the anger of the community and is slaughtered, either by mob violence or in ritual sacrifice.   Girard points out that the slaughter of the Jews in 20th century Europe is a perfect example of the "scapegoat mechanism" (his words).  

Robert Graves, in today' poem, very creatively links Christ not with the scapegoat, but with the "fit man" who was to accompany the goat into the wilderness.  I've attached Justin's wonderful reading of the poem, but also include a link to Samuel Barber's interpretation of it in his cycle Despite and Still.  It really gets at the drama of the poem.  Everything is relatively calm for the first bit, when it appears to be just Christ alone in the wilderness, but then things turn very dark and threatening.  Gradually it is revealed that accompanying Christ in the wilderness in "all His wanderings" is a "Comrade, with ragged coat, Gaunt ribs—poor innocent— Bleeding foot, burning throat, The guileless old scapegoat."

United with Christ in the wilderness, and on the cross, is the suffering of all innocent victims.  They were with him there, sharing his fate, and sharing their tears "like a lover."  They bore, and continue to bear what S Paul very mysteriously described as "what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions." (Colossians 1.24)

In the Wilderness
By Robert Graves

Christ of His gentleness 
Thirsting and hungering, 
Walked in the wilderness; 
Soft words of grace He spoke 
Unto lost desert-folk
That listened wondering. 
He heard the bitterns call 
From ruined palace-wall, 
Answered them brotherly. 
He held communion
With the she-pelican 
Of lonely piety. 
Basilisk, cockatrice, 
Flocked to his homilies, 
With mail of dread device,
With monstrous barbéd slings, 
With eager dragon-eyes; 
Great rats on leather wings 
And poor blind broken things, 
Foul in their miseries.
And ever with Him went, 
Of all His wanderings 
Comrade, with ragged coat, 
Gaunt ribs—poor innocent— 
Bleeding foot, burning throat,
The guileless old scapegoat; 
For forty nights and days 
Followed in Jesus’ ways, 
Sure guard behind Him kept, 
Tears like a lover wept. 

Dear friends,

From ancient days the Church has always been very strict about the observance of our Good Friday solemnities.  It is to start promptly at 3pm.  The precision represents Christ's own sense of the fact that all was working strictly according to the divine plan.  He described the moment of his passion as "my hour."

A friend of mine recounted once that he was at a Good Friday service, and at the conclusion of when the cross was to be venerated by the faithful, the priest brought the cross to those in wheelchairs at the back.  His first instinct was that this seemed cruel: "had they not suffered enough, and now this priest was bringing the tree of suffering for them to embrace and kiss?"   But he realised as he watched them venerate the symbol of our salvation that the cross was more than a symbol of suffering, it was and is a symbol of victory.  What is true on Good Friday is true at every mass.

When we venerate the cross on Good Friday, and when we approach the altar to receive the Holy Communion, we do so not to take his suffering upon ourselves, but in order to lay our suffering upon him. S Isaac of Nineveh described this moment as if we took a drop of black ink and spilled it onto a white sheet of linen.  Imagine instead of the linen turning black, the ink turned white.  This is what happens when we come to Christ.  Remember the woman with the 12 year haemorrhage in the Gospel.  When she touched Christ, instead of making him unclean (which was what the law dictated), she herself was healed by the one she touched.

Hearkening back to S Isaac of Nineveh, in today's poem Vachel Lindsay describes the mass as "this white hour," and our participation in the mystery of Lord's Supper as a "marvellous hour."  We come, hiding our faces, only to be forgiven, healed and called the children of God. 

At Mass

by Vachel Lindsay

No doubt to-morrow I will hide

My face from you, my King.

Let me rejoice this Sunday noon,

And kneel while grey priests sing.

It is not wisdom to forget.

But since it is my fate

Fill thou my soul with hidden wine

To make this white hour great.

My God, my God, this marvellous hour

I am your son I know.

Once in a thousand days your voice

Has laid temptation low.