The 29th of June is St. Peter’s day, when we remember the disciple who, for all his many mistakes, knew how to recover and hold on, who, for all his waverings was called by Jesus ‘the rock’, who learned the threefold lesson that every betrayal can ultimately be restored by love. It is fitting therefore that it is at Petertide that new priests and deacons are ordained, on the day they remember a man whose recovery from mistakes and openness to love can give them courage. So I post this poem not only for St. Peter but for all those called to ministry who should have been ordained this weekend, but whose ordination may have been postponed. I also post it with thanksgiving for my own ordination at Petertide 30 years ago.
This poem comes from my collection Sounding the Seasons published by Canterbury Press. You can also buy it on Amazon Uk or US or order it in any bookshop.
As always you can her the poem by clicking on the ‘play’ button, or on the title of the poem.
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The opening three verses of psalm 26 announce a theme that balances judgement and clemency, truth and loving kindness:
BE THOU my judge, O Lord, for I have walked innocently: my trust hath been also in the Lord, therefore shall I not fall.
Examine me, O Lord, and prove me: try out my reins and my heart.
For thy loving-kindness is ever before mine eyes: and I will walk in thy truth.
To ask God to be our judge is both an alarming and a comforting thing to do. Alarming because there can be no evasion of truth since God sees all things, but comforting because in Christ we see that the God of truth is also the God of grace ‘ We beheld his glory…full of grace and truth’ as John testifies. Our own judgements on the other hand are partial, both because our knowledge is incomplete, we only know in part, and because we are inclined to partiality, to favour ourselves and be over severe with others. This is why Jesus specifically says ‘ do not judge and you will not be judged.’ and Paul says ‘ I judge not even myself’. The psalmist here seems confident of his innocence and his clean hands. I cannot say the same for myself, but I can still trust myself equally to God’s judgement and mercy.
These themes were all in my mind as I responded to psalm 26 and so was a beautiful hymn by Faber which we sing regularly which begins:
There’s a wideness in God’s mercy,
like the wideness of the sea;
there’s a kindness in his justice
which is more than liberty.
but I was especially remembering the verse:
But we make His love too narrow
By false limits of our own;
And we magnify His strictness
With a zeal He will not own.
So my poem became a plea to let him judge, to rest in his mercy and to see with his eyes.
As usual you can hear the poem by pressing the ‘play’ button if it appears, or else by clicking on the title. For the other poems in my psalm series type the word ‘psalm’ into the search box on the right.
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The wide skies Speak of his mercy, and the distant hills Stand in his steadfast love
We resume our poetic journey through the psalms and come today to psalm 25, a little landmark and staging post, exactly one sixth of the way through the psalter. It’s a good psalm for pausing on the journey, taking stock, getting a good view of the way ahead for psalm 25 is all about putting earthly life in the heavenly perspective. I particularly like the line in verse 14:
Mine eyes are ever looking unto the Lord: for he shall pluck my feet out of the net.
If I look down too often at my own tangles they get more tangled still whereas if I look up to Christ and trust him, he can gradually do some of the untangling for me, a theme I have developed in my response to this psalm.
As we reflect at this staging post, can I say a big thank you to everyone who has supported me me with a friendly ‘cup of coffee’ over the past month or so. It’s been very encouraging, and as a result I feel much more secure going forward into my new life as full-time poet. But can I also add that although the ‘buy me a coffee’ button is there for anyone to use at the end of these posts, there is absolutely no obligation, and it need only be an occasional thing. These posts themselves will of course always be absolutely free to all. (you can read more about the whole coffee thing and why I started it on this previous post)
As usual you can hear the poems by pressing the ‘play’ button if it appears, or else by clicking on the title.
If you are enjoying these posts, you might like, on occasion, (not every time of course!) to pop in and buy me a cup of coffee. Clicking on this banner will take you to a page where you can do so, if you wish. But please do not feel any obligation!
So keep his fires burning through the night Beacons and gateways for the child of light.
We pause for a moment in our poetic journey through the psalms, to mark an important moment in our other journey through the sacred seasons of the year. For now we have come to midsummer and the traditional Church festival for this beautiful, long-lit solstice season is the Feast of St. John the Baptist, which falls on June 24th, which was midsummer day in the old Roman Calender. Luke tells us that John the Baptist was born about 6 months before Jesus, so this feast falls half way through the year, 6 months before Christmas!
The tradition of keeping St. John’s Eve with the lighting of Bonfires and Beacons is very ancient, almost certainly pre-Christian, but in my view it is very fitting that it has become part of a Christian festivity. Christ keeps and fulfills all that was best in the old pagan forshadowings of his coming and this Midsummer festival of light is no exception. John was sent as a witness to the light that was coming into the world, and John wanted to point to that light, not stand in its way, hence his beautiful saying ‘He must increase and I must diminish’, a good watchword for all of those who are, as the prayer book calls us, the ‘ministers and stewards of his mysteries’.
I have written two sonnets, one for St. John’s Eve reflecting on the lighting of the fires and another for St. John’s day in which , in honour of the Baptist, I reflect on the mystery and grace of baptism itself.
I am very grateful to the artist Rebecca Merry for her beautiful interpretation of this feast and these poems.
Both these sonnets were published in Sounding the Seasons, my cycle of seventy sonnets for the Church Year.The book is now back in stock on bothAmazon UK and USA It is now also out on Kindle. Please feel free to make use of this, and my other sonnets in church services and to copy and share them. If you can mention the book from which they are taken that would be great.
As usual you can hear the poems by pressing the ‘play’ button if it appears, or else by clicking on the title.
If you are enjoying these posts, you might like, on occasion, (not every time of course!) to pop in and buy me a cup of coffee. Clicking on this banner will take you to a page where you can do so, if you wish. But please do not feel any obligation!
In the last post we saw how psalms 22 and 23 are linked, as I said in that post: ‘The Lord can only be my shepherd and lead me through the valley of the shadow of death if he himself makes that journey with me, and psalm 22 tells me he does just that.’ I think this prophetic sequence, which began with psalm 22 continues into psalm 24, a coronation psalm which has always been used by the church to reflect on and celebrate the ascension of Christ, understood as the King of Glory in this psalm
Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors: and the King of glory shall come in.
Who is the King of glory: even the Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory.
This interpretation throws new light on the crucial question asked earlier in the psalm
Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord: or who shall rise up in his holy place?
The psalm answers that by describing a person of complete holiness, with ‘clean hands and a pure heart’. In the Old Testament perspective only such holy people can ascend and come into the presence of the Holy, and for the Christian only Christ belongs naturally in heaven. And yet because he has atoned for us and we have put our hearts into his, we are able to ascend, not by our own rights, but with and in him. So a psalm that might have been forbidding to us, is transformed by Christ into a Royal Invitation.
As always you can hear me read the poems by clicking on the play button or the title and you can find the other poems in this evolving series by putting the word ‘psalms’ into the search box on the right.
If you are enjoying these posts, you might like, on occasion, (not every time of course!) to pop in and buy me a cup of coffee. Clicking on this banner will take you to a page where you can do so, if you wish. But please do not feel any obligation!
In my last post, reflecting on psalm 21, a coronation psalm, I mentioned that it stands at the threshold of the special prophetic sequence of psalms 22-24 which speak in turn of Christ’s crucifixion, his leading us through the valley of the shadow death as our good shepherd, and his ascent into heaven as our lord and king. Because of the way these psalms and the poems written in response are linked, I am going to post my responses to psalms 22 and 23 together, so that you can read them as a sequence and also experience the effect of the linked closing and opening lines which make the sequence a ‘corona’.
In these poems I am often drawing on or responding to the language of Coverdale’s translation of the Psalms in The Book of Common Prayer, and you might like to re-read these psalms in that translation alongside the poems
For all Christians reading psalm 22 has a special power and poignancy because it was on the lips of Jesus when he died. As I say in my poem, ‘Christ himself is crying through this psalm’. And psalm 23 is perhaps the nation’s favourite, with its comforting image of the Lord as our shepherd leading us by still waters. People seldom link the two psalms, but the link is essential. The Lord can only be my shepherd and lead me through the valley of the shadow of death if he himself makes that journey with me, and psalm 22 tells me he does just that. Jesus goes to the cross, cries out that psalm, and passes through the gates of death, not only to make my peace with God, but also to be with me and lead me through when I make the same journey.
As always you can hear me read the poems by clicking on the play button or the title and you can find the other poems in this evolving series by putting the word ‘psalms’ into the search box on the right.
The grave and gate of death, in strength and mercy
Christ has come down. At last I’ve found the true
Shepherd and the false just fade away,
Before him. I will sing of how he drew
Me from the snares I set myself, how day
Dawned on my darkness, how he brought me forth
Converted me and opened up the way
For me, and led me gently on that path,
Led me beside still waters, promised me
That he’d be with me all my days on earth,
And when my last day comes, accompany
And comfort me, as evening shadows fall,
And draw me into his eternity.
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We come now to psalm 21, often referred to as a coronation psalm because of the verses:
THE King shall rejoice in thy strength, O Lord: exceeding glad shall he be of thy salvation.
Thou hast given him his heart’s desire: and hast not denied him the request of his lips.
For thou shalt prevent him with the blessings of goodness: and shalt set a crown of pure gold upon his head.
He asked life of thee, and thou gavest him a long life: even for ever and ever.
From its original associations with David’s Crown, Early Christians applied this psalm to Christ ‘the son of David’ and therefore the understanding of coronation itself deepened. Before he wears the golden crown prophesied in this psalm, Christ, the true Messiah, comes to suffer with his creation and to wear the crown of thorns, the Corona Spina as it was called in Latin. For the word corona which we have learned to dread, is there in the word coronation, and surely part of Christ’s Corona Spina is this current coronavirus crisis, for he enters into our suffering that we might enter into his glory.
This is the reason I chose the ‘corona’ form for ‘David’s Crown’ this new poetry sequence. For another meaning of corona is a crown or chaplet of poems interwoven so that the last line of the first poem is the first line of the next, and so on until the final line of the final poem is the first line of the first poem.
This psalm of course precedes the special prophetic sequence of psalms 22-24 which speak in turn of Christ’s crucifixion, his leading us through the valley of the shadow death as our good shepherd, and his ascent into heaven as our lord and king. But first that glory is prefigured in psalm 21. All these themes have in different ways entered into my response to psalm 21, and I end it knowing that we will turn, in psalm 22, to Christ’s cry of dereliction from the cross.
As always you can hear me read the poem by clicking on the play button or the title and you can find the other poems in this evolving series by putting the word ‘psalms’ into the search box on the right.
If you are enjoying these posts, you might like, on occasion, (not every time of course!) to pop in and buy me a cup of coffee. Clicking on this banner will take you to a page where you can do so, if you wish. But please do not feel any obligation!
‘May each glimpse become epiphany’ (looking across Loch Broom from my mother’s cottage)
Psalm 20 opens with an act of pure blessing. You could speak it over someone and bless them with it, and the crown of that blessing comes in verse 4:
Grant thee thy heart’s desire: and fulfil all thy mind.
The response to this psalm, in my sequence ‘David’s Crown’ is also written as a blessing, and at its core is the idea that the deepest desires of our hearts might lead us on to God, the one whom, in the end,we most deeply desire. A theme CS Lewis explores so beautifully in both Pilgrim’s Regress’ and Surprised by Joy. So I hope you enjoy this poem and receive it as a blessing spoken over you for good.
As always you can hear me read the poem by clicking on the play button or the title and you can find the other poems in this evolving series by putting the word ‘psalms’ into the search box on the right.
If you are enjoying these posts, you might like, on occasion, to pop in and buy me a cup of coffee. Clicking on this banner will take you to a page where you can do so, if you wish.
In my series ‘David’s Crown’, an interwoven ‘corona’ of responses to The Book of Psalms, we have come to Psalm 19, one of the most famous and beautiful of all the psalms, with its wonderful opening line:
THE heavens declare the glory of God: and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
It was CS Lewis’s favourite psalm, and Michael Ward has shown in his brilliant book Planet Narnia how deeply Lewis responded both to the beauty of the stars and planets and also to the wonderful penumbra of poetry song and story that has been associated in all ages and cultures with their radiance, their dance through the skies, and the sense they give us of an eternal splendour above ‘the changes and chances of this fleeting world’. This psalm is also a favourite of mine and I approached it with some trepidation, but in the end I found in it an invitation just to enjoy and celebrate beauty in verse.
In this poem ‘the complete consort dancing’ is a quotation from Eliot’s four quartets, and the idea that the stars are themselves words in God’s poem is drawn from Coleridge’s insight, in Frost at Midnight, that all the appearances of nature are themselves ‘ the lovely shapes and sounds intelligible/of that eternal language which they God/utters.
It has been lovely to come to a psalm which for a moment leaves agony and struggle behind, and is sheer celebration. I hope you enjoy it too.
As always you can hear me read the poem by clicking on the play button or the title and you can find the other poems in this evolving series by putting the word ‘psalms’ into the search box on the right.
His course, receive the gift and treasure of his light
Pouring like honeyed gold till day is done
As sweet and strong as all God’s laws, as right
As all his judgements and as clean and pure,
All given for your growth, and your delight!
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Just some of the choir, fellows, and musicians who make all these beautiful things happen! Photo by Jeremy West
Welcome to the Girton College Chapel Page for this final service of term. Whereas our other services have followed the pattern of Evensong, today’s service has its own form, hi-lighting all we have to be thankful for in this past Academic Year. Today’s service will also include, as it does each year, the announcement of the winners of the Tom Mansfield Prize for contribution to the college’s musical life. Today’s service, themed around thankfulness will also bring to a conclusion our series of reflections on The Lord’s Prayer
We begin this service, themed around thankfulness and blessing with a prayer and a poem:
We thank you Lord that we can gather together in prayer, that even though we are outwardly and visibly scattered in many places, even though our eyes cannot meet nor our voices join, nevertheless we are gathered in your love and your Spirit makes us one. May we who are praying through this page be lifted by the prayers of others as we lift one another up to you in thanksgiving
Through Jesus Christ Our Lord
Amen
Now I will read you a sonnet which gives thanks for our community, for the webs and threads of interconnection that run between us all however physically distant we may be:
Thanksgiving starts with thanks for mere survival,
Just to have made it through another year
With everyone still breathing. But we share
So much beyond the outer roads we travel;
Our interweavings on a deeper level,
The modes of life embodied souls can share,
The unguessed blessings of our being here,
Threads of connection no one can unravel.
So I give thanks for our deep coinherence,
Inwoven in the web of Gods own grace,
Pulling us through the grave and gate of death.
I thank Him for the truth behind appearance
I thank Him for his light in every face
I thank Him for us all, with every breath.
And now, for our first anthem from the choir, we have a real treat. Gareth Wilson has been able to put together a virtual choir video of the Anthem Lead Me Lord by SS Wesley, and it is a joy, and a technical miracle, to see, as well as hear, our choir singing it.
After such beautiful music it is appropriate that we come to the awarding of the Tom Mansfield memorial prize. Tom was a brilliant young man, a first year student whom I got to know in my own first term here as chaplain. He arrived from Harrogate bringing with him an enthusiasm for music of every kind and soon had a little Girton brass group going as well as playing jazz trombone in other venues. And then, tragically his life was cut short by a traffic accident. Many of us travelled up to Harrogate for his unforgettable, and musically rich memorial service and the JCR instituted a prize in his honour for students who like him, had enthused others to make music in college. So here is a message from Riva Kapoor, the JCR President introducing the prize and announcing the first of this year’s joint winners:
Congratulations to Rachel! Here is Rachael’s reply:
And here is the announcement of our second joint-winner:
Congratulations to James! Here is James’ reply:
A little glimpse of Girton stillness, photo by Liliana Janik
We come now to the first of our two readings from the letter to the Colossians, read for us today by Sandra Fulton, the Senior Tutor
5 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; 16 for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He himself is before all things, and in[i] him all things hold together. 18 He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.
Our second Anthem is the Missa Laudate Pueri by Ingegneri, from the choir’s acclaimed CD:
Our second reading from Colossians is read for us by The Mistress:
‘Sing the waning darkness into light’ Photo Martin Bond
Now we come to our prayers which will include the special prayer thanksgiving for music and musicians which I first prayed on our behalf at Tom Mansfield’s memorial service:
Let us pray:
We thank you Lord for this academic year. We thank you for all that we enjoyed with one another in the two terms we were together, but we also thank you for all the love that has been shown and shared in the term of our Covid exile. For the many messages of mutual support, the Zoom supervisions, the virtual events and celebrations. May we who have passed together through these historic times, be bound more closely together in the future through our shared experience, suffering and resilience
V: Lord in Your Mercy
R: Hear Our Prayer
We thank you for all who have served us throughout the year in this college, for all the college staff, the cleaners, gardeners, kitchen staff, porters, and administrators. for the Mistress and fellows, the college officers, the nurses, tutors and councillors, and all through whose care, seen and unseen we have been brought to this day and to this celebration.
V: Lord in Your Mercy
R: Hear Our Prayer
A Thanksgiving for Tom Mansfield and a prayer for Musicians:
Father we thank you for the gift of music and for the gifts you give to those who play that music for us.
Today especially Father we thank you for Tom as a musician,
we thank you for his talents, and for his joy in making music, for the pleasure he gave and received when playing.
And Father we thank you for music itself, for its power to express the heights of our joys and the depths of our sorrows.
We thank you especially for those moments when hearing and making music seems to bring us to the brink of heaven,
when we hear behind the music the echo of your call,
we get a glimpse of your glory, and our hearts yearn for more than they can imagine.
We thank you that the promise at the core of our music is true
that one day in heaven we shall ourselves be made your music.
Father we pray that Tom is finding now with you the true meaning of every note he played and taking his part in the music of heaven.
Finally Father we pray for all the musicians of Girton,
for the choir and organists, for the Girton Music society, the Gir-ten, and all the informal musical gatherings and combinations that enrich our college life.
Father be with them when they take up their instruments to play,
May they play boldly and clearly, may they sound a note that tells their sorrow,
but may they also hear, as they play, that promise hidden in music,
that there is a joy with you beyond this world and that one day we will share that joy together..
We ask it in the name of Jesus Christ Amen
We gather these prayers together in the words of the prayer on which we have been reflecting throughout this term:
OUR Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive them that trespass against us; And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory for ever and ever Amen.
my rising and my rest, peaceful seat in the fellows garden Photo by Jeremy West
Now, as our service comes to a close, and I come to bid you farewell and give you my final blessing, I reflect that this is the last End Of Year Thanksgiving Service in my time with you as chaplain, and I give thanks for the honour of serving this chapel and college over the last 18 years. I thank God for all the Girtonians who have worshipped here over those years and whom I have come to know and love and I speak this blessing for all of them as well as for of you who are gathered around this page:
The peace of God, which passeth all understanding keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God and of his son Jesus Christ our lord, and the blessing of God almighty, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, be with you and remain with you and those whom you hold in your hearts, this day and always, Amen
Finally, to lead us out and let us go in peace, the choir will sing the Nunc Dimities in Gareth Wilson’s wonderful setting:
The NuncDimmitis from The Girton Service(Wilson), sung by Girton choir
LORD, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace :
according to thy word.
For mine eyes have seen :
thy salvation;
Which thou hast prepared :
before the face of all people;
To be a light to lighten the Gentiles :
and to be the glory of thy people Israel.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son :
and to the Holy Ghost;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be :
world without end. Amen.
In any other year we would process from the chapel into Woodlands Court and enjoy some celebratory sparkling wine together, but perhaps you will join me now in lifting a glass and toasting the college and one another, wherever you may be
Breaking the bread of angels in your cave,
A sanctuary, a sign, an open door,
You follow Christ through keening win… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…1 day ago
The 29th of June is St. Peter’s day, when we remember the disciple who, for all his many mistakes, knew how to recover and hold on, who, for all his waverings was called by Jesus ‘the rock’, who learned the threefold lesson that every betrayal can ultimately be restored by love. It is fitting therefore that it is at Petertide that new priests and deacons are ordained, on the day they remember a man whose recovery from mistakes and openness to love can give them courage. So I post this poem not only for St. Peter but for all those called to ministry who should have been ordained this weekend, but whose ordination may have been postponed. I also post it with thanksgiving for my own ordination at Petertide 30 years ago.
Malcolm Guite 