Praise the Lord!

One of the most joyful, and I believe, one of the most poetic of the psalms is Psalm 148. If you read this out loud, you find a rhythm and you can almost hear David singing it and dancing to it. It’s near impossible to keep gladness from creeping into your heart. Perhaps if we read this each morning it might be easier to keep the day in perspective – the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. God’s got all of this.

Psalm 148

Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord from the heavens, praise him in the heights! Praise him, all his angels, praise him, all his host!

Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, all you shining stars! Praise him, you highest heavens and you waters above the heavens!

Let them praise the name of the Lord! For he commanded and they were created. And he established them for ever and ever; he fixed their bounds which cannot be passed.

Praise the Lord from the earth, you sea monsters and all deeps, fire and hail, snow and frost, stormy wind fulfilling his command!

Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars! Beasts and all cattle, creeping things and flying birds!

Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the earth! Young men and maidens together, old men and children!

Let them praise the name of the Lord, for his name alone is exalted; his glory is above earth and heaven. He has raised up a horn for his people, praise for all his saints, for the people of Israel who are near to him. Praise the Lord!

Happy Birthday Mozart

Today we wish Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart a happy birthday. (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791)

Much has been written about his genius: how he began composing at age 5 or 6, wrote down the overture to his opera Don Giovanni the day of the premiere, and wrote over 600 compositions before his death at age 35.

He and his father Leopold (also a composer) traveled extensively in his early years performing and composing, trying to find a post for the young Mozart that would give him a steady income. Even positions at court didn’t pay that much and the court composer was treated like one of the servants.

Later, in better times (1786) Mozart composed The Marriage of Figaro. You may have heard this overture on commercials or cartoons.

For all of this, the thing that really impresses me is this. Sometime around 1770 Mozart and his father were touring and came to Rome. At the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel Mozart heard two performances of Allegri’s Miserere Mei, Deus. He then went home and copied it out from memory, leading to the only (unauthorized) copy of the piece. Two performances. Amazing.

You Are Not Alone

For those who don’t believe in God or who don’t believe that He is intimately involved with every individual, life must be a lonely proposition. We all feel lonesome and blue sometimes, but a devoted Christian, deep in his heart, no matter how he feels, knows that God is always with him. All we need to do is turn our minds and hearts toward Him, and there He is right in front of us. No matter what is going on in our lives or in the world, this is a ray of hope that can never fail us.

David knew the presence of God in every situation, whether being pursued by Saul or singing and dancing for joy in praise of God. He was rewarded with victory in battle, but chastised when he stole Uriah’s wife Bathsheba. We can hide nothing from God, so why should we try? 

From beginning to end, (Thy eyes beheld my unformed substance; in thy book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me) God is with us each second of our lives. Let us turn our souls to Him and praise His Holy Name.

Psalm 139

O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me! Thou knowest when I sit down and when I rise up; thou discernest my thoughts from afar. Thou searchest out my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. Thou dost beset me behind and before, and layest thy hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain it.

Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend to heaven, thou art there! If I make my bed in Sheol, thou art there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there thy hand shall lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Let only darkness cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to thee, the night is bright as the day; for darkness is as light with thee.

For thou didst form my inward parts, thou didst knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise thee, for thou art fearful and wonderful. Wonderful are thy works! Thou knowest me right well; my frame was not hidden from thee, when I was being made in secret, intricately wrought in the depths of the earth. Thy eyes beheld my unformed substance; in thy book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. How precious to me are thy thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the sand. When I awake, I am still with thee.

O that thou wouldst slay the wicked, O God, and that men of blood would depart from me, men who maliciously defy thee, who lift themselves up against thee for evil! Do I not hate them that hate thee, O Lord? And do I not loathe them that rise up against thee? I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting! 

Francis Thompson

If you try hard enough, you can always find someone worse off than you are. How about the poet Francis Thompson (1859 – 1907). Sent at age 11 to Ushaw College, a Catholic seminary, he stayed seven years then went to Owens College to become a doctor like his father. Not really wanting a career as a doctor, he went to London to become a writer, but ended up living on the streets selling newspapers and matches. Due to poor health most of his life, he became addicted to opium.

Finally, in 1888 he sent a few poems to the publishers of Merrie England (William and Alice Meynell) who recognized his talent and helped him by encouraging hospitalization. By 1893 they published his first volume of poetry Poems. Even so, he still suffered from bad health and finally contracted tuberculosis. He died in 1907 at the age of 47.

His most famous poem was The Hound of Heaven, a description of a man chased by God and his futile attempt to avoid Him. Most of his poems were religious in nature, but another noted poem called At Lord’s, is about cricket, a game he was quite attached to, although he never played it.

Here is a poem that was written for Passion-Tide and tells of the hope the Cross can bring.

L'ENVOY

O thou who dwellest in the day!

Behold, I pace amidst the gloom:

Darkness is ever round my way

With little space for sunbeam-room.

Yet Christian sadness is divine

Even as thy patient sadness was:

The salt tears in our life's dark wine

Fell in it from the saving cross.

Bitter the bread of our repast;

Yet doth a sweet the bitter leaven:

Our sorrow is the shadow cast

Around it by the light of Heaven.

O light in Light, shine down from Heaven!

Renoir at the Clark

Back in the 1980s I used to vacation in the Berkshires in western Massachusetts each summer, mainly to see the Boston Symphony at Tanglewood, but also to take in the museums and historic sites. My number one stop every year was the Clark Institute in Williamstown. Sterling and Francine Clark had an enormous art collection so they built the museum in 1955 to house it. They had quite a number of impressionist paintings and this is where I spent the majority of my time. 

I am especially fond of Renoir (Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1841 – 1919). I love the brilliant colors he used, not only in his landscapes, but in people’s clothing and in his portrait backgrounds. The beauty of children’s faces especially was fetching. Although it’s hard to see it in pictures of the paintings, his detail of their faces, down to the eyelashes was amazing. 

One of my favorite paintings is “Sleeping Girl with Cat.” It seems to be a hot summer day and the girl is tired from the heat and her labors. And isn’t it just like a cat to take advantage of an open lap to settle into for a quick nap?

A poet of my acquaintance wrote this little word portrait of the pair.

Renoir: Sleeping Girl (with cat)

O hazy summer afternoon,

O lazy, yawning day in June

In squinting sun the pair does doze

The heads do nod, the eyes do close

A whisker flicks, a finger twitches

Such sweet and welcome slumber this is

Too warm to run, too warm to play

And kitty on her lap will lay

Together will they sit and sigh

Until the evening breeze floats by

The silky cat, the sleepy girl

What finer day in all the world.

The Wedding Feast at Cana

In the calendar for the traditional Latin Mass yesterday was the 2nd Sunday after Epiphany and the Gospel reading was John 2: 1-11, the Wedding Feast at Cana. This passage is significant for many reasons and depicts the first miracle that Jesus performed in his public life: he turned the water into wine. 

The Jewish rite of purification was important to any devout Jew and it included a ceremonial washing of the hands. When the wine for the feast ran out Jesus bid the servants fill the wine pitchers with the water from the stone jars used for the purification rites. His mother had said to them “Do whatever he tells you.” They complied, but must have been confused. Why would Jesus want to pass off water as wine? Were the guests so drunk that they wouldn’t notice?

But then the steward told the bridegroom, “Every man serves the good wine first; and when men have drunk freely, then the poor wine; but you have kept the good wine until now.” Good wine? From the pitchers of water? How could this be? Perhaps one or two of the servants even sampled this “good wine” for themselves and found indeed that this was the smoothest, sweetest wine they had ever tasted. As they pondered this, they might have begun whispering among themselves that the man Jesus must have had something to do with this. But how could someone turn water into wine? Who is this man?

In the subsequent years as Jesus’ fame spread and news of other miracles reached their ears, would the servants remember their witnessing of the first miracle and Mary’s counsel to “do whatever he tells you?” Do we follow her advice in our daily lives?

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844 – 1889) was born in Stratford, Essex and died in Dublin. He was a poet who was never published in his lifetime, he sketched and painted, translated Shakespeare into Latin, could write poetry in Welsh, graduated Oxford with a first class degree and, oh by the way, was a Jesuit priest. All this and he was a month shy of his 45th birthday when he died. 

When he decided to become a priest he burned all his youthful poetry, indicating his sincerity to his religious vocation. Later, he began writing again with a decided slant to religious themes. His friend, the poet Robert Bridges began to publish individual poems in anthologies after Hopkins’ death. In 1918 he decided the time had come to publish a volume of Hopkins’ collected poems. While the book was never a best seller, Hopkins was appreciated enough that he was an influence on 20th century poets such as T.S. Eliot, W.S. Auden, and Dylan Thomas.

The poem we’ll look at today is O Deus, ego amo te the title being a Latin translation of the first line.

O God, I love thee, I love thee-

Not out of hope of heaven for me

Nor fearing not to love and be

In the everlasting burning.

Thou, thou, my Jesus, after me

Didst reach thine arms out dying,

For my sake sufferedst nails and lance,

Mocked and marred countenance,

Sorrows passing number,

Sweat and care and cumber,

Yea and death, and this for me,

And thou couldst see me sinning:

Then I, why should not I love thee,

Jesu so much in love with me?

Not for heaven’s sake; not to be

Out of hell by loving thee;

Not for any gains I see;

But just the way that thou didst me

I do love and I will love thee:

What must I love thee, Lord, for then?-

For being my king and God. Amen.