A moment in which eternity touches time

Here's the reflection that I shared at St Andrew's Wickford this morning:

Malcolm Guite writes that ‘the Annunciation, the visit of Gabriel to the blessed virgin Mary, is that mysterious moment of awareness, assent and transformation in which eternity touches time.’ As we reflect on this mystery, through meditations and poems I have written, let us think ‘about vision, what we allow ourselves to be aware of, and also about freedom, the way all things turn on our discernment and freedom.’


Angelic announcement of peace and goodwill
come in the form of the child found
by night workers, swaddled and lying in a manger.
His mother ponders these things -
annunciation, nativity, incarnation - in her heart.


Bethlehem begins.
Here, human hands hold God for the first time.
Here, God is fed from a human breast for the first time.
Here, God is struck on the back,
takes his first breath, utters his first cry.
Here, heaven and earth are rejoined.
Here, humanity is taken into the Godhead.
Here, God becomes vulnerable.
Here, God experiences created life.
Here, God enters his creation.
Here, God moves into our neighbourhood,
Becomes one with human beings.

In a place of forced migration,
Where no room could be found
For a pregnant woman
whose baby was not the child of her betrothed,
In less than ideal circumstances
Here begins peace on earth
Goodwill to all.
Salvation is birthed and named
The King of the Jews is sought and found,
The Messiah is recognised and praised.

Here the dividing wall
Between Jew and Gentile,
Male and female, slave and free,
Begins to be removed.
Here begins salvation, redemption,
Restoration for one and all.
Reconciliation between
the human and divine.


You have come to us wordless Word, flesh of our flesh,
as a small child, with no words but a hungry cry,
the Word that made humanity
crying for a mother’s breast;
gravity making creativity become a child
that can be dropped and left unfed.
This is the greatest of all gifts,
the gift of eternal vulnerable love;
the infinite clings with tiny arms to a mother's neck.
Caress us now with your tiny hands,
embrace us with your tiny arms
and pierce our hearts with your soft, sweet cries.

Let us run to Mary, and, as little children,
cast ourselves into her arms with a perfect confidence.
Let us watch the baby Jesus sweetly sucking
the sweet breasts of his glorious Mother,
laying his hand upon his Mother's bosom,
looking up and smiling at her all joyous and full of rapture,
as she holds him, her Lord,
at once so great and so little, in her arms;
kissing over and over again her little infant.
Blessed is that mouth, blessed are her kisses.
Let us calm and quiet ourselves,
like weaned children with their mother;
like a weaned child, to be content in the God
who desires to gather her children
as, under her wings, a hen gathers her brood.


Guite writes of Mary as: ‘a woman who, like so many others then as now, bore the appalling consequences of decisions made by men of power. She fled with her child as a refugee, she saw her son wrongfully arrested, beaten, and mocked by the occupying military force and then tortured to death on a public cross, in what was intended by the Romans to be shameful humiliation, but has, in fact, become the revelation of the full extent of God’s Love.

So, I find myself drawn again to the compassionate figure of Mary, not just in empathy with her own sufferings, direct and vicarious, but also because I believe that her compassion, the compassion so perfectly sculpted in Michelangelo’s Pietà, continues in and from heaven: that the compassion of Mary the Mother of God is still a force for good in the world.

As I think of the soldiers who call for her protection or cry out for her pity, on both sides of the war in Ukraine, I, too, yearn towards her, and with her, towards heaven, from this, our exile. I think of her, watching her Son’s torment, still steadfast in agonised love, and I sense her solidarity with all the mothers who are currently compelled to feel such pain.’ As he thinks of her in these ways he sees her ‘ holding up, once more, all the grief-stricken, to be folded in the mantle of her prayer.’

 

Jesus meets his mother

Mother,
you bore me
so that I
can bear the world
on my shoulders.

Mother,
you birthed me
so that I
can give birth
to God’s children.

Mother,
you sheltered me
so that others
can find shelter
under my wing.

Mother,
you carried me
so that I
can carry others
into heaven’s kingdom
on earth.

Mother,
you bore me,
birthed me,
sheltered me,
carried me,
to release me
and give me
in broken pieces
to the world.

Mother,
in a little while
you will not see me
and your heart
will break.

Mother,
in a little while
you will see me
and the shattered
shards of your heart
will be gathered up
and restored.


Jesus is taken down from the cross
And a sword pierced her heart,
as the whip flayed his back,
as the cross made him fall,
as the nails pierced his wrists and feet,
as the spear pierced his side,
as she held the limp, lifeless adult body
she had once held, as a newborn babe, to her breast.


Guite concludes:

Jesus meets his mother

This darker path into the heart of pain
Was also hers whose love enfolded him
In flesh and wove him in her womb. Again
The sword is piercing. She, who cradled him
And gentled and protected her young son,
Must stand and watch the cruelty that mars
Her maiden making. Waves of pain that stun
And sicken pass across his face and hers
As their eyes meet. Now she enfolds the world
He loves in prayer; the mothers of the disappeared
Who know her pain, all bodies bowed and curled
In desperation on this road of tears,
All the grief-stricken in their last despair,
Are folded in the mantle of her prayer.

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Malcolm Guite - Annunciation.

Mary's fiat

Here's the sermon I shared at St Catherine’s Wickford and St Gabriel’s Pitsea this morning:

The Revd Matthew Askey has said of Mary: “Mary, the mother of Jesus, who is one of the most significant, but neglected, figures in our shared cultural story. Mary was remarkable for the time and she has many things to show us and inspire us with today. She was an unmarried teenage mother, on the run, a refugee really, and at the same time through both her vulnerability and her determined strength she embodies so many positive characteristics of motherhood and what it means to be a woman today. Mary ultimately said ‘yes!’ to life, and gave herself into the hands of God’s love, and this is something that resulted in the life of the most inspiring person who has ever lived, Jesus, and then the birth of the world-wide Church that followed. The Church has 2 billion members today world-wide, is still growing, and about 32% of the world’s population are involved in some way with its acts of charity and life-transforming message of forgiveness and love for all people. Mary is right at the root and start of this movement of love.”

Mary was engaged to Joseph when the annunciation occurred. As she was found to be with child before they lived together, Joseph planned to dismiss her quietly. He had his own meeting with Gabriel which changed that decision but, if the man to whom she was betrothed, could not believe her without angelic intervention, then it would be no surprise if disbelief and misunderstanding characterised the response to Mary wherever she went.

We can learn much from Mary’s faith, trust and persistence in the face of disbelief, misunderstanding and probable insult. Our experience in times of trouble and difficulty will be similar as, on the one hand, God asks us to trust and persevere while, on the other, he will provide us with moments of support and strengthening. So, let’s look at some of her experience in more detail.

‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord,’ said Mary, ‘let it be with me according to your word.’ Mary said ‘Yes’ to God. As we have already begun to reflect, there is much more to saying that simple one syllable word ‘yes’ than we might at first imagine.

The poet-priest Malcolm Guite describes the Annunciation as follows:

‘a young girl stopped to see
With open eyes and heart. She heard the voice;
The promise of His glory yet to be,
As time stood still for her to make a choice;
Gabriel knelt and not a feather stirred,
The Word himself was waiting on her word.’

Victoria Emily Jones has reflected that ‘When Gabriel came to Mary to tell her she would bear a son, she was at first troubled, afraid, guarded. How was it possible that she, being a virgin, could become pregnant? But with the angel’s words of reassurance and promise, she yielded to the divine plan …” This is known as Mary’s fiat (Latin for “let it be”)—her consent to become the mother of God—and it’s celebrated by the church as the moment at which God became flesh, setting salvation in motion.

Theologians have debated the nature of Mary’s fiat—whether she really had a choice in the matter. After all, Gabriel comes speaking in terms of what will happen, without mentioning any conditions. However, most believe in the criticality of Mary’s “yes,” of her willing bodily and spiritual surrender. Between the angel’s ‘Hail’ and Mary’s ‘Let it be’ was a moment of supreme tension, one that Luci Shaw explores in her poem ‘The Annunciatory Angel’:

‘… We worry that she might faint.
Weep. Turn away, perplexed and fearful
about opening herself. Refuse to let the wind
fill her, to buffet its nine-month seed into her earth.
She is so small and intact. Turmoil will wrench her.
She might say no.’’

Why might Mary have said ‘No’? In the same poem Luci Shaw suggests there was a ‘weight of apprehension’ at the Annunciation because what had to be announced would ‘not be entirely easy news.’ As a result, Alan Stewart, in an Annunciation monologue, has Mary say ‘I said yes to my God / And I have come to question those words / For I did not know where they would lead’:

It was a day like any other day
Kneading bread. Lost in my thoughts
And then from behind
This light
An amazing light that filled the room
I turned round, holding my hand to my eyes
Backing away from it
And from inside this light, the figure of a man
Standing there. Looking at me
I felt I should run
I wanted to run
But his gaze fixed me to the spot
Like some rabbit charmed by a fox
But actually
His eyes were kind
And I felt strangely safe
‘is this an angel?’ I suddenly thought
have I sinned?
Has he mistaken me for someone?
Someone of importance
And then he spoke
‘Mary’
he knew my name
‘Mary’, he said ’don’t be afraid’
‘I have news for you’
‘in 9 months you will have a child and you are to call him Jeshua; God saves’
before I knew it, I was speaking
‘but I’m not married yet, I don’t…’
‘the child will be fathered by the Holy Spirit and he will save his people
the lord God will give him the throne of his father David’
the Saviour?, the Messiah?
I knelt down
And whispered
Simply
‘may it be to me as you have said’
I said yes
I said yes to my God
And I have come to question those words
For I did not know where they would lead

Where they led was to an immediate future of gossip, rumours and insult from those who thought of Jesus as illegitimate and in the longer term to a life of gathering gloom, ultimately one of sorrowing and sighing before a stone-cold tomb after the experience of viewing her son’s torture and cruel death; which was like a sword piercing her heart.

And yet, although she did not know it and could not have articulated it, there is a sense that she accepted all this when she accepted the challenge that the angel Gabriel brought from God. It may also have been that for having Jesus as her son she was, like many parents, more than glad that she had said yes, accepting the trauma, the gossip, the exile, the insults that she might bear her child, the promised Saviour.

Mary could have said ‘No’ but her ‘Yes’ was a ‘Yes’ to new life, to growth, to new birth. As we have already noted, Matthew Askey says that: ‘Mary ultimately said ‘yes!’ to life, and gave herself into the hands of God’s love, and this was something that resulted in the life of the most inspiring person who has ever lived, Jesus, and then the birth of the world-wide Church that followed. The Incarnation was predicated on the willingness of the teenage Mary to respond to God’s call.’ Mary, he says, is right at the root and start of this movement of love. This means that every act of Mary is an act of love:

Love is saying yes to God without knowing what that choice entails.

Love is waiting for your man to realise that what you have said is true and to support you.

Love is enduring the arch looks and snide comments from those who know you are bearing a child conceived out of wedlock.

Love is support from your cousin, your child leaping in your womb, and your magnifying God.

Love is enduring the discomfort of travel to your husband’s hometown when you are close to full-term.

Love is accepting a stable when there is no room at the inn.

Love is laying your newborn child in a manger when there are no extended family around to support you.

Love is being welcoming when shepherds unexpectedly arrive in the night soon after you’ve given birth.

Love is treasuring all their words and pondering them in your heart.

Love is giving your child the name an angel requested.

Love is fleeing to another country knowing that the life of your newborn child is under threat.

Love is making a life to bring up your child separated from friends and family.

Love is saying yes to God without knowing what that choice would entail
and it is that choice which creates a cannonball of love that,
from that first Christmas ever onwards,
explodes love throughout the Universe and in us.

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The Angel Gabriel from heaven came.

Mary, the mother of Jesus

Yesterday we had an excellent Parish Study Day at St Andrew's on 'Our churches and their Patron Saints'. Our churchwardens and members of the ministry team enabled us get to know our three churches, the buildings and the people. We found out more about their history and reflected on the lives of the saints that they are dedicated to.

This is what I had to say about Mary, the mother of Jesus:

The Revd Matthew Askey has said of Mary: “Mary, the mother of Jesus, who is one of the most significant, but neglected, figures in our shared cultural story. Mary was remarkable for the time and she has many things to show us and inspire us with today. She was an unmarried teenage mother, on the run, a refugee really, and at the same time through both her vulnerability and her determined strength she embodies so many positive characteristics of motherhood and what it means to be a woman today. Mary ultimately said ‘yes!’ to life, and gave herself into the hands of God’s love, and this is something that resulted in the life of the most inspiring person who has ever lived, Jesus, and then the birth of the world-wide Church that followed. The Church has 2 billion members today world-wide, is still growing, and about 32% of the world’s population are involved in some way with its acts of charity and life-transforming message of forgiveness and love for all people. Mary is right at the root and start of this movement of love.”

Mary was engaged to Joseph when the annunciation occurred. As she was found to be with child before they lived together, Joseph planned to dismiss her quietly. He had his own meeting with Gabriel which changed that decision but, if the man to whom she was betrothed, could not believe her without angelic intervention, then it would be no surprise if disbelief and misunderstanding characterised the response to Mary wherever she went.

We can learn much from Mary’s faith, trust and persistence in the face of disbelief, misunderstanding and probable insult. Our experience in times of trouble and difficulty will be similar as, on the one hand, God asks us to trust and persevere while, on the other, he will provide us with moments of support and strengthening. So, let’s look at some of her experience in more detail.

‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord,’ said Mary, ‘let it be with me according to your word.’ Mary said ‘Yes’ to God. As we have already begun to reflect, there is much more to saying that simple one syllable word ‘yes’ than we might at first imagine.

The poet-priest Malcolm Guite describes the Annunciation as follows:

‘a young girl stopped to see
With open eyes and heart. She heard the voice;
The promise of His glory yet to be,
As time stood still for her to make a choice;
Gabriel knelt and not a feather stirred,
The Word himself was waiting on her word.’

Victoria Emily Jones has reflected that ‘When Gabriel came to Mary to tell her she would bear a son, she was at first troubled, afraid, guarded. How was it possible that she, being a virgin, could become pregnant? But with the angel’s words of reassurance and promise, she yielded to the divine plan …” This is known as Mary’s fiat (Latin for “let it be”)—her consent to become the mother of God—and it’s celebrated by the church as the moment at which God became flesh, setting salvation in motion.

Theologians have debated the nature of Mary’s fiat—whether she really had a choice in the matter. After all, Gabriel comes speaking in terms of what will happen, without mentioning any conditions. However, most believe in the criticality of Mary’s “yes,” of her willing bodily and spiritual surrender. Between the angel’s ‘Hail’ and Mary’s ‘Let it be’ was a moment of supreme tension, one that Luci Shaw explores in her poem ‘The Annunciatory Angel’:

‘… We worry that she might faint.
Weep. Turn away, perplexed and fearful
about opening herself. Refuse to let the wind
fill her, to buffet its nine-month seed into her earth.
She is so small and intact. Turmoil will wrench her.
She might say no.’’

Why might Mary have said ‘No’? In the same poem Luci Shaw suggests there was a ‘weight of apprehension’ at the Annunciation because what had to be announced would ‘not be entirely easy news.’ As a result, Alan Stewart, in an Annunciation monologue, has Mary say ‘I said yes to my God / And I have come to question those words / For I did not know where they would lead’:

It was a day like any other day
Kneading bread. Lost in my thoughts
And then from behind
This light
An amazing light that filled the room
I turned round, holding my hand to my eyes
Backing away from it
And from inside this light, the figure of a man
Standing there. Looking at me
I felt I should run
I wanted to run
But his gaze fixed me to the spot
Like some rabbit charmed by a fox
But actually
His eyes were kind
And I felt strangely safe
‘is this an angel?’ I suddenly thought
have I sinned?
Has he mistaken me for someone?
Someone of importance
And then he spoke
‘Mary’
he knew my name
‘Mary’, he said ’don’t be afraid’
‘I have news for you’
‘in 9 months you will have a child and you are to call him Jeshua; God saves’
before I knew it, I was speaking
‘but I’m not married yet, I don’t…’
‘the child will be fathered by the Holy Spirit and he will save his people
the lord God will give him the throne of his father David’
the Saviour?, the Messiah?
I knelt down
And whispered
Simply
‘may it be to me as you have said’
I said yes
I said yes to my God
And I have come to question those words
For I did not know where they would lead

Where they led was to an immediate future of gossip, rumours and insult from those who thought of Jesus as illegitimate and in the longer term to a life of gathering gloom, ultimately one of sorrowing and sighing before a stone-cold tomb after the experience of viewing her son’s torture and cruel death; which was like a sword piercing her heart.

And yet, although she did not know it and could not have articulated it, there is a sense that she accepted all this when she accepted the challenge that the angel Gabriel brought from God. It may also have been that for having Jesus as her son she was, like many parents, more than glad that she had said yes, accepting the trauma, the gossip, the exile, the insults that she might bear her child, the promised Saviour.

Mary could have said ‘No’ but her ‘Yes’ was a ‘Yes’ to new life, to growth, to new birth. As we have already noted, Matthew Askey says that: ‘Mary ultimately said ‘yes!’ to life, and gave herself into the hands of God’s love, and this was something that resulted in the life of the most inspiring person who has ever lived, Jesus, and then the birth of the world-wide Church that followed. The Incarnation was predicated on the willingness of the teenage Mary to respond to God’s call.’ Mary, he says, is right at the root and start of this movement of love. This means that every act of Mary is an act of love:

Love is saying yes to God without knowing what that choice entails.

Love is waiting for your man to realise that what you have said is true and to support you.

Love is enduring the arch looks and snide comments from those who know you are bearing a child conceived out of wedlock.

Love is support from your cousin, your child leaping in your womb, and your magnifying God.

Love is enduring the discomfort of travel to your husband’s hometown when you are close to full-term.

Love is accepting a stable when there is no room at the inn.

Love is laying your newborn child in a manger when there are no extended family around to support you.

Love is being welcoming when shepherds unexpectedly arrive in the night soon after you’ve given birth.

Love is treasuring all their words and pondering them in your heart.

Love is giving your child the name an angel requested.

Love is fleeing to another country knowing that the life of your newborn child is under threat.

Love is making a life to bring up your child separated from friends and family.

Love is saying yes to God without knowing what that choice would entail
and it is that choice which creates a cannonball of love that,
from that first Christmas ever onwards,
explodes love throughout the Universe and in us.

Let’s finish with a brief story of Mary’s inspiration on a later ministry. John Bosco was a priest and Founder of the Salesians. He had a particular call to help young men and pioneered new educational methods, for example, in rejecting corporal punishment. His work with homeless youth received the admiration even of anticlerical politicians and his promotion of vocational training, including evening classes and industrial schools, became a pattern for others to follow. To extend the work, he founded in 1859 a religious community, the Pious Society of St Francis de Sales, usually known as the Salesians. It grew rapidly and was well-established in several countries by the time of his death on this day in 1888.

John Bosco’s certainty that, in the face of desperate circumstances, he would nonetheless build a thriving religious community for boys came from a vision received as a dream. In his dream he saw Our Lady directing him in the way he should go; a way that involved walking on thorns. Friends, lay and clergy, were alongside him but declined to also walk on thorns. Finally, a new group of followers arrived who were willing to walk with him. The Mother of God said to him: ‘The thorns on the ground represent the sensitive human affections, sympathies and antipathies that divert a teacher from his true goal, hurt him, hinder his mission and prevent him from forming and reaping wreathes for eternal life. Roses are the symbol of the ardent charity by which you and your associates must distinguish yourselves. The thorns symbolize the obstacles, sufferings and sorrows that await you. But do not lose heart. With charity and mortification you will overcome everything and will have roses without thorns!’

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Adrian Snell - How Can I Explain.

Rosemary Rutherford: Bradfield, Clacton and Tendring

 As part of preparations for a talk on Rosemary Rutherford's religious art that I am giving, together with Kathy Rouse, at St Mary with St Leonard Broomfield on Saturday 2 November, I visited some of the churches in Essex with windows by her.

At St Paul's Clacton-on-Sea, Rutherford not only created a marvellous East Window for the new church that was consecrated in 1966 but also supervised the transfer of windows from the old church to the new. Her large Dalle-de-Vere East Window depicts the conversion of Saul/Paul on the road to Damascus. Saul is half kneeling, with arms raised above his head, while the brilliant figure of Christ is high above him.

St Lawrence Bradfield has two windows by Rutherford, both in a very painterly style. In 'I am the Light of the World', Christ heals a blind man, while the other is of 'Christ blessing children'. Both windows were given by Martha Louisa Dunning.

Finally, I also saw a wonderful 'Annunciation' window at St Edmund King & Martyr, Tendring. This is a very light and bright Annunciation with yellows, orange and white predominating in the colour scheme. Mary and Gabriel blend through the inventive construction of this tall one light window.

For more on Rosemary Rutherford see here, here and here. For more on artworks in the Diocese of Chelmsford see here.

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Lifehouse - Broken. 

The meaning of life enters humanity still

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Mary's Runwell and St Catherine's Wickford this morning (using material from Alan Stewart and Late, Late Service):

It was a day like any other day
Kneading bread. Lost in my thoughts
And then from behind
This light
An amazing light that filled the room
I turned round, holding my hand to my eyes
Backing away from it
And from inside this light, the figure of a man
Standing there. Looking at me
I felt I should run
I wanted to run
But his gaze fixed me to the spot
Like some rabbit charmed by a fox
But actually
His eyes were kind
And I felt strangely safe
‘is this an angel?’ I suddenly thought
have I sinned?
Has he mistaken me for someone?
Someone of importance
And then he spoke
‘Mary’
he knew my name
‘Mary’, he said ’don’t be afraid’
‘I have news for you’
‘in 9 months you will have a child and you are to call him Jeshua; God saves’
before I knew it, I was speaking
‘but I’m not married yet, I don’t…’
‘the child will be fathered by the Holy Spirit and he will save his people
the lord God will give him the throne of his father David’
the Saviour?, the Messiah?
I knelt down
And whispered
Simply
‘may it be to me as you have said’
I said yes
I said yes to my God
And I have come to question those words
For I did not know where they would lead

The Annunciation (Luke 1: 26-38) is the moment when the creator of everything finds a way into flesh and blood. And in doing that, the meaning of all life enters into full humanity. That's what we celebrate at Christmas.

And the meaning of life enters humanity still. The meaning of life desires us. Watches our movements and listens to our hopes. The meaning of life is a lover whose gentle fingers occasionally touch and startle us, asking if we can love back, but never using force on us ... waiting to be invited to love. The meaning of life is love. Something intangible by nature. Something that cannot be possessed, bought, or sold.

And at Christmas we celebrate the fact that God, the source of all love and meaning, has so desired humanity that He has taken the risk of becoming vulnerable to what we might do if His life is left in our hands. God, the meaning of life, desires you and me in a way that one of us would desire our partner.

Love and desire are about creative union. About being open and receptive to the other, letting them be fully themselves, working for their pleasure, receiving their gifts to you. And when we're open to being God's partner, we find the mystery of meaning: that the ordinary moments of life have meaning. Not a meaning perhaps that you could put into words, just a sense of being right, purposeful.

You and I have this choice. A chance to respond to the touch of our lover and receive this union in our souls ... the centre of who we are. A choice to live life for the meaning of the moment, not just the thrill, and to turn from anything that promises a thrill and delivers meaninglessness. God is still in Flesh and Blood. Now God is flesh and blood in partnership and love, and like Mary we must say "Yes" to that partnership and discover the meaning of our own individual (and communal) lives.

When we know this for ourselves we will say with Mary:

My soul magnifies the Lord
And my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour
For he has been mindful
Of the humble state of his servant
From now on all generations will call me blessed
For the mighty One has done great things for me
And holy is his name

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Late, Late Service - Let Not Your Hearts Be Troubled.

Meditation: Love is …

Here's the meditation I shared this evening in Advent Night Prayer at St Catherine's Wickford:

Love is saying yes to God without knowing what that choice entails.

Love is waiting for your man to realise that what you have said is true and to support you.

Love is enduring the arch looks and snide comments from those who know you are bearing a child conceived out of wedlock.

Love is support from your cousin, your child leaping in your womb, and your magnifying God.

Love is enduring the discomfort of travel to your husband’s hometown when you are close to full-term.

Love is accepting a stable when there is no room at the inn.

Love is laying your newborn child in a manger when there are no extended family around to support you.

Love is being welcoming when shepherds unexpectedly arrive in the night soon after you’ve given birth.

Love is treasuring all their words and pondering them in your heart.

Love is giving your child the name an angel requested.

Love is fleeing to another country knowing that the life of your newborn child is under threat.

Love is making a life to bring up your child separated from friends and family.

Love is saying yes to God without knowing what that choice would entail

and it is that choice which creates a cannonball of love* that,

from that first Christmas ever onwards,

explodes love throughout the Universe and in us.

* The phrase 'cannonball of love that explodes love throughout the Universe' is taken from Sam Wells.

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Wade Cambern and Kirsten Young - Mary, Did You Know? (Jennifer Henry version)

Rupert Loydell: The Weight of the World

 

‘The Weight of the World’ by Rupert Loydell is a long poem sequence in two parts, about annunciations, written in response to hat sculptures by Gertraud Platschek.

In 'Dear Mary' (2017) Loydell wrote about art and life and how they intersect. Fascinated by both renaissance and contemporary painting, he reinvented moments of annunciation in today's world, and revelled in the colours and sunshine of Italy. In a world of wonder and surprise, aliens abducted the Virgin Mary, 20th century rock singers found themselves collaged together and singing about her, infinite greys (and grays) blurred together between other greys, Francis Bacon painted angels, and even the weather forecast predicted the future.

Then, in 'A Confusion of Marys' (2020) Loydell and Sarah Cave explored, wrote back to and re-imagined the story of the Angel Gabriel appearing to Mary, in terms of sequential writing, re-versioning, accumulation, variation and ekphrasis. Many paintings, photographs, videos and sculptures depicting the annunciation were used as research and inspiration, including works by Fra Angelico, Andy Warhol, Francis Picabia, Paul Delvaux and René Magritte.

These works are part of an ongoing exploration of annunciation and associated themes such as colour, contemporary art, spiritual / alien intervention and intrusion into the human realm, symbolism and the nature of belief and submission. Loydell has talked about these sequences in terms of “trips to Italy and being mesmerised by a couple of Fra Angelica paintings, and then following through by looking at lots more annunciations and art and photography about angels, about deliberately [mis]reading works of art and events as annunciations, and a vague idea of something from elsewhere intruding into the human realm.”

As an artist-poet, Loydell has frequently written about art and artists and his latest sequence is no exception having been inspired by the work of Gertraud Platschek, a German based architect, sculptor and painter. She says: “While I am an architect I also live in the world of colours. I like to paint on large formats. Painting that means to me throwing, smearing, scratching – with the aim to achieve the impossible.” The latter aim is one to which Loydell responds, particularly in regard to her love of strange and wondrous hats.

Platschek has:

“Made the world into a hat
and the hats into a world
on top of the world.”

There is:

“an annunciation hat
ready for things to come”

and

“a resurrection hat
a small shrine to self”

She has:

“Balanced doubt up on her head
And held her head up high”

Mary “tends toward the meek and mild” but may come to:

“Use all her architectural skills and training
to subvert the iconography, reinvent the halo
as a torn edge of fabric or card, write her own
apochrypha, subvert the idea of religious signs.
She will not be a threshold for holy desire,
will wear her hat into future space and time.”

In these ways Loydell explores how we navigate the world around us, seen and unseen; how we might wonder, explain, and start to understand.

He teaches his students at Falmouth University a text in which “Gabriel Josipovici talks about how stories die unless they are changed, reinvented, argued over and made new.” Similarly, he has spoken of how his original sense of the annunciation “was very much to do with Renaissance art and Italy, as well as colour and ekphrasis.” However, he has come to realise that ‘one can interpret almost anything through the lens of a particular story or event.’ At times the story of the Annunciation has come to feel like “an endless and somewhat ridiculous shaggy dog story, but it's become a real way to think about all sorts of stories and encounters in the world, a way of understanding human beings.” So, he says, “I guess my 'sense of Mary' is not very specific, it's about bewildered, frightened, confused and perhaps empowered humans caught up in strange encounters and activities, sometimes aware they are within a painting, sculpture, film or story.”

As Steve Scott has said Loydell’s words are ‘wrapped around a deeper mystery that invites, but ultimately defies description.’ For Loydell, as Neil Philip notes, everything is “trying to imply ascension”. “Moments of transcendence occur even when ‘We didn’t get to see the angel.’”

‘The Weight of the World’ by Rupert M Loydell, Analogue Flashback Books, 2021.

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Bill Fay - Countless Trees.

Angels, aliens, and annunciations: Sarah Cave and Rupert Loydell in conversation

Here's a guest post from Rupert Loydell:

Aliens, angels & annunications: Sarah Cave and Rupert Loydell discuss their new Shearsman book, A Confusion of Marys, on the Tears in the Fence blog at https://tearsinthefence.com/2020/01/14/aliens-angels-annunciations-sarah-cave-and-rupert-loydell-in-conversation/
Rupert Loydell: So, A Confusion of Marys is finally out. A couple of people have asked about the process, the research, and motive for writing it. I can talk about trips to Italy and being mesmerised by a couple of Fra Angelica paintings, and then following through by looking at lots more annunciations and art and photography about angels, about deliberately [mis]reading works of art and events as annunciations, and a vague idea of something from elsewhere intruding into the human realm, but what's your perception of coming on board as it were? I honestly can't recall how we ended up doing those Joyful Mysteries pamphlets and then the Impossible Songs pamphlet.

Sarah Cave: I grew up a Christian and have been mentally dealing with what that means for the best part of three decades. My long poem in A Confusion of Marys was really my way of trying to understand Mary – a figure of grace – and to draw her for myself; beyond the annunciation, beyond liturgy. I think our conversations about the annunciation and John F Deane’s beautiful sequence of poems about Lydia in Give Dust a Tongue – the woman Jesus meets at Jacob’s well – helped frame how I wanted Mary to emerge in her own right. Also, when Pussy Riot’s ‘Punk Prayer’ was released in a softer form by the Norwegian singer Moddi, I was struck by their pleas, ‘Mary, our hands are tied in prayer / Help us if you’re there!’ and ‘O Holy Mary, be a feminist!’. I was also struck by the way that Maria Alyokhina talked about faith in interviews; faith wasn’t something that belonged to the church but to the individual. ‘Punk Prayer’ is irreligious, it’s rather an intercession begging Mary to dissolve the kyriarchy and free women from society’s oppressive expectations.

I think the two pamphlets we did were a combination of this and some very silly poems about ducks. I’m certain there was an element of irreverent one-upmanship going on there too.

RL: So, what's an autophagy then? And what's it got to do with Mary or the annunciation? Explain yourself!

SC: Autophagy literally means self-eating.

It’s a biological process of cell regeneration – clearing out old cells to encourage regrowth – and I’m interested in the idea of regenerative theology. I was a cradle Anglican and within that tradition Mary is more of a backseat figure – usually appearing in knitted form at crib services – no intercessions etc. I wanted to bring her to the forefront and to understand how, in her all pervasive way, she has shaped my life and the expectations people place on my life – gender, sexuality, politics, mysticism – and the lives of the women around me, and of course, how those expectations must have affected Mary’s own life.

I like that the title, A Confusion of Marys, evokes a sense of the process of writing and re-writing, the Marian annunciation scene as palimpsest. Was this deliberate?

RL: Very much so. I thought of it as a series of variations, accumulations and versions of the same event – including, as you say, some very silly and jokey ideas. I wanted to get away from any idea of theological certainty, I'm much more interested in doubt and myth, symbolism and tangential ideas than anything fixed or final. I like stories that get retold throughout culture, and the annunciation certainly seems to be one that has. I guess the long prose poem that opens the book is an attempt to pile up versions of the story: it could be this, or this, or like that, or what about this?

I confess I'm quite interested in being slightly irreverent, too. I'm not very good at po-faced religion in any shape or form, although I quite like some traditional liturgy. But I abhor those who use their certainty as an excuse for censorship, racism, hatred and abuse.

I enjoyed finding some of the images of angels and annunciations I did. There's a surprising amount of angel imagery, for instance, in contemporary photography, and many abstract paintings use 'Annunciation' as a title. I don't think these tie in to any version of the traditional Mary and angel story, but I was happy to make the link for myself, just as I did with other ideas such as a magician and his assistant, or boys at a fancy dress party.

From what you've said, I'm guessing that your work is actually much more personal to you, and less ideas-driven, than mine is? I'm not suggesting it's autobiography, but more concerned with ideas that are really important to you, whereas mine could be seen as a bit of an intellectual joke?

SC: Yes, they’re ideas that are important to me because I feel part of those stories. I see their patterns in my own life and the books that I read; a kind of cultural pareidolia, the culture I am simultaneously absorbing and rejecting, honouring and dishonouring. But, of course, the sequence isn’t autobiographical, no more than any other post-confessional poetry.

I think humour, play and irreverence are important when talking about theology. Human spirituality is such a beautifully absurd thing and, as you say, there’s nothing worse than po-faced believers, who sit in judgement. It’s the first step to exclusion and ‘theological certainty’ is what makes heretics and heresy is merely an historical excuse for killing people who don’t agree with you. There’s no way either of us would have survived the inquisition!

You don’t have to look much further than the bible for the sense of versioning, which you’re talking about. I love that this weird and supposedly holy text is the best sense the Council of Nicaea could make of the disparate strands of accounts, prophesy and scripture, and gloriously, it still doesn’t make much sense.

Did you have a personal sense of Mary? Where did your interest in her start?

RL: I've always been very resistant to any sense of Marian theology. Saints weren't a thing in the church I was brought up in, and Mary was simply a human being chosen by God. I think I'm mostly interested in the painting and the way people do turn Mary into something else, almost non-human: it's very strange to me. I keep coming back to that moment as the idea of worlds colliding; it's not just me being silly when I wrote about the annunciation as an alien encounter.

Having said that, a lot of the contemporary art I looked at, such as Eija-Liisa Ahtila's video installation and the book of it, is very concerned with female human experience, with exploring the story through Mary's eyes. And of course I've reversioned the story from both the male and female gaze, from lustful angels and desirous Mary, with the idea of the angel turning up via an online dating agency, to Joseph's point-of-view, feeling resentful and sidelined in both the original event and the ensuing art.

It's strange how once an idea starts – and originally my sense of the annunciation was very much to do with Renaissance art and Italy, as well as colour and ekphrasis – one can interpret almost anything through the lens of a particular story or event. At times it feels like an endless and somewhat ridiculous shaggy dog story, but it's become a real way to think about all sorts of stories and encounters in the world, a way of understanding human beings. So, I guess my 'sense of Mary' is not very specific, it's about bewildered, frightened, confused and perhaps empowered humans caught up in strange encounters and activities, sometimes aware they are within a painting, sculpture, film or story.

I can't help thinking about a text I use to teach the first years with, where Gabriel Josipovici talks about how stories die unless they are changed, reinvented, argued over and made new. He also questions the idea of ownership of stories, or even being able to 'ring-fence' them. Perhaps we are just part of a religious and artistic dialogue?

SC: Gosh, yes. The book is undoubtedly part of a wider dialogue. Even in Christianity there are so many different interpretations, the same story manifesting through art, literature and performance; from scratches of fish and crosses in caves, renaissance frescoes, Sunday school cartoons, those strange graphics in JW pamphlets and school plays. I don’t know about you, but one of the first things I was asked to do at Sunday school was to draw Jesus. I love the version of the nativity in Quran, which has Mary give birth to the prophet, while clinging to a palm tree. We’ve come an awful long way in two thousand years with this particular story, considering only half a century ago re-versions by writers such as Robert Graves, Nikos Kazantzakis et al and were met with horror and derision; it’s only forty years since The Life of Brian upset Malcolm Muggeridge and the Archbishop of York. I find Michael Palin’s visible pain at being told the film is irreligious during that debate very identifiable. For me, a sense of irreverence is its own reverie.

In ‘Autophagy’, I’ve tried to create my own Marian theology, based on tracing a matriarchal line of caregiving. By looking at the other women in the bible, such as Sarah and Hagar for example allowed me to draw lines of comparison between different aspects of female experience. Sarah had her own miraculous conception, and, like Elizabeth’s, it went beyond biological expectation. God blesses Sarah but he also causes a rupture between her and her handmaiden Hagar. Women’s relationships are footnotes in the bible and the more we think about them the less clear cut the stories are and the less suitable for the simplistic moral guidance deployed by believers.

© Sarah Cave & Rupert Loydell 2020

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U2 - Magnificent.

The Word himself was waiting on her word

Here is my sermon for the 10.00am Eucharist at St Martin-in-the-Fields this morning:

My grandson Joshua is two today. It is fascinating being part of the growth and development of a young child, particularly as a grandparent when you can remember what happened with your own children and also see the way in which, in this case, my daughter and son-in-law approach their role as parents. For several months now Joshua has been able to say ‘no’, often repeatedly and with much shaking of his head. He cannot yet say ‘yes’. Both are words of one syllable which one would expect that a child should find easy to learn, yet one is learnt early and the other much later. It may be, of course, that he has heard the word ‘no’ being said to him much more than he has yet heard the word ‘yes’!

‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord,’ said Mary, ‘let it be with me according to your word.’ Mary said ‘Yes’ to God. As we have already begun to reflect, there is much more to saying that simple one syllable word ‘yes’ than we might at first imagine.

The poet-priest Malcolm Guite describes the Annunciation as follows:

‘a young girl stopped to see
With open eyes and heart. She heard the voice;
The promise of His glory yet to be,
As time stood still for her to make a choice;
Gabriel knelt and not a feather stirred,
The Word himself was waiting on her word.’

Victoria Emily Jones has reflected that ‘When Gabriel came to Mary to tell her she would bear a son, she was at first troubled, afraid, guarded. How was it possible that she, being a virgin, could become pregnant? But with the angel’s words of reassurance and promise, she yielded to the divine plan …” This is known as Mary’s fiat (Latin for “let it be”)—her consent to become the mother of God—and it’s celebrated by the church as the moment at which God became flesh, setting salvation in motion.

Theologians have debated the nature of Mary’s fiat—whether she really had a choice in the matter. After all, Gabriel comes speaking in terms of what will happen, without mentioning any conditions. However, most believe in the criticality of Mary’s “yes,” of her willing bodily and spiritual surrender. Between the angel’s ‘Hail’ and Mary’s ‘Let it be’ was a moment of supreme tension, one that Luci Shaw explores in her poem ‘The Annunciatory Angel’:

‘… We worry that she might faint.
Weep. Turn away, perplexed and fearful
about opening herself. Refuse to let the wind
fill her, to buffet its nine-month seed into her earth.
She is so small and intact. Turmoil will wrench her.
She might say no.’’

Why might Mary have said ‘No’? In the same poem Luci Shaw suggests there was a ‘weight of apprehension’ at the Annunciation because what had to be announced would ‘not be entirely easy news.’ As a result, Alan Stewart, in an Annunciation monologue, has Mary say ‘I said yes to my God / And I have come to question those words / For I did not know where they would lead.’ Where they led was to an immediate future of gossip, rumours and insult from those who thought of Jesus as illegitimate and in the longer term to a life of gathering gloom, ultimately one of sorrowing and sighing before a stone-cold tomb after the experience of viewing her son’s torture and cruel death; which was like a sword piercing her heart.

And yet, although she did not know it and could not have articulated it, there is a sense that she accepted all this when she accepted the challenge that the angel Gabriel brought from God. It may also have been that for having Jesus as her son she was, like many parents, more than glad that she had said yes, accepting the trauma, the gossip, the exile, the insults that she might bear her child, the promised Saviour.

Mary could have said ‘No’ but her ‘Yes’ was a ‘Yes’ to new life, to growth, to new birth. Matthew Askey says that: ‘Mary ultimately said ‘yes!’ to life, and gave herself into the hands of God’s love, and this was something that resulted in the life of the most inspiring person who has ever lived, Jesus, and then the birth of the world-wide Church that followed. The Incarnation was predicated on the willingness of the teenage Mary to respond to God’s call.’ So, the Annunciation is the moment when the creator of everything finds a way into flesh and blood. And in doing that, the meaning of all life enters into full humanity.

That is what we celebrate at Christmas and continue to experience as we say ‘Yes’ to God, as ‘the meaning of life enters humanity still. The meaning of life desires us. Watches our movements and listens to our hopes. The meaning of life is a lover whose gentle fingers occasionally touch and startle us, asking if we can love back, but never using force on us ... waiting to be invited to love. The meaning of life is love. Something intangible by nature. Something that cannot be possessed, bought, or sold.

And at Christmas we celebrate the fact that God, the source of all love and meaning, has so desired humanity that He has taken the risk of becoming vulnerable to what we might do if His life is left in our hands. God, the meaning of life, desires you and me in a way that one of us would desire our partner.’ (The Late, Late Service)

The poet Noel Rowe captures something of this in his Annunciation poem when he writes:

‘The angel did not draw attention to himself.
He came in. So quietly I could hear
my blood beating on the shore of absolute
beauty …

my heart, my heart, was wanting him,
reaching out, and taking hold of smooth-muscled fire.
And it was done.’

He says, ‘I used a slightly eroticised image not to suggest their encounter was sexual, but to reimagine spirituality as passionate and creative, a poetic of desire.’ This has been the experience of Christian mystics throughout Church history; God as the incomprehensible mystery that embraces everything making the goal of human life that of losing oneself in this divine mystery in love. As Karl Rahner wrote: ‘When I abandon myself in love, then you are my very life, and your incomprehensibility is swallowed up in love’s unity. When I am allowed to love you, the grasp of our very mystery becomes a positive source of bliss.’

‘Love and desire are about creative union. About being open and receptive to the other, letting them be fully themselves, working for their pleasure, receiving their gifts to you. And when we're open to being God's partner, we find the mystery of meaning ...

You and I have this choice. A chance to respond to the touch of our lover and receive this union in our souls ... the centre of who we are. A choice to live life for the meaning of the moment, not just the thrill, and to turn from anything that promises a thrill and delivers meaninglessness. God is still in Flesh and Blood. Now God is flesh and blood in partnership and love, and like Mary we must say "Yes" to that partnership and discover the meaning of our own individual (and communal) lives.’

Malcolm Guite writes that in her ’open ‘yes’’, as she heard God’s call, Mary ‘spoke aloud for every living soul.’ So ‘every Christian after her seeks to become in some small way a God-bearer, one whose ‘yes’ to God means that Christ is made alive and fruitful in the world through our flesh and our daily lives, is born and given to another.’ Christ is carried by Mary, both in her womb and in her arms, in order that he can then carry us to God by means of his death of the cross. In turn, we carry him to others by means of our daily life and witness. As Teresa of Avila said:

‘Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.’

Similarly, it is through his actions that little Joshua says ‘yes’ at present, while he is as yet unable to speak the word. He is constantly embracing new experiences and the love of family and friends, but does so through his actions rather than his words.

Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord, let it be with me according to your word’ and then lived that out despite the challenges she faced. Will you do the same by saying, as the chorus to ‘I, the Lord of sea and sky’ puts it: ‘Here I am, Lord. Is it I, Lord? / I have heard you calling in the night / I will go, Lord, if you lead me / I will hold your people in my heart’?

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Luci Shaw - The Cosmos.

Rupert Loydell: Dear Mary

Rupert Loydell read from 'Dear Mary' when he read at St Stephen Walbrook during 'Crucifixions: Francis Bacon'.

In 'Dear Mary' poet and painter Rupert Loydell writes about art and life and how they intersect. Fascinated by both renaissance and contemporary painting, he reinvents moments of annunciation in today's world, and revels in the colours and sunshine of Italy. This is a world of wonder and surprise, where aliens abduct the Virgin Mary, 20th century rock singers find themselves collaged together and singing about her, infinite greys (and grays) blur together between other greys, Francis Bacon paints angels, and even the weather forecast predicts the future.

Above all else, this is a book which celebrates language and art, and explores how we navigate the world around us, seen and unseen; how we might wonder, explain, and begin to understand.

“Artist and writer Rupert Loydell brings his accomplished eye, ear, and voice to this book of subtly crafted poems and prose. His loaded brush and carefully chosen words engage with luminous artworks and radiant landscape, and are also wrapped around a deeper mystery that invites, but ultimately defies description.” — Steve Scott

“Dear Mary is a thrilling love letter to the way in which meaning inheres in the world and the word. Light-drenched Tuscany is suffused with mysteriously overlaid greys; for Rupert Loydell, it is a place where everything is ‘trying to imply ascension’. Moments of transcendence occur even when ‘We didn’t get to see the angel.’” — Neil Philip

These pieces are 'flakes of reverence' or gaps for the numinous, gestures towards the missing tones and colours of angels, as Loydell meditates on these Italian icons, seeking whatever is outside the picture frame or beyond the truncated gestures.” — Martin Caseley

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Tracey Chapman - Open Arms.

Lecture & Poetry Reading

In the context of Crucifixions: Francis Bacon, Rupert Loydell read poetry inspired by the work of Francis Bacon and also by the annunciation at St Stephen Walbrook tonight. As well as his own work, he also read Bacon-inspired poems by Peter Gillies and Brian Louis Pearce. Francis Bacon is not your friend he wrote in an earlier poem while also acknowledging that Bacon burned bright and that the spirit of God was upon him, urgent and toxic.

Loydell founded Stride magazine in 1982 and has, since then, published several hundred titles in Stride's wide-ranging list of poetry, fiction, and critical texts; the magazine itself is now online. In addition to editing Stride, he is currently Senior Lecturer in English with Creative Writing at Falmouth University, a widely exhibited painter of small abstract paintings, and a much-anthologised and -published poet

In his latest collection Dear Mary he writes about art and life and how they intersect. Fascinated by both renaissance and contemporary painting, he re-invents moments of annunciation in today's world, and revels in the colours and sunshine of Italy. This is a world of wonder and surprise, where aliens abduct the Virgin Mary, Francis Bacon paints angels, and even the weather forecast predicts the future. This is a book which explores how we might wonder, explain, and begin to understand. 

In my lecture on 'The crucifixion in modern art' I used theologian Paul Tillich's idea that the 'rediscovery of the expressive element in art since about 1900' was 'a decisive event for the relation of religion and the visual arts' as it 'made religious art again possible', to think about the crucifixion in modern art while also considering the use that Francis Bacon makes of this image. We reflected that 'the two world wars led artists like Bacon to look towards the Crucifixion as one of the few symbols that could contain the potency of their emotions.' Bacon said that he could find no other subject as valid as the Crucifixion to embrace all the nuances of human feelings and behaviours that enabled him to think about all life’s horror. 'Images from the concentration camps proved to be a catalyst for some of the most powerful depictions of the crucifixion; images showing a bloody and haggard Christ whose body bore witness to the “continuing beastliness and cruelty of mankind.”' The majority of artists doing so, including Francis Bacon, used Expressionism as their main means of bearing witness.

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The Beat Aeroplanes - Angel Words.

Faith, trust and persistence in the face of disbelief

I used the poems and reflections of Malcolm Guite to form today's homily at St Stephen Walbrook:

‘The feast of the Visitation celebrates the lovely moment in Luke’s Gospel (1:41-56) when Mary goes to visit he cousin Elizabeth, who was also against all expectations bearing a child, the child who would be John the Baptist. Luke tells us that the Holy Spirit came upon them, that the babe in Elizabeth’s womb ‘leaped for joy’ when he heard Mary’s voice, and it is even as the older woman blesses the younger, that Mary gives voice to the Magnificat, the most beautiful and revolutionary hymn in the world.’

Malcolm Guite describes their meeting like this in his Sonnet on the Feast of the Visitation:

Here is a meeting made of hidden joys
Of lightenings cloistered in a narrow place
From quiet hearts the sudden flame of praise
And in the womb the quickening kick of grace.
Two women on the very edge of things
Unnoticed and unknown to men of power
But in their flesh the hidden Spirit sings
And in their lives the buds of blessing flower.
And Mary stands with all we call ‘too young’,
Elizabeth with all called ‘past their prime’
They sing today for all the great unsung
Women who turned eternity to time
Favoured of heaven, outcast on the earth
Prophets who bring the best in us to birth.

Mary needed that moment of empathy and inspiration because the experience of being the Theotokos, the God-bearer, was a difficult one. Difficult, because she was not believed - both by those closest to her and those who didn’t really know her. Mary was engaged to Joseph when the annunciation occurred. As she was found to be with child before they lived together, Joseph planned to dismiss her quietly. He had his own meeting with Gabriel which changed that decision but, if the man to whom she was betrothed, could not believe her without angelic intervention, then it would be no surprise if disbelief and misunderstanding characterised the response to Mary wherever she went.

We can imagine, then, how important it was to her to be with a relative who not only believed her but was also partway through her own miraculous pregnancy. The relief that she would have felt at being believed and understood would have been immense and then there is the shared moment of divine inspiration when the Holy Spirit comes on them, the babe in Elizabeth’s womb leaps for joy, and as Elizabeth blesses Mary, she is inspired to sing the Magnificat. In the face of so much disbelief and lack of support, this confirmation that they were both following God’s will, would have been overwhelming.

We can learn much from Mary’s faith, trust and persistence in the face of disbelief, misunderstanding and probable insult. We can also learn from this moment when God gives her both human empathy through Elizabeth and divine inspiration through the Holy Spirit to be a support and strengthening in the difficulties which she faced as God-bearer. Our experience in times of trouble and difficulty will be similar as, on the one hand, God asks to trust and preserve while, on the other, he will provide with moments of support and strengthening.

Mary has been given many titles down the ages but ‘the earliest ‘title’, agreed throughout the church in the first centuries of our faith, before the divisions of East and West, Catholic and Protestant, was Theotokos, which means God-Bearer. She is the prime God-Bearer, bearing for us in time the One who was begotten in eternity, and every Christian after her seeks to become in some small way a God-bearer, one whose ‘yes’ to God means that Christ is made alive and fruitful in the world through our flesh and our daily lives, is born and given to another.’ In his poem ‘Theotokos’, Malcolm Guite suggests some ways in which Mary’s experience can speak to us and inspire us in the challenges we face as we go through life:

You bore for me the One who came to bless
And bear for all and make the broken whole.
You heard His call and in your open ‘yes’
You spoke aloud for every living soul.
Oh gracious Lady, child of your own child,
Whose mother-love still calls the child in me,
Call me again, for I am lost, and wild
Waves surround me now. On this dark sea
Shine as a star and call me to the shore.
Open the door that all my sins would close
And hold me in your garden. Let me share
The prayer that folds the petals of the Rose.
Enfold me too in Love’s last mystery
And bring me to the One you bore for me.

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Malcolm Guite - Singing Bowl.