Here's the reflection I shared during today's midweek Eucharist for St Andrew's Wickford:
Mary Magdalene by Malcolm Guite.
Today is the Feast of St Mary Magdalene. ‘Mary Magdalene is a woman who has been largely defined by the church fathers… as a repentant sinner, and it was assumed those sins were sexual,’ says former New York Poet Laureate Marie Howe, who was raised Catholic. In her book of poems called Magdalene, Howe seeks to re-envision Mary Magdalene for the modern age. ‘Magdalene imagines the biblical figure of Mary Magdalene as a woman who embodies the spiritual and sensual, alive in a contemporary landscape— hailing a cab, raising a child, listening to the news on the radio. Between facing the traumas of her past and navigating daily life, the narrator of Magdalene yearns for the guidance of her spiritual teacher, a Christ figure, whose death she continues to grieve.'
'Just as many women today sit down to practice meditation or to pray, Mary Magdalene sought meaning and understanding by following Jesus as teacher. “She wanted to find metaphysical meaning,” Howe said.'
In one of the poems she has an encounter that takes her to a third place she’ not yet been.
then I was looking at my old friend John—
suddenly I was in and I saw him,
and he (and this was almost unbearable)
he saw me see him,
and I saw him see me.
He said something like, You’re going to be ok now,
Or, It’s been difficult hasn’t it,
but what he said mattered only a little.
We met -- in our mutual gaze --in between
a third place I’d not yet been.
(The Affliction)
Erotic, spirited, and searching for meaning, she becomes a woman striving to be the subject of her own life, fully human and alive to the sacred in the mortal world.
‘The world that would have gone on without me bargained and cluttered and I walked where I wanted, free of the pretense of family now, belonging to no one, back to the place where he’d bent and written in the dust.’
Jim Friedman notes that it was when the sixth-century Pope Gregory the Great conflated Mary Magdalene with the anonymous woman taken in adultery and the weeping sinner whose tears bathed the feet of her Lord, that Mary Magdalene became a compelling archetype for the forgiven sinner.’ ‘Through the long centuries of male-dominated biblical storytelling, the conflated Magdalene figure was typecast as a fallen women tainted by her erotic past’.
Howe says that by being juxtaposed against Mary the mother of Jesus, ‘Magdalene was set up as the repentant sinner (often a prostitute), creating a split that has affected women for generations. This split between the virgin and the whore, the mother and the single woman, the sacred and the sensual, the body and the spirit – established by the patriarchy – has caused so much suffering in women,’ How can this split begin to be healed? Howe has said, perhaps by talking about it – telling stories – stories such as those in Magdalene.
Andrew Nunn, Dean of Southwark Cathedral says that: ‘More has been said about Mary than is probably true. Her story has been mixed up with other stories – of fallen women, of disturbed women, of faithful women, of passionate women, of accused women, of scandalous women – and all rolled into one story. But Jesus met all those women who challenged convention, who dared to speak, who dared to act and he welcomed them, as he welcomes us, with all our contradictions. But what we do know is that of all the people he could have met in the garden by the tomb in the first dawn of Easter Day, it was Mary, and he asked her to be the apostle of his resurrection.
Jim Friedman notes that these days Mary Magdalene ‘is more accurately understood as an important disciple and primary witness to the Resurrection.’ Malcolm Guite writes: ‘Mary, a woman, despised and condemned by the self righteous, but loved by Jesus was chosen by him to be the first witness of the good news of his resurrection, and in her meeting with the love of Christ a graveyard once more became a garden.’
Easter Dawn by Malcolm Guite.
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Malcolm Guite - Easter Dawn.
Showing posts with label sonnets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sonnets. Show all posts
Wednesday, 22 July 2026
Wednesday, 25 March 2026
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.
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.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Malcolm Guite - Annunciation.
Tuesday, 2 December 2025
Advent Reflection: Seven Great O Antiphons
The Advent reflection I shared today with the Basildon Chapter was based on Malcolm Guite's Advent Antiphon sonnets and Steve Bell's use of them on Keening for the Dawn:
'We are at the beginning of a holy season in which we connect again with our ‘inconsolable longing’, as C.S. Lewis called it, our yearning for the One who is to come and is also, mysteriously, the One who has come already, come as child, come as fellow-sufferer, come as Saviour, and yet whose coming, already achieved, we hold at bay from ourselves, so that we have to learn afresh each year, even each day, how to let him come to us again.
In the first centuries the Church had a beautiful custom of praying seven great prayers calling afresh on Christ to come, calling him by the mysterious titles he has in Isaiah,' calling to him; O Emmanuel (God With Us) ; O Sapientia (Wisdom); O Radix (Root); O Oriens (Daystar); O Clavis (Key); O Adonai (Great Lord); and O Rex Gentium (Desire of Nations).
'These antiphons were sung before and after the Magnificat at Vespers, according to the Roman use, on the seven days preceding Christmas Eve (17–23 December). They are addressed to God, calling for him to come as teacher and deliverer, with a tapestry of scriptural titles and pictures that describe his saving work in Christ. In the medieval rite of Salisbury Cathedral that was widely followed in England before the Reformation, the antiphons began on 16 December and there was an additional antiphon (‘O Virgin of virgins’) on 23 December; this is reflected in the Calendar of The Book of Common Prayer, where 16 December is designated O Sapientia (O Wisdom).'
'Until a few years ago, I didn’t know what these “Great O Antiphons” were; although I was well acquainted with the song (O come, O come Emmanuel) that preserves the tradition and these seven ancient, prophetic names' for the Christ.
The person who made me aware of these Advent Antiphons was the priest-poet Malcolm Guite, who has 'responded to these seven Antiphons with seven sonnets, re-voicing them for our own age now, but preserving the heart of each, which is a prayer for Christ’s Advent for his coming, now in us, and at the end of time, in and for all.'
Click here to read Malcolm Guite's sonnet O Sapientia.
'The last of the Seven Great O Antiphons, which was sung on either side of the Magnificat, is O Emmanuel, O God with us. This is the antiphon from which our lovely Advent hymn takes its name. It was also this final antiphon which revealed the secret message embedded subtly into the whole antiphon sequence. In each of these antiphons we call on Christ to come to us, to come as Light as Key, as King, as God-with-us. Now, singing this Antiphon standing on the brink of Christmas Eve, looking back at the illuminated capital letters for each of the seven titles of Christ we would see an answer to our pleas : ERO CRAS, the latin words meaning ‘Tomorrow I will come!”
O Emmanuel
O Rex
O Oriens
O Clavis
O Radix
O Adonai
O Sapientia'
Malcolm Guite in his final sonnet 'tries to look back across the other titles of Christ, but also to look forward, beyond Christmas, to the new birth for humanity and for the whole cosmos, which is promised in the birth of God in our midst.'
Click here to read Malcolm Guite's sonnet O Emmanuel.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Bell - O Come, O Come Emmanuel.
'We are at the beginning of a holy season in which we connect again with our ‘inconsolable longing’, as C.S. Lewis called it, our yearning for the One who is to come and is also, mysteriously, the One who has come already, come as child, come as fellow-sufferer, come as Saviour, and yet whose coming, already achieved, we hold at bay from ourselves, so that we have to learn afresh each year, even each day, how to let him come to us again.
In the first centuries the Church had a beautiful custom of praying seven great prayers calling afresh on Christ to come, calling him by the mysterious titles he has in Isaiah,' calling to him; O Emmanuel (God With Us) ; O Sapientia (Wisdom); O Radix (Root); O Oriens (Daystar); O Clavis (Key); O Adonai (Great Lord); and O Rex Gentium (Desire of Nations).
'These antiphons were sung before and after the Magnificat at Vespers, according to the Roman use, on the seven days preceding Christmas Eve (17–23 December). They are addressed to God, calling for him to come as teacher and deliverer, with a tapestry of scriptural titles and pictures that describe his saving work in Christ. In the medieval rite of Salisbury Cathedral that was widely followed in England before the Reformation, the antiphons began on 16 December and there was an additional antiphon (‘O Virgin of virgins’) on 23 December; this is reflected in the Calendar of The Book of Common Prayer, where 16 December is designated O Sapientia (O Wisdom).'
'Until a few years ago, I didn’t know what these “Great O Antiphons” were; although I was well acquainted with the song (O come, O come Emmanuel) that preserves the tradition and these seven ancient, prophetic names' for the Christ.
The person who made me aware of these Advent Antiphons was the priest-poet Malcolm Guite, who has 'responded to these seven Antiphons with seven sonnets, re-voicing them for our own age now, but preserving the heart of each, which is a prayer for Christ’s Advent for his coming, now in us, and at the end of time, in and for all.'
Click here to read Malcolm Guite's sonnet O Sapientia.
'The last of the Seven Great O Antiphons, which was sung on either side of the Magnificat, is O Emmanuel, O God with us. This is the antiphon from which our lovely Advent hymn takes its name. It was also this final antiphon which revealed the secret message embedded subtly into the whole antiphon sequence. In each of these antiphons we call on Christ to come to us, to come as Light as Key, as King, as God-with-us. Now, singing this Antiphon standing on the brink of Christmas Eve, looking back at the illuminated capital letters for each of the seven titles of Christ we would see an answer to our pleas : ERO CRAS, the latin words meaning ‘Tomorrow I will come!”
O Emmanuel
O Rex
O Oriens
O Clavis
O Radix
O Adonai
O Sapientia'
Malcolm Guite in his final sonnet 'tries to look back across the other titles of Christ, but also to look forward, beyond Christmas, to the new birth for humanity and for the whole cosmos, which is promised in the birth of God in our midst.'
Click here to read Malcolm Guite's sonnet O Emmanuel.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Bell - O Come, O Come Emmanuel.
Friday, 31 October 2025
Unveiled: Who Do You Say That I Am?
Our next Unveiled evening is tonight ...
Who Do You Say That I Am?
A poetry reading by Adam Atkinson (Bishop of Bradwell)
Friday 31 October 2025, 7.00 pm
St Andrew’s Church, 11 London Road, Wickford SS12 0AN
Adam Atkinson is the Bishop of Bradwell. Hear him read a selection of his poetry which has been used in public and liturgical settings.
A series of sonnets for Lent and Easter were published in ‘Who Do You Say I Am?’ in 2024.
These sonnets explore discipleship in today’s world, touching on contemporary themes such as identity, truth telling, violence, abuse, racism, and belonging.
Unveiled is the regular Friday night arts and performance event at St Andrew’s Church. Here's details of the remainder of our Autumn programme. See http://wickfordandrunwellparish.org.uk/whats-on.html for more information.
Autumn Programme 2025
A poetry reading by Adam Atkinson (Bishop of Bradwell)
Friday 31 October 2025, 7.00 pm
St Andrew’s Church, 11 London Road, Wickford SS12 0AN
Adam Atkinson is the Bishop of Bradwell. Hear him read a selection of his poetry which has been used in public and liturgical settings.
A series of sonnets for Lent and Easter were published in ‘Who Do You Say I Am?’ in 2024.
These sonnets explore discipleship in today’s world, touching on contemporary themes such as identity, truth telling, violence, abuse, racism, and belonging.
Unveiled is the regular Friday night arts and performance event at St Andrew’s Church. Here's details of the remainder of our Autumn programme. See http://wickfordandrunwellparish.org.uk/whats-on.html for more information.
Autumn Programme 2025
- 31 October (7.00 pm) – Adam Atkinson is the Bishop of Bradwell. Hear him read a selection of his poetry which has been used in public and liturgical settings. A series of sonnets for Lent and Easter were published in ‘Who Do You Say I Am?’ in 2024.
- 14 November (7.30 pm) – Open Mic Night organised with John Rogers. Everybody is welcome to come along and play, read, sing or just spectate. See you there for a great evening of live performance!
- 5 December (7.30 pm) – Eva Romanakova and Andrew Palmer in concert. Hear Mezzo-Soprano Eva Romanakova and pianist Andrew Palmer perform a wide selection of music including musical theatre, classical, opera, pop, jazz, folk and songs from the movies.
These events do not require tickets (just turn up on the night). There will be a retiring collection to cover artist and church costs. See http://wickfordandrunwellparish.org.uk/whats-on.html for fuller information.
Our latest exhibition is 'Lily and the Masters', an exhibition of paintings by David Crawford from 19 September – 19 December 2025 at St Andrew’s Church, 11 London Road, Wickford SS12 0AN.
David is a Wickford based artist and singer songwriter. The works in this exhibition are a selection of paintings completed in the last 3 years. He is exhibiting a series of heightened colour studies of the Edwardian singer and actress Miss Lily Elsie and versions of some of his favourite paintings from Old Masters such as Da Vinci, Vermeer and Caravaggio.
St Andrew’s is usually open: Sat 9am-12.30pm; Sun 9.30am-12 noon; Mon 2-3.45pm; Tue 1-4.30pm; Wed 10am-12 noon; Fri 10am-1pm.
We also have community cinema evenings and a concert at St Andrew's including a showing of 'The Greatest Showman' singalong on Saturday 15 November at 7.00 pm; and Men to Sing in concert on Saturday 6 December at 2.30 pm.
Saturday 15th November
Doors open 6:30pm | Film starts 7:00pm
At St Andrew’s Church, 11 London Road, Wickford
Free Entry!
Advance tickets via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wickford-bid-community-cinema-tickets-1707862194799
(Limited availability on the door)
Refreshments available
Collect loyalty tokens when you shop in Wickford Town – a full card = a FREE bag of popcorn (loyalty cards will be available to collect from Halls Pet Shop).
Gather your family, friends & best singing voices for a night of fun, film & community spirit!
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Adam Atkinson - Rest.
Monday, 1 June 2020
Empathy and inspiration
Here's my reflection from today's lunchtime Eucharist for St Martin-in-the-Fields:
‘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.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Malcolm Guite - Our Lady Of The Highway.
‘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 - Our Lady Of The Highway.
Monday, 30 November 2015
Advent Carol Service: Great O Antiphons
The reflections today for the Bank Churches Advent Carol Service at St Stephen Walbrook were based on Malcolm Guite's Advent Antiphon sonnets and Steve Bell's use of them on Keening for the Dawn:
'We are at the beginning of a holy season in which we connect again with our ‘inconsolable longing’, as CS Lewis called it, our yearning for the One who is to come and is also, mysteriously, the One who has come already, come as child, come as fellow-sufferer, come as Saviour, and yet whose coming, already achieved, we hold at bay from ourselves, so that we have to learn afresh each year, even each day, how to let him come to us again.
In the first centuries the Church had a beautiful custom of praying seven great prayers calling afresh on Christ to come, calling him by the mysterious titles he has in Isaiah,' calling to him; O Emmanuel (God With Us) ; O Sapientia (Wisdom); O Radix (Root); O Oriens (Daystar); O Clavis (Key); O Adonai (Great Lord); and O Rex Gentium (Desire of Nations).
'These antiphons were sung before and after the Magnificat at Vespers, according to the Roman use, on the seven days preceding Christmas Eve (17–23 December).They are addressed to God, calling for him to come as teacher and deliverer, with a tapestry of scriptural titles and pictures that describe his saving work in Christ. In the medieval rite of Salisbury Cathedral that was widely followed in England before the Reformation, the antiphons began on 16 December and there was an additional antiphon (‘O Virgin of virgins’) on 23 December; this is reflected in the Calendar of The Book of Common Prayer, where16 December is designated O Sapientia (O Wisdom).'
'Until a few years ago, I didn’t know what these “Great O Antiphons” were; although I was well acquainted with the song (O come, O come Emmanuel) that preserves the tradition and these seven ancient, prophetic names' for the Christ.
The person who made me aware of these Advent Antiphons was the priest-poet Malcolm Guite, who has 'responded to these seven Antiphons with seven sonnets, re-voicing them for our own age now, but preserving the heart of each, which is a prayer for Christ’s Advent for his coming, now in us, and at the end of time, in and for all.'
Click here to read Malcolm Guite's sonnet O Sapientia.
'The last of the Seven Great O Antiphons, which was sung on either side of the Magnificat, is O Emmanuel, O God with us. This is the antiphon from which our lovely Advent hymn takes its name. It was also this final antiphon which revealed the secret message embedded subtly into the whole antiphon sequence. In each of these antiphons we call on Christ to come to us, to come as Light as Key, as King, as God-with-us. Now, singing this Antiphon standing on the brink of Christmas Eve, looking back at the illuminated capital letters for each of the seven titles of Christ we would see an answer to our pleas : ERO CRAS, the latin words meaning ‘Tomorrow I will come!”
O Emmanuel
O Rex
O Oriens
O Clavis
O Radix
O Adonai
O Sapientia'
Malcolm Guite in his final sonnet 'tries to look back across the other titles of Christ, but also to look forward, beyond Christmas, to the new birth for humanity and for the whole cosmos, which is promised in the birth of God in our midst.'
Click here to read Malcolm Guite's sonnet O Emmanuel.
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Malcolm Guite - O Sapientia.
Friday, 6 February 2015
In the Wilderness: Preparing for Public Service (2)
Malcolm Guite is publishing on his blog the sequence of seven sonnets which have been commissioned to go with a sequence of paintings by the artist Adam Boulter on the theme of Wilderness. They will form part of the exhibition ‘In the Wilderness: Preparing for Public Service which will be installed for the whole of Lent in St. Margaret’s Westminster.
The paintings and poems are a series of meditations on key turning points in Biblical and Church wilderness experience. Malcolm has described the way in which he and Adam worked on them as follows:
'First he sent me the scriptural or patristic point of inspiration together with a sketch he had made, in situ, of the wilderness episode, for he is a chaplain in Amman in Jordan and has been able to journey through the desert himself and visit these sites. Then I composed the poem, drawing on both the scripture or church history and the sketch, and sent him the poem. Then he completed the painting having in mind both the initial sketch and the poem. It has been a remarkable and I think fruitful long distance collaboration, and I can hardly wait to see the paintings themselves when he and I meet for the opening night on the 17th of this month.'
In the meantime Adam has given permission for Malcolm to share the initial sketch book images he worked with, as well as the sonnets, so these are being posted in a series on his blog. If you want to see the finished paintings then do go to the exhibition which is open 9.00am - 4.00pm every day in Lent, at St. Margaret’s just next to Westminster Abbey and across from the Houses of Parliament.
In the meantime Adam has given permission for Malcolm to share the initial sketch book images he worked with, as well as the sonnets, so these are being posted in a series on his blog. If you want to see the finished paintings then do go to the exhibition which is open 9.00am - 4.00pm every day in Lent, at St. Margaret’s just next to Westminster Abbey and across from the Houses of Parliament.
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Malcolm Guite & Steve Bell - The Singing Bowl/Birth Of A Song.
Thursday, 29 January 2015
Passion 2015
Passion – a contemporary journey to the cross is a unique performance created and directed by accomplished dance artist and theologian Claire Henderson Davis, which fuses dance, poetry and music into a moving and compelling work.
Using poet Malcolm Guite’s sonnets on the Stations of the Cross as the basis for a contemporary re-telling of Jesus’ last hours, this fascinating piece will bring multi-disciplinary performance into sacred spaces. But there will be no cross or first century dress. This is a thoroughly modern re-imagining in which the bodies of the dancers tell the story, become the cross, play each character in the narrative, and in which the feminine and sexual love become symbols of the divine. The audience move with the action, becoming the crowd in this promenade performance.
The piece was developed with the support of Ely Cathedral and performed there on the evening of Palm Sunday 2014. The response was so overwhelming that it will be performed there again on the evening of Good Friday 2015, and will go on tour to other Cathedrals in Britain during Lent 2015, and to St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2015.
The Very Revd Mark Bonney, Dean of Ely, writes:
“Passion” is a creative combination of Malcolm Guite’s beautifully crafted Sonnets and some highly expressive and evocative dance. We were taken on a journey that was illuminating and challenging, that engaged our emotions as well as our intellect and which threw new light on a familiar story.
The piece is performed by Malcolm Guite (poet/ narrator), Claire Henderson Davis and Fraser Paterson (dancers), Jan Payne (oboist), and Dan Forshaw (saxophonist), with a group of non-professional women, some recruited locally at each venue, playing the Women of Jerusalem.
Using poet Malcolm Guite’s sonnets on the Stations of the Cross as the basis for a contemporary re-telling of Jesus’ last hours, this fascinating piece will bring multi-disciplinary performance into sacred spaces. But there will be no cross or first century dress. This is a thoroughly modern re-imagining in which the bodies of the dancers tell the story, become the cross, play each character in the narrative, and in which the feminine and sexual love become symbols of the divine. The audience move with the action, becoming the crowd in this promenade performance.
The piece was developed with the support of Ely Cathedral and performed there on the evening of Palm Sunday 2014. The response was so overwhelming that it will be performed there again on the evening of Good Friday 2015, and will go on tour to other Cathedrals in Britain during Lent 2015, and to St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2015.
The Very Revd Mark Bonney, Dean of Ely, writes:
“Passion” is a creative combination of Malcolm Guite’s beautifully crafted Sonnets and some highly expressive and evocative dance. We were taken on a journey that was illuminating and challenging, that engaged our emotions as well as our intellect and which threw new light on a familiar story.
The piece is performed by Malcolm Guite (poet/ narrator), Claire Henderson Davis and Fraser Paterson (dancers), Jan Payne (oboist), and Dan Forshaw (saxophonist), with a group of non-professional women, some recruited locally at each venue, playing the Women of Jerusalem.
Confirmed performance dates are: 21 February Lichfield Cathedral; 28 February London St John’s Church, Waterloo (the only non-Cathedral date); 7 March Coventry Cathedral; 12 March Chester Cathedral; 03 April (Good Friday) Ely Cathedral; 11-13 August Edinburgh St Mary’s Cathedral. Following each performance of Passion, Claire will return at a later date to offer a half-day workshop (four hours), giving participants a chance to enter for themselves this contemporary vision of relationship with God.
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Malcolm Guite - Stations Of The Cross.
Sunday, 30 November 2014
Advent reflection
Israel and Palestine today are lands of contrasts, where past and present are juxtaposed in contrasts which are sometimes incongruous and sometimes profound. This lithograph shows a view of Jerusalem from approximately 1890 and shows the essentially rural nature of the area surrounding the Old City at that time.
Nazareth is now a large city, where once, at the time of Christ, it was an obscure village. The Basilica of the Annunciation is a modern Roman Catholic church built on the foundations of an earlier Crusader church. The church has been built over the excavated remains of buildings from the settlement of Jesus’ day and incorporates into this modern building the ancient Grotto of the Annunciation.
At Bethlehem the Church of the Nativity stands alongside a busy central square. Bethlehem is a town relient on tourism, where its holy sites are alongside the food outlets, accommodation and souvenir shops which tourists require and which support the local economy.
The Basilica of the Annunciation straddles and shields remains from ancient Nazareth. At the centre of this modern church are remains of earlier churches and the ancient Grotto of the Annunciation which is thought to be the location where the Annunciation occurred. At the heart, therefore, of the tourist trails and visits there is worship, piety and devotion.
The same mix is found in Bethlehem, where tourists and pilgrims can queue for two hours or more to see or to kiss the site that is traditionally thought to be the location of Christ’s birth and the site of the manger. Among the busyness of this crowded space people kneel in devotion to worship Christ.
The humble events of Jesus’ conception and birth have proved inspirational, spreading around the world, bringing millions to the holy sites and leading to the creation of great art and architecture. The Basilica of the Annunciation is a stunning example of modernist architecture which is sensitive to the site and which enhances worship. Artworks in mosaic, stained glass and stone have been collected there from around the world to tell the story of the Annunciation in a truly global fashion.
I was privileged to see these images as part of the East London Three Faiths Forum's recent Tour of the Holy Land. While in Nazareth with this group, I read the following sonnet about Mary as part of our experience of seeing and reflecting on these sacred sites.
The poet, Malcolm Guite, says of Mary: ‘Mary has been given many titles down the ages and some Christians have disagreed with one another bitterly about her. But equally, in every age and every church she has been, for many Christians, a sign of hope and an inspiration. Her 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.’
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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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.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Malcolm Guite & Steve Bell - The Singing Bowl & Birth Of A Song.
Thursday, 20 November 2014
East London Three Faiths Forum Tour of the Holy Land: Day 5
In Nazareth we had a discussion about the Christian and Muslim understandings of the Annunciation. I began my reflections with the apocryphal story of God asking other women to bear his son before Mary said 'yes'. Though apocryphal, this story highlights the importance and significance of Mary saying 'yes' to God, with all that that involved in terms of difficulty and heartbreak.
Mary was unmarried, young, and poor. The social circumstances of a young, poor, unmarried mother in first-century Palestine would have been difficult. This pregnancy would shape her future. It would have taken tremendous faith and courage to withstand the prejudice of her critics.
Additionally, her saying 'yes' to God led her, as Simeon prophesied (Luke 2. 22 - 38), to the heartbreak of the cross (as captured in this poem from 'The Passion'):
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.
In my reflections I sought to highlight the human cost and challenge often involved in saying 'yes' to God (understood, in Islamic terms, as the central concept of submission to the will of Allah).
I ended with Malcolm Guite's sonnet entitled 'Theotokos':
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 suround 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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Aretha Franklin - Ave Maria.
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