Throughout the liturgical year there are some hymns which seem to draw together all that I hold dear in biblical imagery and incarnational theology. Hail to the Lord who comes is one of those hymns. This hymn helps me make an immediate connection between the Gospel scene of the presentation and my own life. Sometimes I need those connections to be very obvious.
Hail to the Lord who comes, Comes to the temple gate, Not with his angel hosts, Nor in his kingly state;
But borne upon the throne Of Mary’s gentle breast; Thus to his father’s house He comes, a humble guest.
The world’s true light draws near All darkness to dispel, The flame of faith is lit And dies the power of hell.
Our bodies and our souls Are temples now for him, For we are born of grace – God lights our souls within.
O Light of all the earth! We light our lives with thee; The chains of darkness gone All sons of God are free.
The hymn opens with a scene that is fairly easy to picture: Mary and Joseph, a little travel weary, come in faithfulness to the Temple, clutching their precious child. I imagine them standing on the Temple threshold, breathing in the sacred. They are filled with that awe that we have all experienced when we enter a sacred place. I imagine Joseph holding the offering tight and Mary holding Jesus tight. The gift in Joseph’s hands represents the love and longing of every faithful Jew to fulfill the Torah. The gift in Mary’s hand represents the love and longing of everyone who looked forward to the coming of the Saviour.
Can we see ourselves in the scene? Can we picture our hands open with all that we hold precious?
The world’s true light draws near All darkness to dispel
The promise of this light draws Simeon and Anna near. They have walked towards this light all their lives. Each prayer, each small act of kindness, each fulfilling of the Torah has made space inside them to recognise and receive the light. And there they stand, bathed in that light. God’s promises have come full circle.
Our bodies and our souls Are temples now for him,
These are the lines that touch me most from this hymn. They speak of wholeness and the goodness of every created thing. Read alongside the Gospel text they invite each one of us to be that Temple. We build the Temple out of the many fragments of our lives. It’s incarnational. It’s messy. But the promise is there that we are ‘born of grace’ and God ‘lights our souls within’. We were carried once, a precious bundle held tight. Our parents made an offering of all they held dear when they brought us to church for Baptism. God’s light has always been within us.
We light our lives with thee; The chains of darkness gone All sons of God are free.
In these days of darkness and uncertainty we might look outside ourselves for light. In fact, the light we seek is already within us. We often glimpse it in others first. Today’s feast is an invitation to celebrate the light within each one of us.
How is God calling you to celebrate the light this Candlemas?
‘Clothed then with faith and the performance of good works, let us set out on this way, with the Gospel for our guide, that we may deserve to see him who has called us to his kingdom.’ ( Prologue, Rule of St Benedict)
I entered the monastery in 1993 and so have consciously lived the cycle of the liturgical year 28 times. That’s a lot of exposure to Scripture. I’m often asked what drew me to the monastery. In truth, a big draw was the beauty of the Psalms and the way in which Scripture is woven throughout the monastic day.
As I have journeyed with the Gospels, I have come upon several books which have been an enormous help to me in digging deeper into the text. I am always on the look out for an interpretive key that can help me when I find the text difficult, or things seem to have gone a little dry.
THE GOSPEL OF MARK
One of my favourite finds is: The Spiritual Landscape of Mark’s Gospel, by Bonnie Thurston
Bonnie Thurston journeys through Mark’s Gospel exploring the symbolism of wilderness, desert, sea, valley etc. I found it a very helpful way to approach passages which have become very familiar to me.
Since my A Levels I have followed the work of scripture scholar Nicholas King sj. I chanced upon this unassuming little book in our library.
It’s 30 pages long and not a single word is wasted. (I am not sure if it is still in print.)
You can listen to Nicholas King on Mark’s Gospel here:
He has also produced a whole series of lectures on the New Testament which make very engaging listening. Nicholas King is very much a teacher and guides you through the texts in way that is fresh and often challenging. ( This is available on Amazon)
Belmont Abbey have recently produced a very good online retreat on Mark’s Gospel:
This material is very accessible and beautifully put together by Dom Brendan Thomas osb.
THE GOSPEL OF LUKE
Witness: Five Plays from the Gospel of Luke
Several years ago I came across these plays on Radio Four. I love the scope for the imagination that a radio play allows. I was captivated by the opening sentences voiced by Peter:
‘The lake means all to us. We’d starve without it.’
After each play there is a discussion with a panel of experts. These discussions gave me some helpful insights. (Available on Amazon)
THE GOSPEL OF JOHN
I have long been an admirer of the work of poet, priest and songwriter Malcolm Guite. Some years ago he gave a talk to my community entitled ‘Poetry and Prayer’. He is a captivating speaker and has a deep love for the Scriptures. He makes a great deal of his work available on his blog. I particularly recommend his talks on John’s Gospel which he as helpfully themed as Life, Light, Love and Glory.
Lastly, I have one recommendation for a good introduction to the Gospels: Beginnings, Keys that Open the Gospels, by Morna Hooker. I love her clear and fresh style. This book is a gem.
O Emmanuel, king and lawgiver desire of the nations, Saviour of all people. Come and set us free, Lord our God.
O Emmanuel
O come, O come, and be our God-with-us O long-sought With-ness for a world without, O secret seed, O hidden spring of light. Come to us Wisdom, come unspoken Name Come Root, and Key, and King, and holy Flame, O quickened little wick so tightly curled, Be folded with us into time and place, Unfold for us the mystery of grace And make a womb of all this wounded world. O heart of heaven beating in the earth, O tiny hope within our hopelessness Come to be born, to bear us to our birth, To touch a dying world with new-made hands And make these rags of time our swaddling bands.
O King of all the nations, the only joy of every human heart; O keystone of the mighty arch of man, come and save the creature you fashioned out of dust.
O Rex Gentium
O King of our desire whom we despise, King of the nations never on the throne, Unfound foundation, cast-off cornerstone, Rejected joiner, making many one, You have no form or beauty for our eyes, A King who comes to give away his crown, A King within our rags of flesh and bone. We pierce the flesh that pierces our disguise, For we ourselves are found in you alone. Come to us now and find in us your throne, O King within the child within the clay, O hidden King who shapes us in the play Of all creation. Shape us for the day Your coming Kingdom comes into its own.
O Radiant Dawn, splendour of eternal light, sun of justice; come, shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.
O Oriens
First light and then first lines along the east To touch and brush a sheen of light on water As though behind the sky itself they traced The shift and shimmer of another river Flowing unbidden from its hidden source; The Day-Spring, the eternal Prima Vera. Blake saw it too. Dante and Beatrice Are bathing in it now, away upstream… So every trace of light begins a grace In me, a beckoning. The smallest gleam Is somehow a beginning and a calling; “Sleeper awake, the darkness was a dream For you will see the Dayspring at your waking, Beyond your long last line the dawn is breaking”.
2 Samuel 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a,16 Romans 16:25-27 Luke 1:26-38
My heart leapt when I saw the readings for this last Sunday in Advent. I have always looked forward to Advent for the prominence given to Old Testament texts. I think I would describe myself as having an Old Testament heart. Today’s first reading from Samuel has a been significant for me since I was a teenager. It is a pivotal text in Old Testament study and is described by Walter Brueggemann as ‘the taproot of the Messianic idea in Israel’. As with any text that is taken out of context, the hearer in the liturgical setting usually has to work quite hard in order to understand what is being said. This is especially true of today’s text.
Once David had settled into his house and the Lord had given him rest from all the enemies surrounding him, the king said to the prophet Nathan, ‘Look, I am living in a house of cedar while the ark of God dwells in a tent.’ Nathan said to the king, ‘Go and do all that is in your mind, for the Lord is with you.’
But that very night the word of the Lord came to Nathan:
‘Go and tell my servant David, “Thus the Lord speaks: Are you the man to build me a house to dwell in? I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, to be leader of my people Israel; I have been with you on all your expeditions; I have cut off all your enemies before you. I will give you fame as great as the fame of the greatest on earth. I will provide a place for my people Israel; I will plant them there and they shall dwell in that place and never be disturbed again; nor shall the wicked continue to oppress them as they did, in the days when I appointed judges over my people Israel; I will give them rest from all their enemies. The Lord will make you great; the Lord will make you a House. And when your days are ended and you are laid to rest with your ancestors, I will preserve the offspring of your body after you and make his sovereignty secure. I will be a father to him and he a son to me; if he does evil, I will punish him with the rod such as men use, with strokes such as mankind gives. Your House and your sovereignty will always stand secure before me and your throne be established for ever.”’
2 Samuel 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a,16
Previously in Ch 5 of the Second book of Samuel David has triumphantly taken Jerusalem from Jebusite control and also led a successful campaign against the Philistines. His triumph is attributed to the fact that God is ‘with him’. In Ch 6 he attempts to move the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem in order to guarantee God’s presence in that beloved city. It doesn’t go smoothly at first, but after three months the Ark is safely placed in the tent which David has pitched for it. It is with this background that we approach today’s first reading. David now wonders about the possibility of building something grander to house the Ark. The prophet Nathan’s response contains an all important wordplay with the word ‘house’ as this can also mean ‘dynasty’. The roles are now reversed as David will no longer need to build God a ‘house’ as God intends to build David a dynasty. God makes a ground breaking promise that in the lineage of David his faithful love will be made manifest. Up until this point God’s promises have been conditional, but now the dynasty is guaranteed in perpetuity. None of this is David’s doing. As the story of salvation unfolds there are many falls from grace along the way. God’s promise remains.
It is with the words of this monumental prophecy that we approach our Gospel text from Luke.
The angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the House of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. He went in and said to her, ‘Rejoice, so highly favoured! The Lord is with you.’ She was deeply disturbed by these words and asked herself what this greeting could mean, but the angel said to her, ‘Mary, do not be afraid; you have won God’s favour. Listen! You are to conceive and bear a son, and you must name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David; he will rule over the House of Jacob for ever and his reign will have no end.’ Mary said to the angel, ‘But how can this come about, since I am a virgin?’ ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you’ the angel answered ‘and the power of the Most High will cover you with its shadow. And so the child will be holy and will be called Son of God. Know this too: your kinswoman Elizabeth has, in her old age, herself conceived a son, and she whom people called barren is now in her sixth month, for nothing is impossible to God.’ ‘I am the handmaid of the Lord,’ said Mary ‘let what you have said be done to me.’ And the angel left her.
Luke 1:26-38
Each part of the promise to David is found in Luke’s text:
‘the Lord will make you great‘ He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High
‘your throne (will) be established for ever‘ The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David
‘I will be a father to him and he a son to me‘ He will rule over the House of Jacob for ever
‘Your House and your sovereignty will always stand secure before me and your throne be established for ever.‘ and his reign will have no end
I find the symmetry in these texts very comforting. I can see clearly that God’s power and promise reach their fulfillment in Christ. Yet, in each story God requires some human co-operation. In the realms of God’s faithful covenantal love there is room for mishaps and mistakes. It’s usual to see Mary’s ‘yes’ as freely given and wholehearted. Legend and faith tradition see Mary as chosen from all time, with a heart so pure as almost to guarantee a ‘Yes’. It’s not always easy to live up to this model. I’ve been greatly helped this Advent by a quote I saw online from Sr Elizabeth Meluch ocd:
The people of Advent are “us”. The Baptist prods us on to newness, and the Zachariah in us resists until our Elizabeth insists. Our Joseph lets it happen, and the young Mary in us seizes the gift and runs with it. It must be so if the Christ in us is to be born. ~
Perhaps we can have courage this Advent to allow the Mary in us to ‘seize the gift and run with it’?
O Flower of Jesse’s stem, you have been raised up as a sign for all peoples; kings stand silent in your presence; the nations bow down in worship before you. Come, let nothing keep you from coming to our aid.
O Radix Jesse
All of us sprung from one deep-hidden seed, Rose from a root invisible to all. We knew the virtues once of every weed, But, severed from the roots of ritual, We surf the surface of a wide-screen world And find no virtue in the virtual. We shrivel on the edges of a wood Whose heart we once inhabited in love, Now we have need of you, forgotten Root The stock and stem of every living thing Whom once we worshiped in the sacred grove, For now is winter, now is withering Unless we let you root us deep within, Under the ground of being, graft us in.
O Lord of ancient Israel, who showed yourself to Moses in the burning bush, who gave him the holy law on Sinai mountain; come, stretch out your mighty hand to set us free.
O Adonai
Unsayable, you chose to speak one tongue, Unseeable, you gave yourself away, The Adonai, the Tetragramaton Grew by a wayside in the light of day. O you who dared to be a tribal God, To own a language, people and a place, Who chose to be exploited and betrayed, If so you might be met with face to face, Come to us here, who would not find you there, Who chose to know the skin and not the pith, Who heard no more than thunder in the air, Who marked the mere events and not the myth. Touch the bare branches of our unbelief And blaze again like fire in every leaf.
I cannot think unless I have been thought, Nor can I speak unless I have been spoken. I cannot teach except as I am taught, Or break the bread except as I am broken. O Mind behind the mind through which I seek, O Light within the light by which I see, O Word beneath the words with which I speak, O founding, unfound Wisdom, finding me, O sounding Song whose depth is sounding me, O Memory of time, reminding me, My Ground of Being, always grounding me, My Maker’s Bounding Line, defining me, Come, hidden Wisdom, come with all you bring, Come to me now, disguised as everything.
O Key of David O royal power of Israel controlling at your will the gate of Heaven: Come, break down the prison walls of death for those who dwell in darkness and lead your captive people into freedom.
O Clavis David
Even in the darkness where I sit And huddle in the midst of misery I can remember freedom, but forget That every lock must answer to a key, That each dark clasp, sharp and intricate, Must find a counter-clasp to meet its guard, Particular, exact and intimate, The clutch and catch that meshes with its ward. I cry out for the key I threw away That turned and over turned with certain touch And with the lovely lifting of a latch Opened my darkness to the light of day. O come again, come quickly, set me free Cut to the quick to fit, the master key.
