Quare Fremueunt Gentes.
Why this tumult among nations?
This useless murmuring among peoples?
Why these futile plots, why this arrogance among the nations?
But as they were praying, the house where the disciples were was rocked.
I hear only a wind through the rafters sighing.
A sparrow flies across the porch on it’s way by the church tightly locked.
They were filled with the Holy Spirit. Is He here in this wind with the passing tractor vying?
They went out to proclaim the word of God so boldly.
I just sit and feel a presence.
Are our actions mere words, our deeds carried out so coldly?
Thoughts flying from His essence?
The moment passes. It always does. No permanence it contains.
But a tiny sliver of belief, hope and love remains.

I was not there when You came.
I did not choose to hear You say, “Peace be with you.”
I did not hear Him when He called be by my name.
I did not listen to my sins being forgiven and life made anew.
I will not though yet say: Unless I see the holes the nails made, You will not believe.
I will ponder this quietly, praying, waiting.
Will I have to wait eight or eighty years until this burden of doubt is relieved?
Will I still doubt as I lie dying?
Happy we would be if only we could believe and yet not have seen.
Yet we, all of us, if only we let go and trust, can believe.
What joy there is in surrender to Him though unseen.
To my Lord and my God then can I say and receive.
There are indeed many other insights not recorded in any book.
Yet if just we pause and listen. He is here now. You truly do not have far to look.

My heart is heavy that these Easter days are ending.
These all too few days tell of a joy unended.
The witnesses with Mary first, the hopeful message sending.
But they did not believe her. Do I, my every suspicion suspended?
They doubted too, the men on the road. Do I?
And then He stood before them and still they stood dumbfounded.
I too, like them, stand reproached for my incredulity and obstinacy, believing any doubting lie.
This table now, this pen, this chair say I am here, your doubt confounded.
And do I heed His words, “Go out”.
“Proclaim this good news to all creation.”
Do we creep about, our word in shy whisper or in confident shout.
That this news cannot be hidden. It stands in glorious citation.
But I sit alone in my gentle garden. Drop of rain, birds calling. Wind sighing.
And with muted thought, a quiet disciple, merely thinking.

The blue lake was simmering in hot spring sun.
A blue so deep as to be almost black.
Yes, the sun shining was a bright whiteness blinding me to sight of His Son.
Once, long ago, some fishermen too were sun-blinded to their lack.
Yet He called and one said: It is the Lord.
And does He call to me from the lake’s blinding light?
Or is it in this gentle shallow stream bubbling gently over stones lit by light’s diffused sword?
From lake’s rim it flows without ceasing to the distant breaking sea day and night.
And does that Figure on the bank lay out a net for my soul to be redeemed.
Would I even leap off the shifting craft of my life to His voice?
For surely then a glorious meal awaits. It lives in this Bread sanctified.
Would I have the courage to say: It is the Lord. We all of us His born choice.
If only we would have that faith, never in our life before or since would there be such a catch.
And open the clasp and the way to eternal life’s latch.

They stood there dumbfounded.
These Easter readings are indeed the most intense.
If these are true then the whole world is changed for ever and all doubt confounded.
These too-few Resurrection readings, so joyous pervade our every sense.
They saw His hands, His feet, yet still they stood there doubting.
And I too, in this country garden, can say yes there is the beauty of the hyacinth, yet I see it.
All their doubts were dismissed by the grilled fish He was eating.
Surely we can believe, accept not in mental carping and keep the feeble flame of faith lit.
He opened their eyes to understand scripture.
And I am reading this Gospel story now too.
They were witnesses to this. They were there. I can only conceive in mental picture.
But can it not be real for us too
Jesus himself stood among them.
And He is saying to us too. Peace be with you. Amen.

But something prevented them from recognising Him.
And I too. Do I look around me? Do I search for the truth?
I am walking with my granddaughter to the village churchyard’s rim.
Do I recognise Him in the tall beach trees on the village road? Our cathedral in spring youth.
Do I find Him in the scattering bracken sward? In the joyful daisy and dandelion.
Do I see Him in the chalk stream’s light shining shallow flow?
But He is here all around and in the little girl’s shadow grown by bright sun as large as any lion.
Do I listen to Him in my head and in girl’s skipping so slow?
Do I ask Him to abide with me?
I cannot break bread with Him now but I can inspiration find in this green leafed tree.
Can this grandfather’s age care dimmed eyes at last see?
He is here everywhere. In small girl’s chatter. In nature’s new life, in distant sea.
Does not my heart now burn within me in his talk.
Is He not also with me on this slow country walk.

She did not recognise Him.
And I too ofttimes can barely recognise Him.
My faith is like the forsythia before me, a memory of its bright yellow glory ever more slim.
But my hope rises like a distant hymn.
No, He is not just the gardener. He is here in this spring garden.
He is here in the brightening yellow purple of the primrose oxlip.
He is here in the lawn, it’s life surging, strewn with the daisy’s white and yellow pardon.
He does not say “Noli me Tangere” but gently gives me leave to bring the flowers to my lip.
And surging life too for the mauve of birds eye speedwell. How then can I weep at His loss.
He calls be by my name and then I know.
And do I then have the courage to say he has risen from his cross.
And do I then have the courage like these wild plants, so inconsequential, the courage to sow.
Like Mary will I run to tell my friends of his word.
An leave awhile in minds eye this spring garden to write of new life undeterred.

Filled with awe and great joy the women came quickly away from the tomb.
They ran to tell the disciples.
And on this Easter Monday I would be in the flowered cathedral, a delightful calming womb.
Now the churches are locked by lay scruples.
I stand alone on the path, wild forget-me-nots and dandelion the only congregation.
The hawthorn hedge the church’s aisle.
The reading not from sonorous pulpit given. I am in isolation.
But from the Universalis app I can only ponder awhile.
No lack of Mass can take this story’s wonder away.
For I read and this I know that there, coming towards the women, was Jesus.
I cannot fall down. I cannot clasp His feet but, in my heart I can Him lay.
And I too can know the joy of finding Him alive and this joy will surely seize us.
And on this country path I too am never alone.
He walks before me for my sins to atone.

He saw and he believed.
The Sun dappled transient on the wooden cross.
And for this moment when I surveyed this cross the gift of faith , I received.
The linen clothes so negligently laid are a sign of our doubts loss.
All those hints , prophesies, words so negligently forgot.
This simple cross , it’s plain wood more glorious than any gold.
I see now my belief so small , so fleeting , so hard to grasp was my lot.
Is our faith then to worldly cares sold,
No, He is not here. He is risen.
And joy in my faint heart rises.
Like Mary we can only run to tell others of this vision.
The morning star that never sets. He really is here . Our burdens he reposes.
He bore for us the cross without complaint.
And he can make of all us if we wish, an apprentice saint.

The church was locked and I sat on the churchyard bench thinking.
The village sounding distant, lawn mower, and bank digging.
The sheep at a distance barely moving, new life in the white blossom growing.
The old Walesby warm honey glowed stone church for a thousand years not stirring.
But here before me the gravestones were breathless quiet.
And where on Holy Saturday is God?
Do I believe He is dead or just asleep, this is my disquiet.
These village people before me, their eternal rest never ended under earth’s unforgiving sod.
O let me, I beg in this quiet spot come into his presence.
And now at last in stillness I feel his touch.
So tentative, so fleeting but devoid of life’s menace.
The church is locked but he is here with me on this bench, a holy hutch.
I move, I stand, I walk gently closing the gate.
He is gone and for my breakfast and the World’s calling, I am late.

Mine eyes are wet with weeping.
My soul is in turmoil.
I listened to the Lamentations of Jeremiah, my soul always seeking.
In te Domine Speravi. Am I always loyal?
In you Lord have I put my trust.
Let me never be put to confusion.
The haunting cadence of the lamentations enters my soul’s hard crust
And joy burns away all Earth’s disillusion.
This cry wounded crushed in despair.
Speaks of Jerusalem’s desolation.
But will my emotions emerge from Hell’s deepest lair?
For surely joy and hope will rise once more and be put in hopeful motion.
But now this Friday they that see me keep their distance.
My only friend a God that seems to have forsaken me and strikes me with an indifferent lance.

Dilexi Quoniam.
I am well pleased
That the Lord has granted my prayer as the merciful lamb.
That calling on him I believed.
Death encompasses us.
Trouble and heaviness of heart are everywhere.
But God is indeed merciful to all without nagging fuss.
I was miserable and he helped me from the torture of my lair.
My soul then can rest secured
Because it has been rewarded.
My soul then will not die, my feet stumble, mine eyes with tears spared.
My love for him close to my heart hoarded.
We will receive the cup of salvation.
We will pay our dues in the presence of God’s nation.

Salvum me fac.
Save me O God.
For the waters are come into the soul to my heart’s lack.
I stick fast in the deep sod.
I am come into the suffocating waters and I am weary of crying.
My throat is brittle dry.
They hate me by their tongues’ lying.
They have no cause is my sigh.
Mine enemies are more than the hairs of my head.
Though guiltless they would destroy me.
You God know my supplications that I have left unsaid.
Let those that trust me see my prayers as your fee.
It is only for you God that I suffer this reproof.
And it is your understanding that is your existence’s proof.

In te Domine speravi.
In thee, Lord, have I put my trust.
Let confusion fly from me.
Incline thine ear unto me and pierce conceit’s enveloped crust.
Deliver me Lord out of the hands of cruel men.
For I put my hope in you.
I knew you in my mother’s womb, Amen.
And my trust in you can only slowly accrue.
May I sing of your praise all day long.
And do not leave me I beg you as I grow old.
Even if my enemies gather to persecute me.
Let their hate be stilled and lie cold.
While I continue to praise you more and more.
Mine aim is this, to make mention only of your righteousness, this I abjure.

I stood alone by the country church reading today’s psalm.
The Lord is my light and my salvation.
This thought I treasured in my hand’s palm.
Thus I thought whom should I fear in all creation.
Is not then the Lord the strength of my life?
Of whom then I should be afraid.
Mine enemies then, they shall stumble though they cut my flesh with the sharpest of a knife.
There then in your tender hands will my trust be laid.
I stood alone listening to the psalm’s essence.
My mind and my thoughts silencing,
And now working through me I felt his heavy profound sentience.
No present fear, no disappointment, long festering, me menacing.
This then by this empty church was a joy creeping in.
And all for a moment, just one fleeting minute of quiet, banishing sin.

Where do I find God’s oneness?
Is it in this spring garden’s noise sparing?
In its utter quietness.
The blossom’s smallest leaves appearing.
The fascia’s brilliant yellow majestically spread.
Before me in great glory’s beauty.
Or a quiet prayer coursing unbidden through my head,
It’s strength the call of a power almighty.
The garden’s beauty so transient.
The prayer so fleeting too and humble.
The one so visual, the other sentient.
But both point to a truth incontrovertible a presence unfathanable:
That in this gardens loneliness.
My heart reaches out to a calling seeking ultimate oneness.

May the venerable exercises of holy devotion
Shape the hearts of your faithful O Lord
To put the paschal mystery into motion
And move the praises of your devotion towards the holy ford
Through which we wade towards our Lord Jesus Christ your son
Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit
One God forever and ever in unity with your holy Son.
One God forever and ever, one being, one essence with your Holy Spirit.
Let all the people rejoice in this,
Your endless call too rarely answered.
Yet somehow is our inner self always seeking this,
Our pain too constant thus lanced.
Can we in just one moment of concentrated prayer,
Seek solace from our daily life of worry through this and by your holy seer.

Based on the collect for the day

O God who renews the face of the World through mysteries beyond all telling
Grant we pray
That your Church May be formed by virtue and not through selling
Its teaching that our priests lay
That your people may be guided by your eternal design
And not be deprived of your help in this present age
Through Jesus Christ his son given by his sign
Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit his sage
One God for ever and ever you are mine
May my love for you sublime
Never falter in this my mind for ever as a telling sign
But be forever mine and not mere empty mime
But proven in my inner feeling
And true till my death that ultimate ceiling

Sunday 8 March 2020 — The Transfiguration

Our priest tells us that is how we shall see Christ when we get to Heaven. In the next sentence he tells us we’re all going to spend a long time in Purgatory.

So there we are.

Monday 9 March 2020

I go to the 10:30 Mass. We have no kiss of peace.

The psalm is number 78:

“Do not hold the guilt of our fathers against us.
Let your compassion hasten to meet us.”

Tuesday 10 March 2020

Apparently they have found such a huge explosion in the universe it is half the size of the Milky Way, half our galaxy, a space that could contain millions of stars, civilisations without count. Once again I think how could a wandering faith preacher, walking the dusty roads of Palestine, create such things. I think back on the concept that every needle must have a point. He can be that point.

Psalm 9: “I will recount all your wonders, I will rejoice in you and be glad.”

That is all we can do. One will never find answers in physical concepts but only in feelings. God isn’t perhaps something — that explosion the size of the Milky Way — He is nowhere and everywhere. He is love that is nowhere but can be everywhere.

Wednesday 11 March 2020

Psalm 30:

“Save me in your love, O Lord.”

Thursday 12 March 2020

We are driving up to Lincolnshire and as we pass by I pop in for a moment for the 6:00 pm Mass at the Oratory.

An image which abides: the church darkened and atmospheric in twilight. At the far end, the priest facing away, intoning the Agnus Dei in Latin. The congregation quiet, beautiful and inspiring.

Friday 13 March 2020

I open the Book of Common Prayer at random in our village church and come across Psalm 40:

“I waited patiently for the Lord,
and He inclined unto me,
and heard my calling.”

As I sat there quietly in the silence looking at the dappling light I thought maybe these words are for me of not enough faith. One just has to wait patiently and belief will come and it did in that moment.

Saturday 14 March 2020

Again I open the Book of Common Prayer at random. This time I find Psalm 74:

“O God wherefore art thou absent from us so long…”

It was a kind of bookend to yesterday’s psalm.

Sunday 1 March 2020 — First Sunday in Lent

I am giving up nothing for Lent save being angry with things like Monty our dog. I have already failed several times.

Collect: Grant, Almighty God, through the yearly observances of holy Lent, that we may grow in understanding of the riches hidden in Christ.

Monday 2 March 2020

I take Sophia to Mass. We sit at the back and she watches Peppa Pig on the iPhone.

Collect: “Instruct our minds by heavenly teaching, that we may benefit from the works of Lent.”

Tuesday 3 March 2020

Entrance Antiphon: “O Lord, you have been our refuge from generation to generation.”

Wednesday 4 March 2020

I am walking to the Gare du Nord and I pass the Corpus Christi chapel in the Avenue Friedland. I am tired and late but surely I can spare two minutues for God. The Mass is halfway through and I go up to the altar to receive communion. Just six of us. A quiet moment in the bustle.

Then amazingly I find the 43 bus to take me straight there.

Thursday 5 March 2020

The Forty Hours is just finishing in the Cathedral today. Sophia and me don’t last long. She wants to be on her way to soft play at the Army Museum.

“To my words give ear, O Lord. Give heed to my sights.” (Antioch)

Friday 6 March 2020

I am in the village church and open the Book of Common Prayer randomly and alight on Psalm 66:

“O be joyful in God, all ye lands
Sing praises unto the honour of His name,
Make His praise to be glorious.”

The sun is out, the wind is calm. Time for a three-hour walk across the Wolds.

Saturday 7 March 2020

I read today’s psalm in the Book of Common Prayer:

“Blessed are those that are undefiled in the way and walk in the law of the Lord.”

Sunday 23 February 2020 — Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

I am struck by the litany of St Gregory which I always read after Mass in the Holy Rood.

“From eternal death, deliver us, O Lord.”

That is a more powerful way of putting it than going on about eternal life.

That is what the atheists are offering us: eternal death. Surely none of us wants that, or even think it very likely.

Monday 24 February 2020

I manage to get to Mass at the Cathedral.

“But if at heart you have the bitterness of jealousy, or a self-seeking ambition, never make any claims for yourself.” (James 3)

Well — easily said, not so easily done. We are all at the centre of our own little universe.

Tuesday 25 February 2020 — Shrove Tuesday

James 4:1

“Where do these wars and battles between yourselves first start? Isn’t it precisely in the desires fighting inside your own selves?”

Precisely.

Wednesday 26 February 2020 — Ash Wednesday

I can’t do my usual and listen to Allegri’s Miserere at the 5:30 Mass so I make do with the Latin one at 10:30. Very calm and peaceful.

I am always struck by this passage from Matthew 6:

“Be careful not to parade your good deeds before men.”

Should I be doing this blog at all? Or just keep quiet?

Thursday 27 February 2020

I am at Wilton Park for an FCO conference on Nigeria and religious violence. What a delight to have Mass for just six of us said by the Archbishop Emeritus of Abuja, Cardinal Onaiyekan. So calm and spiritual in all this talk of violence.

Friday 28 February 2020

I go to Evensong in Lincoln Cathedral. Always a delight to listen to Cranmer’s prose. No one can ruin this service: it is incapable of change.

The huge empty nave, luckily with no chairs — a silent witness.

Saturday 29 February 2020

A reading of a psalm in the village church.

“Turn your ear, O Lord, and give answer: for I am poor and needy.” (Psalm 85)

Sunday 16 February 2020 — Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

“He has set fire and water before you.
Put out you hand to whichever you prefer.”

This is our choice.

“Man has life and death before him. Whichever a man likes better will be given him.”

These words from Ecclesiasticus are so true.

We wonder why God allows evil. He doesn’t will it: it is our free will which ordains it.

“He never commanded anyone to be godless.”

The world increasingly rejects God, ignores Him. Doesn’t even think on Him. This is our free will.

In the afternoon we go to our village church for evening prayer. We are the entire congregation at that beautiful service.

We hear the story of Genesis from the King James Bible. We think how could all this be true when we are but a speck of dust in this universe of trillions of stars.

Yes, but as the priest tells us, we may be, humanity, the point of the needle. Needles have a point. That is their point. There may be a purpose in all this. It is our choice whether to believe.

Monday 17 February 2020

“Your faith is only put to the test to make you patient.” (James)

My faith is so weak that my patience is indeed tested. I sometimes think that I will never truly and wholly believe til I am dead.

Tuesday 18 February 2020

I am struck by this phrase sitting in our village church:

“When sin is fully grown, it too has a child, and the child is Death.” (James 1:12)

Is that not a powerful phrase to conjure with?

Wednesday 19 February 2020

Today’s Mass is at Farm Street, the 150th anniversary of the Catholic Union.

“Be quick to listen but slow to speak and slow to rouse your temper.” (James 1)

Wise words often not heeded, at least within the mind.

There is an exhibition at the Tate. The religious pictures from James II’s chapel in Whitehall Palace leave me strangely unmoved. Perhaps too ornate and mannered?

Thursday 20 February 2020

Before driving up to Lincolnshire I go to Mass in the Cathedral. There is a powerful sermon on the theme of “Who do people say that I Am”. Peter answers “the Christ”, but what do we say? Just a good man, or a liar, or Christ? Given His claim He can either be the Christ or a liar. I choose the former sitting there. Elsewhere, doubts creep in.

Friday 21 February 2020

I read Psalm 112 alone in our church.

“Praise the Lord, ye servants:
O praise the name of the Lord.”

You can watch Compline on YouTube now. It is quite a soothing way of going to bed. A single monk alone in his candlelit cell singing the office.

Belief comes slowly and with practice.

“Let dreams depart and phantoms fly, the offspring of the night…”

Saturday 22 February 2020 — The Chair of St Peter

The church is being cleaned and I walk up the hill to see the hunt riding by and read Universalis.

“The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall want. Fresh and green are the pastures where he gives me repose.”

Appropriate, with great emerald views stretching away twenty miles to the south.

The words of Compline from Psalm 4 spring to mind:

“What can bring us happiness, many say.
Lift up the light of Your face on us, O Lord.”

That is why I turn to religion. It makes me happy, or did so the first time I heard the monks singing Compline and went to bed with their words in my mind.

Tuesday 11 February 2020

Someone writes in to complain about my reading in the cathedral. I should not have said “Responsorial Psalm”. How petty can you get? So here is the responsorial psalm for today:

How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord God of Hosts.
My soul is longing and yearning,
is yearning for the courts of the Lord.
My heart and my soul ring out their joy.

Isn’t this the point?

Wednesday 12 February 2020

I start to walk up the aisle to be a Eucharistic minister in the crypt chapel and am turned back at the altar rail by Father Pat due to Coronavirus. Communion will not be taken in both kinds. Not my week.

We hear of the Queen of Sheba. “She brought immense riches to Jerusalem.”

Thursday 13 February 2020

I go to the 5:30 Mass in the Cathedral, carefully sitting in the back and noting what the reader says. “The reading is taken from the Book of Kings.”

I got that wrong too.

“When Solomon grew old his wives swayed his heart to other gods, and his heart was not wholly with the Lord.”

Nor is mine. It wanders all the time. Today to the reshuffle and the sudden demise of the Chancellor. Such pointless badges of power.

Friday 14 February 2020 — St Cyril, Monk

I am back in the village church in the total quiet.

These are holy men who became friends of God, glorious heralds divine truth.

Saturday 15 February 2020

I forget Universalis on my iPhone so I just have the Book of Common Prayer.

Psalm 116 (117):

Oh praise the Lord all you nations
Acclaim Him all you peoples
Strong is His love for us
He is faithful for ever.

That says it all.

St Paul Miki & Companions

Monday 3 February 2020 (4th Week in Ordinary Time)

I must have attended scores, even hundreds, of meekly masses in the Cathedral but for the first time ever I arrive and Mary asks me to do a reading. Very happy but for the first time I can remember I have conjunctivitis.

The reading is very long, all about David fleeing Absalom.

Here I am with the vast cathedral stretching before me and I can barely read the text through my tears. The priest must think me an awful bore reading so slowly. He rattles off the Gospel.

Anyway, divine punishment!

David then made his way up the Mount of Olives weeping as he went, his head covered, his feet bare. (2 Samuel 15:13

Tuesday 4 February

I am back in the Cathedral luckily only listening.

Poor old Absalom.

Jacob took three lances in his hand and thrust them into his heart while he was still alive there in the oak tree. (2 Samuel 18:19)

Wherever I read this I think of father-son relationships. However they are, even open rebellion, they the sons are the most precious of objects.

Wednesday 5 February – St Agatha

It is Mass in the crypt chapel.

David said to God: this is a hard choice. (2 Sam 29:8)

All choices are hard. Does God give us choices? Do we have a choice? Is there a God? Is it all random or pre-ordained? God or no God? Why worry. Anyway, David chooses the least of three evils. That’s all we can do.

Thursday 6 February – St Paul Miki

I have a question to answer in the House so I miss the 10:30 Mass. But I could have gone to the early one — too idle.

Compared to the Japanese martyrs our faith and commitment is as small as a mustard seed when compared to the tree. I doubt, thrown into the cares of the world at the side of the path, it will ever grow much bigger than a dandelion.

Friday 7 February

I am alone in the village church. I read Psalm 17: “Praise be the God Who sees me.”

It is very easy sitting there, the light streaming in through the south-facing windows.

There and then, just for a moment, He is here. He sees me. One leaves the church door and of course one forgets.

Saturday 8 February

I am reading Psalm 118: “Lord, teach me our statues. With my tongue I have recounted the decrees of your lips.”

Sunday 9 February — 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time

There is no 5:30 Mass at Osgodby. The storm must have cancelled it. So we go to St Hugh’s in Lincoln for the 6:30 Mass.

“No one lights a lamp to put it under a tub. They put it on a lamp stand.” (Matthew 5:13)

I am mainly looking after Sofka so I miss today’s saint who apparently saw a great light around England.

Monday 10 February – St Scholastica

I am in the Cathedral and asked to read again. This time I can see.

“The cloud filled the temple of the Lord.” (1 Kings)

But this time I could at least see this latter-day temple.

Friday 24 January 2020

We went to the funeral of Jonathan Green in the magnificent Louth Parish church.

About six hundred people there. He was only 57.

A good man and a sad occasion, but I drew comfort from these words in St Paul to the church in Thessalonika:

“For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again , even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died.”

Sitting there, I had the definite feeling that it was true. Words come and go, doubts remain, but suddenly from nowhere one gets this strange conviction. Or perhaps from somewhere?

Saturday 25 January 2020

Today’s psalm On Saturday is Psalm 117.

I read it alone in the silent village church.

“Laudate Domine”

Praise the Lord all ye nations, in the modern translation — all ye heathens in the old.