Christian Art | George Herbert | The Temple | The Church | Easter
George Herbert | The Temple | The Church | Easter
Rise heart; thy Lord is risen. Sing his praise
Without delayes,
Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise
With him mayst rise:
That, as his death calcined thee to dust,
His life may make thee gold, and much more just.
Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part
With all thy art.
The crosse taught all wood to resound his name,
Who bore the same.
His streched sinews taught all strings, what key
Is best to celebrate this most high day.
Consort both heart and lute, and twist a song
Pleasant and long:
Or since all musick is but three parts vied
And multiplied;
O let thy blessed Spirit bear a part,
And make up our defects with his sweet art.
I got me flowers to straw thy way;
I got me boughs off many a tree:
But thou wast up by break of day,
And brought’st thy sweets along with thee.
The Sunne arising in the East,
Though he give light, and th’ East perfume;
If they should offer to contest
With thy arising, they presume.
Can there be any day but this,
Though many sunnes to shine endeavour?
We count three hundred, but we misse:
There is but one, and that one ever.
George Herbert | The Temple | The Church | Easter
The poem is an expression of praise and resurrection, where the poet calls upon his ‘heart’ to celebrate the Lord’s resurrection and to rise spiritually with Him. The poem opens with a command to the heart to ‘Rise’ in response to the Lord’s resurrection, suggesting a spiritual ascent that mirrors Christ’s victory over death. The poet then emphasizes that, just as Christ’s death reduced the believer to ‘dust’, Jesus Christ’s new life will refine them, transforming them into something valuable and ‘just’, akin to ‘gold’. This allusion to spiritual purification conveys that through the resurrection, believers attain not only forgiveness but a path to becoming more righteous.
The poet next calls upon his ‘lute’, urging it to join in the praise with all its ‘art’. The reference to the ‘cross’ teaching ‘all wood to resound his name’ connects nature and human instruments with divine purpose, as though all creation can participate in proclaiming God’s glory. Similarly, the stretched ‘sinews’ and ‘strings’ taught by Christ’s suffering suggest that Jesus Christ’s sacrifice brings harmony to everything, from the human heart to musical instruments, pointing to a universal resonance with Christ’s resurrection.
In the following stanza, the poet seeks a partnership between ‘heart and lute’, weaving together a ‘song’ that is both ‘pleasant and long’. The phrase ‘pleasant and long’ implies that the celebration is both joyful and enduring, suitable for honoring the resurrection’s eternal significance. Here, the poet suggests that ‘all music is but three parts vied’, likely referencing the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) as the ultimate unity and balance in music. He asks that the Holy Spirit participate in the song to compensate for human deficiencies, underscoring the belief that divine grace completes human effort.
A shift occurs as the poet reflects on the act of gathering ‘flowers to strew thy way’, recalling traditional processions for special occasions, but finds that Christ has risen ‘by break of day’ and brought ‘sweets’ with him. This underscores the idea that the resurrection is an act of divine initiative, beyond human preparation. The sun, ‘arising in the east’, brings light and fragrance, but even these natural phenomena are inferior to Christ’s resurrection. By presenting Christ’s resurrection as far surpassing earthly phenomena, the poet highlights the event’s divine nature.
In the final lines, the poet ponders whether there can be any other ‘day but this’, implying that the resurrection marks the singular, ultimate day. While there are ‘many suns’ that try to shine, they fall short of matching this day. He notes that while humans ‘count three hundred’ days, only ‘one’ truly matters—the day of resurrection, which stands outside ordinary time. This closing line suggests that the resurrection is an eternal event, outside the limitations of temporal measures and pointing to the idea of everlasting life offered through Christ’s triumph over death. The poem as a whole celebrates the resurrection’s transformative impact on both individual believers and all creation, calling for an eternal song of praise.
Saint Ambrose’s catechesis on baptism, drawn from his treatise On the Mysteries, offers a rich theological and scriptural reflection on the rite of Christian initiation, weaving together typology, sacramental theology, and pastoral instruction. Addressed to the newly baptized in fourth-century Milan, this passage exemplifies the mystagogical tradition — the Church’s practice of interpreting the mysteries of the sacraments only after the faithful had experienced them [ … ]
Sometimes, when I read my Bible, I pause in the reading and say to myself: ‘This bit’s real.’ It would be fair to say, I have issues with Mary, because, contrary to what we are taught to say, Mary isn’t my mother. Rather: Mum is. One bit of the Bible-text says this: And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for people were saying, “He is beside himself.” … And his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting about him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, asking for you.” And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking around on those who sat about him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother.” (Mark 3: 21; 31-35.) Here she comes. She is in considerable distress. I can imagine that. I can relate to that. To save her boy from whatever he’s got himself into this time. And you’re not telling me there isn’t something inside that. Her boy is beside himself. Radical. Radicalized. Radicalizing. A misunderstood word. /ˈradɪk(ə)l/ adjective & noun. 1 Forming the root, basis, or foundation; original, primary. 2a Inherent in the nature of a thing or person; fundamental. b Of action, change, an idea: going to the root or origin; far-reaching, thorough. c Advocating thorough or far-reaching change. d Characterized by departure from tradition; progressive; unorthodox. ‘He has a demon! And he is mad!’ – thus ‘the Jews’. (e.g. John 10: 20.) Come home! It’s all she wants. His family want him back now. But it is an exclusive cult: there is an inside and there is an outside; and on the outside, they are not meant to understand, lest they be converted. He has defined himself as different from anything she was. Only at the end does Jesus say to his Mum – and with savage, bitter irony: ‘Woman, behold your son.’ And then he dies. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. We ask that we might find Mary in our hearts as a Yes! place for Jesus. It is also recommended that we pray to Jesus that we may be further in oneness with Mary. It is self-emptying, such that we only exist insofar as we are responsive to God’s Word. * Last term, and put-out to pasture, the old Archbishop Emeritus came over to stay for a few days and did the odd class with us. He spoke of Yes! as the meaning of Mary’s virginity. And we were not very nice about him. One or two took umbrage. One or two got the hump. In a sense, his Grace, the Arch, basically wanted to move anyone he’d ever known from a high-place – a mountain – received theological ‘truth’ – to an imminent, human plane. Earthing the spiritual. Recalibrating metrics of life’s believability toward a spiritual sense of things. He might have asked the impermissible question: what happened? His Grace described it. God’s love as a cloud. This descended upon Mary – and subsumed her. Within the cloud, Mary capitulated utterly. She became only and purely a response to God’s love. As he spoke, the Arch cradled her. He carried her in his lap – in his hands. His Grace was a consecrated bishop. He was faith. He sat squat, a rounded man, hands cupped and ankles crossed, fingers interlocked, with parted thighs. Rumpled, washed, speckled. A lifetime’s skin… There could be no doubt His Grace spoke through long-term personal relationship with Mary. It was Julian went for him: ‘So are you saying Mary was a Virgin? Or are you not saying Mary was a Virgin?’ Nasty. No, it wasn’t pretty. Julian twisting his silver ring. For a moment, what Julian had said to the Arch simply failed to communicate. No, for a moment, that dumped on the air meant nothing. Then His Grace said: ‘There is a range of possible meanings we may understand in the question of Mary’s virginity. For example, there are understandings of the word virginity entailed in the action of giving birth.’ Julian said: ‘Duh! So had she had sex or hadn’t she?’ Trigger words. No, it wasn’t pretty. On that went for a little while. At length, Julian’s point seemed reluctantly conceded. Then the Arch told us a new story, an additionally human event, the more to baffle us. Controversially, he told us that Mary could not have been Joseph’s first wife, for this would not have been the way of things in the society of that time. His belief was that Joseph must have taken Mary into his household through pity. That would be normal, he said, for Joseph to bring a young, vulnerable girl, who is about to have a baby, within his protection, not meaning to enjoy with her marital relations, but through kindness. ‘And this story of the inn and stable,’ the Archbishop said, ‘it can’t have been like that really. Joseph has travelled with Mary to stay with his family, at home in Bethlehem, and they don’t want Mary in their house, for reasons which I am sure we can understand. It must have been there was considerable resistance to Mary. But Mary gives birth, and who can resist a baby? That’s what happened. It must have been. ‘I’m convinced that must have been how it happened really.’ Later that term, toward the beginning of Advent, we met boys who had been here before, in Valladolid, and now were in regular seminary. They had heard and recited verbatim all the Archbishop had said to them. Their spot-on impressions of each of the fathers were scathing. […]
After the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus has gone into the hills alone to pray, while his disciples begin to cross over the Sea of Galilee ahead of him. Jesus has walked across the sea to join his disciples, who cannot comprehend what is happening and who Jesus truly is [ … ]
