Christian Art | George Herbert | The Temple | The Church | Holy Baptism (2)
George Herbert | The Temple | The Church | Holy Baptism (2)
Since, Lord, to thee
A narrow way and little gate
Is all the passage, on my infancie
Thou didst lay hold, and antedate
My faith in me.
O let me still
Write thee great God, and me a childe:
Let me be soft and supple to thy will,
Small to my self, to others milde,
Behither ill.
Although by stealth
My flesh get on, yet let her sister
My soul bid nothing, but preserve her wealth:
The growth of flesh is but a blister;
Childhood is health.
George Herbert | The Temple | The Church | Holy Baptism (2)
The poem contemplates the nature of spiritual growth and the relationship between the soul and the body in a Christian context. It begins with a recognition of the ‘narrow way and little gate’, referencing a biblical metaphor for the difficult path of righteousness (Matthew 7:13-14). The poet reflects on his early spiritual awakening (‘on my infancy / Thou didst lay hold’) and the idea that God preemptively initiated his faith before he could fully comprehend it (‘antedate my faith in me’). This expresses the belief that faith is a gift from God, implanted at an early stage.
The next stanza introduces the poet’s desire to maintain humility before God. He prays, ‘Let me still / Write thee great God, and me a child,’ meaning he wishes to always recognize God’s greatness while remaining childlike in humility and obedience. The poet desires to remain ‘soft and supple’ to God’s will, indicating a readiness to submit to divine guidance, free from the ego or self-centeredness that might obstruct spiritual growth (‘Small to myself, to others mild’). This submission and humility contrast with ‘ill’, a term likely signifying sin or moral wrongdoing, which he wishes to avoid.
The third stanza contrasts the ‘flesh’ and the ‘soul’, reflecting a common Christian theme of the inner battle between physical desires and spiritual purity. The poet observes that his flesh, symbolizing earthly or sinful tendencies, grows ‘by stealth’—subtly and almost imperceptibly. However, he asks that his soul, the spiritual sister to the body, remain unaffected by these physical desires (‘let her sister / My soul bid nothing’). The poet sees the body’s physical growth as ultimately harmful or misleading, calling it ‘but a blister’, a temporary and ultimately inconsequential swell that distracts from the true health of the soul. In contrast, he equates spiritual innocence, which he links to ‘childhood’, with true ‘health’.
The central theme of the poem revolves around the importance of spiritual humility, purity, and dependence on God’s guidance in life. By comparing the soul’s relationship to the body with the innocence and dependence of a child, the poet suggests that spiritual health is maintained not by worldly achievements or physical growth, but by staying close to God and resisting the temptations and distractions of the flesh.
In its overall structure, the poem is composed of three stanzas, each reflecting a different aspect of the poet’s inner life: his early faith, his ongoing humility, and the tension between the soul and the flesh. Each stanza builds on the theme of spiritual vulnerability, asking for God’s help in preserving the innocence and purity of faith in the face of life’s complexities and temptations. The poem reflects a deep understanding of Christian spirituality, emphasizing the need for divine grace in navigating the challenges of earthly existence.
In the Catholic Church, Purgatory is believed to be a place or state of suffering that is temporary and where the souls of those who have died in a state of grace but are not yet fully purified are purified before they can enter heaven. It is believed to be a place of spiritual and moral purification, where the soul is cleansed of any remaining attachments to sin [ … ]
On Tuesday, His Grace turns to the theme of Jesus’ hidden years. His Grace asks the students to consider questions concerning what really happened: ‘Who, for instance, was Joseph? Was he indeed a carpenter, or has Joseph’s true role in the society in which he lived been misconstrued and forgotten to us? Though it be a beautiful, simplifying image to grasp, which offers to us much that is of value in Catholic faith… ‘A wise elder, which carpenter could mean, or a great engineer, an architekton, which in the Greek does not mean carpenter. But carpenter in the Hebrew could mean a wise man…’ His Grace turns the pages of his Bible back and forth, as if to itemize the paucity of information. Then he says: ‘What I think I can say to you with confidence is that it is of profound significance that we simply don’t know what Jesus was doing for most of his earthly life. There are some very different possibilities. One idea cherished by the Church is that Jesus worked with his father Joseph as a carpenter. Another possibility is that Jesus lived and prayed and studied closely with John the Baptist. They were cousins, and very close, almost the same, in age. Luke’s Gospel tells us clearly that Jesus and John knew each other from within the womb before they were born. So there may have been something quite important happening there. You see, we don’t know – it is an impossible mystery to us – just how much Jesus had to learn. This is because, if Jesus knew everything, humanly speaking, even as a tiny baby, then how can we say he is fully human? We simply can’t probe too far into this mystery, but we can draw extraordinary truth and healing from this thought, which becomes of immense relevance in our own lives. Jesus came to know and to understand himself not merely as a son of God, but as God the Son, and so as self-identical with his Father. It is not an adoptive relationship. Jesus is God. Now so much is hidden here. But this is a great gift. If you think about it, how do we come to know that we are loved by God, that we have our relationship with God? What are we born with in here’ – his chest – ‘and what do we have to learn? This is to say, what is gifted to us by other Christians at our baptism? ‘Jesus must have studied, and experienced profound revelation about who and what he truly was, and, so it seems to be, these studies cannot have been confined to the Semitic world. But this is the important point: there is a hiddenness about all of this. No matter which schools and which sects our Lord might have encountered all these years, this to us is as a desert space. What this means is that we can enter into the hidden life of Jesus, and there we can discover our own being with God, our own sonship. Our own particular being loved by God can come to us, if we can enter within this great unknown – into this desert space, where we are loved by Jesus. I firmly believe that there may be a great Lenten mystery in this period of our Lord’s life.’ A Bishop’s Lenten Homily | Extracted From The Gospel According To Tomàs | Faith And Hope And Love And Sexuality | Part 1 A Bishop’s Lenten Homily | Extracted From The Gospel According To Tomàs | Faith And Hope And Love And Sexuality | Part 2 A Bishop’s Lenten Homily | Extracted From The Gospel According To Tomàs | Faith And Hope And Love And Sexuality | Part 3 A Bishop’s Lenten Homily | Extracted From The Gospel According To Tomàs | Faith And Hope And Love And Sexuality | Part 4 | King James Audio Bible | KJV A Bishop’s Lenten Homily | Extracted From The Gospel According To Tomàs | Faith And Hope And Love And Sexuality | Part 5 A Bishop’s Lenten Homily | Holy Week | Extracted From The Gospel According To Tomàs | Faith And Hope And Love And Sexuality | Part 6
In the Garden of Gethsemane, the presence of the angel becomes a symbol of divine comfort and support during Jesus’ moment of utmost agony. As Jesus withdrew a stone’s cast away from his disciples and fell on the ground to pray, sweating blood, the world’s sins and crucifixion-horror pressed heavily upon him [ … ]
