Author of Light, by Thomas Campion

Author of light, revive my dying spright;
Redeem it from the snares of all-confounding night.
Lord, light me to thy blessed way:
For blind with worldly vain desires, I wander as a stray.
Sun and Moon, Stars and underlights I see,
But all their glorious beams are mists and darkness, being  compar'd to thee.

Fountain of health, my soul's deep wound recure,
Sweet show'rs of pity rain, wash my uncleanness pure.
One drop of thy desired grace
The faint and fading heart can raise, and in joyes bosom place.
Sin and Death, Hell and tempting Fiends may rage;
But God his own will guard, and their sharp pains and grief in time assuage.

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Thomas Campion  (1567 – 1620) was an English composer, poet and physician. He wrote over a hundred lute songs; masques for dancing, and an authoritative technical treatise on music.

This poem is from "Two Books of Ayres" written about 1613 and
http://www.luminarium.org/editions/camptwobookes.htm These were intended to be sung "to the lute or viol."

The first book of Ayres was on "divine and moral songs" and the one here is the first of these. The second book is on "Light conceits of lovers" and is altogether different in tone.

Though I'm not greatly familiar with the life and poetry of Campion, such religious poems of his that I have seen have reminded me of Metaphysical poets like Herbert and Donne.

(I've modernized the spelling here. "Spright" in the first line means, I think, "spirit.")

For a musical setting of this poem, sung by countertenor Christopher Field, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHoh2d59rfQ

Lent Book - The Interior Castle

"Nothing can be compared to the great beauty and capabilities of a soul; however keen our intellects may be, they are as unable to comprehend them as to comprehend God ..." (1st Mansion, chapter 1, section 2).

I've often thought that other people are in a sense incomprehensible to humans, but St Teresa seems to be suggesting that we can't even comprehend ourselves. And why? It's because we are made in 'the image and likeness of God,' and God is incomprehensible.

Kissing Friday

There is an old tradition in parts of England that the Friday after Ash Wednesday is called 'Kissing Friday.'

From "The Lore and Language of School Children" by Opie and Opie (1959):

A teacher writing to the Yorkshire Post (24 February 1955) tells how in the Dales after Collop Monday, Pancake Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, and Fritter Thursday, comes Kissing Friday. A few years before, when she arrived at a country school and was taking a mixed class of 13-year-old children in country dancing, she saw the leading boy suddenly lean across and kiss his partner, who showed no sign of embarrassment. When, as teacher, she expressed her surprise, the boy said, 'It's all right, Miss. You see, it's Kissing Friday', and explained that on the Friday following Shrove Tuesday any lad had the right to kiss any girl without being resisted. 'And so it proved. For at each break in lessons every girl was soundly kissed by any boy she encountered. It was useless for me to expostulate, so I did not try. But each year as Kissing Friday came round, the school was in turmoil.'

A Westmorland correspondent to the same paper (28 February 1955) recalled that when he was a boy in the Eden Valley he and his fellows used to call this day Nippy Lug Day, and they used to pinch each other's ears. A Yorkshireman broadcasting in January 1955 recalled that, when a boy, the Tuesday after Easter week (Hocktide) used to be Kissing Day, and the boys would challenge all comers, their girl friends in particular, by putting a rope across the road on the way to school and demanding either a kiss or a forfeit. This would seem to be a survival of Hoke Day, Hoc Tuesday, or Binding Tuesday, a festival (when certain dues were paid) celebrated with unbridled sport and merriment in the Middle Ages.

I'm not sure I would recommend that this custom should be restored, but 'Kissing Friday' is a nice name for the day.

DF

Lent Quiz - Spot the Writer

1. Can you identify the writer of the following passage on the fewness of the saved?

"Nothing is more clearly brought out in Scripture, or more remarkable in itself than this, that in every age, out of the whole number of persons blessed with the means of grace, few only have duly availed them of this great benefit. So certain, so uniform is the fact, that it is almost stated as a doctrine. "Many are called, few are chosen." Again, "Strive to enter in at the strait gate; for many, I say unto you, shall seek to enter in, and shall not be able." And again, "Wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat … Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." And St. Paul seems expressly to turn the historical fact into a doctrine, when he says, by way of remark upon his own day as compared with former ages of the Church, "Even so then, at this present time also," that is, as formerly, "there is a remnant, according to the election of grace."

"The word "remnant" is frequent with the prophets, from whom St. Paul takes it. Isaiah, for instance, says, "Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved." Jeremiah speaks of "the remnant of Judah," and the "small number," to which a return was promised. Ezekiel, too, declares that God "will leave a remnant," "that ye may have some," continues the divine oracle, "that shall escape the sword among the nations, when ye shall be scattered through the countries. And they that escape of you shall remember Me among the nations, whither they shall be carried captives." And so well understood was this, that the hope of good men never reached beyond it. Neither the promise, on the one hand, nor the hope, on the other, ever goes beyond the prospect of a remnant being saved. Thus the consolation given to the Church in the Book of Jeremiah is, that God "will not make a full end;" and Ezra, confessing the sins of his people, expresses his dread lest there should be "no remnant." Thus Christ, His Apostles, and His Prophets, all teach the same doctrine, that the chosen are few, though many are called: that one gains the prize, though many run the race."

2. Which hymn writer penned the following lines, which contrast significantly in tone with the previous passage?

There's a wideness in God's mercy
like the wideness of the sea;
there's a kindness in his justice,
which is more than liberty.
There is welcome for the sinner,
and more graces for the good;
there is mercy with the Saviour;
there is healing in his blood.

There is no place where earth's sorrows
are more felt than in heaven;
there is no place where earth's failings
have such kind judgement given.
There is plentiful redemption
in the blood that has been shed;
there is joy for all the members
in the sorrows of the Head.

For the love of God is broader
than the measure of man's mind;
and the heart of the Eternal
is most wonderfully kind.
If our love were but more faithful,
we should take him at his word;
and our life would be thanksgiving
for the goodness of the Lord.