Undo the door, my spouse dear

"Undo thy door, my spouse dear, 

Alas! why stand I locked out here? 

   For I am thy mate. 

Look, my locks and also my head 

And all my body with blood bedewed, 

    For thy sake.” 

 “Alas! alas! evil have I sped, 

For sin Jesus is from me fled, 

    My true companion. 

Without my gate he standeth alone, 

Sorrowfully he maketh his moan 

 In his manner.” 

 Lord, for sin I sigh sore, 

Forgive, and I’ll do so no more, 

With all my might I forsake my sin, 

And open my heart to take thee in. 

For thy heart is cleft our love to catch, 

Thy love has chosen us all to fetch; 

My heart it pierced if I were kind, 

Thy sweet love to have in mind. 

Pierce my heart with thy loving, 

That in thee I may have my dwelling. 

Amen.

(MODERN ENGLISH TRANSLATION)


Vndo þi dore, my spuse dere, 

Allas! wy stond i loken out here? 

   fre am i þi make. 

Loke mi lokkes & ek myn heued 

& al my bodi with blod be-weued 

   For þi sake. 

 Allas! allas! heuel haue i sped, 

For senne iesu is fro me fled, 

   Mi trewe fere. 

With-outen my gate he stant alone, 

Sorfuliche he maket his mone 

   On his manere. 

 Lord, for senne i sike sore, 

Forʒef & i ne wil no more, 

With al my mith senne i forsake, 

& opne myn herte þe inne to take. 

For þin herte is clouen oure loue to kecchen, 

Þi loue is chosen vs alle to fecchen; 

Mine herte it þerlede ʒef i wer kende, 

Þi suete loue to hauen in mende. 

Perce myn herte with þi louengge, 

Þat in þe i haue my duellingge. 

Amen.

(ORIGINAL MIDDLE ENGLISH)

--Found in the 1372 "commonplace book" of the Franciscan friar John of Brimstone of Norfolk, England.

From the Art & Theology blog, I learn that I am using this blog and my notebooks as "commonplace books" for my preaching and writing. Glad to have a word for it!

Image: William Holman Hunt, 19th century pre-Raphaelite painter, "Light of the World (Manchester edition)

"Commonplace books were notebooks used to gather quotations and literary excerpts, with entries typically organized under subject headings. Preachers often kept them for homiletic purposes, gathering potential material for sermons. Grimestone’s is remarkable because it includes, in addition to much Latin material, 239 poems in Middle English. (English friars at the time regularly used vernacular religious verse in their sermons.) It is unknown whether Grimestone composed these verses himself or merely compiled them; likely, it is some combination. The first two stanzas of this particular poem are found, transposed, in another manuscript from almost a century earlier. Grimestone revised them slightly and added the third stanza. 

Belonging to the Christ-as-lover tradition, “Undo thy door” is based primarily on Song of Solomon 5:2, cited in Grimestone’s manuscript: “I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night.” In a clever interpretation of the Old Testament source, the poet imagines the dewdrops on the Beloved’s brow as blood, thus identifying him with the thorn-crowned Christ. His bride is the human soul. Revelation 3:20 is provided as a further gloss by Grimestone: Jesus says, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”

So in the poem, the speaker is shacking up with sin and has locked out her true lover, Christ. Christ stands at the gate of her heart and implores her with great ardor to let him in and to send sin packing. Wet with the wounds of sacrifice, tokens of his love, he is persistent in his longing for her.

Christ’s entreaties provide the impetus for the speaker’s repentance, expressed in the final stanza, which changes awkwardly in form and meter. His love has pierced her to the core, undoing her resistance. She resolves to break the sin-lock—to turn away from wrongful deeds—and answer Christ’s call so that they can enjoy sweet union together, dwelling in one another’s love. It was his heart that opened first—it was cleft by the centurion’s spear as he hung on the cross—and she is compelled to respond with similar openness, receiving what he has given, requiting his desire."

Joy and Peace in Believing (Olney Hymns, XLVIII)

Sometimes a light surprises 

   The Christian while he sings; 

It is the Lord who rises 

    With healing on His wings; 

When comforts are declining, 

   He grants the soul again 

A season of clear shining, 

   To cheer it after rain. 

In holy contemplation 

    We sweetly then pursue 

The theme of God's salvation, 

    And find it ever new; 

Set free from present sorrow, 

    We cheerfully can say, 

E'en let the unknown to-morrow 

    Bring with it what it may! 

It can bring with it nothing, 

    But He will bear us through; 

Who gives the lilies clothing, 

    Will clothe His people too; 

Beneath the spreading heavens 

    No creature but is fed; 

And He who feeds the ravens 

    Will give His children bread. 

Though vine nor fig tree neither 

    Their wonted fruit shall bear, 

Though all the field should wither, 

    Nor flocks nor herds be there: 

Yet God the same abiding, 

    His praise shall tune my voice; 

For, while in Him confiding, 

    I cannot but rejoice.


-- William Cowper (1731-1800), English poet and Anglican hymn writer.

Cowper struggled with tragedy and depression his entire life; his friend John Newton suggested he begin writing hymns as therapy while Cowper was committed to an asylum.

Every Riven Thing

God goes, belonging to every riven thing he’s made
sing his being simply by being
the thing it is:
stone and tree and sky,
man who sees and sings and wonders why

God goes. Belonging, to every riven thing he’s made,
means a storm of peace.
Think of the atoms inside the stone.
Think of the man who sits alone
trying to will himself into a stillness where

God goes belonging. To every riven thing he’s made
there is given one shade
shaped exactly to the thing itself:
under the tree a darker tree;
under the man the only man to see

God goes belonging to every riven thing. He’s made
the things that bring him near,
made the mind that makes him go.
A part of what man knows,
apart from what man knows,

God goes belonging to every riven thing he’s made.


--Christian Wiman (1966- ), American poet, essayist, writer, former editor at Poetry magazine, and former Southern Baptist.

Looking for Your Face

From the beginning of my life
I have been looking for your face
but today I have seen it

Today I have seen
the charm, the beauty,
the unfathomable grace
of the face
that I was looking for

Today I have found you
and those who laughed
and scorned me yesterday
are sorry that they were not looking
as I did

I am bewildered by the magnificence
of your beauty
and wish to see you
with a hundred eyes

My heart has burned with passion
and has searched forever
for this wondrous beauty
that I now behold

I am ashamed
to call this love human
and afraid of God
to call it divine

Your fragrant breath
like the morning breeze
has come to the stillness of the garden
You have breathed new life into me
I have become your sunshine
and also your shadow

My soul is screaming in ecstasy
Every fiber of my being
is in love with you

Your effulgence
has lit a fire in my heart
and you have made radiant
for me
the earth and sky

My arrow of love
has arrived at the target
I am in the house of mercy
and my heart
is a place of prayer

-- Rumi (Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī) (1207-1273), Persian Sufi mystic and poet

Scripture reference:  Psalm 27:1,4-9

3 Epiphany A

Beatus vir qui non ablit

Come to the place where every breath is praise,

And God is breathing through each passing breeze.
Be planted by the waterside and raise

Your arms with Christ beneath these rooted trees,
Who lift their breathing leaves up to the skies.
Be rooted, too, as still and strong as these,

Open alike to sun and rain. Arise
From meditation by these waters. Bear
The fruit of that deep rootedness. Be wise

In the trees' long wisdom. Learn to share
The secret of their patience. Pass the day
In their green fastness and their quiet air.

Slowly discern a life, a truth, a way,
Where simple being flowers in delight.
Then let the chaff of life just blow away.

-- Malcolm Guite (1957- ), English priest, poet, musician, and academic, from David's Crown.
Inspired by Psalm 1.

To Find God

Weigh me the fire; or canst thou find

A way to measure out the wind?
Distinguish all those floods that are
Mixed in that wat'ry theater,
And taste thou them as saltless there,
As in their channel first they were.
Tell me the people that do keep
Within the kingdoms of the deep;
Or fetch me back that cloud again,
Beshivered into seeds of rain.
Tell me the motes, dust, sands, and spears
Of corn, when summer shakes his ears;
Show me that world of stars, and whence
They noiseless spill their influence.
This if thou canst; then show me Him
That rides the glorious cherubim.

-Robert Harrick (1591-1674), English poet and Anglican priest

Immanence

Morning visitors in St. Lucia

I come in the little things,
Saith the Lord:
Not borne on morning wings
Of majesty, but I have set My Feet
Amidst the delicate and bladed wheat
That springs triumphant in the furrowed sod.
There do I dwell, in weakness and in power;
Not broken or divided, saith our God!
In your strait garden plot I come to flower:
About your porch My Vine
Meek, fruitful, doth entwine;
Waits, at the threshold, Love’s appointed hour.

I come in the little things,
Saith the Lord:
Yea! on the glancing wings
Of eager birds, the softly pattering feet
Of furred and gentle beasts, I come to meet
Your hard and wayward heart. In brown bright eyes
That peep from out the brake, I stand confest.
On every nest
Where feathery Patience is content to brood
And leaves her pleasure for the high emprize
Of motherhood—
There doth My Godhead rest.

I come in the little things,
Saith the Lord:
My starry wings I do forsake,
Love’s highway of humility to take:
Meekly I fit My stature to your need.
In beggar’s part
About your gates I shall not cease to plead—
As man, to speak with man—
Till by such art I shall achieve
My Immemorial Plan,
Pass the low lintel of the human heart.

-- Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941) English Anglo-Catholic writer, teacher, mystic and pacifist.

Litany for Lent

Because temptation is woven into the fabric of our lives,
and we know the weariness of forty days in the desert,
and the beckoning power of sweet fruit,
and the vain promises of the world,
we need you, God.
We need you, God.

Because we see the broken before the whole,
and the half empty cup, and the unfinished task,
and the thirst in freedom’s quest,
we need you, God.
We need you, God.

Because we trust in what we can see,
and we are blinded by our prejudices,
and we do not know what we do not know,
we need you, God.
We need you, God.

Because our need for correctness exceeds our need for truth,
and our excuses preempt the cry of the wounded,
and our celebration of blessing is mindless of those displaced,
we need you, God.
We need you, God.

Because you came among us,
and breathed into our sinewy souls,
and healed our pain and let us wound you,
and loved us to the end,
and triumphed over all our hatred,
we need you, God.
We need you, God.


--Katherine Hawker, from the re-worship blog.

Come Into Animal Presence

Come into animal presence 

No man is so guileless as
the serpent. The lonely white
rabbit on the roof is a star
twitching its ears at the rain.
The llama intricately
folding its hind legs to be seated
not disdains but mildly
disregards human approval.
What joy when the insouciant
armadillo glances at us and doesn't
quicken his trotting
across the track into the palm brush.

What is this joy? That no animal
falters, but knows what it must do?
That the snake has no blemish,
that the rabbit inspects his strange surroundings
in white star-silence? The llama
rests in dignity, the armadillo
has some intention to pursue in the palm-forest.
Those who were sacred have remained so,
holiness does not dissolve, it is a presence
of bronze, only the sight that saw it
faltered and turned from it.
An old joy returns in holy presence.

--Denise Levertov, Anglo American poet, teacher, and convert to Catholicism.

Flickering Mind

Lord, not you,

it is I who am absent.
At first
belief was a joy I kept in secret,
stealing alone
into sacred places:
a quick glance, and away—and back,
circling.
I have long since uttered your name
but now
I elude your presence.
I stop
to think about you, and my mind
at once
like a minnow darts away,
darts
into the shadows, into gleams that fret
unceasing over
the river's purling and passing.
Not for one second
will my self hold still, but wanders
anywhere,
everywhere it can turn. Not you,
it is I am absent.
You are the stream, the fish, the light,
the pulsing shadow,
you the unchanging presence, in whom all
moves and changes.
How can I focus my flickering, perceive
at the fountain's heart
the sapphire I know is there?

-- Denise Levertov (1923—1997), Anglo-American poet and convert to Catholicism, from The Stream and the Sapphire (1997)

Vespers [Your voice is gone now]

Your voice is gone now; I hardly hear you.
Your starry voice all shadow now

and the earth dark again

with your great changes of heart.

And by day the grass going brown in places

under the broad shadows of the maple trees.

Now, everywhere I am talked to by silence

so it is clear I have no access to you;

I do not exist for you, you have drawn

a line through my name.

In what contempt do you hold us

to believe only loss can impress

your power on us,

the first rains of autumn shaking the white lilies---

When you go, you go absolutely;

deducting visible life from all things

but not all life,

lest we turn from you.

-- Louise Gluck, (1943- ), American poet, and teacher, US Poet Laureate 2003,  awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for 2020. Poem from The Wild Iris, 1992.

Pax

All that matters is to be at one with the living God
to be a creature in the house of the God of Life.

Like a cat asleep on a chair
at peace, in peace
and at one with the master of the house, with the mistress,
at home, at home in the house of the living,
sleeping on the hearth, and yawning before the fire.

Sleeping on the hearth of the living world
yawning at home before the fire of life
feeling the presence of the living God
like a great reassurance
a deep calm in the heart
a presence
as of the master sitting at the board
in his own and greater being
in the house of life.

D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930), English poet and novelist, from The Enlightened Heart, ed. by Stephen Mitchell

God, whose love and joy

God, whose love and joy
     are present everywhere,
can't come to visit you
     unless you aren't there.

--Angelus Silesius (1624-1677) from The Enlightened Heart, ed. by Stephen Mitchell

And even though you do not know your name

And even though 
you do not know your name 
you have given nameless places 
recognition. 
You have baptised spaces merely by 
inhabitation, 
there has been an inner invitation 
that you’ve accepted, 
with all that holy, wholly hesitation. 
Leaving others back 
behind the curtain, 
you’ve asserted something 
in the face of god-divine, 
something you were finding out, 
a kind of 
leave-it-all-behind-and-mind-you-don’t-feel-guilty 
sense of declaration. 
And even though 
you do not know your name, 
your inhabitation space was named 
by face-to-facing something that 
you met and listened to. 

This space is yours, 
whatever it is called, 
named by life and all this living, 
and all the best things that regret can bring 
and all the hope you muster. 

-- Pádraig Ó Tuama, Irish poets, theologian, and conflict mediator, from Readings from the Book of Exile, 2012

The Still, Small Voice

Open, Lord, my inward ear,
  And bid my heart rejoice;
Bid my quiet spirit hear
  The comfort of thy voice:

Never in the whirlwind found,
  Or where earthquakes rock the place, —
Still and silent is the sound,
  The whisper, of thy grace.

From the world of sin and noise
  And hurry I withdraw;
For the small and inward voice
  I wait with humble awe:
Silent am I now and still,
  Would not in thy presence move:
To my waiting soul reveal
  The secret of thy love!

--Charles Wesley, Anglican priest, poet, hymn writer, and founder of Methodism

Scriptural reference: 1 Kings 19:1-15a (Proper 7, Year C of the RCL, track 1)

The Vast Ocean Begins Just Outside Our Church: The Eucharist

Something has happened
to the bread
and the wine.

They have been blessed.
What now?

The body leans forward

to receive the gift
from the priest's hand,
then the chalice.

They are something else now
from what they were
before this began.

I want
to see Jesus,
maybe in the clouds

or on the shore,
just walking,
beautiful man

and clearly
someone else
besides.

On the hard days
I ask myself
if I ever will.

Also there are times
my body whispers to me
that I have.

-- Mary Oliver (1935-2019), American poet and author, from Thirst: Poems, 2006

God is Still Speaking

You speak to us in many ways,
through rushing wind
or still small voice,
in Scripture’s Word
or through your Grace
and we in turn find many ways,
to hear the world’s insistent voice
break through the silence
and take your place.
Forgive our sin.
Help us hear your voice
above the clamour of this world,
recognise the difference
and follow only you.
Amen.

--from Faith and Worship

Prayer:Make My Heart Your Dwelling-Place

O God, make my heart your dwelling-place,
for You are my companion
and my guide along the way.
We rise with your praise upon our lips,
for the Lord has been good to us indeed.

Your Spirit has called to us
in trouble and in plenty;
let us always sing out your untold blessings.
You are our All-in-All,
O Merciful One,
and we give You thanks
for all YOU have given us.
God hovers over us
and covers us with the hand of favor:
all that I am I offer to God.
God's comfort rests like a cooling breeze
upon those who call upon their Redeemer,
and we offer hymns
of praise and thanksgiving.

Watch over those for whom we pray,
Lord Christ,
and grant them rest.

Psalm 71

1 In you, O Lord, I take refuge;
       let me never be ashamed.
2 In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me; 
       incline your ear to me and save me.
3 Be to me a rock of refuge, a scastle to keep me safe,
       for you are my crag and my stronghold.
4 Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked,
       from the grasp of the unjust and cruel.
5 For you, O Lord, are my hope,
       my confidence, O Lord, since I was young.
6 Upon you I have leaned from my birth;
     it was you who took me from my mother’s womb;
       my praise is continually of you.
7 I have been like a portent to many,
       but you are my strong refuge.
8 My mouth is filled with your praise,
       and with your glory all day long.
9 Do not cast me off in the time of old age;
       do not forsake me when my strength is spent.
10 For my enemies speak concerning me,
       and those who watch for my life consult together.
11 They say, “Pursue and seize that person
     whom God has forsaken,
       for there is no one to deliver.”
12 O God, do not be far from me;
       O my God, make haste to help me!
13 Let my accusers be put to shame and consumed;
       let those who seek to hurt me be covered with scorn and disgrace.
14 But I will hope continually,
       and will praise you yet more and more.
15 My mouth will tell of your righteous acts, of your deeds of salvation all day long,
       though their number is past my knowledge.
16 I will come praising the mighty deeds of the Lord God,
       I will praise your righteousness, yours alone.
17 O God, from my youth you have taught me,
       and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds.
18 So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, 
       until I proclaim your might to all the generations to come.Your power 
19 and your righteousness, O God, reach the high heavens. 
       You who have done great things, O God, who is like you?
20 You who have made me see many troubles and calamities
     will revive me again;
       from the depths of the earth you will bring me up again.
21 You will increase my honor,
       and comfort me once again.
22 I will also praise you with the harp for your faithfulness, O my God;
       I will sing praises to you with the lyre, O Holy One of Israel.
23 My lips will shout for joy when I sing praises to you;
       my soul also, which you have rescued.
24 All day long my tongue will talk of your righteous help,
       for those who tried to do me harm have been put to shame, and disgraced.

Prayer of St. Augustine

O God,
who fills heaven and earth,
ever acting, ever at rest.
You who are everywhere and everywhere wholly present,
who are not absent even when far off,
who with Your whole being fill, yet transcend, all things.
Tou who teach the hearts of the faithful without the din of words,
teach us we pray,
through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

O God! our true and highest life,
by whom, through whom and in whom all things live
which live truly and blessedly;
by whom, through whom and in whom all good things
are good and lovely;
mercifully grant that Your life may be in ours for evermore,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

We return unto You, O Lord,
that from their wanderings and weariness
our souls may rise towards You;
leaning on the things You have created
and passing on to Yourself, who has made them,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

-St. Augustine, in Evelyn Underhill's Prayer Book, ed. by Evelyn Underhill, English mystic and spiritual teacher


Photo: detail from a door at La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona