Thursday, September 28, 2017

The Psalms - the scaffolding of prayer



"Be filled with the Spirit, 
addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, 
singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart, 
always and for everything giving thanks 
in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father." 
(Ephesians 5:18-20)

Following the example of the Jewish people and of Jesus himself, the early Christians kept using the Old Testament collection of Psalms, not just as a kind of hymn book, but even more importantly as their basic scaffolding of prayer. This has continued in the Church's life right down to our day. In fact, Roman Catholic and Anglican clergy are supposed to pray our way through the book of Psalms every month - and for some in religious orders - more often than that! In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, the Psalter is prayed through weekly.

Each of us has our favourite psalms. And, if the truth be known, there are the psalms most of us would avoid if left to our own devices. You now what I mean - the ones that seem full of depression, anxiety, despondency and anger, where the Psalmist even seems to be shaking his fist at God. Yet, if we are honest, we have to admit that sometimes those are the Psalms that reflect how we feel.

It is easy to have prayer lives that help us avoid coming to terms with what is going on inside us. We all fall into that trap, and it's not what God wants, because ultimately it will not help us. Using the psalms in the way we are supposed to is one means of bringing the whole of our lives with their uneven rhythms before God, including the upset, temperamental and sinful bits, so as to become increasingly open to his grace and the healing power of his love.

Over the last few years I have noticed that more and more lay people are seeing the benefit of this, and are using forms of Morning and/or Evening Prayer each day, with a systematic praying of the psalms.

There is a little book by that title. In my youth I feasted on Praying the Psalms by Thomas Merton (1915-1968). It was given to me by the late Father Austin Day, who even preached a series of sermons based on Merton's reflections.

Merton is not all that fashionable these days (and, I must admit, some of my friends think he was not always as orthodox as he might have been!), but I am glad to see that Praying the Psalms is still available. I enthusiastically commend it to you, and guarantee that if you read it your appreciation of the psalms will grow. (You can find it at Amazon.com if your local Christian bookstore doesn't sell it.)

In one of his most memorable passages Merton says:

"When we bring our sorrows to the Psalter we find all our spiritual problems mirrored in the inspired words of the psalmist. But we do not necessarily find these problems analysed and solved.

"Few of the psalms offer us abstract principles capable of serving as a ready and sensible palliative for interior suffering. On the contrary, what we generally find is a suffering just as concrete as our own, and more profound.

"We encounter this suffering at one of its most intense and articulate moments. How many of the psalms are simply cries of desperate anguish: 'Save me, O God, for the waters have come up even to my throat. I sink in the deep mire where no footing is : I have come into deep waters and the flood sweeps over me. I am weary with crying out, my throat is parched: my eyes fail with watching so long for my God.' (Psalm 69:1-3)

"What were the dispositions of the saints and the fathers in chanting such a psalm? They did not simply 'consider' the psalm as they passed over it, drawing from it some pious reflection, some nosegay. They entered into the 'action' of the psalm. They allowed themselves to be absorbed in the spiritual agony of the psalmist and of the one he represented. They allowed their sorrows to be swallowed up in the sorrows of this mysterious Personage, and then they found themselves swept away, on the strong tide of his hope, into the very depth of God. ''But to you, Lord, I make my prayer: at an acceptable time, answer me, O God, in your abundant goodness: and with your sure deliverance.' (vv13,14)

"So, in the end, all sorrow turns to triumph and to praise: 'And I will praise the name of God in a song: and glorify him with thanksgiving . . . for God will save Zion : he will rebuild the cities of Judah' (vv32-37)."

Saturday, September 23, 2017

The Hardest of Abortion Scenarios



This moving article is by Father Robert Hart, a priest of the Anglican Catholic Church (Original Province) in the USA, and a Contributing Editor of Touchstone Magazine. It appeared in the January/February, 2004 issue of Touchstone. I first put it on this blog in 2008. So many readers have been gained since then, that I thought I should post it again. 

I promised myself that I would not be the stereotypical father of the bride, like Spencer Tracy, who hates to give away his little girl. But as I walked her down the aisle, and approached the moment she would become a full-grown, married lady, I felt everything I had determined not to feel. Very far from my mind was the story of her strange origins. It is always far from my mind, unless something reminds me of it, like the recent news from Poland.

The infamous abortion ship from Holland was daring to stop off a port in Poland in order to make its "services" available to Polish women who do not have "reproductive rights"-as the anti-life crowd call them-in their own country. Polish law restricts abortions to cases in which the mother's life is threatened, to cases of incest, and to cases of rape. Compared to the ease with which most women in the Western world can obtain legal abortion for any reason, in fact for no reason at all, and at just about any time during pregnancy, Poland is better. But pro-life? No, sadly, no.

HIS DAUGHTER ALONE
Of my four children, my daughter alone is the one I adopted. I never exactly forget the fact; it simply passes out of conscious thought since it does not matter, for she is, in every way that counts, my daughter, my first child. Over the years, I have always felt what a father ought to feel.

When she was eleven, she suffered a staph infection, and Diane and I feared we would lose her. This was the second time in her short life that she was in danger of dying. The first time she was in danger she did not face an impersonal disease, but determined persons: when her mother had to fight against intruding social workers, and the whole system, for the right to make the choice that her baby would be born. After all, when a woman has been made pregnant through rape, it is not only her right, but her duty, to do the "honorable thing." At least, so it seemed from all the pressure put on her in those months. She was upsetting the expectations and demands that "liberated" women have no right to upset. She was refusing the "sacrament" of abortion.

What a terrible thing she did. For a woman to bear a child when abortion seemed so justified, so necessary, when the pregnancy was the result of rape-well, it was certainly anti-social behavior. She was coerced into seeing a psychiatrist who could help her overcome the obvious defect known to Christians as principle. He might even have cured her of maternal instinct and the malady called love.

But all those years ago I knew nothing of what had happened, only that she was suddenly gone, nowhere to be found. Why had this girl vanished from our hometown in Maryland without a trace? When I discovered her whereabouts, 3,000 miles away in California, I hastened to call her. I had expected, had hoped, to have seen her in those months. "I have a baby girl," she told me.

"Are you married?"

"No."

"I see. Well, as a Christian I hope you have repented of . . ."

"Well, it was from rape, actually."

I found that she would not put up her child for adoption. She was willing to live as a single mother because she could not be sure that a couple would raise her child to believe in Jesus Christ. She decided to keep the baby; and God rewarded her by giving her a wonderful, not to mention dashingly handsome, husband.

CONVOLUTED REASONING
I never think of my daughter's origins and the strange circumstances of her early life unless something brings them to mind; for example, the disappointing remarks of a "conservative" radio talk-show host. This fellow talks a lot about his Catholic faith and Irish heritage, so it was with some astonishment that I heard him defending his view that abortion in cases of rape may be justified. "After all," he pointed out, "it's not the same as when it's someone's fault that she is pregnant. I just think it's different." He certainly did not get this idea from the Catholic Church.

I remembered back over twenty years ago hearing the same convoluted reasoning from Christians, some Catholic, some Evangelical. I recall a very Evangelical and Charismatic lady asking me, "But if it was rape, why didn't she get an abortion?" I thought about the king of Judah, the one who would not execute the sons of his father's assassins because of the Law of God, which says "the children shall not be put to death for the sins of the fathers, nor the fathers for the sins of the children" (2 Chronicles 25:4; Deuteronomy 24:16).

Where did the "conservative" radio talk-show host get the idea that pregnancy is a penalty? If it is a penalty, it might be unjust for the innocent to bear it. But what if it is not a penalty? What if it is the healing that God might give to a woman who has suffered a violent attack? What if the Author of Life takes the opportunity to do good from someone's evil? The injustice done to Joseph resulted in the saving of his life, and that of millions of people, foreshadowing the good done for the whole world by the unjust crucifixion of a young rabbi from Nazareth. It is ever the way of God to make good come from the evil that men do.

Just who is it that these well-meaning people, such as the very Charismatic lady and the talk-show host, would sentence to death?

I remember the very wide eyes of a ten-month-old baby girl looking up at me, having just arrived by plane from California with her mother. I remember her first steps across my parents' living-room floor. After her mother and I were married, I remember the first Christmas in our apartment, and her excitement at the wonder of a lit and decorated tree. She had names for us from Winnie the Pooh. I was Pooh, she was Piglet, and as she looked at her mom, now pregnant with the first of our three sons, she said, "And mom's the kangaroo."

Her very first day of school I remember watching her bravely walking into the classroom, as a lady laughed at the sight of my perplexity-a feeling of mingled loss and pride that was small compared to what I felt when I gave her in marriage to a fine young man. I remember her saying to him, "I do," and pledging her life not only to him but also to any children they are blessed with, and to God who blesses them.

She is a young lady who spreads joy wherever she goes. She has a place in the lives of many, not only her new husband, her parents, and her brothers, but many who know her well, and many who have met her in passing-a unique place that no one else could fill. She is happy by nature at 23, married, an avid reader, a good friend, a serious Christian. This is the person that these well-meaning people were willing to sentence to death. Oh, not now, not when they can see her; but when she was in danger the first time, in the womb and hidden from view.

ENOUGH FOR HER
My wife is not living the life of a tragic victim. She is the happy mother of four children, and would not wish to part with any of them. My daughter learned of her origin after she was over twenty years of age and it became obvious that the truth could not be hidden without confusion. Someone had taken pictures of her as a three-year-old, at the wedding of her parents. I had been warned, "Never tell her, it would devastate her to know."

Not so. Rather, the mystery was unsettling, and the truth was welcome. You see, it did not matter. She had always known that God is the Author of Life - all life. Every human being is made in his image, and that means everything when a child is raised to understand that the image of God became more than an abstract idea in Hebrew Scripture when the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. And it was enough for her that she has a mother and a father who love her.

For both Diane and me, the details of our daughter's early life and strange origins are very much out of mind, far from conscious thought. That is, unless something brings them to mind, such as realizing that it is time to tell our story for the benefit of others who are caught in what seem like desperate circumstances, and who need the courage to make the decision to let the Author of Life do his healing and creative work, bringing light out of darkness and good out of evil: who need to make the decision of love.

Thursday, September 14, 2017

Typology - the authentic Christian approach to the Old Testament



Long-time readers of this blog will know that I have always been a devotee of the typological approach to the Old Testament. Go HERE for my remarks on this by way of introducing the work of Methodist scholar, Margaret Barker.

Today, in his blog post on lamentable modern paraphrases that nudge out of a particular Marian devotion some well-known Old Testament imagery and expressions, the redoubtable Fr John Hunwicke makes some important points about how the Old Testament was understood in the early centuries of the Church.  

In my opinion, he firmly hits the nail on the head when he says: 

... My next reservation is more substantial: a form of Litany of our Lady is offered, clearly designed to be be more ‘modern’ than the traditional Litany (“of Loretto”). You know what I mean: instead of (ex.gr.) “Turris Davidica”, one might invoke “Woman of Faith”; instead of “Ora pro nobis”, one might pray “Keep us in mind”.

I mention this not for the rather cheap motive of inviting you to groan at the inept ‘modernity’ of such things, but because what we are losing here is in fact something extremely important: the typological character of the old Litany. The titles of our Lady in that Litany include many of the  typological titles which Christian devotion, since at least the time of the Council of Ephesus, has discovered in the Old Testament as pointers to the Mother of the Incarnate Word.

Typology is discerning in the Old Testament the Figure of Christ and his Mother and the events of their lives, so that the Old Testament passage is the Type and the New Testament Figure or event is the Antitype. Typology is the central way in which the Great Tradition of both East and West has appropriated the Old Testament. It goes back to the New Testament texts themselves: Christ as the New Adam ... and see I Corinthians 10:1-11 ... and look at I Peter 3:20-21 ... etc.etc.. Typology is part of the fundamental Grammar of the Faith; something even deeper than dogma.

Today ... the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross ... liturgical texts reminded us that the Lifting up of the Son of Man on the Cross is the Antitype of which the Lifting up of the serpent in the desert was the Type (Numbers 21:4-9; S John 3:13-17; S John 12:32). 

I know that most laity have not been taught about Typology; because the Clergy weren’t taught it either; because there were so much more important things for them to be taught in seminary (the Synoptic Problem... the inauthenticity of most of S Paul’s letters ...). But seeing the Lorettan Litany displaced by a modernist ‘relevant’ formula devoid of Typology brought home to me again the radical impoverishment of current Catholic culture.

Wednesday, September 13, 2017

St John Chrysostom: The Eucharist "makes earth become to you a heaven".



From St John Chrysostom's Sermon on the Gospel of St Matthew 82, 4

St John Chrysostom was born of Christian parents, about the year 344, in the city of Antioch. His mother, at the age of 20, was a praised for her holiness and faith. John studied rhetoric under Libanius, a pagan, the most famous orator of the age.

In 374, John began to lead the life of an anchorite (or hermit) in the mountains near Antioch, but in 386 the poor state of his health forced him to return to the city, where he was ordained a priest.

In 398, he was made Bishop of Constantinople and became one of the greatest teachers the Church has known. But because he did not hold back from denouncing the abuses of authority and wealth he witnessed both in the Church and in the Empire, he had enemies in high places, not least of all Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria (who repented of this before he died), and the empress Eudoxia. Several false accusations were brought against him in a pseudo-council, and he was sent into exile.

In the midst of his pain, suffering, and rejection, like the apostle, St Paul, whom he so greatly admired, he knew the peace and happiness of the Lord. It reassured him, too, that the Pope remained supportive of him and did what he could. But Chrysostom’s enemies were not satisfied with the sufferings they had already caused him; they exiled him still further away, to Pythius, at the extremity of the Empire. He died on his way there on September 14, 407. 

It was after his death that he was called Chrysostom, which comes from the Greek for “golden-mouthed.” Today is his commemoration in the Church's calendar.

The following passage is from St John Chrysostom’s sermon on 1 Corinthians 10. It speaks of the real presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, and our need to be prepared for Holy Communion. It also speaks of the merging of earth and heaven together in the celebration of the Eucharist.  


This Body, even lying in a manger, Magi reverenced. Yea, men profane and barbarous, leaving their country and their home, both set out on a long journey, and when they came, with fear and great trembling worshipped him. Let us, then, at least imitate those Barbarians, we who are citizens of heaven. For they indeed when they saw him but in a manger, and in a hut, and no such thing was in sight as you behold now, drew near with great awe. 

But you behold him not in the manger but on the altar, not a woman holding him in her arms, but the priest standing by, and the Spirit with exceeding bounty hovering over the gifts set before us. You do not see merely this Body itself as they did, but you know also its power, and the whole economy, and are ignorant of none of the holy things which are brought to pass by it, having been exactly initiated into all.

Let us therefore rouse ourselves up and be filled with awe, and let us show forth a reverence far beyond that of those Barbarians; that we may not by random and careless approaches heap fire upon our own heads.  But these things I say, not to keep us from approaching, but to keep us from approaching without preparation. For as the approaching at random is dangerous, so the not communicating in those mystical suppers is famine and death. For this Table is the sinews of our soul, the bond of our mind, the foundation of our confidence, our hope, our salvation, our light, our life. When with this sacrifice we depart into the outer world, with much confidence we shall tread the sacred threshold, fenced round on every side as with a kind of golden armor.

And why do I speak of the world to come? Since here this mystery makes earth become to you a heaven. Open only for once the gates of heaven and look in; nay, rather not of heaven, but of the heaven of heavens; and then you will behold what I have been speaking of. For what is there most precious of all, this will I show you lying upon the earth. For as in royal palaces, what is most glorious of all is not walls, nor golden roofs, but the person of the king sitting on the throne; so likewise in heaven the Body of the King. But this, you are now permitted to see upon earth. For it is not angels, nor archangels, nor heavens and heavens of heavens, that I show you, but the very Lord and Owner of these. Do you perceive how that which is more precious than all things is seen by you on earth; and not seen only, but also touched; and not only touched, but likewise eaten; and after receiving it you go home?

Make your soul clean then, prepare your mind for the reception of these mysteries. For if you were entrusted to carry a king’s child with the robes, the purple, and the diadem, you would cast away all things which are upon the earth. But now that it is no child of man how royal soever, but the only-begotten Son of God himself, whom you received, do you not thrill with awe, tell me, and cast away all the love of all worldly things, and have no bravery but that wherewith to adorn yourself? Or do you still look towards earth, and love money, and pant after gold? What pardon then can you have? What excuse? Do you not know that all this worldly luxury is loathsome to your Lord? Was it not for this that on his birth he was laid in a manger, and took to himself a mother of low estate? Did he not for this say to him that was looking after gain, “But the Son of Man has not where to lay his head?” Matthew 8:20

And what did the disciples? Did they not observe the same law, being taken to houses of the poor and lodged, one with a tanner, another with a tent-maker, and with the seller of purple? For they inquired not after the splendour of the house, but for the virtues of men’s souls.

These therefore let us also emulate, hastening by the beauty of pillars and of marbles, and seeking the mansions which are above; and let us tread under foot all the pride here below with all love of money, and acquire a lofty mind. For if we be sober-minded, not even this whole world is worthy of us, much less porticoes and arcades. Wherefore, I beseech you, let us adorn our souls, let us fit up this house which we are also to have with us when we depart; that we may attain even to the eternal blessings.

Friday, September 8, 2017

Our Lady's Birthday



Most of what we know about Our Lady's birthday is from the Protoevangelium of James which has been dated by historians to the early second century. The earliest reference to the feast day itself comes from the sixth century. Most scholars believe that the feast originated in Jerusalem because of the existence of a church dedicated to St Anne dating from in the fifth century and considered to be the location of Mary's birth. Historians generally accept that September 8 was chosen for this feast day on account of the beginning of the civil year in Constantinople on September 1, emphasising that the birthday of Mary is the "beginning" of the work of salvation.

This feast day was introduced in Rome from the Eastern Church in the seventh century. It became a holy day of obligation throughout the west by the year 1007.

I share with you today two very different readings. The first, by John Mason Neale (1818-1866), is from his well known sermon for this feast. The second, a poem by Thomas Merton (1915-1968) explores the symbolic significance of our Lord's genealogy (the Gospel reading for today). 


JOHN MASON NEALE PREACHING ON 
OUR LADY'S BIRTHDAY

“THE LORD, WHOM YE SEEK, SHALL SUDDENLY COME TO HIS TEMPLE.” - MALACHI III. 1.

THERE is no festival of S. Mary which has not also to do with our LORD. How should it be otherwise? She who was so closely and so wonderfully connected with Him as Man, so that He was bone of her bone, and flesh of her flesh, she cannot be divided in our thoughts from Him now. He is still Man, as truly as He ever was; He still has the flesh which He took of her; the same in which He suffered, the same in which He died, the same in which He rose again from the dead.

This text has, then, to do both with our LORD and with His Blessed Mother; and we may also apply it to ourselves, and say that it has to do with us.

“The LORD, Whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His Temple.” First of all, this prophecy was fulfilled when the Archangel Gabriel was sent to Nazareth with the most wonderful message that was ever heard on earth. “Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favour with GOD. And behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a Son, and shalt call His Name JESUS.” The womb of S. Mary was the temple into which our LORD at that moment entered. There it was that He, Who was the Desire of all nations, -He, Who even then might have said, “The earth is weak, and all the inhabiters thereof: I bear up the pillars of it,”- He, Whom the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain,-there He lay hid for all those long months, until the fulness of the time came, and GOD was born into the world. David, in the Psalms, represents our LORD as anxious to find out this temple for Himself: “I will not give sleep to mine eyes, nor slumber to mine eyelids, neither shall the temples of my head take any rest: until I find out a place for the temple of the LORD, an habitation for the mighty GOD of Jacob.” This place, this habitation, He did find out, when the HOLY GHOST came upon S. Mary, and the power of the Highest overshadowed her, and the Word of the FATHER took flesh in her womb.

“The LORD, Whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple.” And this promise was fulfilled the second time when our LORD was presented in the temple, at the Purification of His Blessed Mother,--in memory of which we keep Candlemas-day. It was His temple, though the Jews little knew it: He, then an infant six weeks old, was the one true Priest, though the High Priest little thought it; He was LORD of the countless armies of angels, and of all the tribes of men, though He had so few that were truly waiting for Him. “The LORD, Whom ye seek.” How many were those that sought Him then? If I count rightly, four only. See if I am wrong. S. Luke tells us that Anna the prophetess “coming in that instant, gave thanks likewise to the LORD, and spake of Him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem.” All, then, that looked for redemption in Jerusalem were at that moment in the temple--there were none others besides; and for all that appears, they were only S. Anna herself, S. Mary, and S. Joseph, and Simeon. Pour courtiers to wait on such a King!

“The LORD, Whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple.” This Scripture is fulfilled before us every day; for every day the HOLY GHOST comes down into His temples, the bodies of those who are baptized: He comes suddenly, He comes without preparation,--a few words, a little water,--and His temple is consecrated to Him for ever. As S. Paul tells us, “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the HOLY GHOST?” and again, “Know ye not, that ye are the temple of GOD, and that the Spirit of GOD dwelleth in you?”

But those temples must, little by little, day by day, fall to pieces and perish. “This earthly house of our tabernacle must be dissolved,” says S. Paul. And when it shall have been,--when earth shall have returned to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust,--then also this text shall be fulfilled; “The LORD, Whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple.” He shall come to it, to raise it up again from the earth, and--if it has been His true temple--to make it His glorious dwelling for ever. And this shall be suddenly, too, as S. Paul also tells us: “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”

That will be the last time that our LORD will come to His temple; for afterwards He shall abide in it for ever. The LORD GOD Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of that Holy City, New Jerusalem, which S. John saw, and which we also some day hope to see: according to that saying, “Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of My GOD, and he shall go no more out.”

Now, what we are to notice in all these comings of our LORD to His temple, is their suddenness. “The LORD, Whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple.” In one moment He was conceived in the womb of S. Mary; in one moment He turns the heart of an infant, from being the abode and the den of Satan, into His own holy temple; in one moment He will raise up these bodies of ours, turning them from mortal to immortal, from corruptible to incorruptible. GOD does not stand in need of time to do His wonderful works. One day is with the LORD as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

But we may take this verse in yet one more sense. “The LORD shall suddenly come to His temple,” when He comes to each of you at death. Long or short as your last illness may be, still the LORD’S coming will be sudden. There is one point, one moment of time, at which you will leave the world and go to Him. Then all our happiness depends on whether the first part of the verse be true: “the LORD, Whom ye seek.” If so, all is well. Then His Coming, though it must be dreadful, will also be glorious; then we may make answer with S. John, “He Which testifieth these things, saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen: even so come, LORD JESUS.”

But suppose the LORD, Whom ye do not seek, should suddenly come to His temple?

And now to GOD the FATHER, GOD the SON, and GOD the HOLY GHOST, be all honour and glory for ever. Amen.


RAHAB'S HOUSE
by Thomas Merton

Now the lean children of the God of armies 
(Their feet command the quaking earth)
Rise in the desert, and divide old Jordan 
To crown this city with a ring of drums. 
(But see this signal, like a crimson scar
Bleeding on Rahab's window-sill, 
Spelling her safety with the red of our Redemption.)

The trumpets scare the valley with their sudden anger,
And thunderheads lean down to understand the nodding ark, 
While Joshua's friend, the frowning sun, 
Rises to burn the drunken houses with his look. 
(But far more red upon the wall 
Is Rahab's rescue than his scarlet threat.)

The clarions bind the bastions with their silver treble, 
Shiver the city with their golden shout: 
(Wells dry up, and stars fly back, 
The eyes of Jericho go out,)
The drums around the reeling ark 
Shatter the ramparts with a ring of thunder.

The kings that sat
On gilded chairs, 
The princes and the great 
Are dead. 
Only a harlot and her fearful kindred 
Fly like sparrows from that sudden grin of fire.

It is the flowers that will one day rise from Rahab's earth,
That have redeemed them from the hell of Jericho.
A rod will grow 
From Jesse's tree, 
Among her sons, the lords of Bethlehem, 
And flower into Paradise.

Look at the gentle irises admiring one another by the water, 
Under the leafy shadows of the Virgin's mercy, 
And all the primroses and laughing flags 
Bowing before Our Lady Mary in the Eden of her intercession, 
And praising her, because they see the generations 
Fly like a hundred thousand swallows into heaven, 
Out of the jaws of Jericho, 
Because it was the Son of God 
Whose crimson signal wounded Rahab's wall, 
Uttered our rescue in a figure of His Blood.