Evelyn Underhill's MISSA CANTATA

 

Since my teens I have been blessed by the writings of Evelyn Underhill (1875-1942), a widely acclaimed Church of England spiritual director who more than deserves to be rediscovered. An Anthology of the Love of God, published after her death, is a good initiation into her work.  Each chapter begins with a poem, many of which come from Immanence, published by Underhill in 1912. Immanence is available FREE for downloading from the internet. I love this particular poem, a deeply moving burst of praise to the Lord for his sacred presence in the Holy Eucharist:

MISSA CANTATA   

Once in an Abbey-church, the whiles we prayed 

All silent at the lifting of the Host, 

A little bird through some high window strayed ; 

And to and fro 

Like a wee angel lost 

That on a sudden finds its heaven below, 

It went the morning long. 

And made our Eucharist more glad with song. 

It sang, it sang ! and as the quiet priest 

Far off about the lighted altar moved, 

The awful substance of the mystic feast 

All hushed before, 

It, like a thing that loved 

Yet loved in liberty, would plunge and soar 

Beneath the vault in play 

And thence toss down the oblation of its lay. 

The walls that went our sanctuary around 

Did, as of old, to that sweet summons yield. 

New scents and sounds within our gates were found ; 

The cry of kine. 

The fragrance of the field, 

All woodland whispers, hastened to the shrine : 

The country side was come 

Eager and joyful, to its spirit’s home. 

Far-stretched I saw the cornfield and the plough, 

The scudding cloud, the cleanly-running brook, 

The humble, kindly turf, the tossing bough 

That all their light 

From Love’s own furnace took — 

This altar, where one angel brownly bright 

Proclaimed the sylvan creed. 

And sang the Benedictus of the mead. 

All earth was lifted to communion then. 

All lovely life was there to meet its King ; 

Ah, not the little arid souls of men 

But sun and wind 

And all desirous thing 

The ground of their beseeching here did find ; 

All with one self-same bread. 

And all by one eternal priest, were fed.

The Mass, the Communion of Saints, and a Benhilton Parishioner

(Click to enlarge)

This picture of the Mass being celebrated is very much of its time. It was painted by former All Saints’ Benhilton parishioner Thomas Noyes Lewis (1862-1946), at the heart of whose work is the sense of the veil being lifted in the Eucharist so that we might “see” what is really going on ... that is, that we are not IMITATING here on earth the worship we imagine to be going on in heaven, but that we are actually JOINED TO IT by the power of the Holy Spirit and the mystery of the outward and visible signs appointed by the Lord himself. 

Well do I remember having acquired in my early teens Through the Veil: Communion Book, published in 1930 by The Faith Press. As the title suggests, its purpose was to help Anglo-Catholic laypeople of that era (and down to the 1960s!) grasp more fully within the Communion of Saints our participation in the heavenly worship. The Mass book was, of course, in Cranmerian language, and sumptuously illustrated by Noyes Lewis, whose well-known painting The Place of Meeting, published as a print shortly after World War I, had a very wide circulation throughout the Anglo-Catholic world. (I’ve seen it in sacristies, vestries, vicarages, and even diocesan offices the world over!) In fact, as an artist, Noyes Lewis was most noted for work on religious - particularly Catholic - themes. He produced a great many illustrations for Sunday School albums. He worked with The Faith Press for many years until about 1932 producing several series of picture cards, including the Scout Promise. He then created The Gospel Stamps for The Plaistow Press. A set of his Stations of the Cross is at St Giles’ Church, Matlock (go HERE). 

As we at All Saints’ Benhilton keep our Patronal Festival today, it is appropriate to acknowledge the contribution of Thomas Noyes Lewis in helping so many Anglicans around the world embrace a truly Catholic understanding of the Mass. 

An original painting of his - a Madonna and Child - hangs in our choir vestry in memory of his wife who predeceased him. Father Marcus Donovan, Vicar from 1945 to 1961, in his History of the Church and Parish of All Saints’ Benhilton, writes of the period just before World War I: 

“Gradually the church was being adorned. A frontal for the High Altar was designed by the well-known artist, Mr. Noyes Lewis, and embroidered by the indefatigable Miss Ridout ... Mr. Noyes Lewis was for many years a worshipper at Benhilton and used to serve at the altar. He died in 1946; the last communication we had from him was in that year, when he presented the church with the Stations of the Cross which he had designed.”

Here is the Elevation of the Host by Noyes Lewis, from Through the Veil: Communion Book:

(Click to enlarge)