Gentle Hearts Mirroring Celestial Fire

A banner day today: the second wedding anniversary of Margaret and Ethan!

Joy abounds.

I’ve been reading the poetry of Robert Bridges lately and have been contemplating “My Eyes for Beauty Pine” this morning — (does that not describe M?):

My eyes for beauty pine,
My soul for Goddès grace :
No other care nor hope is mine ;
To heaven I turn my face.

One splendour thence is shed
From all the stars above :
'Tis namèd when God’s name is said,
’Tis Love, ’tis heavenly Love.

And every gentle heart,
That burns with true desire,
Is lit from eyes that mirror part
Of that celestial fire.

and somehow I chanced (!) upon this beautiful anthem-setting of it by Elizabeth and Thomas Coxhead (a brother-sister duo).

And then I could hear in my head Bishop’s Richard Chartres marvelous, sonorous opening of his sermon at William and Catherine’s wedding: “Be who God meant you to be, and you will set the world on fire” (St. Catherine of Siena). We should remind ourselves often of this weighty sermon which is especially appropriate for today.

Bridges writes of God’s love, spiritual love, but Chartres reminds us that a husband and wife’s love can be a “door into the mystery of spiritual life in which we discover this: the more we give of self, the richer we become in soul; the more we go beyond ourselves in love, the more we become our true selves and our spiritual beauty is more fully revealed. In marriage we are seeking to bring one another into fuller life.”

Happy Anniversary to two “gentle hearts” with eyes to heaven that mirror the “celestial fire” of Heavenly Love.

Summertime's Soundtrack(s) and Fathers

Summertime…"I Love Beach Music”…

Summertime… In years past, we always used to blast Sonicflood’s “You Are My Refuge” as we reached our destination. (Don’t judge.)

Summertime...weddings…Rhosymedre or “Lovely.”
R. Vaughan-Williams’ setting is lovely, indeed. Texts to the tune include “My Song is Love Unknown” and “Our Father, by Whose Name.” The latter, written by F. Bland Tucker for the Hymnal 1940, was not familiar to me, but certainly adds a new dimension to our meditations as we listen, whether at weddings or other services.

“Our Father, by whose name
All fatherhood is known,
Who dost in love proclaim
Each family Thine own,
Bless Thou all parents, guarding well,
With constant love as sentinel,
The homes in which Thy people dwell.

O Christ, Thyself a child
Within an earthly home,
With heart still undefiled,
Thou didst to manhood come;
Our children bless, in every place,
That they may all behold Thy face,
And knowing Thee may grow in grace.

O Spirit, who dost bind
Our hearts in unity,
Who teaches us to find
The love from self set free,
In all our hearts such love increase,
That every home, by this release,
May be dwelling place of peace.”

Summertime…Father’s Day…
So thankful for my Dad, who looked and looks to our Heavenly Father as his pattern, who proclaims His love and loves constantly, whose goal it is to grow in grace, who puts others first, who strove to make our home a place of peace…

A Prayer Before Communion (Jeremy Taylor)

“O most blessed, most glorious Lord and Saviour Jesus; Thou that waterest the furrows of the earth and refreshest her weariness, and makest it very plenteous, behold, O God, my desert and unfruitful soul; I have already a parched ground; give me a land of rivers of waters; my soul is dry but not thirsty; it hath no water nor it desires none; I have been like a dead man to all the desires of heaven. I am earnest and concerned in the things of the world; but very indifferent, or rather not been greedy of Thy word, or longed for Thy sacraments; the worst of Thy followers came running after Thee for loaves though they cared not for the miracle; but Thou offerest me loaves and miracles together, and I have cared for neither: Thou offerest me Thyself and all Thy infinite sweetnesses, I have needed even the compulsion of laws to drive me to Thee; and then indeed I lost the sweetness of Thy presence, and reaped no fruit. These things, O God, are not well; they are infinitely amiss. But Thou that providest meat, Thou also givest appetite; for the desire and the meat, the necessity and the relief are all from Thee.”
(from The Worthy Communicant; Or, a Discourse of the Nature, Effects, and Blessings consequent to the Worthy Receiving of the Lord's Supper, And of all the Duties required in Order to a Worthy Preparation: Together with the Cases of Conscience occurring in the Duty of Him that Ministers, and of Him that Communicates; As also Devotions Fitted to Every Part of the Ministration, 1667)

… dry but not thirsty … going along not even desiring the water … not even cognizant …
grateful for this today