Patrick Comerford
Today [19 February 2023] is the Sunday Next Before Lent. In the some parishes, this Sunday is known as Transfiguration Sunday. In the past, this Sunday was known as Quinquagesima, one of those odd-sounding Latin names once used in the Book of Common Prayer for the Sundays in Ordinary Time between Candlemas and Lent: Septuagesima, Sexagesima and Quinquagesima.
These weeks, between the end of Epiphany and Ash Wednesday, are known as Ordinary Time. We are in a time of preparation for Lent, which in turn is a preparation for Holy Week and Easter.
Later today, I hope to be in Tamworth for a lunch celebrating the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Tamworth and District Civic Society. But, before catching the train to Tamworth later this morning, I am taking some time this morning for prayer and reflection.
In these days of Ordinary Time before Ash Wednesday later this week (22 February), I am reflecting in these ways each morning:
1, reflecting on a saint or interesting person in the life of the Church;
2, one of the lectionary readings of the day;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary, ‘Pray with the World Church.’
For my reflection this morning, I am reading John Keble’s poem, ‘Quinquagesima Sunday,’ recalling the traditional name once used for the Sunday before Lent.
John Keble (1792-1866) was an Anglican priest and poet, Professor of Poetry at Oxford, and one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement. He was born on Saint Mark’s Day, 25 April 1792, in Fairford, Gloucestershire, where his father, the Revd John Keble, a former Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, was Vicar of Coln St Aldwyn’s.
John Keble studied at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and in 1810, at the age of 18, he graduated with a double first in classics and mathematics. In 1811, He became a Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, in 1811 and was ordained deacon by the Bishop of Oxford on Trinity Sunday 1815, and priest in 1816.
He published The Christian Year in 1827. He wrote the poems to restore a deep feeling for the Church Year among Anglicans, and it received such great acclaim that its became the most popular volume of verse in the 19th century. One of the most popular poems in The Christian Year is the well-known hymn, ‘New every morning.’
The Christian Year went into 95 editions in his lifetime, and by the time the copyright expired in 1873, over 375,000 copies had been sold in Britain and 158 editions had been published.
The success of The Christian Year led to Keble being appointed Professor of Poetry in Oxford University (1831-1841).
His ‘Assize Sermon’ in Saint Mary’s University Church in 1833 was the spark that ignited the Oxford Movement. In 1835 he was appointed Vicar of Hursley, Hampshire, where he settled down to family life and remained for the rest of his life as a parish priest at All Saints’ Church.
He edited an edition of Richard Hooker’s works in 1836. The most important of his prose writings, however, was his treatise on Eucharistic Adoration.
John Keble died on 29 March 1866 at the age of 74. Within three years of his death, Keble College was established at Oxford ‘to give an education in strict fidelity to the Church of England.’
Quinquagesima Sunday by John Keble:
Sweet Dove! the softest, steadiest plume,
In all the sunbright sky,
Brightening in ever-changeful bloom
As breezes change on high; –
Sweet Leaf! the pledge of peace and mirth,
“Long sought, and lately won,”
Blessed increase of reviving Earth,
When first it felt the Sun; –
Sweet Rainbow! pride of summer days,
High set at Heaven’s command,
Though into drear and dusky haze
Thou melt on either hand; –
Dear tokens of a pardoning God,
We hail ye, one and all,
As when our fathers walked abroad,
Freed from their twelvemonth’s thrall.
How joyful from the imprisoning ark
On the green earth they spring!
Not blither, after showers, the lark
Mounts up with glistening wing.
So home-bound sailors spring to shore,
Two oceans safely past;
So happy souls, when life is o’er,
Plunge in this empyreal vast.
What wins their first and fondest gaze
In all the blissful field,
And keeps it through a thousand days?
Love face to face revealed:
Love imaged in that cordial look
Our Lord in Eden bends
On souls that sin and earth forsook
In time to die His friends.
And what most welcome and serene
Dawns on the Patriarch’s eye,
In all the emerging hills so green,
In all the brightening sky?
What but the gentle rainbow’s gleam,
Soothing the wearied sight,
That cannot bear the solar beam,
With soft undazzling light?
Lord, if our fathers turned to Thee
With such adoring gaze,
Wondering frail man Thy light should see
Without Thy scorching blaze;
Where is our love, and where our hearts,
We who have seen Thy Son,
Have tried Thy Spirit’s winning arts,
And yet we are not won?
The Son of God in radiance beamed
Too bright for us to scan,
But we may face the rays that streamed
From the mild Son of Man.
There, parted into rainbow hues,
In sweet harmonious strife
We see celestial love diffuse
Its light o’er Jesus’ life.
God, by His bow, vouchsafes to write
This truth in Heaven above:
As every lovely hue is Light,
So every grace is Love.
Matthew 17: 1-9 (NRSVA):
1 Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. 2 And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. 3 Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. 4 Then Peter said to Jesus, ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’ 5 While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!’ 6 When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. 7 But Jesus came and touched them, saying, ‘Get up and do not be afraid.’ 8 And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.
9 As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, ‘Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.’
USPG Prayer Diary:
The theme in the USPG Prayer Diary this week is ‘Social Justice in Sierra Leone.’
The Anglican Diocese of Freetown and the North in Sierra Leone joins with its neighbours around the world to mark World Day of Social Justice. Around the globe, millions of people are prohibited from living a fair life. In Sierra Leone, a country that has seen civil war, many of its people are without homes, jobs, healthcare, nutrition and more. It must be the responsibility of the privileged to ensure that a just world is created where social justice is a norm for all. As God’s word teaches us, social justice is mandatory. We are called to love our neighbour as ourselves. (Matthew 22: 39) This means eliminating poverty and illiteracy, and any form of discrimination that violates human rights and prevents human flourishing.
The Church in Sierra Leone prays that its government and people will follow the teachings of the Bible and ‘give justice to the weak and the fatherless’ and ‘maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute’. (Psalm 82: 3) Its Livelihoods Recovery, Youth and Governance programme for young people in agriculture, aquaculture and food processing, sponsored by USPG, is underpinned by its determination to pursue justice for all. The Church prays that, being made in the image and likeness of God, Sierra Leoneans will learn to treat each other with love, that they will have equal access to justice and all will be able to share in the country’s resources.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 19 February, the Sunday next before Lent) invites us to pray in these words:
God of Justice,
let justice roll down like water
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream,
in the name of Jesus,
our guide and our peace.
Collect:
Almighty Father,
whose Son was revealed in majesty
before he suffered death upon the cross:
give us grace to perceive his glory,
that we may be strengthened to suffer with him
and be changed into his likeness, from glory to glory;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Post Communion:
Holy God,
we see your glory in the face of Jesus Christ:
may we who are partakers at his table
reflect his life in word and deed,
that all the world may know his power to change and save.
This we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s Reflection
Continued Tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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