Praying with USPG and the hymns of Vaughan Williams: Friday 12 August 2022

George Herbert (left) with two other Cambridge theologians, Bishop Brooke Foss Westcott (centre) and Henry Martyn (right), in a window in All Saints’ Church, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Before the day gets busy, I am taking some time this morning for reading, prayer and reflection.

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, whose music is celebrated throughout this year’s Proms season. In my prayer diary for these weeks I am reflecting in these ways:

1, One of the readings for the morning;

2, Reflecting on a hymn or another piece of music by Vaughan Williams, often drawing, admittedly, on previous postings on the composer;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary, ‘Pray with the World Church.’

‘Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him’ (Luke 24: 31) … the Supper at Emmaus, a mosaic in the Church of the Holy Name on Beechwood Avenue, Ranelagh, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In Common Worship in the Church of England, the Gospel reading at Morning Prayer today is:

Luke 24: 13-35 (NRSVA):

13 Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, 14 and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. 15 While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, 16 but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 17 And he said to them, ‘What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?’ They stood still, looking sad. 18 Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, ‘Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?’ 19 He asked them, ‘What things?’ They replied, ‘The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, 20 and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. 21 But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. 22 Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, 23 and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. 24 Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.’ 25 Then he said to them, ‘Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! 26 Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?’ 27 Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.

28 As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. 29 But they urged him strongly, saying, ‘Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.’ So he went in to stay with them. 30 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. 32 They said to each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?’ 33 That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. 34 They were saying, ‘The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!’ 35 Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.



Today’s reflection: ‘The Five Mystical Songs,’ 5, ‘Let all the world in every corner sing’

Ralph Vaughan Williams was the composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores, a collector of English folk music and song. With Percy Dearmer, he co-edited the English Hymnal, in which he included many folk song arrangements as hymn tunes, and several of his own original compositions.

This morning [12 August 2022], I have chosen the hymn ‘The Call’ by the 17th century Welsh-born English priest-poet George Herbert (1593-1633).

For the weekdays this week, I have been reflecting on ‘The Five Mystical Songs,’ composed by Vaughan Williams between 1906 and 1911. He conducted the first performance of the completed work at the Three Choirs Festival in Worcester on 14 September 1911.

The work, taken as one, sets four poems by George Herbert from his collection The Temple: Sacred Poems (1633).

Many of George Herbert’s poems have become hymns that are well-known and well-loved by generations of Anglicans. They include including the fifth of these mystical songs, as the hymn ‘Let all the world in every corner sing,’ as well as ‘Teach me, my God and King’ and ‘King of Glory, King of Peace.’

George Herbert was the Public Orator at Cambridge for eight years, and spent only three years as a priest before he died. He was a younger contemporary of Shakespeare, and lived at a time when the English language was expanding and developing its literary capacities, aided by the publication of the King James Version of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer.

His first biographer, Izaak Walton, described Herbert on his deathbed as “composing such hymns and anthems as he and the angels now sing in heaven.” The Temple was edited by his friend Nicholas Ferrar and was published in Cambridge later that year as The Temple: Sacred poems and private ejaculations. It met with such popular acclaim that it had been reprinted 20 times by 1680, and went through eight editions by 1690.

Like most Anglicans of his day, Herbert sought to steer a middle course between the Roman Catholics and the Puritans. Perhaps he appealed to Vaughan Williams because were both men were creatively preoccupied with that age-old conflict between God and World, Flesh and Spirit, Soul and Senses.

Both George Herbert and Vaughan Williams were students at Trinity College Cambridge, and the composer’s father, the Revd Arthur Vaughan Williams, served as a curate in Bemerton, the Wiltshire parish where Herbert had been vicar 200 years earlier.

Vaughan Williams wrote his ‘Five Mystical Songs’ for a baritone soloist, with several choices for accompaniment: piano only; piano and string quintet; TTBB chorus, a cappella; and orchestra with optional SATB chorus, the choice Vaughan Williams used at the premiere.

Like George Herbert’s simple verse, the songs are fairly direct, but have the same intrinsic spirituality as the original text. The first four songs are personal meditations in which the soloist takes a key role. They were supposed to be performed together, as a single work, but the styles of each vary quite significantly.

The first four songs are personal meditations in which the soloist takes a key role. The first four songs are personal meditations in which the soloist takes a key role. However, the final ‘Antiphon’ is the most different of all the hymns. This the climactic finale to Vaughan Williams’s ‘Five Mystical Songs’ and it is a staple of the sacred choral repertoire and a superb culminating work for both concert and worship settings.

This is a triumphant hymn of praise, sung either by the chorus alone or by the soloist alone. Unlike the previous four songs, a separate version is provided for a solo baritone. It is also sometimes performed on its own, as an anthem for choir and organ: ‘Let all the world in every corner sing.’

I have chosen this fifth mystical song ‘Antiphon,’ as my Lenten meditation this morning [12 August 2022]. This poem has been set to music by many other composers and it is included in the New English Hymnal (Hymn 394) and the Irish Church Hymnal (Hymn 360) as the hymn, with a well-known tune ‘Luckington’ by Basil Harwood. This version was also sung at the enthronement of Rowan Williams as Archbishop of Canterbury in 2003.

In my own collection of music, ‘Antiphon’ is the concluding track (No 17) in the collection Choral Classics recorded by Lichfield Cathedral Choir in 2008 with Philip Scriven as Director and Martyn Rawles on the Organ, a programme of popular choral music from the 16th century to the present day.

5, Antiphon

Let all the world in ev’ry corner sing:
My God and King.

The heavens are not too high,
His praise may thither flie;
The earth is not too low,
His praises there may grow.

Let all the world in ev’ry corner sing: My God and King.

The Church with psalms must shout,
No doore can keep them out;
But above all, the heart
Must bear the longest part.

Let all the world in ev’ry corner sing:
My God and King.

‘George Herbert (1593-1633) at Bemerton’ (William Dyce, 1860)

Today’s Prayer:

Friday 12 August 2022 (International Youth Day):

The theme in the USPG prayer diary this week is ‘International Youth Day.’ It was introduced on Sunday by Dorothy deGraft Johnson, a Law student from Ghana.

The USPG Prayer Diary invites us to pray today in these words:

Today we celebrate young people and the perspectives they have to share. May we listen to them and act on their words..

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

The Supper at Emmaus (left) and the Apostle Thomas (right) in a window in Christ Church, Leomansley, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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

Thomas Comerford Lawler and Father Ronald Lawler, brothers and US Catholic theologians

Father Ronald Lawler (the Revd Dr David Comerford Lawler) ... a Capuchin friar and leading American theologian

Patrick Comerford

The brothers Thomas Comerford Lawler and Father Ronald Lawler (David Comerford Lawler) were two leading Catholic theologians and patristic scholars in America in the second half of the 20th century.

Thomas Comerford Lawler was a leading officer in the CIA before attention to patristic studies and becoming a prominent lay theologian. His brother, Father Ronald Lawler, was a Capuchin friar and at one time the only American member of the Pontifical Roman Theological Academy.

For many years, because of the conjunction of the Comerford Lawler names and the many doctors in the family, I wondered whether they were related to the Comerford Lawler family of Bunclody (Newtownbarry), Co Wexford.

However, in my recent researches, while I have been able to trace their family back to James Comerford, who emigrated from Ireland to New York in the 1830s, I have been unable to pinpoint which branch of the Comerford family this James Comerford is descended from. This family included many medical doctors, a highly-decorated US naval officer, a senior CIA officer, and these two prominent theologians.

So far, my research on these Comerford Lawler brothers takes me back to:

JAMES COMERFORD (ca 1810 – post 1853). He was born in Ireland ca 1810 and later emigrated to the US, living in Chemung, New York. He married Hannah … before 1839 and they were the parents of six children:

1, Mary, born ca 1839.
2, Patrick Comerford (ca 1840-post 1921), born ca 1840, died post 1921.
3, Catharine, born ca 1847.
4, Hannah (1850-1921), of whom next.
5, Elizabeth, born ca 1851, married … Nelson.
6, Margaret, born ca 1853, married … Noonan.

The second named daughter and fourth child was:

HANNAH COMERFORD (1850-1921). She was born in Burlington, Vermont, on 1 March 1850, and lived in Elmira for most of her life. She married Thomas H Lawler (1849-1919), of Elmira, Chemung County, New York, in 1872. Thomas Lawler was born in August 1849 in Massachusetts, to Irish-born parents, and grew up in Longmeadow, Hampden, and Boston, Massachusetts.

Thomas Lawler died in 1919; Hannah (Comerford) Lawler died on 5 March 1921 in the family home at 600 West Clinton Street.

Thomas and Hannah were the parents of four sons and a daughter:

1, Leo Thomas Lawler (1878-1944), of whom next.

2, Dr Albert J Lawler (ca 1878-post 1921) of Niagara Falls New York. He married Mary … and they were the parents of at least one son:

• 1a, Leo Thomas Lawler (ca 1905-ca 2000) of Niagara Falls. He married Kathleen Hewitt (1912-2005), and they were the parents of Robert Lawler (born 1935).

3, Dr Arthur V Lawler of Niagara Falls.

4, Dr Robert James Lawler (1883-1942), MD, of the US Navy. He born in Elmira, New York, on 1 July 1883. He was commissioned on 8 May 1917 into the New York Naval Militia with the rank of Assistant Surgeon, Lieutenant, and later was assigned to the National Naval Volunteers and the US Naval Reserve Forces. He arrived in France on 2 September 1918 as a Battalion Surgeon in the Marines and soon found himself in combat. He was awarded a Navy Cross ‘for Extraordinary Heroism in the attack on St Mihiel, 12-16 September 1918 and east of Rheims 1-9 October 1918 (Blanc Mont & Vierzy) and in the attack on the Argonne, 1-11 November 1918.’

He was later awarded the Silver Star Medal with a Large Oak Leaf Cluster, the Purple Heart Medal (# 645), the American Defense Medal, the Victory Medal, the New York State Conspicuous Service Cross and the Croix de Guerre with Palm. Dr Lawler later served as a Regimental Surgeon.

He remained in the US Navy after World War I, receiving a regular commission in 1921. He served aboard USS Nevada, USS Pennsylvania and with the Garde de Haiti . He was retired due to physical disability in 1930. He became a Lieutenant Commander on the retired list in 1936. He was recalled to active service early in World War II and was promoted to Commander in March 1942. He died of heart failure on 1 October 1942, aged 59, in Elmira, New York.

5, Frances Lawler of Elmira, who did not marry.

The first named son:

LEO THOMAS COMERFORD LAWLER (1878-1944), of 214 Fayette Street, Cumberland, Maryland. He was born on 13 December 1878, in Elmira, Chemung County, New York. He was educated at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. He was the city electrician in Cumberland, Maryland, and later worked in real estate until 1929.

He married Lillian-Marie Wilhelmina Laing (1891-1960), daughter of Frederick Joseph Laing (1849-1904) and Catherine (Long) Laing (1854-1913).

Leo and Lillian were the parents of six children, three sons and three daughters:[1]

1, Mary Catherine (1917-2008), of Berlin, Maryland. Born 30 November 1917, Cumberlamd; she married John Anthony Busch (1913-1992) of Cincinnati, Ohio; she died 7 August 2008 in in Charles Town, Jefferson County, West Virginia.

2, (Dr) Thomas Comerford Lawler, of Sterling, Virginia (1920-2006), theologian and patristic scholar, of whom next.

3, (The Revd Dr) David Comerford Lawler (1926-2003), born in Cumberland, Maryland. As Father Ronald Lawler, OFM Cap, he was a Capuchin friar and a distinguished theologian. (See below)

4, Lillian M Lawler (died before 2003).

5, Frances Laing (1924-1998), married Wilton Anthony Baker of Cleveland, Ohio.

6, Albert (‘Bert’) G Comerford Lawler (1930-1991). Born in Cumberland, Maryland, 1930, died in Cumberland 22 August 1991.

The brothers Thomas Comerford Lawler and Father Ronald Lawler (David Comerford Lawler) were co-authors with Bishop Donald Wuerl of ‘The Teaching of Christ’ (1976)

The first son:

THOMAS COMERFORD LAWLER (1920-2005). Theologian and patristic scholar, of Sterling, Virginia. He was born in Cumberland, Maryland, on 19 December 1920, and was educated at Saint Fidelis Capuchin Seminary, Herman, Pennsylvania. He joined the US army in World War II, and was in the US army engineers from 1943 to 1946. He worked for the CIA for 26 years from 1951 to 1977 and received the CIA’s Intelligence Medal of Merit.[2]

He was president of the Federation of Catholic Parent-Teacher Organisations in Northern Virginia (1968-1970), and was one of six lay members of the National Catechetical Directory committee (1972-1978).[3]

From 1964 to 1991, he was co-editor of the Ancient Christian Writers series of translations from Latin and Greek, published by the Paulist Press, and in that series translated S. Augustine: Sermons for Christmas and Epiphany and The Letters of Saint Jerome (1963), Origen: Treatise on the Passover and Dialogue with Heraclides (1992), Saint Irenaeus of Lyons: Against the Heresies (1992).

He was co-author of The Teaching of Christ (1976) with his brother, Father Ronald Lawler, and Bishop Donald Wuerl of Pittsburgh. He was co-author of The Letters of Saint Jerome and The Teaching of Christ (Our Sunday Visitor, 1995), and The Gift of Faith (2001).

He was appointed director of religious education for the Catholic Diocese of Arlington in 1978. He served on the National Catechetical Directory committee, the board of directors of the Arlington Catholic Herald newspaper and the board of Catholic Charities.[4]

He received an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from Saint Joseph’s College, Standish, ME, and an honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity from the Notre Dame Pontifical Institute, Arlington. He received from Pope John Paul II awarded him the papal medal Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice in 2001.

After a long career in the CIA, he received the Intelligence Medal of Merit. A friend said: ‘He was perhaps the only man in history to earn his country’s highest award for spying and his Church’s highest award recognising the achievements of a layman.’[5]

He died on 20 November 2005, aged 84, at the Johnson Center at Falcons Landing in Cascades, Potomac Falls. He was buried on 23 January 2006 at Arlington National Cemetery.[6] Thomas and his wife of 55 years, Patricia Ann Fullerton Lawler, of Sterling had three sons, four grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.[7]

Thomas Comerford Lawler married Patricia Ann Fullerton (1927-2015), a journalist with the Cumberland News in Saint Mary’s Church, Cumberland, Maryland, on 24 September 1950. She was a daughter of Max R Fullerton (1905-1967) and Virginia E Fullerton (1906- ) of Baltimore.

They were the parents of three sons:

1, Peter Augustine Lawler, of Rome, Georgia.
2, Thomas Aquin Lawler, of Vienna.
3, Gregory Francis Lawler, of Ithaca, New York.

His next brother:

(The Revd Dr) DAVID A COMERFORD LAWLER (1926-2003) was born on 29 July 1926 in Cumberland, Maryland. As Father Ronald Lawler, OFM Cap, he was a Franciscan Capuchin friar, ordained on 28 August 1951.

A theologian, he was the only American member of the Pontifical Roman Theological Academy. He was educated at SS Peter and Paul School, Saint Fidelis Seminary, and Saint Louis University (PhD, 1958).

He taught at Saint Fidelis College, Herman, Pennsylvania, Josephinum College, Worthington, Ohio, the Catholic University of America, Washington DC, Saint Thomas University, Houston, Texas, Saint John University, New York, and the Holy Apostles’ College and Seminary, Cromwell, Connecticut.

In 1977, he was the founding president of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars, formed as a conservative counterpoint to the Catholic Theological Society of America. He was made a member of the Pontifical Roman Theological Academy in 1982 alongside Cardinal Henri de Lubac and Father Hans Urs von Balthazar.

He wrote on bioethics, defending church teaching on matters ranging from embryonic stem cell research to end-of-life issues. He was co-editor of the adult catechism The Teaching of Christ (1976), with his brother, Thomas Comerford Lawler, and Bishop Donald Wuerl of Pittsburgh.

He died on 5 November 2003 in Pittsburgh, aged 77. He was buried in Saint Augustine Cemetery, Shaler, Pennsylvania.[8]

Sources and references:

[1] Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 8.11.2003; Washington Post, 28.11.2005.
[2] Washington Post, 28.11.2005.
[3] Washington Post, 28.11.2005.
[4] Washington Post, 28.11.2005.
[5] Washington Post, 28.11.2005.
[6] Washington Post, 28.11.2005.
[7] Washington Post, 28.11.2005.
[8] Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 8.11.2003.