Patrick Comerford
We are still in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and tomorrow is the Fourth Sunday before Advent (5 November 2023).
Before today begins, I am taking some time for prayer and reflection early this morning.
Throughout this week, with the exceptions of All Saints’ Day on Wednesday (1 November) and All Souls’ Day on Thursday (2 November), my reflections each morning this week have been following this pattern:
1, A reflection on a church or cathedral in Southwark;
2, the Gospel reading of the day in the Church of England lectionary;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.
The Harvard Chapel, Southwark Cathedral:
The Harvard Chapel in the north transept of Southwark Cathedral commemorates John Harvard as a ‘godly gentleman and lover of learning.’ Harvard, who gives his name to Harvard University in Cambridge, near Boston. He was baptised in Saint Saviour’s Church, now Southwark Cathedral, on 29 November 1607, and his father’s signature is in the cathedral register.
John Harvard (1607-1638) was the fourth of nine children of Robert Harvard and his wife Katherine Rogers (1584-1635), originally from Stratford-upon-Avon. Robert Harvard was a prominent businessman with a butcher’s business in Pepper Alley. As a Warden of Saint Saviour’s, he had considerable influence in his community. John Harvard attended Saint Saviour’s Grammar School, where his father was a governor.
Robert Harvard and four of the children in his family died during the plague in Southwark in 1625. His widow Katherine remarried twice, and acquired the Queen’s Head Inn on Borough High Street. The street had been lined with galleried coaching inns since the days of Chaucer’s time, each one a starting point for a different destination.
John Harvard entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1627, and graduated BA (1632) and MA (1635). At Cambridge, he learned of John Winthrop’s plans to establish a Puritan settlement in New England. John married Ann Sadler (1614-1655), a minister’s daughter, in 1636 or 1637.
After the death of John’s mother and elder brother, John and Ann left for Massachusetts in 1637. He died of consumption in 1638 and left half his estate and his library of books to the proposed new college, now known as Harvard University.
He is commemorated by the Harvard Chapel, originally the Chapel of Saint John the Evangelist, in the north transept of Southwark Cathedral. The Harvard Chapel was rebuilt with donations from Harvard graduates and dedicated in 1907.
The splendid stained glass window was donated in 1905 by the then US Ambassador to London, Joseph Hodges Choate, a Harvard graduate, and was unveiled on 22 May 1905. The window was designed by the American artist, John La Farge (1835-1910), whose work is scarce in Europe. He was a contemporary and rival of the acclamed designer Louis Comfort Tiffany, and his window in the Harvard Chapel was made in the US under the supervision of the architect Charles F McKim.
The window is composed of six lancet panels in a large traceried frame. The lower register of the lancets depicts the Baptism of Christ by Saint John the Baptist in the central panel, and attendant angels flanking them in separate panels. The baptism scene is modelled on a painting by the French Baroque artist Nicholas Poussin (ca 1658) in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
The three panels in the upper register show the coat of arms Harvard to the left, the royal arms in the centre, and the coat of arms of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where Harvard studied, to the right.
Decorative swags fill the inset panels above the three upper lancets.
The window was well received at the time. The Times reported that ‘In obedience to his care for unity in all architectural features, Mr La Farge planned this window in harmony with the style of the great periods – the thirteenth and twelfth centuries. The strong pure reds and blues and the blazing La Farge green glow in the blonde walls with the force of jewels.’
The window was damaged during World War II in a bombing raid, and was reconstructed in 1948. The reconstruction of the faces particularly shows the damage. A modern text panel below the royal arms notes the damage and acknowledges the restoration sponsored by Harvard alumni.
The altar or Communion table in the Harvard Chapel was at one time the High Altar in Saint Saviour’s Church. It is noted for its fine twisted ‘barley legs.’ It was the gift of Joyce Lady Clarke in 1623, the widow of a lawyer-poet, and her memorial in the cathedral was designed in 1626 by Nicholas Stone who worked for Inigo Jones.
The Blessed Sacrament is reserved in the Harvard Chapel in the tabernacle designed for the Great Exhibition by the Gothic Revival architect AWN Pugin in 1851, a year before his death in 1852.
Luke 14: 1, 7-11 (NRSVA):
1 On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely.
7 When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honour, he told them a parable. 8 ‘When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honour, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; 9 and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, “Give this person your place”, and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. 10 But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, “Friend, move up higher”; then you will be honoured in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. 11 For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.’
Today’s Prayers (Saturday 4 November 2023):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), has been inspired by a Reflection – ‘He restores my soul’ – by Revd Dale R Hanson, introduced last Sunday.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (4 November 2023) invites us to pray in these words:
Bless the Lord, O my soul, O my soul. Worship His holy name. Sing like never before, O my soul. I’ll worship Your holy name.
The Collect:
Blessed Lord,
who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning:
help us so to hear them,
to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them
that, through patience, and the comfort of your holy word,
we may embrace and for ever hold fast
the hope of everlasting life,
which you have given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
God of all grace,
your Son Jesus Christ fed the hungry
with the bread of his life
and the word of his kingdom:
renew your people with your heavenly grace,
and in all our weakness
sustain us by your true and living bread;
who is alive and reigns, now and for ever.
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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