Patrick Comerford
We are in the countdown to Christmas in the Church, with just 10 days to go to Christmas. Sunday was the Second Sunday of Advent (10 December 2023), and we are more than half-way through what is a very short Advent this year.
Throughout Advent this year, my reflections each day include a poem or song by Leonard Cohen. These Advent reflections are following this pattern:
1, A reflection on a poem or song by Leonard Cohen;
2, the Gospel reading of the day in the Church of England lectionary;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.
The Songs and Poems of Leonard Cohen: 13, ‘I turned you to stone’:
Leonard Cohen’s Book of Mercy is a personal and powerful collection of psalms. It was first published in 1984, and was republished 35 years later in 2019 by Canongate of Edinburgh. It is a slim volume of Cohen’s contemporary psalms, and it has been elegantly repackaged.
Like the psalms, the themes in the short poems in Book of Mercy include praise, despair, anger, doubt, trust and the search for the presence of God.
Constantly, Leonard Cohen speaks of God as ‘the Name’ – Hashem (השם) – is a title used in Judaism to refer to God without using God’s name. Rabbinic Judaism considers seven names of God so holy that, once written, they should not be erased, and restricts the use of those names of God to a liturgical context.
When Cohen says ‘Blessed be the Name,’ he is saying ‘Blessed be God.’
Speaking from the heart of the modern world, yet in tones that resonate with an older Jewish tradition, these verses give voice to the deepest and most powerful intuitions.
This morning, I am reading one of these short poems, ‘I turned you to stone’ (p 57), which is rooted in the traditions of Jewish spirituality, yet echoes many of the threads found in the spiritual writings and poetry of Saint Teresa of Avila, Saint John of the Cross and John Donne.
Leonard Cohen, I turned you to stone:
I turned you to stone. You stepped outside the stone. I turned you to desire. You saw me touch myself. I turned you into a tradition. The tradition devoured its children. I turned you to loneliness, and it corrupted into a vehicle of power. I turned you into a silence which became a roar of accusation. If it be your will, accept the longing truth beneath this wild activity. Open me, O heart of truth, hollow out the stone, let your Bride fulfil this loneliness. I have no other hope, no other moves. This is my offering of incense. This is what I wish to burn, my darkness with no blemish, my ignorance with no flaw. Bind me to your will, bind me with these threads of sorrow, and gather me out of the afternoon where I have torn my soul on twenty monstrous altars, offering all things but myself.
Matthew 11: 16-19 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 16 ‘But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market-places and calling to one another,
17 “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
we wailed, and you did not mourn.”
18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, “He has a demon”; 19 the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners!” Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.’
Today’s Prayers (Friday 15 December 2023):
The theme this week in the new edition of ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘The Faith of Advent.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (15 December 2023) invites us to pray in these words:
Lord, thank you for being faithful and fulfilling all your promises. You have said that faith comes through hearing the word of God. Open our ears that we may be attentive to your voice. Help us to listen and respond.
The Collect:
O Lord, raise up, we pray, your power
and come among us,
and with great might succour us;
that whereas, through our sins and wickedness
we are grievously hindered
in running the race that is set before us,
your bountiful grace and mercy
may speedily help and deliver us;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
to whom with you and the Holy Spirit,
be honour and glory, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Father in heaven,
who sent your Son to redeem the world
and will send him again to be our judge:
give us grace so to imitate him
in the humility and purity of his first coming
that, when he comes again,
we may be ready to greet him
with joyful love and firm faith;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Almighty God,
purify our hearts and minds,
that when your Son Jesus Christ comes again
as judge and saviour
we may be ready to receive him,
who is our Lord and our God.
Yesterday’s Reflection
Continued Tomorrow
Reading Leonard Cohen’s ‘I turned you to stone’
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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