Saint Mary’s Church on Church Green Road, Bletchley … the parish church for many of the codebreakers at Bletchley Park (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
Patrick Comerford
I was in Saint Mary’s Church on Church Green Road, Bletchley, earlier this week for a meeting earlier this week, and I arrived a little early so I could take photographs and learn a little about this interesting church which is full of character and history.
Saint Mary’s was the local church and a focal point for many of the people who worked at Bletchley Park breaking the secret German codes during World War II, and they would have found solace and spiritual support at Saint Mary’s Church.
Bletchley is now one of the suburban or satellite towns of Milton Keynes, but the original 12th century chapel of ‘Bicchelai’ stood on high ground where Saint Mary’s Church stands today.
Inside Saint Mary’s Church, Bletchley, facing east … the chancel arch dates from the late 13th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
Saint Mary’s Church is listed Grade I because of its 12th century origins, the 12th century door or chancel arch, its rebuilding from the late 13th to the 15th century, the mediaeval roofs, the 15th century tomb of Richard Grey, Lord Grey de Wilton, and other interesting monuments.
The plan or outline includes a chancel with a north chapel, a nave with north and south aisles, a south porch and a west tower. Outside, Saint Mary’s is embattled throughout and is largely Perpendicular in appearance, with some Decorated windows and doorways. The chancel has a fine Decorated-style east window, entirely renewed in the 19th century, and two 19th Perpendicular style windows in the south wall and a 19th century doorway.
From the late 12th century, early priests in Bletchley were provided by the Benedictine monks at the Priory in Newton Longville. Later rectors were nominated by the de Grey, Wilton and Willis families, who have memorials in the church.
The church dates from Norman times and is built of limestone rubble with lead roofs. It is largely Perpendicular in appearance, with some Decorated windows and doorways. But the only surviving part of the Norman chapel is the arch of the south doorway, moved to its present position and reset ca 1300-1330.
The south porch was built around the south door, the earliest part of the church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
This curious south door is the earliest part of the church. The inner part has continuous mouldings and is probably late 13th century. The outer orders have rich Romanesque mouldings including a beakhead, and may be a former chancel arch or doorway reset and remodelled in the late 13th century. A porch was built to protect the archway in 1330, although rebuilding and restoration over the years have left little of the original porch.
The church was rebuilt in stages from the late 13th to the 15th century. The original chancel was replaced by the current building by 1290. The floor plan was almost in its final form by 1330, although there were further additions in the 14th and 15th centuries.
The north chapel east window is early 14th century with renewed, Decorated tracery, and there are traces of another 14th century window in the north wall, but otherwise the chapel and north aisle windows are late 15th century. The north aisle has a late 14th century north door. The 15th century nave clerestory has four windows on each side, each with three lights.
The east window in the south aisle dates from ca 1330 and has good Decorated tracery. The south aisle west window is 15th century, and there are two late Perpendicular style windows in the south wall.
Inside, the church has a very complete mediaeval fabric dating from the late 13th to 15th century, and has good mediaeval roofs.
The late 13th century chancel arch has the inner order on moulded capitals, and a contemporary south arcade has four bays, with chamfered arches and moulded capitals and bases. The blocked late 13th century clerestory has foiled circle openings above the arcade. A former rood loft door survives on the south side.
The two-bay chancel north arcade has ballflower decoration on the central capital. The arcade does not extend the full length of the chancel, and a small 14th century door at the east end of the arcade into the chapel indicates that both arches of the arcade were intended, as now, to be blocked by tombs. A blocked, trefoil-headed squint is beside the door. The 14th century arch between the chapel and the north aisle has recut head corbels.
The 14th century north arcade of four bays increases in length towards the west. The east respond has a 14th century head corbel and the west respond capital, may have been reset and has stylised flowers. The third pier has a 15th century capital.
The three-stage west tower was built in 1410 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
The final change to the shape of the building came in 1410 with the erection of the three-stage west tower (20 metres, 64 ft). The tower has a north-west diagonal buttress, a south-west stair turret rising above the parapet and a large Perpendicular west window. The tower arch has polygonal responds, and there is a 15th century clerestory. There is a small, probably 19th century timber gallery with a glazed, traceried screen below in the tower arch.
The piscina and sedilia in the chancel date from the late 13th or early 14th century, with four arches carried on attached shafts with moulded capitals and bases. There is a trefoil-headed, 14th century piscina in the north chapel.
The tomb of Richard Grey (1393-1442) in the north chancel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
Much of the 14th century work, and probably also the 15th century work, is associated with the Grey family, who held the manor of Over, West or Old Bletchley from the early 13th until the mid-17th century. The north chapel was intended as a chantry chapel and family mausoleum, although only the tomb of Richard Grey (1393-1442), 6th Lord Grey de Wilton, survives in the north chancel.
Grey accompanied Henry V to France at the time of the Battle of Agincourt. His grandmother, Lady Petronilla Butler, Baroness Talbot, was a daughter of James Butler, 1st Earl of Ormond. His monument is an armoured alabaster effigy on a chest panelled with quatrefoils. A 17th century helm hangs above.
Browne Willis (1682-1760), the early antiquary, owned the Bletchley estate from 1699 to 1760, and was responsible for refurbishing the church in 1704-1707. He had the church ‘repaired and beautified’, and the chancel was provided with a new ceiling and painted with the twelve Apostles ‘in the Verrio manner’, indicating an exuberance of clouds, draperies and rich decoration after the manner of Antonio Verrio (1639-1707).
A table tomb in the chancel is to his wife Katherine, who died in 1724. Unfortunately, both her tomb and Lord Grey’s tomb are partially hidden by an inserted floor in the sanctuary in the 1980s and by the screens for the service area.
Above these two monuments, on the north wall of the chancel, is an early, rare example of the coat-of-arms of Queen Anne which does not include the arms of Scotland, which were only added to hers in 1707.
The coat-of-arms of Queen Anne on the north wall of the chancel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
A former rector, Thomas Sparke, who died in 1616, is remembered in a small, unusual brass by Richard Haydocke showing a bust on a tomb chest surrounded by allegorical and other figures, texts and arabesque ornament, set within an alabaster strapwork frame.
Sparke was the Rector of Bletchley in 1603 when he was summoned to the Hampton Court Conference, involved in revising the Book of Common Prayer and the publication of the Authorised Version (King James Version) of the Bible.
A small, fragmentary, late 16th century monument with coloured alabaster effigies of a man and eight children is said to have been brought by Browne Willis from Deptford church.
The font may date from the 17th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
The plain font with a circular bowl may date from the 17th century. The octagonal cover is early 17th century and has a spire with arabesques.
The church also has a rare pre-Civil War poor box dating from 1637.
The reredos above the altar was designed by Sir John Ninian Comper (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
The reredos in the chancel was designed by Sir John Ninian Comper (1864-1960) in the 1950s. The oak panelling on either side of the reredos is a war memorial dating from World War I.
The 19th and early 20th century stained-glass windows include two pairs of windows by Comper in the south porch.
The five-light East Window (1868) above the reredos by Henry Holiday (1839-1927) for James Powell and Sons (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
The five-light East Window (1868) above the reredos was designed by Henry George Alexander Holiday (1839-1927) for James Powell and Sons and depicts the Annunciation (two lights), the Good Shepherd (centre), and the Nativity (two lights). Holiday had succeeded Edward Burne-Jones as the chief designer for Powell in 1863, and established his own workshop in 1890.
The three-light window at the east end of the south aisle with three Resurrection scenes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
The three-light window at the east end of the south aisle shows three Resurrection scenes: the Marys at the tomb, ‘Noli me Tangere’, and Mary Magdalene talking to the Disciples.
The Nativity window by Joseph Bell at the west end of the south aisle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
The three-light window at the west end of the south aisle (1903) shows the Nativity with the Shepherds and the Kings. It is by Joseph Bell & Son of Bristol. The firm was established by Joseph Bell (1810-1895), and was continued by his son (Frederick Henry Bell 1847-1899) and grandson (Frederick George Bell 1878-1967) until 1923.
Christ the King in the Selby-Lowndes family war memorial window (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
The three-light window towards the east end of the north aisle, ‘Mors Janua Vitae’ (‘Death the Gateway to Life’), is a Selby-Lowndes family war memorial window that shows Christ the King in the centre holding a crown, with two angels and a soldier to the left and two angels with an orb and sceptre to the right.
Two pairs of windows by Sir John Ninian Comper in the south porch (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
There are two pairs of small, trefoil-shaped windows by Sir John Ninian Comper (1864-1960) in the south porch: the pair on the east side show angels holding a scroll, ‘In Memory of Catherine Rogers’; the pair on the west side (1959) show two angels ringing two church bells.
Browne Willis’s chancel paintings were removed during the restoration in 1868, when the chancel south door was also altered, and the church was refurnished. The architect, William White (1825-1900), was a leading architect of the Victorian Gothic Revival.
The church was restored by William White in 1838.
The church was refurnished in the late 20th century with furnishings and chairs for seating. The pews, choir stalls and pulpit were removed in the 1980s, and the current stone floor was installed. The White period furnishings were removed and a two-storey service and meeting room area was installed in the north chapel. At the same time, both the chancel arcade and the arch to the aisle were blocked by timber and glazed screens for the service area.
The de Grey family continues to be remembered in the area in the name of the Lord Grey School, a three-minute walk from the church.
Inside Saint Mary’s Church, Bletchley, facing the west end and the 15th century tower (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
The ministry team at Saint Mary’s Church includes: the Revd David McDougall, Vicar; the Revd Rachel Ciampoli, Curate, and the Revd Simon Faulks, Assistant Minister. In addition, the Revd Peter Landry is at Whaddon Way Church, Bletchley, and the Revd Ben Thorpe is the Vicar of Saint Joseph’s Church, Newton Leys.
The weekly services include a one-hour service every Sunday at 10 am, and a Wednesday Communion at 10 am.
Saint Mary’s Church, Bletchley, seen from the north-east (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
16 December 2023
Saint Mary’s Church in
Bletchley, a modern
church dating back
to the 12th century
Daily prayers in Advent with
Leonard Cohen and USPG:
(14) 16 December 2023
‘Here It Is’ was first recorded on ‘Ten New Songs’ (2001), Leonard Cohen’s tenth studio album
Patrick Comerford
We are in the countdown to Christmas in the Church, with just nine days to go to Christmas Day. Tomorrow is the Third Sunday of Advent or Gaudete Sunday (17 December 2023), bringing us two-thirds of the 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.
‘Here is your cross, / Your nails and your hill; / And here is your love, / That lists where it will’ (Leonard Cohen) … Marc Chagall, ‘The White Crucifixion’ (1938)
The Songs and Poems of Leonard Cohen: 14, ‘Here It Is’:
‘Here It Is,’ a poem/song by Leonard Cohen, was first released 22 years ago on his tenth studio album, Ten New Songs, co-written and produced by Sharon Robinson and released in 2001.
I first used this poem in a Lenten setting when I was asked to preach at the Three Hours Devotions in Saint Fin Barre’s Cathedral, Cork, on Good Friday, 9 April 2004, by the then Dean Michael Burrows, now the Bishop of Tuam, Limerick and Killaloe.
This poem has the capacity to touch the reader or listener in painful places we are often too uncomfortable to search or reach.
Leonard Cohen himself once said: ‘It’s nice to write a catchy tune about death.’ But, while, some people may like poems that talk about blood, sweat and tears, I found out in Cork that Good Friday almost 20 years ago that many people are uncomfortable with some of the words in this poem.
Yet, surely, Christ must have suffered to this extreme of anxiety in Golgotha, and must have emptied himself completely of all human fluids on the cross on Calvary.
Who speaks in the poem?
Whose voice do we hear?
Who is singing?
Who narrates within the lyrics?
Is it God?
Is it just Leonard Cohen?
Is it his soul?
Does it really matter?
Some of those questions may be answered if we read this poem in the light of Advent as we prepare for Christmas or, more particularly, in Lent on the journey towards Good Friday and Easter.
Is this a legitimate way to read this poem? In his introduction to his Harvard lectures, The use of poetry and the use of criticism, TS Eliot wrote: ‘The poem’s existence is somewhere between the writer and the reader. It has a reality which is not simply the reality of what the writer is trying to ‘express’, or of his experiences of writing it, or of the experience of the reader, or of the writer as reader. Consequently the problem of what the poem ‘means’ is a good deal more difficult that it first appears … But a poem is not just either what the poet ‘planned’ or what the reader conceives, nor is its ‘use’ restricted to what the author intended or what it actually does for readers.’
Some commentators say the speaker in this poem by Leonard Cohen is God; others say the poet is speaking to himself at a point in life where death seems near, and he feels the need to collect his thoughts, recollect the past, and to face the future in truth.
And here is your love,
That lists where it will.
In this poem, God is taking an overview of a life and mixing in a bundle of opportunities in which a person has the opportunity to love. In each of these love/desire experiences, one has the opportunity to feel God’s presence.
In the first paired verses, 1 and 2, God is King of the universe and Lord of Creation, and he shows his majesty and his lordship through his love of all created things:
Here is your crown
And your seal and rings;
And here is your love
For all things.
In verse 2, the ‘cart’ is the human body in which Christ is incarnate and in which he moves around in God’s royal domain, the ‘cardboard’ the weak and flimsy body of his suffering, and the ‘piss’ the loss of all human life in his dying. In his life, suffering and death, he gives his all in love for all:
Here is your cart,
And your cardboard and piss;
And here is your love
For all of this.
In the second pair of verses, verses 3 and 4, the ‘wine’ in verse 3 may mean our thoughts and spiritual ideas. But I find resonances with the wine of the Last Supper and imagery that reminds me of Christ falling under the weight of the Cross on the Via Dolorosa, for the sake of his love for all:
Here is your wine,
And your drunken fall;
And here is your love.
Your love for it all.
The ‘sickness’ in verse 4, may be the love we have for each other, a love that may keep us away from loving God, and therefore perhaps defined as a ‘sickness’ as it detracts us from our divine purpose, to ‘love God’ first and then to love others. The bed and the pan also echo the ‘piss’ in the second verse:
Here is your sickness.
Your bed and your pan;
And here is your love
For the woman, the man.
In the four sets of two verses, the third line of each verse points to ways that we may love. But love is not mentioned in the third set of paired verses (5 and 6) – instead, we have the lines:
And here is the night,
The night has begun;
And here is your death
In the heart of your son.
And here is the dawn,
(Until death do us part);
And here is your death,
In your daughter’s heart.
Instead of love, he uses the word ‘death’ in the third lines of each of these two verses, emphasising the depth of love a parent feels for a child, and so the even deeper love God feels for us as his children in the death of Christ on the Cross.
Those verses reiterate the idea of the living and dying of every moment; the following of day with night, and night with day.
Night could represent ignorance and not knowing. But for mystics like Saint John of the Cross and Saint Teresa of Avila, who I have referred to in recent days, the night is also the beginning of the mystics’ journey towards communion and union with the Father, the ‘I Am Who Am.’ The Son must die in order for us to recognise his inherited unity with the Father.
Night turns to dawn with the resurrection, dawn is no longer night, the conscious is united with unconscious, night with day, and the soul with God.
In the last two paired verses, 7 and 8, he warns in verse 7 of ‘hurried’ desire and reminds us of how we hurry because we ‘long’ for something to be fulfilled, or over, or experienced. Instead, it is love on which everything is built and has its foundation:
And here you are hurried,
And here you are gone;
And here is the love,
That it’s all built upon.
In the final, closing verse (verse 8), the reference to Christ’s death, when he is nailed to the cross on the Hill of Calvary, becomes the summation of the poem:
Here is your cross,
Your nails and your hill;
And here is your love,
That lists where it will.
The word ‘lists’ in verse 8 may be a ‘list’ of objects, names or experiences. But to ‘list’ is also to listen, and also to ‘lean’ one way or the other, as when a boat leans to one side. Is he suggesting that our love may lean in different directions as time goes by, or that the love in each verse is different, listing or leaning in a different direction?
The refrain after each paired set of verses says:
May everyone live,
And may everyone die.
Hello, my love,
And my love, Goodbye.
We keep living and dying each moment. May we just do this.
‘Here is your crown / And your seal and rings’ (Leonard Cohen) … a Torah crown on display in the Jewish Museum in Vienna (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Leonard Cohen, Here It Is
Here is your crown
And your seal and rings;
And here is your love
For all things.
Here is your cart,
And your cardboard and piss;
And here is your love
For all of this.
May everyone live,
And may everyone die.
Hello, my love,
And my love, Goodbye.
Here is your wine,
And your drunken fall;
And here is your love.
Your love for it all.
Here is your sickness.
Your bed and your pan;
And here is your love
For the woman, the man.
May everyone live,
And may everyone die.
Hello, my love,
And, my love, Goodbye.
And here is the night,
The night has begun;
And here is your death
In the heart of your son.
And here is the dawn,
(Until death do us part);
And here is your death,
In your daughter’s heart.
May everyone live,
And may everyone die.
Hello, my love,
And, my love, Goodbye.
And here you are hurried,
And here you are gone;
And here is the love,
That it’s all built upon.
Here is your cross,
Your nails and your hill;
And here is your love,
That lists where it will
May everyone live,
And may everyone die.
Hello, my love,
And my love, Goodbye.
‘Here is your crown / And your seal and rings’ (Leonard Cohen) … a crown above hands in the priestly blessing on the grave of a cohen in KrakĂłw (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Matthew 17: 10-13 (NRSVA):
10 And the disciples asked him, ‘Why, then, do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?’ 11 He replied, ‘Elijah is indeed coming and will restore all things; 12 but I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but they did to him whatever they pleased. So also the Son of Man is about to suffer at their hands.’ 13 Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them about John the Baptist.
‘For John came neither eating nor drinking’ (Matthew 11: 19) … Saint John the Baptist depicted in a panel in a window in Saint Mary’s Church, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
Today’s Prayers (Saturday 16 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), has been ‘The Faith of Advent.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (16 December 2023) invites us to pray in these words:
Thank you, God, that you have plans for us and they are for us to prosper and give us hope and a future. May your word to us be fulfilled.
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.
Collect on the Eve of Advent 3:
O Lord Jesus Christ,
who at your first coming sent your messenger
to prepare your way before you:
grant that the ministers and stewards of your mysteries
may likewise so prepare and make ready your way
by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just,
that at your second coming to judge the world
we may be found an acceptable people in your sight;
for you are alive and reign with the Father
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Leonard Cohen on stage at the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, in 2012 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Yesterday’s Reflection
Continued Tomorrow
‘Here It Is’ lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC.
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
Patrick Comerford
We are in the countdown to Christmas in the Church, with just nine days to go to Christmas Day. Tomorrow is the Third Sunday of Advent or Gaudete Sunday (17 December 2023), bringing us two-thirds of the 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.
‘Here is your cross, / Your nails and your hill; / And here is your love, / That lists where it will’ (Leonard Cohen) … Marc Chagall, ‘The White Crucifixion’ (1938)
The Songs and Poems of Leonard Cohen: 14, ‘Here It Is’:
‘Here It Is,’ a poem/song by Leonard Cohen, was first released 22 years ago on his tenth studio album, Ten New Songs, co-written and produced by Sharon Robinson and released in 2001.
I first used this poem in a Lenten setting when I was asked to preach at the Three Hours Devotions in Saint Fin Barre’s Cathedral, Cork, on Good Friday, 9 April 2004, by the then Dean Michael Burrows, now the Bishop of Tuam, Limerick and Killaloe.
This poem has the capacity to touch the reader or listener in painful places we are often too uncomfortable to search or reach.
Leonard Cohen himself once said: ‘It’s nice to write a catchy tune about death.’ But, while, some people may like poems that talk about blood, sweat and tears, I found out in Cork that Good Friday almost 20 years ago that many people are uncomfortable with some of the words in this poem.
Yet, surely, Christ must have suffered to this extreme of anxiety in Golgotha, and must have emptied himself completely of all human fluids on the cross on Calvary.
Who speaks in the poem?
Whose voice do we hear?
Who is singing?
Who narrates within the lyrics?
Is it God?
Is it just Leonard Cohen?
Is it his soul?
Does it really matter?
Some of those questions may be answered if we read this poem in the light of Advent as we prepare for Christmas or, more particularly, in Lent on the journey towards Good Friday and Easter.
Is this a legitimate way to read this poem? In his introduction to his Harvard lectures, The use of poetry and the use of criticism, TS Eliot wrote: ‘The poem’s existence is somewhere between the writer and the reader. It has a reality which is not simply the reality of what the writer is trying to ‘express’, or of his experiences of writing it, or of the experience of the reader, or of the writer as reader. Consequently the problem of what the poem ‘means’ is a good deal more difficult that it first appears … But a poem is not just either what the poet ‘planned’ or what the reader conceives, nor is its ‘use’ restricted to what the author intended or what it actually does for readers.’
Some commentators say the speaker in this poem by Leonard Cohen is God; others say the poet is speaking to himself at a point in life where death seems near, and he feels the need to collect his thoughts, recollect the past, and to face the future in truth.
And here is your love,
That lists where it will.
In this poem, God is taking an overview of a life and mixing in a bundle of opportunities in which a person has the opportunity to love. In each of these love/desire experiences, one has the opportunity to feel God’s presence.
In the first paired verses, 1 and 2, God is King of the universe and Lord of Creation, and he shows his majesty and his lordship through his love of all created things:
Here is your crown
And your seal and rings;
And here is your love
For all things.
In verse 2, the ‘cart’ is the human body in which Christ is incarnate and in which he moves around in God’s royal domain, the ‘cardboard’ the weak and flimsy body of his suffering, and the ‘piss’ the loss of all human life in his dying. In his life, suffering and death, he gives his all in love for all:
Here is your cart,
And your cardboard and piss;
And here is your love
For all of this.
In the second pair of verses, verses 3 and 4, the ‘wine’ in verse 3 may mean our thoughts and spiritual ideas. But I find resonances with the wine of the Last Supper and imagery that reminds me of Christ falling under the weight of the Cross on the Via Dolorosa, for the sake of his love for all:
Here is your wine,
And your drunken fall;
And here is your love.
Your love for it all.
The ‘sickness’ in verse 4, may be the love we have for each other, a love that may keep us away from loving God, and therefore perhaps defined as a ‘sickness’ as it detracts us from our divine purpose, to ‘love God’ first and then to love others. The bed and the pan also echo the ‘piss’ in the second verse:
Here is your sickness.
Your bed and your pan;
And here is your love
For the woman, the man.
In the four sets of two verses, the third line of each verse points to ways that we may love. But love is not mentioned in the third set of paired verses (5 and 6) – instead, we have the lines:
And here is the night,
The night has begun;
And here is your death
In the heart of your son.
And here is the dawn,
(Until death do us part);
And here is your death,
In your daughter’s heart.
Instead of love, he uses the word ‘death’ in the third lines of each of these two verses, emphasising the depth of love a parent feels for a child, and so the even deeper love God feels for us as his children in the death of Christ on the Cross.
Those verses reiterate the idea of the living and dying of every moment; the following of day with night, and night with day.
Night could represent ignorance and not knowing. But for mystics like Saint John of the Cross and Saint Teresa of Avila, who I have referred to in recent days, the night is also the beginning of the mystics’ journey towards communion and union with the Father, the ‘I Am Who Am.’ The Son must die in order for us to recognise his inherited unity with the Father.
Night turns to dawn with the resurrection, dawn is no longer night, the conscious is united with unconscious, night with day, and the soul with God.
In the last two paired verses, 7 and 8, he warns in verse 7 of ‘hurried’ desire and reminds us of how we hurry because we ‘long’ for something to be fulfilled, or over, or experienced. Instead, it is love on which everything is built and has its foundation:
And here you are hurried,
And here you are gone;
And here is the love,
That it’s all built upon.
In the final, closing verse (verse 8), the reference to Christ’s death, when he is nailed to the cross on the Hill of Calvary, becomes the summation of the poem:
Here is your cross,
Your nails and your hill;
And here is your love,
That lists where it will.
The word ‘lists’ in verse 8 may be a ‘list’ of objects, names or experiences. But to ‘list’ is also to listen, and also to ‘lean’ one way or the other, as when a boat leans to one side. Is he suggesting that our love may lean in different directions as time goes by, or that the love in each verse is different, listing or leaning in a different direction?
The refrain after each paired set of verses says:
May everyone live,
And may everyone die.
Hello, my love,
And my love, Goodbye.
We keep living and dying each moment. May we just do this.
‘Here is your crown / And your seal and rings’ (Leonard Cohen) … a Torah crown on display in the Jewish Museum in Vienna (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Leonard Cohen, Here It Is
Here is your crown
And your seal and rings;
And here is your love
For all things.
Here is your cart,
And your cardboard and piss;
And here is your love
For all of this.
May everyone live,
And may everyone die.
Hello, my love,
And my love, Goodbye.
Here is your wine,
And your drunken fall;
And here is your love.
Your love for it all.
Here is your sickness.
Your bed and your pan;
And here is your love
For the woman, the man.
May everyone live,
And may everyone die.
Hello, my love,
And, my love, Goodbye.
And here is the night,
The night has begun;
And here is your death
In the heart of your son.
And here is the dawn,
(Until death do us part);
And here is your death,
In your daughter’s heart.
May everyone live,
And may everyone die.
Hello, my love,
And, my love, Goodbye.
And here you are hurried,
And here you are gone;
And here is the love,
That it’s all built upon.
Here is your cross,
Your nails and your hill;
And here is your love,
That lists where it will
May everyone live,
And may everyone die.
Hello, my love,
And my love, Goodbye.
‘Here is your crown / And your seal and rings’ (Leonard Cohen) … a crown above hands in the priestly blessing on the grave of a cohen in KrakĂłw (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Matthew 17: 10-13 (NRSVA):
10 And the disciples asked him, ‘Why, then, do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?’ 11 He replied, ‘Elijah is indeed coming and will restore all things; 12 but I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but they did to him whatever they pleased. So also the Son of Man is about to suffer at their hands.’ 13 Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them about John the Baptist.
‘For John came neither eating nor drinking’ (Matthew 11: 19) … Saint John the Baptist depicted in a panel in a window in Saint Mary’s Church, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
Today’s Prayers (Saturday 16 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), has been ‘The Faith of Advent.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (16 December 2023) invites us to pray in these words:
Thank you, God, that you have plans for us and they are for us to prosper and give us hope and a future. May your word to us be fulfilled.
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.
Collect on the Eve of Advent 3:
O Lord Jesus Christ,
who at your first coming sent your messenger
to prepare your way before you:
grant that the ministers and stewards of your mysteries
may likewise so prepare and make ready your way
by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just,
that at your second coming to judge the world
we may be found an acceptable people in your sight;
for you are alive and reign with the Father
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Leonard Cohen on stage at the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, in 2012 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Yesterday’s Reflection
Continued Tomorrow
‘Here It Is’ lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC.
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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