who will chide you?

And who will care, who will chide you if you wander away

from wherever you are, to look for your soul?

Quickly, then, get up, put on your coat, leave your desk!

Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches
Mary Oliver

image : Alice Christie

This poem was quoted by Canon Mark Oakley
at a reflective weekend in Westcott House, Cambridge
designed to help people exploring their vocation

the battle

The Tube Train

Cyril E. Power (1872–1951)

Prayer is the battle;

it is a matter of indifference where you are.

Whichever way God engineers circumstances,

the duty is to pray.

Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)

light and truth

Silver paten
(Byzantine c 565)

found in 1910 in Kaper Koraon (Kurin, Syria)

I did not even know who Christ was, that He was God. I had not the faintest idea that there existed such a thing as the Blessed Sacrament. I thought churches were simply places where people got together and sang a few hymns. And yet now I tell you, you who are now what I once was, unbelievers, it is that Sacrament, and that alone, the Christ living in our midst, and sacrificed by us, and for us and with us, in the clean and perpetual Sacrifice, it is He alone Who holds our world together, and keeps us all from being poured headlong and immediately into the pit of our eternal destruction. And I tell you there is a power that goes forth from that Sacrament, a power of light and truth, even into the hearts of those who have heard nothing of Him and seem to be incapable of belief.

Thomas Merton (1915-1968)

The Seven Storey Mountain

wooden cross

Wooden cross of Latin type made from pieces of a boat that was wrecked off the coast of Lampedusa, Italy on 11 October, 2013. The vertical and horiziontal pieces are joined with a cross halved joint. The cross piece retains scuffed blue paint on the front, upper and lower surfaces. The front of the vertical section has layers of damaged paint. The base coat is dark green which was covered with a beige colour then painted orange. The sides and back are planed down to the timber surface. There is a small hole for suspension on the back of the vertical near the top. A fragment of an iron nail survives at the top in the right side of the cross piece. The back of the cross piece is signed F. Tuccio, Lampedusa

image and text © Trustees of the British Museum

This cross was donated to the British Museum by Mr Tuccio as a memorial to the 311 Eritrean and Somali refugees who drowned when their boat capsized off the coast of Lampedusa. It is a symbol of individual suffering, courage, compassion and salvation, and stands witness to the humanity of those who care for the refugees as they travel in search of new lives.

My Lord, My Love

Lamentation (The Mourning of Christ)

Giotto di Bondone (1266/7 – 1337)

Scrovegni Chapel, Padua

O Love divine, what has thou done!
The immortal God hath died for me!
The Father's coeternal Son
bore all my sins upon the tree.
Th' immortal God for me hath died:
My Lord, my Love, is crucified!

Charles Wesley (1707-1788)

all things restored

Icon of the Theophany

Gracious Father,

by the obedience of Jesus

you brought salvation to our wayward world:

draw us into harmony with your will,

that we may find all things restored in him,

our Saviour Jesus Christ.

[Collect : Fourth Sunday after Trinity]

Common Worship

© The Archbishops' Council of the Church of England, 2016

de profundis

Pablo Picasso

The Tragedy (1903)

Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord.

Lord, hear my voice:

let thine ears be attentive

to the voice of my supplications.

Psalm 130

King James Bible

“My sister will die over and over again for the rest of my life. Grief is forever. It doesn't go away; it becomes a part of you, step for step, breath for breath. I will never stop grieving Bailey because I will never stop loving her. That's just how it is. Grief and love are conjoined, you don't get one without the other. All I can do is love her, and love the world, emulate her by living with daring and spirit and joy.”

Jandy Nelson, The Sky Is Everywhere

image : © 2012 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS)

trout that swim

Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889)

Lord of my heart

Pillar stone, Gallarus Oratory

County Kerry, Ireland

Be thou my vision,

O Lord of my heart,

Be all else but naught to me,

Save that thou art;

Be thou my best thought

In the day and the night,

Both waking and steeping,

Thy presence my light.

Traditional attr. St Dallan c.550

a heart without words

detached mosaic

from lost Oratory of John VII

 (Santa Maria Antiqua, June 2016)

In prayer it is better

to have a heart without words

than words without a heart.

John Bunyan

image : Alice Christie

ti benedica e ti custodisca

Legend of St Francis

Giotto di Bondone (1266 - 1337)

Basilica di San Francesco in Assisi.

Blessing of St Francis of Assisi

Il Signore ti benedica e ti custodisca,

mostri a te il suo volto

e abbia misericordia di te.

Rivolga verso di te il suo sguardo e ti dia pace.

Il Signore benedica te.

May the Lord bless you and keep you.

May the Lord show His face to you

and have compassion on you.

May He turn his face to you and give you peace.

May the Lord bless you.

this wounded world

Crucifixion

Master of the Passion of Darmstadt

God our saviour,

look on this wounded world

in pity and in power;

hold us fast to your promises of peace

won for us by your Son,

our Saviour Jesus Christ.

[Collect : Third Sunday after Trinity]

Common Worship
© The Archbishops' Council of the Church of England, 2000-2005

Salve Regina

Visitation Of Mary

Rogier van der Weyden (1400 - 1464)

Hail, holy Queen, Mother of Mercy,

Hail, our life, our sweetness and our hope.

Salve, Regina, Mater misericordiæ,

vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve.

bread of life

John 6 : 35

And Jesus said unto them,

I am the bread of life:

he that cometh to me shall never hunger;

and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.

[King James Bible]

still me, O Lord

Snow Storm: Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth (1842)

J.M.W. Turner

Calm me, O Lord, as You stilled the storm.

Still me, O Lord, keep me from harm.

Let all the tumult within me cease.

Enfold me, Lord, in Your peace.

from the The Felgild Compline

© 2016 Northumbria Community

love alone

It is love alone that gives worth to all things.

St. Teresa of Ávila

image : Alice Christie

one bread

The Last Supper

Dieric Bouts (1415 – 1475)

Though we are many, we are one body,

because we all share in one bread.

deepen our faithfulness

Faithful Creator,

whose mercy never fails:

deepen our faithfulness to you

and to your living Word,

Jesus Christ our Lord.

[Collect : Second Sunday after Trinity]

Common Worship

© The Archbishops' Council of the Church of England, 2000-2005

have mercy on us

Jesus, Lamb of God,

have mercy on us.

Jesus, bearer of our sins,

have mercy on us.

Jesus, redeemer of the world,

grant us peace.

© Archbishops' Council 2016:

wherever you go

Llanryhwydrus

Sir Kyffin Williams (1918 - 2006)

Wherever you go, there you are.

Thomas à Kempis (c1380-1471)

The Imitation of Christ

wide, sweet spaces

Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1

(Whistler's Mother)

James McNeill Whistler

Musée d'Orsay

Lord, let not our souls be busy inns
that have no room for thee or thine,
But quiet homes of prayer and praise,
where thou mayest find fit company,
Where the needful cares of life
are wisely ordered and put away,
And wide, sweet spaces kept for thee;
where holy thoughts pass up and down
And fervent longings watch and wait thy coming.

Julian of Norwich (1341 - 1415)