Rondel for Ash Wednesday

Reposted according to tradition… 

All friends of Christ, hold fast, hold fast;
Fear not these desert days of Lent. 
All grunged-up souls, all people pent 
In pleasure’s prison, bravely cast 
Your senseless sin aside at last: 
Believe the Gospel and repent. 
All friends of Christ, hold fast, hold fast;
Fear not these desert days of Lent.
The thirst and hunger will not last, 
For by God’s Son, who underwent 
The Cross, we know that we are meant 
For Heaven’s home when pain is past — 
All friends of Christ, hold fast, hold fast.

Brancaster Bay, north Norfolk, August 2024

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus!

‘Here is my stone-ribbed nest…’  St. David’s Cathedral, 6th March 2024.

Wishing a very happy feast of St. David to all who have reason to celebrate!

[…]  I am David.

I am the Dovebearer.

I speak of peace.

I counsel joy.

    In a fold of the furthest west,

    Here is my stone-ribbed nest.

I am David.  

Under my feet

The rock of Dyfed

Has raised me up

    To tower in time’s March gales.

    I am David.  I am Wales.

Raymond Garlick (1926–2011)

A Double Treat for Ruth Gipps’ Birthday

This year there is even more reason than usual to celebrate the birthday of the British composer Ruth Gipps (1921–1999).  Two new records — a third and fourth volume of her orchestral music — are coming out in quick succession, both issued by Chandos Records.  Volume III, which was released last month, includes her First Symphony, which remained unperformed and unrecorded from 1942 until a BBC Radio 3 broadcast on 22nd February last year.  There is also her delightfully optimistic Horn Concerto and a triple helping of orchestral pieces: the Coronation Procession, Ambervalia and Cringlemire Garden.  Volume IV, due for release on April 11th this year, will include her elusive Fifth Symphony, along with her Violin Concerto and Leviathan for double-bassoon.   In both cases we once again have conductor Rumon Gamba and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra to thank for their musicianship.

It is the prospect of the two symphonies that I find most exciting.  Of the five neglected symphonies of this hitherto-neglected composer, so little seemed to be said of Gipps’ First Symphony that I had imagined it would simply never be heard.  Symphony No. 5 I knew, but only from a scratchy recording of its 1982 première which, shockingly, had been its only performance until, in April 2023, Gipps Revival veterans Adam Stern and the Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra stepped up to the plate with the American première.  At the second British performance a month later, I marvelled, for the hundredth time, that such wonderful music could have been so completely sidelined.  I have been waiting for years for a recording.  Now, however, with these new discs, which I have every reason to believe will match the standard of their forerunners, the putting right of a great injustice in British music will, I dare say, be more or less accomplished.  There is now every reason to hope for continued and frequent appearances of Gipps’ music on the radio, which in turn will bring her music to new ears, and hopefully encourage the programming of her music in live concerts.

As I have said before, the Ruth Gipps saga shows us how entirely and visible an artist holding to his or her integrity may be vindicated in the end — however unlikely it may seem, however implacable the prejudices of fashion — and it ought to give heart to all artists, writers and poets who are tempted to despair in the face of disdain or indifference.

Ten years of ‘Some Definite Service’

The village of Deeping St. Nicholas, Lincolnshire, seen from the Peterborough–Lincoln train, 20th March, 2014.

‘We read to know that we are not alone,’ it turns out C. S. Lewis didn’t say — I have almost been the latest to misattribute to the man himself a line spoken by him only in a fictionalised form, in the 1993 biographical film Shadowlands.  Still, the words ring quite as true as if he really had said them.  It was to know that I was not alone, for instance, that I started following Catholic blogs in early 2010.  I read for some alternative to the media hostility against the forthcoming visit to Britain of Pope Benedict XVI; I read in search of ripostes to  the media mischaracterisation of Catholics and the Christian faith and the personal attacks on Benedict himself; I read, in that heyday of the New Atheists, for witty rejoinders to the mockery of believers that was then still fashionably edgy.  I read, and kept reading, for intelligent and thoughtful writing on what the Church actually believes and why, and on living out our faith in the present age.

And what a relief it was to find those blogs.  Many were pseudonymous, such as the ‘Countercultural Father’ and now-defunct ‘Reluctant Sinner’, but others were written under their authors’ real names: Joanna Bogle’s was a particular favourite, as well as the various contributors to the Catholic Voices blog.  Either way, they seldom overstepped the mark in tone or content, to my mind at least, and whether vigorous or sober in style, in substance they were generally well-informed and intellectual.  They always gave plenty to think about — though I never dared comment!  I also enjoyed other writers beyond the so-called ‘Catholic blogosphere’, such as Peter Hitchens’ lyrical long-form essays and Eleanor Parker’s insights into Anglo-Saxon culture in ‘A Clerk of Oxford’.

Then, some years later, I happened upon the blog of Maolsheachlann Ó Ceallaigh (the ‘Irish Papist’), with its poetry, its unpretentious musings and memoirs, the occasional spice of more polemic pieces, and the quiet courtesy with which he diligently responded to every single blog-comment short of, though occasionally even including, actual spam.  It was probably in corresponding with him that a creative idea already glowing like a small fierce flame within me gathered strength until I could resist it no longer, and published the first post on this blog, ten years ago today.

The title came from a meditation of the great — now Saint — John Henry Newman, from which Pope Benedict quoted in his address in London’s Hyde Park on 18th September 2010, and which seems as sound as ever:

God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons.

He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do His work.  I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it if I do but keep His commandments.  Therefore, I will trust Him, whatever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him, in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him.  If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him.  He does nothing in vain.  He knows what He is about.  He may take away my friends.  He may throw me among strangers.  He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me.  Still, He knows what He is about.

Bl. John Henry Newman: Meditations on Christian Doctrine, Meditations and Devotions, March 7, 1848.

And here is the excerpt from Pope Benedict’s address in which he reflects on the above passage:

One of the Cardinal’s best-loved meditations includes the words, “God has created me to do him some definite service.  He has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another.”  Here we see Newman’s fine Christian realism, the point at which faith and life inevitably intersect.  Faith is meant to bear fruit in the transformation of our world through the power of the Holy Spirit at work in the lives and activity of believers.  No one who looks realistically at our world today could think that Christians can afford to go on with business as usual, ignoring the profound crisis of faith which has overtaken our society, or simply trusting that the patrimony of values handed down by the Christian centuries will continue to inspire and shape the future of our society.  We know that in times of crisis and upheaval God has raised up great saints and prophets for the renewal of the Church and Christian society; we trust in his providence and we pray for his continued guidance.  But each of us, in accordance with his or her state of life, is called to work for the advancement of God’s Kingdom by imbuing temporal life with the values of the Gospel.  Each of us has a mission, each of us is called to change the world, to work for a culture of life, a culture forged by love and respect for the dignity of each human person.  As our Lord tells us in the Gospel we have just heard, our light must shine in the sight of all, so that, seeing our good works, they may give praise to our heavenly Father.

The heyday of the ‘Catholic blogosphere’ now seems some way past.  There are still plenty of good magazines and newsletters with engaging articles, but fewer individual blogs than there used to be, and those less lively.  (That said, there is a good deal of activity to be found via Malcolm Mann’s list of extant Catholic blogs at the British Catholic Blogs directory).  Perhaps it was mostly a ‘Benedict moment’, a phenomenon with a particular context, but like all such things it may have sown the seeds of a quiet harvest.

As for this particular blog, I wrote, and write, however sporadically, much as I have read — to know that I am not alone — and to try to convey similar reassurance to others of like mind.  I know how encouraged I was in my faith, temperament and conviction by these other writers, and I have always felt that in making my own contribution I might help to do for someone else what these others did for me.

For in today’s Britain it can, and often does, feel like a lonely business being a Catholic Christian, never mind an Englishman of homely and nostalgic temperament.  This sense of isolation may seem unlikely, given that I have millions of fellow believers around the world, to say nothing of the companionship we find in the canon of the saints and in the pages of old books.  And indeed, it has been my astonishing blessing over the last ten years to get to know more friends of like mind than I once could ever have hoped for.  Even so, it can feel lonely.  So much is no longer what it used to be: old traditions, cherished institutions, principles, morals and manners… none seem able to withstand the caustic solvent of liquid modernity, and only in certain niches like family homes, rare schools, or particularly vital parishes, does the old culture thrive.  In such moments I have found it helpful to seek the company, even the virtual company, of others who think and feel along the same lines.

Having said this, the blog is not just supposed to be a balm for gloom.  I try to write in both major and minor keys, hoping to produce as much a positive celebration of poetry, music, churches, landscapes and traditions, and other oddments, as a record of what has passed.  Indeed, one regret about the blog is that it doesn’t seem to leave me much room for humour.  Exposed to the windswept steppes of the Internet, which lack the context and shared experience which are so essential to a shared sense of humour and in which misunderstanding seems so easy, and perhaps amid the kind of virtual stage-fright that results, I find it much harder to crack jokes — no doubt to the benefit of all.

Thank you to everyone who has read, or commented on, or enjoyed, or been sent to sleep by this blog over the past decade.  I don’t know how much longer Some Definite Service will last, but as long as it seems worthwhile, I will try to offer, as far as I can manage, the kind of refuge that I myself seek in other blogs, and a candle of witness to the many good and gentle things I see in the world.  For, ultimately, those are the things that will endure, or, if not, the eternal verities they betoken.  Hope, that slow-burning thing, may have to wait ten, or a hundred, or two thousand years, but it will outlast all opposition — and even all blogs!  — until its final and wondrous vindication.

John Everett Millais’ portrait of John Henry Newman on display at Arundel Castle (W. Sussex), 13th September 2019.