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Category Archives: Prayers

George Herbert, poet-priest

27 Wednesday Feb 2019

Posted by thecruciformpen in Historical Studies, People to Know, Poetry, Prayers

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George Herbert, Lesser Festival, Liturgical Calendar, Poetry

Facts, events, and important dates

  • 1593–Born in Wales
  • Education–Trinity College, Cambridge
  • Held several academic posts in Cambridge, including a Fellowship at Trinity, appointed as Reader in Rhetoric, and then Public Orator.
  • 1624–Served in politics as MP in Parliament.
  • 1625–King James I dies, consequently Herbert decides return to his original intentions for ministry in the church.
  • 1630–Herbert ordained as priest in the Church of England.
  • 1633–Herbert struggled with Tuberculosis and eventually dies after a just a few years of pastoral ministry in the church.
  • All of George Herbert’s poetry was composed privately, not being published until after his death. This fact is a remarkable demonstration of his characteristic refusal to seek self-aggrandizement in life.
  • A Lesser Feast is dedicated to George Herbert in the Anglican Communion church calendar, celebrated on 27 February (hence, this blog post :))

Legacy

Herbert’s prose and poetry has left a lasting influence on others. Henry Vaughan, Charles Wesley, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Gerard Manley Hopkins and C. S. Lewis are just a few names (more could be added) of people who have acknowledged their literary debt to Herbert; and that’s not to mention contemporary poets such as Luci Shaw or Malcom Guite.

He is best known today from two significant works, one prose and one poetry. The prose work is titled A Priest to the Temple or The Country Parson and it lays out his thoughts on the ministerial vocation. His insights in this book find richly suggestive connections in some of his poems on the same topic. His collection of poetry, which he gave to his friend Nicholas Ferrar on his deathbed, is titled The Temple. It is a brilliant masterpiece whose poems can be read individually (that is, as a collection of self-contained poems) or as a larger, longer work complete with thematic development as one progresses through the poems. Throughout The Temple there are dense allusions both to scripture and to other poems within the collection.

Some of his hymns are still sung in churches today (e.g., ‘The God of love my Shepherd is’, ‘Let all the world in every corner sing’, and ‘Teach me, my God and King’).

A poem

Prayer (I)

Prayer the Churches banquet, Angels age,
Gods breath in man returning to his birth,
The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet sounding heav’n and earth;  

Engine against th’ Almightie, sinners towre,
Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
The six-daies world transposing in an houre,
A kinde of tune, which all things heare and fear;

Softnesse, and peace, and joy, and love, and blisse,
Exalted Manna, gladnesse of the best,
Heaven in ordinarie, man well drest,
The milkie way, the bird of Paradise,

Church-bels beyond the starres heard, the souls bloud,
The land of spices; something understood.

~extract from The English Poems of George Herbert (Page 178). Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition.

Malcolm Guite has an insightful reflection on this poem over on his blog. Click here to read it. He introduces the poem by describing it as

a kind of rainbow refraction of many insights, a scattering of many seeds broadcast. For each of these images is in its own way a little poem, or the seed of a poem, ready to grow and unfold in the readers mind. And the different seeds take root at different times, falling differently in the soil of the mind each time one returns to this poem. I have been reading it for over thirty years now and I still find its images springing up freshly in my mind and showing me new things. For the purpose of this Introduction we will delve in and examine four of these little seeds, these poems in themselves within the images, before we take a wider view and see how they all fit together in the larger poem itself.

To read Guite’s reflections on “four of these little seeds” click the link above or just buy his book Faith, Hope and Poetry: Theology and the Poetic Imagination.

Further reading

There are many good editions of Herbert’s poetry that can be found. The books below are helpful introductions to his life and writings. Alternatively, if you are not yet ready to read a whole book, you can start by visiting this website that lots of interesting facts and resources: GeorgeHerbert.org.uk

Music at Midnight: The Life and Poetry of George Herbert by John Drury

Heaven in Ordinary: George Herbert and His Writings (Canterbury Studies in Spiritual Theology) edited by Philip Sheldrake

A Year With George Herbert: A Guide to Fifty-Two of His Best Loved Poems by Jim Scott Orrick

A Prayer (from the Book of Common Prayer)

King of glory, king of peace,
who called your servant George Herbert
from the pursuit of worldly honors
to be a priest in the temple of his God and king:
grant us also the grace to offer ourselves
with singleness of heart in humble obedience to your service;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit ,
one God, now and forever. Amen.

*A note on sources…

The biographical information in this post was obtained from the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (edited by Livingston and Cross) and also from Saints on Earth: A biographical companion to Common Worship (by Darch and Burns).

An Easter Prayer by Karl Barth

27 Sunday Mar 2016

Posted by thecruciformpen in Prayers, Resources

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Easter, Karl Barth, prayers

karl barth

Here is an Easter prayer taken from Fifty Prayers by Karl Barth (Westminster John Knox Press 2008, kindle edition):

Lord God, our Father, you are the light in which there is no darkness. And now you have kindled in us a light that can never be extinguished and that will ultimately drive out all darkness. You are the love that knows no coldness. And now you have loved even us and freed us to love you and each other. You are the life that mocks death. And now you have given us access to this eternal life. You have done all this in Jesus Christ, your Son, our brother.

Do not let us – let none of us – remain dull and indifferent to your gift and revelation. Let us on this Easter morning see at least something of the riches of your goodness; let it enter into our hearts and minds, and let it enlighten us, uphold us, comfort us, and admonish us!

None of us is a great Christian; rather, we are all very small Christians. But your grace is sufficient for us. Awaken us to the small joy and thankfulness that we are capable of, the timid faith that we bring , the incomplete obedience that we cannot refuse – to the hope in greatness, wholeness, and completeness that you have prepared for us in the death of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and that you have promised us in his resurrection from the dead. We ask that this hour may serve that purpose. Amen.

Easter in the Belly of Nothingness

26 Saturday Mar 2016

Posted by thecruciformpen in Prayers

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Easter, Good Friday, prayers, Walter Brueggemann

Jesus' body

Here is a timely prayer by Walter Brueggemann from his book Prayers for a Privileged People (Abingdon Press 2008).

Easter in the Very Belly of Nothingness

Death will be all right for us when it comes. But dying is another matter — so slow, so painful, so humiliating.

Death will be a quick turn, the winking of an eye, but dying turns and twists and waits and teases.

We have not died, but we know about dying: We watch the inching pain of cancer, the oozing ache of alienation, the tears of stored up hurt.

We can smell the dying of bombs and shells,  of direct hit and collateral damage, of napalm spread thin and even of cities turned craters, of Agent Orange that waits years to show, and lives turned to empty stare.

We watch close or distant; we brace and stiffen, and grow cynical or uncaring.

And death wins — we, robbed of vitality, brought low by failed hope, lost innocence, emptied childhood, and stillness. 

We keep going, but barely; we gather at the grave, watching the sting and the victory of dread.

But you stir late Saturday; we gather early Sunday with balm and embracing, close to the body. waiting for the smell but not; dreading the withered site… but not; cringing love lost… but not here.

Not here… but risen, gone, awakened, alive!

The new creation stirs beyond the weeping women; O death… no sting! O grave… no victory! O silence… new song! O dread… new dance! O tribulation… now overcome!

O Friday God — Easter the failed city, Sunday the killing fields. And we, we shall dance and sing, thank and praise, into the night that holds no more darkness.

 

We Are Not Self-Starters

13 Wednesday Jan 2016

Posted by thecruciformpen in Prayers

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Walter Brueggemann

Prayer by Walter Brueggemann

adapted from Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth (Fortress Press, 2003)

Speaking, acting, life-giving God,

the one with the only verbs that can heal and rescue,

We come petitioning one more time,

seeking your majestic address to us,

asking your powerful action among us,

waiting for your new life toward us.

Your creation teems with bondaged folk

who don’t have enough for life,

not enough bread, not enough clothes,

not enough houses, not enough freedom,

not enough dignity, not enough hope.

Your creation teems with bongdaged creatures,

great valleys become trash dumps,

great oceans become dumped pollutions,

fish wrapped in dumped oil,

fields at a loss for dumped chemicals.

So we pray for creation, that has become a dump,

and for all your people,

who have been dumped,

and dumped upon.

Renew your passion for life,

Work your wonders for newness,

Speak your word and let us begin again.

In your powerful presence, we resolve to do our proper work,

But we are not self-starters.

We wait on you to act, in order that we may act.

Show yourself in ways that give us courage and energy and freedom,

that we may love our neighbors as ourselves,

care for your creation as a holy sanctuary,

and praise the glory of your name, which fills the whole earth.

We pray in the savaged power of Jesus,

who loved and cared and praised.

Amen

A Prayer for the New Year

31 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by thecruciformpen in Prayers

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My wife just wrote a confession for the worship service at our church this Sunday. I was encouraged by her prayer for the new year and wanted to pass it along. May God hear this prayer and make all things new in 2015!

We come to you in this new year beaten and battered by the year just passed.

Help us to trust you to heal our wounds and use our sorrows.

We come to you in this new year eager to put you first in all we do.

Forgive us Lord for our failings of last year.

We come to you in this new year full of personal resolutions and self-centered goals.

Help us to trust you to make us more like your Son Jesus.

We come to you in this new year with small hopes and undersized expectations.

Forgive our faith for being so small.

We pray this in the name of the One who makes all things new, Amen.

On Controlling Our Borders

05 Friday Dec 2014

Posted by thecruciformpen in Prayers

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Immigration, prayers, Walter Brueggemann

There is a lot on the news about immigration reform lately. So I thought this prayer from Walter Brueggemann, On Controlling Our Borders, was fitting (and challenging):

Jesus–crucified and risen–draws us into his presence again, 

The one who had nowhere to lay his head,
no safe place,
no secure home,
no passport or visa,
no certified citizenship. 
We gather around him in our safety, security, and well-being, and fret about “illegal immigrants”.
We fret because they are not like us and refuse our language. We worry that there are so many of them and there crossings do not stop. We are unsettled because it is our tax dollars that sustain them and provide services. We feel the hype about closing borders and heavy fines, because we imagine that our life is under threat.
And yet, as you know very well, we, all of us–early or late–are immigrants from elsewhere;
we are glad for cheap labor and seasonal workers to do tomatoes and apples and oranges to our savoring delight. And beyond that, even while we are beset by fears and aware of pragmatic costs, we know very well that you are the God who welcomes strangers, who loves aliens and protects sojourners. 
As always, we feel the tension in the slippage between the deeper truth of our faith and the easier settlements of our society.
You do not ask for an easy way out, but for courage and honesty and faithfulness. Give us ease in the presence of those unlike us; give us generosity amid demands of those in need, help us to honor those who trespass as you forgive our trespasses.
You are the God of all forgiveness. By your gracious forgiveness transpose us into agents of your will, that our habits and inclinations may more closely follow your majestic lead, that our lives may joyously conform to your vision of the new world. 
We pray in the name of your holy Son, even Jesus.

A Friday Prayer by Walter Brueggemann

15 Saturday Nov 2014

Posted by thecruciformpen in Prayers

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Good Friday, prayers, Walter Brueggemann

Crucified_Christ_with_Virgin_St_JohnI enjoy reading the prayers of Walter Brueggemann. They help to give me a voice to talk to God in a profoundly honest way, about things that I often do not think to pray about. Here is a prayer from his book Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth (Fortress Press, 2003); the title of the prayer is “Friday is Your Day of Entry” (page 125)

Giver of good gifts, we give you hearty thanks…that it is Friday.

We say, without guilt, “Thank God It’s Friday!”

Partly, as we come to Friday, along with out culture, we are into week-ends of self-indulgence. We have worked hard and are ready to take a break and rest from our labors. We wait for a moment when we need not pay attention to the steady demands with which we live, caring not at all for the world, or for our neighbor, or our duty.

Give us the mercy to move Friday beyond “the week-end.” Partly as we move to Friday we are ready for Sabbath rest, when we rest as we imagine you to rest. It is clear to us in our best pondering that our lives are made for rest and not for work. So give us the simplicity to put ourselves down in your rest, whereby we may receive back our true selves by drawing close to you.

But mainly, as we come to Friday, we know in our deepest places that Friday is your day of entry into the hurt and hate of the world, your day of bottomless weakness where we have seen you allied with the world in its deepest disorder. We know you to be a Friday God without the honors of omnipotence. And so we pray that you will “Friday us” into the very weakness where we may receive our new life from you.

We pray in the name of your Friday Child. Amen.

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