The Annunciation

The Annunciation

“Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.” Luke 1.28

What is the connection between macaroni and today’s Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord?

Well, it is to be found in the communion motet. I thought that as we were following our sermon series during Lent based on the communion motets, we would continue the pattern today.

The text of the communion motet, usually referred to as ‘A Hymn to the Virgin’ dates back to the 13th century. And like many other mediaeval carols, it is macaronic. That is, it is partly in English and partly in Latin.

The adjective ‘macaronic’, is used to describe any text which is a jumbled mixture of the vernacular, Latin or Latinized words or indeed words from any other languages. The word comes from the New Latin ‘macaronicus’, literally, resembling macaroni: presumably, suggesting lack of sophistication or simple rustic wisdom.

And this is one of the hallmarks of these mediaeval texts, which makes them so attractive, and at the same time rather annoying. They are often full of homespun devotion and theological naivety. The Latin is perhaps supposed to give them a bit more weight. But rather like putting on a posh accent while still using appalling grammar, the overall effect is one of lovable simplicity.

It is best not to look at such texts in too much detail. What shines through the three verses we will hear later (there are two other verses to this hymn as well) is an echo of the angel’s words to Our Lady: “Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.”

It was music which first began to give me an inkling of devotion to Our Lady, back in my teens. Not surprisingly, my good puritan baptist church had no images of any kind in the building - not even a cross until the swinging 60s.

So Mary only featured in Christmas Carols. And even then some of the words had to be changed to protect theological sensibilities. That line in Adam lay y bounden: ‘Ne had the apple taken been, the apple taken been, ne had never Our Lady a-been heavene queen’; was changed to ‘Ne had never Christ’s glory on earth ever been seen.’ A not-so-subtle Christological shift!

But despite all this, as a teenager exploring passion and fallings in love, it was hymns and carols which often inspired my devotion. I recognised that just as Jesus was the most lovable man; the man from God; the second Adam; the man who was God; so Mary was the most loveable woman, the woman chosen by God, the second Eve; the perfect Mother of Our Lord; a friend, a comforter, who like a mother, understands and cares.

It was probably similar feelings which drew the 17-year old Benjamin Britten to the text in 1930. He wrote relatively little specifically Christian music, but here we catch a glimpse of an early intimation of religious mystery.

Whatever happened between Mary and God, between this Angel and Mary; it was such an exceptional happening that no other human being has ever experienced such, before or since.

And the words of these mediaeval poems pile up epithets and allegories to draw us out in Love of God, and love of this simple woman who became such a channel of grace.

It is amazement at the way God involves human beings, supremely, Mary, in his plans for salvation which calls for us to praise God; and to offer our admiration and devotion to those saints who submit themselves to the will of God. Chief among these is Mary, the unique God-bearer.

Rainer Maria Rilke in his poem on the Annunciation from Das Marienleben, deepens our wonder of God’s mysterious workings, by suggesting that even the Angel is astonished at the message he is bringing to this peasant girl.

When the angel stepped in, he did not take her by surprise,
It was as though a ray of sunlight or moonlight
had entered her room,
No, she did not even blink!

But when he bent close his youthful face
she looked into eyes that looked into hers,
their gaze so powerful that the world outside was suddenly empty
and the multitudes' visions, their deeds and their burdens
all were crowded into them: just she and he;
this girl, this angel, this spot.
And they were both astonished.

Then the angel sang his melody.

“Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.” Luke 1.28

(Rainer Maria Rilke, from Das Marienleben
translated & adapted by Alice Van Buren and Russell Walden)

Job Description

The Role of Vicar General for the London College of Bishops

General Description
To be a member of the Bishop of London’s staff located in the Old Deanery

Enabling better functioning & communication within present structures:

1. Facilitating implementation of College of Bishops’ decisions; (+Londin, +Stepney, +Kensington, +Edmonton, +Willesden, +Fulham)
2. Helping maintain the Bishop’s synoptic view by attendance at College of Bishops and Joint Operations Team (JOT) meetings;
3. Keeping London Diocesan Board for Schools aware of relevant issues;
4. Working with the Bishop on implementation of specific tasks within the London Challenge;
5. Diocesan Director of Ordinands - Chair Area Directors of Ordinands; Manage James Taylor and Bp Monk Fund; Run Towards Ordained Ministry Course and Exploring Vocation Days; Deaconing arrangements;
6. Liaising with the Cathedral over ordination of deacons and Chrism Mass etc

Adding value, stimulating new thinking and driving better general communication:

1. Liaising with key groups of clergy and laity to encourage two-way communication between Bishop (eg Area Deans and former Area Deans);
2. Reflecting the vision of the Bishop to key workers in the Diocese;
3. Identifying and developing talent, and fostering succession planning;
4. Harnessing support on an ad hoc basis to assist the Bishop in particular areas (eg research/policy development etc);
5. Helping in strategic thinking and deployment;
6. Ensuring appropriate communication of strategic information.

Faire is the Heaven - Spenser

Faire is the Heaven

“One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.” Ps 27:4

I think I have discovered the worst automated telephone exchange in the world.

We are all used to the annoying electronic lady, with a transatlantic voice, who gives us a menu of buttons to push for services which are not quite what we want. And we know that our conversation may be recorded for training purposes. And we know that after we have push-buttoned our way through several layers of menus, and more than several pence of phone bill, we will eventually hear that, our call is very important to them, but all their operatives are currently busy and we will be held in a queue. And we will listen to Eine kleine Nacht music played on a Woolworths music centre.

Until we hear with dismay that we are talking to a stranger in Gallowshields called Tracey, and despite what she says, in such a heavy accent that we hardly understand a word, we suspect that she will not be able to assist us.

But on my nightmare exchange, whatever combination of buttons you pressed, you eventually came in at the beginning again.

Which brings us on to Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite. These were writings, probably from the early 6th century, which claimed to have originated with the first century Christian bishop, Dionysius of Athens. (Acts 17.34)

It’s a mystical strand of theology which, in one aspect, resembles our infuriating telephone exchange. You never get straight through to God.

Indeed God is mediated to humanity through three orders of Angelic beings, each divided into three choirs. So from the top, next to God, we have Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones; then Dominations, Virtues and Powers; and finally Principalities, Archangels and Angels - and only these last two, Archangels and Angels, have a direct mission to men and women.

This sort of neo-Platonic theology had great influence in the Western church, but after the Reformation by the late 16th century, it was beginning to be doubted and freely modified. This is the era of Edmund Spenser who wrote the words of our communion motet, Faire is the heaven, towards the end of his life in 1596. This is the era of Richard Hooker, one of the first great Anglican theologians. It is the era of a Reformed Protestant Catholicism.

Spenser is most famously remembered for his epic work, The Faerie Queene, his great allegory of the Virgin Queen Elizabeth who ruled from when he was six until after his death. He’s buried here in Westminster Abbey.

Spenser’s Hymnes of Heavenly Love and Heavenly Beautie are a poetic reflection on what was happening in theology at this time.

Heavenly Love begins in the Divine Trinity and moves toward creation, embracing humanity and drawing them into the motionless motion of the everloving Trinity.

The contemplation of Heavenly Beautie starts from the opposite end of the cosmos and through stages takes us from the earthly realm, through the heavenly spheres to arrive at the very Godhead. It is from this work, An Hymne of Heavenly Beautie, that William Harris selected these words for his motet.

Now Spenser seems deliberately to have reversed the Dionysian order of the Angelic choirs. This can be no accident, or a lapse of memory.

The Seraphim and Cherubim are furthest from God, and ‘fairer than they both and much more bright’ are the Angels and Archangels, ‘Which attend on God’s own person without rest or end.’ This was an outrageous thought to a church schooled in Dionysian thinking.

Later on in the poem (beyond the words that will be sung here) we see the thinking behind this reversal.

You see, Spenser was also deeply influenced by the Reformation rediscovery of Augustine. It is by grace that we are saved. We have immediate access to God through the mediation of Christ alone. Immediate means ‘nothing in the middle’.

Further on in the poem Spenser writes that we must

lowly fall before his mercie seate,
Close covered with the Lambes integrity

It is the Lamb who was slain, it is Christ who allows us to approach the beauty and perfection of God.

This motet expounds that great biblical truth of our faith: all may approach God through the finished work of Christ.

It is not for those who discover hidden knowledge and mystical ways. It is not for those who persevere up rungs of the celestial ladder of powers. It is not for the top of the hierarchy of Cherubim and Seraphim, of aristocracy or intelligentsia, of clerics or prelates.

It is a direct spiritual transaction: Emmanuel, God with us.

But of course there is much more to a poem than a theological treatise, or an exposition of doctrine.

And this is why William Harris picked up these words for his motet.

Harris was born in 1883 and studied at the Royal College of Music, where he later became a professor. He was organist of New College, Oxford, Christ Church Cathedral and St. George's Chapel, Windsor, where he gave piano lessons to the young princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret.

He composed this in 1925, recovering from the horrors of the First World War and nostalgically musing on his privileged Edwardian boyhood, surrounded by beauty and optimism.

The motet is full of yearning, for lost innocence and the beauty of youth; for the release of death and the ascent to Beauty beyond compare - ‘that Highest’... ‘endless perfectness’.

And here we see that Augustinian immediacy does not completely negate Dionysian hierarchy, because there is a hierarchy of longing; of longing for God. The Christian soul who seeks the Beloved, is drawn ever higher and nearer to the Cloud of Unknowing, to Dionysius’ ‘dark ray’.
Spenser wrote at great length on human beauty and love, but this was as a prelude to that consummation of beauty and love found in Christ and echoed in these words.

And Harris’s setting, for double choir - perhaps reflecting the choirs of Angels & Archangels - is also richly romantic and evocative, drawing us into the very presence of God.

It does what music and poetry is supposed to do in Christian worship: it gives voice to what is inexpressible. It takes us far beyond the rational arguments about the existence of God or the nature of the incarnation. It resonates with that deeply implanted image of God within every human being. Perhaps as a Lenten discipline some of you need to make time to sit down and listen to music, that it may rekindle your longings for God.

Music and poetry express our immortal longings for him who is Love, who is Beauty, whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent. (Wittgenstein)

And after we have received these earnests of his love, the bread and the wine, and listened to those closing words:
How then can mortal tongue hope to express
The image of such endless perfectnesse?
we too will fall into speechless silence.

And the silence will be permeated with the presence of God, because of what has gone before.

“One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.” Ps 27:4


LENT 2 March 16
Faire is the heaven
Edmund Spenser (1552-99)
William Henry Harris (1883-1973)


Faire is the heaven where happy soules have place
In full enjoyment of felicitie;
Whence they do still behold the glorious face
Of the Divine, Eternall Majestie;

Yet farre more faire be those bright Cherubins
Which all with golden wings are overdight.
And those eternall burning Seraphins
Which from their faces dart out fiery light;

Yet fairer than they both and much more bright
Be the Angels and Archangels
Which attend on God's owne person without rest or end.
These then in faire each other farre excelling
As to the Highest they approach more neare,
Yet is that Highest farre beyond all telling

Fairer than all the rest which there appeare
Though all their beauties joynd together were;
How then can mortal tongue hope to expresse
The image of such endlesse perfectnesse?