Friday Assembly: Westminster School
in Westminster Abbey
I was in
the Tower of London last night for a dinner, and did you know that the oldest
surviving Valentine was sent from there in 1415. It’s a poem written by
Charles, Duke of Orleans to his wife. He had been captured at the Battle of
Agincourt and was being held in the Tower for ransom.
The only
two Valentine’s cards I ever remember receiving carried rather depressing
messages: “Every time I see you Dearie, I can believe in Darwin’s Theory.”
And then,
the last card I was sent in a Leap Year, when traditionally women can propose
to men: “You are the answer to a maiden’s prayer. Not exactly what I prayed
for; but apparently the answer…”
There
are various prevalent views of love in the western world:
- The cynical view. So Sartre’s view, summed up by Iris Murdoch: “Love for Sartre is a battle between two hypnotists in a closed room.” Or as someone remarked to me in John Lewis’s the other day when they’d just seen me marry a couple in St George’s Hanover Square: “Love is a socially engineered virus to keep the pretence of family life going.” This view is generally promulgated by those who are very unlucky in love.
- The sexual view. Whether it’s the biological view of someone like Richard Dawkins’ in The Selfish Gene; or the less academic clubbing favourite from my youth “Gimme, gimme, gimme a man after midnight...” It’s sometimes been called ‘the imperialism of the sexual’.
- The affective view. That emotionally charged and powerful feeling which is at the heart of so much literature and so many lyrics; it often leads mature men and women to act in most bizzare ways. Publilius Syrus said (and I won’t attempt this in Westminster Latin) amare et sapere vix deo conceditur - “even a god finds it hard to love and be wise at the same time.”
Whatever
mixture of these views, it is certainly firmly established in our western culture
and is an emotional fact of life for those of us who have grown up in it that
culture.
Why the
early Christian martyrs named Valentine (there were probably at least 2 of
them - which might be why you can supposedly
find their bones in Scotland, Ireland and Italy) are associated with the Valentine
card bonanza is a mystery. Maybe it was because the feast day of one of them
coincided with the pagan festival of Lupercalia which the church finally
stamped out in the 5th century - or thought it did.
So what
of the Christian virtue of love which St Paul extols and which Jesus points to
as the identifying mark of the Christian?
The
demonstration of this love is simply displayed in the self-giving love of Jesus
– in his life, death and resurrection.
Some
people find it very hard to accept unconditional love, often because they don’t
love themselves. Some of you probably secretly loathe yourselves.
George
Herbert 1593-1633), who studied here as a boy in the beginning of the 17th
Century had trouble loving himself and so had trouble accepting that God loved
him. He wrestles with this as he things about going to the Eucharist, the Holy
Communion, the Mass, where we see the costly love of Jesus.
He has a
discussion with him in this poem, and calls Jesus ‘Love’, for God is Love, and Jesus is God.
LOVE
bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But
quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer
to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack'd anything.
'A
guest,' I answer'd, 'worthy to be here:'
Love said, 'You shall be he.'
'I, the
unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
I cannot look on Thee.'
Love
took my hand and smiling did reply,
'Who made the eyes but I?'
'Truth,
Lord; but I have marr'd them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.'
'And
know you not,' says Love, 'Who bore the blame?'
'My dear, then I will serve.'
'You
must sit down,' says Love, 'and taste my meat.'
So I did sit and eat.
Hymn: Bread of heaven, feed me now and
evermore.
Collect for Quinquagesima
