03 March 2024

17.45 Choral Evensong

In the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

When I discovered that this epic piece by Finzi was the anthem this evening I was absolutely thrilled, because I’ve preached on it before!!  But could I find it?  No!  Did I waste a lot of time looking for it rather than starting from scratch?  Yes!  Eventually I gave up.  The readings, of course, would be different, so I started again.  When I looked at our first reading, I chuckled, calling myself “Lazy, lazy” in the words of the Pharaoh.  It served me right that in the time assigned to write this sermon I had tried to find the straw of the previous one and make my brick, this one.

Go down, Kitty, and get on with it, and get out of your comfort zone.  Thus here is a lay reader who prefers evensong to the eucharist – sorry – preaching about the importance of the eucharist!  Oh the irony!  Perhaps my preference is because of the time of day as I am a night owl, but there is space in evensong that I can’t find in the eucharist.  What a contradiction?!

There is added irony that we are in a Church of England building, yet the music was composed by Gerald Finzi, an agnostic of Jewish descent, and the words he used were poems by the poet and priest Richard Crashaw, who eventually converted to Roman Catholicism.  These contradictions are marvellous, showing that God is at work and is not bothered by our human barriers and, I think, has a good sense of humour!

Lo, the full final sacrifice was composed for the 53rd anniversary of the consecration of St Matthew’s Church, Northampton.  It was commissioned by the then incumbent, Walter Hussey, who later became Dean of Chichester.  Famous for his interest in the arts and their relevance to faith, it is fitting that we have Canon Harriet, from the Chichester Diocese, here with the Lazarus Raised exhibition, her first major arts project as Canon Chancellor.

The foundation of Crashaw’s work is two works by St Thomas Aquinas.  One, Adoro te devote – I devoutly adore you – was a prayer.  The other, Lauda Sion salvatorem, Praise the saviour of Sion, is a hymn written at the request of Pope Urban IV when the Feast of Corpus Christi was introduced into the Church calendar. 

In a 1930 article about Crashaw’s poetry in a Dominican Journal, Brother Anselm Townsend praises Crashaw’s work with Aquinas’ Latin texts: “It is no easy task to attempt a translation of the Eucharistic Hymns of Saint Thomas…Crashaw, wisely, has not attempted a translation, strictly so called, but has contented himself with a species of paraphrase and has amply succeeded in giving thought for thought, but he has also made use of his own ecstatic style…It is Saint Thomas, the mystic, we hear speaking from the foot of the altar rather than the Doctor Communis speaking from the rostrum; Saint Thomas, the poet, rather than the intellectual genius.”

What Finzi did was to conflate these poems into one text.  With each stanza, we are invited to join in the chorus of believers throughout the ages, proclaiming the greatness of God's mercy and the wonder of His saving grace, particularly as experienced in the eucharist.

The opening text and music are profound and solemn: "Lo, the full, final sacrifice / On which all figures fix'd their eyes" – that’s ALL figures, including the ram sacrificed instead of Isaac, including me and including you.  Centuries of prophecy and tradition meet in that full, final sacrifice, that of Jesus.  It is such an important phrase that it is repeated at the end.

I found three works by Garrick Palmer inspirational for this sermon; two are studies on the “Deposition from the Cross” and then from his “Figures Study, Feeding of the 5,000”.  In the first two, you see that self-sacrificial love of Jesus, the blood coming out of his wounded side.  In the third, I am reminded of the gift of Jesus to feed those who were hungry, with no judgement on their worthiness, but with love.  In the text, we are invited to consider the mysteries of the eucharist, and the salvation it brings, through repeated reference to manna, bread, wine and redemption.

Here are some examples:

·         “The Manna, and the Paschal lamb.  Jesu Master, just and true!  Our Food, and faithful Shepherd too!”

·         Exploring the blessings of communion: Rich, Royal food! Bountiful Bread!  Whose use denies us to the dead!

·         The Last Supper: The living and life-giving bread, To the great twelve distributed 

·         That so all may Drink the same wine; and the same way.

One of the favourite images from the text is that of the soft self-wounding Pelican. 

In Egyptian tradition, pelicans were associated with death and the afterlife.  The Physiologus, a Christian text from the 3rd or 4th century, says that when young pelicans hurt their mother in order to feed, the rough-and-tumble could result in the mother killing her chicks.  After mourning for three days, she draws blood which she uses to bring them back to life.  This is clearly an analogy of the resurrection.  Another tradition is that when no food is available, the mother pelican will pierce her side to draw blood to feed her starving chicks.  This is an analogy of the death on the cross of Jesus for humanity.  In Aquinas’ poem Adoro te devote, he describes Christ as the loving divine pelican; one drop of his blood can save the world. 

These are incredibly evocative images and ideas, but sadly they are not true.  Pelican experts state that pelicans actually collect as many fish as possible into their beaks, then press their beaks to their chest, and gradually push the fish into the beaks of her fledglings.  I don’t think it actually matters if it is inaccurate.  I like it because it is an image we can understand, and it also explores an image of the female in relation to Christ’s death.

Frankly I would have preferred a penguin as they are my favourite animal, and the congregation could have been handed Penguin biscuits upon arrival to help get you through the intense and lengthy experience of the anthem!  I also have to confess to having been tempted to wear a pelican outfit and walk along the back of the baptistry piercing my side with my beak to see if anyone would notice.  Luckily I realise that this is both naughty and inappropriate and I wouldn’t ever do it, even if I still think about it!

Despite some of the heart wrenching musical and literary sounds, in an article for the poetry foundation, the anonymous author writes that the “basenote of Crashaw’s poetry is joy”, “exaltation the promised spiritual effect of his verse.”  It was Crashaw’s hope that the end of his life would be the beginning, what has been described as a “juvenescent hope”, “treasured hopes of heaven, not of earthly reward.”

Finzi's composition does not end with the cross; rather, it leads us onward to resurrection.  As the music comes towards the end we hear an understated declaration of victory: “Come Love!  Come Lord! When glory’s sun faith’s shades shall chase, and for thy veil give me thy face.”  In the resurrection of Christ, we find the fulfilment of God's promise and the assurance of our own redemption.  Through his sacrifice, we are made new, transformed by the power of his love and grace.  And he ends with the word Amen, with a word used in the affirmative, agreeing to what has come before and gives the hint of eternity.  Finzi’s Amen is one of the greatest Amens in Anglican choral music.  We chose it for the end of the blessing at our wedding nearly 26 years ago.  Its length and its beauty point to the praise that echoes throughout eternity.  Amen.

Kitty Price, Cathedral Reader

LO, THE FULL, FINAL SACRIFICE Gerald Finzi

Lo, the full, final sacrifice

On which all figures fix’d their eyes,

The ransom’d Isaac, and his ram;

The Manna, and the Paschal lamb.

Jesu Master, just and true!

Our Food, and faithful Shepherd too!

 

O let that love which thus makes thee

Mix with our low Mortality,

Lift our lean Souls, and set us up

Convictors of thine own full cup,

Coheirs of Saints. That so all may

Drink the same wine; and the same way.

 

Nor change the Pasture, but the Place

To feed of Thee in thine own Face.

O dear Memorial of that Death

Which lives still, and allows us breath!

Rich, Royal food! Bountiful Bread!

Whose use denies us to the dead!

 

Live ever Bread of loves, and be

My life, my soul, my surer self to me.

Help Lord, my Faith, my Hope increase;

And fill my portion in thy peace.

Give love for life; nor let my days

Grow, but in new powers to thy name and praise.

 

Rise, Royal Sion! rise and sing

Thy soul's kind shepherd, thy heart's King.

Stretch all thy powers; call if you can

Harps of heaven to hands of man.

This sovereign subject sits above

The best ambition of thy love.

 

Lo the Bread of Life, this day's

Triumphant Text provokes thy praise.

The living and life-giving bread,

To the great twelve distributed

When Life, himself, at point to die

Of love, was his own Legacy.

 

O soft self-wounding Pelican!

Whose breast weeps Balm for wounded man.

All this way bend thy benign flood

To a bleeding Heart that gasps for blood.

That blood, whose least drops sovereign be

To wash my worlds of sins from me.

 

Come love! Come Lord! and that long day

For which I languish, come away.

When this dry soul those eyes shall see,

And drink the unseal'd source of thee.

When Glory's sun faith's shades shall chase,

And for thy veil give me thy Face.

Amen.