Jameswoodward’s Weblog

Prayer to St. Stephen
We give thee thanks, O Lord of glory, for the example of the first martyr Stephen, who looked up to heaven and prayed for his persecutors to thy Son Jesus Christ, who standeth at thy right hand: where he liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting.

Prayer of Saint Stephen Martyr
Loving God, Saint Stephen was one of the first deacons in the Church. The Apostles ordained him with six others because they needed ministers who wouldoversee the needs of the poor and the widowed. His holiness was so evident that when he preached to his enemies, his face glowed brightly like an angel’s. I ask him to pray for those who have been called to a life of service as ordained deacons. O Lord, help them to be a sign of Your love in their parishes and in the world where they live and work. Bless them with a vision of their ministry that stirs them to passion and tireless effort. Saint Stephen, pray for us. Amen.

Quelle est cette odeur agréable, 
Bergers, qui ravit tous nos sens? 
S’exhale-t’il rien de semblable 
Au milieu des fleurs du printemps? 
Quelle est cette odeur agréable 
Bergers, qui ravit tous nos sens?

What is this pleasant fragrance, 
shepherds, which delights all our senses? 
Does anything like this breathe 
amongst the flowers of Spring?

Mais quelle éclatante lumière 
Dans la nuit vient frapper nos yeux! 
L’astre du jour, dans sa carrière, 
Fut-il jamais si radieux? 
Mais quelle éclatante lumière 
Dans la nuit vient frapper nos yeux!

But what a brilliant light 
in the darkness beats upon our eyes! 
Was ever the star of day, in its course, 
as radiant as this?

A Bethléem, dans une crèche, 
ll vient de vous naître un Sauveur; 
Allons, que rien ne vous empêche 
D’adorer votre Rédempteur. 
A Bethléem, dans une crèche, 
ll vient de vous naître un Sauveur.

At Bethlehem, in a crib, 
there has just been born to you a Saviour. 
Come, let nothing prevent you 
from worshipping your Redeemer.

Dieu tout-puissant, gloire éternelle 
Vous soit rendue jusqu’aux cieux; 
Que la paix soit universelle, 
Que la grâce abonde en tous lieux. 
Dieu tout-puissant, gloire éternelle 
Vous soit rendue jusqu’aux cieux.

All-powerful God, may eternal glory 
be paid to you in the highest heaven. 
May peace reign universal, 
and may grace abound in all lands.

One of my favourite artists died this week – a painter who was an outstanding colourist. Here is his obituary from the Times:

Craigie Aitchison was one of those visionary individualists whom Britain throws up from time to time. The first sight of a picture by him might suggest a dangerous naivety, an outrageously childlike religiosity, a decorative triviality, even technical incompetence; but not for long.

His paintings soon reveal a spontaneity of response followed into supremely calculated form and effect; the intensity that only comes from deep experience; and the brilliance of the true artist who can simplify his images almost to abstract shapes, yet intensify their communication.

Craigie Ronald John Aitchison was born in 1926, the younger son of a distinguished lawyer, Lord Aitchison, who was Labour MP for Kilmarnock, 1929-33, and Lord Advocate for Scotland during those years. He died when Craigie was 15.

His son abandoned his original inclination towards dress design since he felt he could not draw adequately. The possibility of studying architecture arose, but finally Craigie — who had frequently read with enthusiasm his father’s legal papers, including the appeals against conviction for murder in which his father specialised — decided to follow his father into law, and read British history and jurisprudence at the University of Edinburgh, then at the Middle Temple in London. However, he found himself more interested in the human drama of the law than in legal niceties, and began to take painting lessons from Adrian Daintrey.

Aitchison entered the Slade School of Art in 1952 as a fee-paying student, and was delighted to be there — while resisting instruction in painting, anatomy, perspective or art history. However, he did appreciate advice from Robert Medle and accepted Sir William Coldstream’s example, as taught in his select class there, of basing portraiture on strict measurement; Aitchison subsequently always began his portraits from the eyebrows outward.

Aitchison won an Italian government travelling scholarship in 1955, and the light, the landscape, and the art — particularly the early Italian religious works of stylised simplicity — were a revelation to him. Using vivid colours such as purples and yellows as his starting point — and Aitchison is one of the outstanding colourists of the 20th century, even including abstract painters — he began to produce portraits; still-life paintings; landscapes often with reminiscences of Tulliallan, his family home in Scotland; and contemplative religious subjects; mostly Crucifixions, often backed by the elements of this familiar landscape, with its distant profile of Holy Island. These were pared down to minimal detail, with the understated simplicity of early Italian devotional painting. Their strong colour and suffused emotional ground at first recalled Odilon Redon; later, as the highly calculated edges of his forms became sharper, the comparison with Matisse suggested itself.

After early inclusion in group shows at Gimpel and Gallery One, a fellow student, Michael Andrews, commended Aitchison to Helen Lessore, who gave him shows at her Beaux Arts Gallery in 1959, 1961 and 1964; while the Arts Council included his paintings in its New Painting exhibitions in London and on tour, from 1958 to 1961.

An admirer of Gauguin — after Piero della Francesca and Giotto — Aitchison found non-white people “a thousand times more exciting to paint”, if only for the way their skin set off the colours of their clothes; it was the availability of such friends as models that drew Aitchison from the clear air of Arran to set up his studio in South London in Kennington, in a house full of brightly coloured kitsch and bric-a-brac.

It was always inhabited by one, two or three Bedlington terriers, which he loved to paint and which remind one irresistibly of the dog keeping silent watch over the body of a nymph in Piero di Cosimo’s Mythological Subject (otherwise known as The Death of Procris), in the National Gallery.

He also bought a house — with its own chapel — at Montecastelli San Gusme, near Siena.

Despite the suspicions of some critics confronted by Aitchison’s economy of means, his art won a devoted and affectionate following far beyond his many friends from all walks of life; its colour chords became ever more singing, its compositions ever more subtly solid and its objects of contemplation, especially the Crucifixions which could be like flayed skins, ever more audaciously minimal, without losing their intensity or their innocence, or becoming precious. Aitchison maintained a blithely timeless vision, despite his thoroughly contemporary means of expression. “Ever since the world began, there have been the same birds on the same trees,” he said.

He was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1978, and a full academician in 1988. He was given a retrospective of his work from 1953 to 1981 at the Arts Council Serpentine Gallery in 1981-82. He won the RA’s Korn Ferry International Award in 1989 and again in 1991, the Jerwood Foundation Award in 1994, and the Nordstern Art Prize in 2000.

In 1996 he was commissioned to paint a mural of Calvary — a landscape illuminated by a mystical light — for the Gothic Revivalist Truro Cathedral in Cornwall. Other sacred works by him are held by Liverpool Cathedral and the chapel of King’s College, Cambridge.

In 2003 the Royal Academy held a major retrospective of his work, which was so popular that the RA shop produced cups and saucers, ties, mouse mats and memo pads bearing Aitchison designs. He said he did not mind as long as they asked for his approval first.

Aitchison’s popularity increased as the years went by, and there were solo exhibitions at the Albemarle Gallery, Thomas Gibson Fine Art, a retrospective at the Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow, the Timothy Taylor Gallery, the Waddington Galleries and the Long & Ryle gallery among others.The Tate owns four of his works and others are in public collections in Aberdeen, Birmingham, Glasgow, Blackpool, Newcastle, Nottingham, Edinburgh, Cape Town and Melbourne. He was appointed CBE in 1999.

I delight in his work and am very proud to have a couple of pieces….

We are busy here preparing for our Christmas worship – amidst the snow and frost and activity….

 And for those of you who want to join us:

Wednesday 23rd

7:30am

Mattins

8:00am

Holy Communion

5:15pm

Community Carol Service

Thursday 24th

7:30am

Mattins

8:00am

Holy Communion

5:15pm

Nine Lessons and Carols

11:15pm

Midnight Mass

Friday 25th

8:30am

Holy Communion

10:45am

Mattins & Sermon

12:00pm

Said Eucharist

3:30pm

Evensong and Procession

Saturday 26th

7:30am

Mattins

8:00am

Holy Communion

5:15pm

Evening Prayer

Sunday 27th

8:30am

Holy Communion

10:45am

Mattins & Sermon

11:45am

Said Eucharist with hymns

5:15pm

Evening Prayer with hymns

Is Heaven a Place — a Sky — a Tree?
Location’s narrow way is for Ourselves —
Unto the Dead
There’s no Geography —

But State — Endowal — Focus —
Where — Omnipresence — fly?

From Emily Dickinson, We pray — to Heaven

The Church of England has taken a pounding from critics, but Rowan Williams has reasons to be cheerful as Christmas approaches, says a leading Anglican historian and commentator,Diarmaid MacCulloch ( printed in the The Observer  Sunday 20 December 2009)

I thought this letter worth pondering?

Pictures are sometimes better than words!

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

by Robert Frost (1923)

Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound’s the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

The child of Bethlehem, the man on the Cross, Jesus – he embraces the whole of our human experiences – God with us, not just for good times, but for all times. This is the message of the angels – God with us, in times of darkness and cold, sorrow and uncertainty; God with us in the sunshine of contentment and satisfaction. The good news is God is with us, God with us to strengthen, uphold, and renew.

 These truths are best expressed for me in the poetry of hope, and longing and I share these two pieces with you.

 First from Three Poems of Incarnation – Kathleen Raine

Who stands at my door in the storm and rain
On the threshold of being?
One who waits till you call him in
From the empty night

Are you a stranger, out in the storm,
Or has my enemy found me out
On the edge of being?

I am no stranger who stands at the door
Nor enemy come in the secret night,
I am your child, in darkness and fear
On the verge of being.

Go back, my child, to the rain and storm,
For in this house there is sorrow and pain
In the lonely night.

I will not go back for sorrow or pain,
For my true love weeps within
And waits for my coming.

Go back, my babe, to the vacant night
For in this house dwell sin and hate
On the verge of being.

I will not go back for hate or sin,
I will not go back for sorrow or pain,
For my true love mourns within
On the threshold of night.

 And finally from WH Audens Chrismas Oratorio

Because of His visitation, we may no longer desire God as if He were lacking: our redemption is no longer a question of pursuit – but a surrender to Him who is always and everywhere present. Therefore at every moment we pray that, following Him we may depart from our anxiety into His peace.

water

If I were called in
To construct a religion
I should make use of water.

Going to church
Would entail a fording
To dry, different clothes;

My litany would employ
Images of sousing,
A furious devout drench,

And I should raise in the east
A glass of water
Where any-angled light
Would congregate endlessly.

Philip Larkin

Change is the essence of life. Or as Herbert Spencer put it in his Principles of Biology: ‘a living thing is distinguished from a dead thing by the multiplicity of the changes at any moment taking place in it.’ A commitment to changelessness is not only unfortunate, it is impossible. Rigidity is its sin; death is its wages.

I have become more open, more knowledgeable, more thoughtful, more aware of the God who stands by. I have learned that there is more than only way to do a thing. ‘Wisdom,’ Octavio Paz said, ‘lies neither in fixity not in change, but in the dialectic between the two.

Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope

Joan D. Chittister  (page 26)