In England and Wales, the feast of All Saints is being celebrated today (and All Souls tomorrow). With the music of our prayers let us lift our hearts to God, as we praise him with all the saints in heaven.
The following piece, Exsultate justi, is a setting by Ludovico da Viadana (1564-1645) of Psalm 32:1-2:
Exsultate justi in Domino: rectos decet collaudatio.
Confitemini Domino in cithara. In psalterio decem chordarum psallite illi.
Cantate ei canticum novum: bene psallite ei in vociferacione.
Let the just rejoice in the Lord: it is fitting for the upright to praise him.
Sing to him to the psaltery and the ten-stringed lute.
Make him a new song: sing to him well with strong voice.
Sung by the Cantoria Sine Nomine di Castelnuovo (Italy), directed by Carlo Andriollo
Br Matthew Jarvis will be performing on flute with OULikeit!– ‘Oxford’s most likeable wind quintet’ – this Saturday, 14 June, at 2.30pm in Jesus College Chapel.
This relaxed afternoon concert will feature works by Barthe, Farkas, Ravel and Nielsen.
Admission is FREE and the music will be followed by a drinks reception.
Please feel free to share the following poster with your friends!
Tonight, at Mass & Vespers in Oxford, the Blackfriars schola will sing 'Ne irascaris, Domine' by Byrd. The motet has been pre-recorded specially for Godzdogz.
Every year, on the First Sunday of Lent, we hear the account of Jesus being tempted in the desert. This time, it's from the Gospel according to St Matthew, and the passage is probably very familiar to you. But the temptations might seem a bit odd and even disconnected from our own daily lives. Who among us is really tempted to turn stones into bread, to jump off large religious buildings, or to conquer the world? Well, sometimes conquering the world does sound like an attractive idea! But under the cold light of day, such dramatic notions are alien to us. They must have deeper levels of meaning, and you can explore them in many places, including previous posts on this blog!
But there is another strange and striking aspect that suggests we need to find a deeper meaning: I mean, the shortness of the dialogue between Jesus and the Devil. We hear Jesus quote Scripture, but no further explanation is given. For example, in overcoming the second temptation, which is to throw himself from the top of the Temple and experience a miraculous rescue, Jesus replies that one must not put God to the test.
I can easily understand why we shouldn't be testing God all the time, as this would suggest an immaturity of faith and a deep insecurity on our part. But don't we have good reasons to test God some of the time, especially when we feel we are the ones being tested by the difficult struggles in our lives? What I mean is, when life is putting us to the test, isn't it legitimate to ask God for help, to tell God to share some of our struggle with us, and so to put God to the test in return? After all, we are supposed to ask God for things, even small daily necessities. 'Ask and you shall receive.' Why didn't Jesus ask for bread in the desert (or, since he is God, just create bread on the spot)? Why didn't he ask his Father to provide him with his 'daily bread', as we do in the prayer that Jesus himself taught us?
You may have noticed that I've transposed the command about testing God from the second temptation (jumping off the Temple) to the first temptation (making bread). But I have good Scriptural reasons for doing so, and I think we should explore the underlying unity between the three replies given by Our Lord.
To find this unity we have to delve into the Old Testament. In the episode immediately following the Temptation in Matthew's gospel, Jesus will preach to the crowds the Sermon on the Mount, where he is revealed to be a new Moses. Indeed, he is the divine Lawgiver. And this fact has already been shown in the desert, where the parallels with Moses are clear. Moses had fasted forty days and forty nights on the mountain of the Lord, just before receiving the Ten Commandments, or 'ten words' (Ex. 24:18, 34:28). Jesus, the new Moses, is undergoing his own period of fasting and trial, before going to the people of Israel to preach the words of God. Here in the desert, he reveals his mastery of the Word of God, because he is that Word, he himself is the fullest revelation of God.
Poussin, Moses striking water from the rock
In his second reply, Jesus says, 'Again it is written, "You shall not tempt the Lord your God."' (Mt 4:7) He is quoting from the Torah: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test as you did at Massah.' (Dt 6:16) And why is Massah cited as the archetypal place of testing and disobedience? We need to look at that passage in Exodus (17:2) to find the answer: 'they quarreled with Moses and said, "Give us water to drink." Moses replied, "Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the Lord to the test?"' This immediately follows the episode of the manna and quails in the desert, when the people grumbled against Moses and against God, demanding to be fed. And God provided a feast in the desert. So God sometimes provides despite our putting him to the test.
There is an historical Psalm which summarises this whole episode very well:
Yet they sinned still more against him,
rebelling against the Most High in the desert.
They tested God in their heart
by demanding the food they craved.
They spoke against God, saying,
"Can God spread a table in the wilderness?
He smote the rock so that water gushed out
and streams overflowed.
Can he also give bread,
or provide meat for his people?"
(Ps 78:17-20)
And here is the odd thing: are we being told that asking for daily food was an offence against God? That can't be quite right, since Jesus tells us to pray, ‘Give us today our daily bread’ (Mt 6:11). Moreover, Scripture tells us that God provides ‘bread to strengthen man’s heart’ (Ps 104:15), and that ‘every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights’ (Jas 1:17).
The answer is provided when we look behind Jesus' first reply in today's gospel. In refusing to create bread, he refers to another passage in Deuteronomy (8:3), which teaches total reliance on God alone, explicitly in the context of asking for daily bread. 'He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.'
Poussin, The Jews gathering the Manna in the Desert
And here we see the link with Jesus' third reply, too. Total reliance on God alone means trusting him as the Author of Life, who in his Providence cares for us with an infinite love. Jesus tells the Devil, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’ (Mt 4:10) We must love and serve God wholeheartedly. We must trust him, not test him.
This is not an option. It is absolutely required by the commandment to love God and serve him alone. The command not to put God to the test, which we read a moment ago, actually comes in Deuteronomy, chapter 6, in the context of what Jesus would later tell us is the greatest commandment of all, that is, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.’ (Dt 6:5, cf. Mt 22:37)
In putting love at the centre, we see that Jesus' three replies to the Devil are a seamless whole. They are underpinned by the same logic. We can and should ask our daily bread from God. Our request is not a test but an act of trust. It is an act of love. And this means that we have to accept those times when we don't get everything we want. There is a time for feasting and a time for fasting. In his own fast, Jesus shows us how to trust the Father. And that is exactly what Lent is about.
Today's feast of the 'presentation' of baby Jesus at the Temple marks the end of the infancy narratives in the Gospel of Luke:
And when they had performed everything according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own city, Nazareth. And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him. (Luke 2:39-40)
We next hear of Jesus returning to the Temple as a twelve-year-old boy, teaching the teachers of the Law, and then there is no further report until his public ministry begins, aged thirty. So this passage marks the end of one important stage in Jesus's life – his infancy – and the beginning of another – his childhood and adolescence. Standing at this juncture, the Presentation is clearly a 'rite of passage'.
Last September, when I was teaching some Year 6 pupils at St Dominic's school in our London parish, as part of our 'Pray4' mission week, I drew some parallels between the Presentation and our Christian rites of passage, such as Baptism. St Luke is at pains to stress the punctilious religious observance of Mary and Joseph. They take him to the Temple in Jerusalem, forty days after his birth, as the Law of Moses required. He is 'redeemed to the Lord', as the firstborn male child. His family is too poor to afford a lamb for the sacrifice, so they offer two turtledoves or pigeons (see Lev. 12:8). All of this was fairly standard practice for Jews living near Jerusalem, two thousands years ago.
Aert de Gelder, Simeon's Song of Praise
The theme at St Dominic's school was 'New Beginnings', and it's easy to see how the presentation of a child is a wonderful moment of genesis. God is thanked for giving life to the child, an event which heralds a brighter future.
But the presentation of Jesus is unique, marked as it is by the strange witness of two old prophets in the Temple, Simeon and Anna. At a time of feverish expectation of the promised Messiah, their gift of prophecy (which was supposed to have ended with the Old Testament figures) would have been interpreted as a sign of the saviour's imminent arrival. When I think of Simeon and Anna faithfully living out their religious vocations in the Temple, year in, year out, this Psalm verse springs to mind:
There is one thing I ask of the Lord,
for this I long,
to live in the house of the Lord,
all the days of my life,
to savour the sweetness of the Lord,
to behold his temple (Ps. 27:4).
These two extraordinary figures were richly rewarded for their fidelity. They savoured the sweetness of the Lord as they beheld the living Temple which is Christ (cf. John 2:19). They saw the wonderful new beginning which God had long been preparing in Israel; the dawn of a new covenant was breaking. This Messiah would bring light, not only to the chosen people Israel, but even to all the nations. The joy and peace of God, which had been announced at Christmas, was now confirmed by Simeon to be a gift to every human being, regardless of origin or ability. In our own particular way of life, we can all behold Christ and love Christ.
Fra Angelico OP, The Presentation
And yet, this feast is tinged with sadness, too. The mission of Christ will only be achieved through great suffering and division, and his mother Mary would not escape these sorrows which would take her to the very foot of the Cross. Simeon and Anna must also feel pangs of sorrow even in this moment of joy. For God's arrival in their midst is the sign that their time is up. At last, all-powerful Master, you give leave to your servant to go in peace, according to your promise. (Luke 2:29) These prophets teach us to meet new beginnings in hope, but also to accept faithfully the terminations and the losses.
The song of Simeon, the Nunc Dimittis, is sung every night at Compline. It is an appropriate expression of Christian confidence in God at the end of the day, as it was at the end of Simeon's life. If we make it our own prayer, we will learn to see the light of Christ as clearly as Simeon and Anna did, and we will bring that light to those around us.
Nunc dimittis servum tuum, Domine,
secundum verbum tuum in pace:
Quia viderunt oculi mei salutare tuum,
quod parasti ante faciem omnium populorum:
Lumen ad revelationem gentium,
et gloriam plebis tuæ Israel.
At last, all-powerful Master,
you give leave to your servant to go in peace,
according to your promise.
For my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you have prepared for all nations,
the light to enlighten the Gentiles
and give glory to Israel, your people (Luke 2:29-32).
