"Lord, let me know mine end, and the number of my days" sang the visiting singers tonight's Ash Wednesday Eucharist.
Choir half term, so no Allegri for us in Coventry, but as the voices wove around one another, in the courtly dance that is the middle section of Maurice Greene''s setting of the psalm 39, it didn't much matter.
The graceful interchange of voices belied the words
"Man walketh as a vain shadow"
Not a hint of futility here, but rather gently ordered beauty, soothing the soul.
The paradox of the setting is a good one for today, ostensibly heavy with foreboding, the intimations inescapable of mortality.
"Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return", I say, over and over again, tracing the cross as best I can on faces known and unfamiliar.
It ought to feel portentous, is certainly solemn, but is redeemed both by the inescapable intimacy that connects us all in our fragile, time-limited physicality , and by the second sentence I get to share.
"Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ".
Diagnosis and cure delivered in two short sentences.
"Let me know mine end"
At the lunchtime Eucharist we gather under the gaze of saints and angels on the West Screen, the leaden skies supporting the message of the death that is the inescapable lot of each and every person there. Yes, even that delightful baby, and the little girl who watches, warily, from the front row.
"You are dust...."
But then, as the people come to me one by one, something wonderful happens.
It's an ordinary, every day event: the sun comes out from behind the clouds.
Suddenly I can no longer see the faces of those I'm ashing.
They are invisible, concealed by the pool of golden glory, the black ash crosses completely lost in the transfiguring brightness of this holy moment.
Again and again I reach forward into this enveloping blaze, declaring the truth of the moment even as I look ahead to offer sure and certain hope for the future.
"Let me know mine end".
This, this is what we can look forward to as we turn to Christ and follow in his steps on the way that leads to everlasting life.
"Rejoice oh dust and ashes, the Lord shall be thy part."
That is the end, which opens us up to a new beginning, as during Lent even we are allowed to try on Easter hope.
Choir half term, so no Allegri for us in Coventry, but as the voices wove around one another, in the courtly dance that is the middle section of Maurice Greene''s setting of the psalm 39, it didn't much matter.
The graceful interchange of voices belied the words
"Man walketh as a vain shadow"
Not a hint of futility here, but rather gently ordered beauty, soothing the soul.
The paradox of the setting is a good one for today, ostensibly heavy with foreboding, the intimations inescapable of mortality.
"Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return", I say, over and over again, tracing the cross as best I can on faces known and unfamiliar.
It ought to feel portentous, is certainly solemn, but is redeemed both by the inescapable intimacy that connects us all in our fragile, time-limited physicality , and by the second sentence I get to share.
"Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ".
Diagnosis and cure delivered in two short sentences.
"Let me know mine end"
At the lunchtime Eucharist we gather under the gaze of saints and angels on the West Screen, the leaden skies supporting the message of the death that is the inescapable lot of each and every person there. Yes, even that delightful baby, and the little girl who watches, warily, from the front row.
"You are dust...."
But then, as the people come to me one by one, something wonderful happens.
It's an ordinary, every day event: the sun comes out from behind the clouds.
Suddenly I can no longer see the faces of those I'm ashing.
They are invisible, concealed by the pool of golden glory, the black ash crosses completely lost in the transfiguring brightness of this holy moment.
Again and again I reach forward into this enveloping blaze, declaring the truth of the moment even as I look ahead to offer sure and certain hope for the future.
"Let me know mine end".
This, this is what we can look forward to as we turn to Christ and follow in his steps on the way that leads to everlasting life.
"Rejoice oh dust and ashes, the Lord shall be thy part."
That is the end, which opens us up to a new beginning, as during Lent even we are allowed to try on Easter hope.
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