Listen to and ponder it all–more than once.

You may find the full text there (note that the audio is TS Eliot himself reading the poem).

Follow the star to the feast of the Epiphany on 6th January!

BL Add MS 37472, f.r @BLMedieval pic.twitter.com/mXuszwSUKa

— Ennius (@red_loeb) January 5, 2024

How could they have known not to come
On what amounted to pretense? Everything
Their learning held, all their beliefs
Said regal gifts were needful for a king.

The things they brought were left behind,
Doubtless; or maybe traded for bread:
Impecunious Joseph with a family
To feed, a roof to put over his head.

Read it all.

Follow the star to the feast of the Epiphany on 6th January!

BL Add MS 37472, f.r @BLMedieval pic.twitter.com/mXuszwSUKa

— Ennius (@red_loeb) January 5, 2024

The holly and the mistletoe must be taken down and burnt,
And the children got ready for school. There are enough
Left-overs to do, warmed-up, for the rest of the week —
Not that we have much appetite, having drunk such a lot,
Stayed up so late, attempted — quite unsuccessfully —
To love all of our relatives, and in general
Grossly overestimated our powers. Once again
As in previous years we have seen the actual Vision and failed
To do more than entertain it as an agreeable
Possibility, once again we have sent Him away,
Begging though to remain His disobedient servant,
The promising child who cannot keep His word for long.
The Christmas Feast is already a fading memory,
And already the mind begins to be vaguely aware
Of an unpleasant whiff of apprehension at the thought
Of Lent and Good Friday which cannot, after all, now
Be very far off.

Read it all (my emphasis).

Gloria in eccelsis deo, cries the angel silently. Stolen by the mafia in 1969, never recovered, alas! Caravaggio's late great Adoration of the shepherds. pic.twitter.com/KHMl5jeuxh

— Dr. Peter Paul Rubens (@PP_Rubens) December 26, 2023

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
“For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.”

–Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

Christmas time. Peter Paul Rubens, The Adoration of the Magi, 1628-1629. #galeriamiguelnabinho #christmastime pic.twitter.com/fwOxdT0YxO

— Miguel Nabinho (@miguelnabinho) December 26, 2023

My own feeling is that writers who see by the light of their Christian faith will have, in these times, the sharpest eyes for the grotesque, for the perverse, and for the unacceptable. In some cases, these writers may be unconsciously infected with the Manichaean spirit of the times and suffer the much-discussed disjunction between sensibility and belief, but I think that more often the reason for this attention to the perverse is the difference between their beliefs and the beliefs of their audience. Redemption is meaningless unless there is case for it in the actual life we live, and for the last few centuries there has been operating in our culture the secular belief that there is no such cause.

The novelist with Christian concerns will find in modern life distortions which are repugnant to him, and his problem will be to make these appear as distortions to an audience which is used to seeing them as natural; and he may well be forced to take ever more violent means to get his vision across to this hostile audience. When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs as you do, you can relax a little and use more normal means of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock, to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind, you draw large and startling figures.

—Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1969) pp. 33-34 [my emphasis]

Merry Christmas to all!!!

“The Nativity” (1776-1777) by John Singleton Copley pic.twitter.com/KEdKgL3OLD

— Isabel Azar (@izzyroseazar) December 26, 2021

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:
“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”

And he replied:
“Go out into the darkness and
put your hand into the Hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light
and safer than a known way.”

So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night.
And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.

Read it all. An excerpt from this poem was famously read by King George VI in his 1939 Christmas broadcast. For more about the author of the poem please read this.

Happy new year! Here is a page from the Sherborne missal open at Epiphany – complete with the adoration of the magi, assorted animals, and an abbot. I particularly like Mary and child in the middle of the page. #medievalmonday #manuscriptmonday pic.twitter.com/FYPxeLyY4P

— Dr Naomi (@BooksTeaFilms) January 1, 2024

so this is the sound of you
here and now whether or not
anyone hears it this is
where we have come with our age
our knowledge such as it is
and our hopes such as they are

Read it all.

🎆 Charting to the New Year with anchor-sized ambitions and the wind of possibilities at our backs. May your 2024 be as epic as a naval fleet on the high seas! 🌊⚓ #NavalNewYear #SetSailForSuccess pic.twitter.com/4u08oPUJa0

— U.S. Navy (@USNavy) January 1, 2024

Then came, at a predetermined moment, a moment in time
and of time,
A moment not out of time, but in time, in what we call history:
transecting, bisecting the world of time,
a moment in time but not like a moment of time,
A moment in time but time was made through that moment:
for without the meaning there is no time,
and that moment of time gave the meaning.

—T.S. Eliot, Choruses from “The Rock”, VII, as found for example there (page 107).

Sandro Botticelli, The Nativity of Christ (Mystic Nativity), 1501, Oil on canvas, 11/21/23 #legionofhonor pic.twitter.com/YVo90CUW1M

— Sharon Mollerus (@clairity_org) December 24, 2023

Twas much,
that man was
made like God before,
But that God should
be like man
much more

–John Donne (1572-1631)

Christmas in The Shire

Art by alexsundoor_art on Instagram pic.twitter.com/vc4IT2Zlel

— The Mellon Heads – TOLKIEN Podcast🎙 (@mellon_heads) December 28, 2023

She was five,
sure of the facts,
and recited them
with slow solemnity
convinced every word
was revelation.

She said
they were so poor
they had only peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
to eat
and they went a long way from home
without getting lost. The lady rode
a donkey, the man walked, and the baby
was inside the lady.
They had to stay in a stable
with an ox and an ass (hee-hee)
but the Three Rich Men found them
because a star lited the roof.
Shepherds came and you could
pet the sheep but not feed them.
Then the baby was borned.
And do you know who he was?
Her quarter eyes inflated
to silver dollars.
The baby was God.

And she jumped in the air
whirled around, dove into the sofa
and buried her head under the cushion
which is the only proper response
to the Good News of the Incarnation.

–John Shea, The Hour of the Unexpected; one of my favourite Christmas poems, read every year on this day

🌟Frohe Weihnachten 🎄🌟🎄 pic.twitter.com/qbMQu95tH7

— 💫Stein_harmonie🍀🧚‍♀️ (@SteinHarmonie) December 25, 2023

Men overlooked a baby’s birth
When love unnoticed came to earth
And later, seeking in the skies,
Passed by a man in workman’s guise.
And only children paused to stare
While God Incarnate made a chair.

–Mary Tatlow

Happy Christmas! Luke 2:10-11 'Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.' MS 5204 f. 65v. pic.twitter.com/AZ8h1jteRj

— LambethPalaceLibrary (@lampallib) December 24, 2023

Nor do the young readers realise how much they are being taught about Christianity, for God and Jesus are never mentioned, yet the books are suffused with Lewis’s theology; and Aslan, the Lion, is an alternative incarnation which teaches more about the incarnation than a lifetime of Sunday-school lessons.

Perhaps Lewis’s single greatest legacy is to be found at the very end of the seventh of the Narnia books, The Last Battle. Like no one else, he was able to write about heaven in a way that fills the reader with longing and a conviction that, yes, the unimaginable splendour must be something like this:

“And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and so beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after.

“But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now, at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

Read it all.

'My Dear Lucy, I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start… pic.twitter.com/TouRLEwJ8i

— Simon Knott (@SimoninSuffolk) November 29, 2023

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

Read it all.

⚓ Today we salute the brave men and women who have served and currently serve in the #USNavy. Their dedication, courage, and sacrifice have protected our nation's freedom. On this #VeteransDay, let us honor our Navy veterans and express our deepest gratitude for their service. pic.twitter.com/svyUsZ7REc

— U.S. Navy (@USNavy) November 11, 2023

Some British intellectuals were attempting to restore shaken public faith that good could defeat evil. Sayers, Chesterton and other masters of detective fiction truly believed that the great mysteries of their troubled age “were solvable,” said [Lesley-Anne] Williams in one of her lectures.

“I don’t think that we’re in a golden age of mystery now. I think part of that is, you have to have a belief that there is a truth that can be known,” she said. Thus, a yearning for absolutes could be “one of the reasons why people like mystery novels. They are kind of self-contained. You can trust the author to do certain things. … There is justice here and you have to have a belief in justice, you have to have a belief in truth to do that kind of mystery.”

In a 1957 eulogy for Sayers, Lewis stressed that his friend didn’t want to preach. She was striving to communicate clearly to a broader audience.

“There is in reality no cleavage between the detective stories and her other works,” wrote Lewis. “In them, as in it, she is first and foremost the craftsman, the professional. She always saw herself as one who has learned a trade, and respects it, and demands respect for it from others. We who loved her may (among ourselves) largely admit that this attitude was sometimes almost comically emphatic. …

Read it all.

(OPINION/@tweetmattingly) Dorothy Sayers’ Christian faith: Murder mysteries, theology and classical ed. As president of the Detection Club, Sayers led initiation rites featuring ceremonial garb, flickering candles and a human skull.https://t.co/noBpxX4yAP

— Religion Unplugged (@ReligionMag) October 26, 2023

In 1911, he came to the village to be a lay assistant to the vicar and a year later he assisted at the funerals of a mother and child who were killed in a horse-and-cart accident.

The tragedy inspired Owen to write Deep Under Turfy Grass which has inspired the stained glass window, which was installed on Thursday.

Oxford Diocese granted All Saints Church the faculty to install the art piece, following a successful fundraising campaign by local people.

Church vicar Robert Thewsey, with the active support of the congregation, has supported the Dunsden Owen Association with the crowdfunding.

Read it all.

War poet Wilfred Owen honoured with Oxfordshire glass window https://t.co/YwDprXhas7

— BBC Radio Berkshire (@BBCBerkshire) October 13, 2023

“Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.”

– T. S. Eliot, “Little Gidding,” IV

The Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross is an ancient devotion that dates back to the earliest days of the Church. The Cross is the great sign of our hope as Christians. pic.twitter.com/p43OcWoPHE

— Abp. José H. Gomez (@ArchbishopGomez) September 14, 2023

Here, from Sebastian Milbank, in an essay making a counterintuitive but compelling case for Tolkien’s place among the literary modernists, is a useful summary of the argument over the portrayal of good and evil in “Lord of the Rings,” which has been ongoing since the saga first appeared:

The often ferocious response of many critics perhaps stemmed from the apparent anachronism of the book, combined with its massive popularity. It was published in 1954, at a time when literary modernism was dominant and pervading the academy. Modernist writers were obsessed with interiority, broke with prior literary convention, and traded in irony, ambiguity and convoluted psychology. Literary critics of the time were taking up the “New Criticism,” which dispensed not only with the previous generation’s fascination with historical context in favor of close reading, but also with the traditionalist concerns for beauty and moral improvement, which were regarded as subjective and emotionally driven. Spare, complex prose, focused on the darker side of society, was in vogue. Into this context dropped 1,200 pages of Dwarves, Elves and Hobbits in a grand battle of good and evil. They were greeted with the sort of enthusiasm one can imagine.

Edmund Wilson called the books “balderdash,” a battle between “Good people and Goblins.” The book’s morality was a sticking point even for the most sympathetic critics, with Edwin Muir lamenting that “his good people are consistently good, his evil figures immovably evil.”

I’ve read many variations on Muir’s claim over the years, especially once George R.R. Martin’s “Game of Thrones” became a dominant cultural influence, and it never ceases to be puzzling. There are various ways in which Tolkien refuses realism, and his books are in no way gritty or sexy in the contemporary style. But the idea that he wasn’t interested in the territory between good and evil is belied by even the most superficial reading of the story.

Yes, there is a mostly offstage villain, Sauron, whose evil seems fixed; yes, Sauron’s Orcish armies are fairly described as immovably depraved; yes, there is a set of characters who are unfailingly heroic despite various doubts and temptations. But between the “consistently good” and the “immovably evil” lies the zone in which most of the trilogy’s drama takes place — the corruption of the wizard Saruman, the fatal temptation of Boromir, the despair and subsequent redemption of Théoden, the curdled conservatism of Denethor and above all the complicated and tortured relationship between Frodo and Gollum, and within Gollum’s own divided consciousness. The Frodo-Gollum dynamic certainly features goodness and heroism, but not in any naïve way, and it ends with divine providence engineering the world’s salvation (though not its full redemption) through and despite their mutual corruption by the ring.

Read it all.

A while back I wrote some brief thoughts on Tolkien & his possible influence on English stasis. Here @DouthatNYT notes that I perhaps "[undersell] how much Tolkien subjected his own pastoral nostalgia to critique", which is a fair amendment, I think. https://t.co/yKApbFAJhp

— Niall Gooch 👍🇻🇦🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🚅🏏✒ (@niall_gooch) September 11, 2023

The Consistory Court of Oxford diocese has granted All Saints’, Dunsden, a faculty to install a new window to commemorate the First Word War poet Wilfred Owen (1893-1918), who had had connections with the church and the village.

All Saints’ is an attractive but unlisted village church, and the unopposed online faculty application was made by the Rector and the churchwarden. Owen lived in the village from 1911 to 1913, having come to Dunsden to act as lay assistant to the Vicar of All Saints’ at that time, the Revd Hubert Wigan. Both Owen’s parents and his sister are buried in the churchyard.

The proposed location for the new window is an existing single lancet window in the nave, facing south and next but one to the chancel. It is near to a memorial plaque that was dedicated to Owen in 1978 by the then Bishop of Oxford in the presence of the then Poet Laureate, Ted Hughes. The existing window is to be dismantled and removed, and the glass retained for future use.

Read it all.

Wilfred Owen commemorative window to be installed in Oxford church https://t.co/0yF3rGF4TP

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) July 14, 2023

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

Read it all.

We remember today. Take a moment to honor our heroes who gave the ultimate sacrifice. #MemorialDay2023 pic.twitter.com/PMoZjXXbrB

— Bill Walsh (@BILLWALSHTV) May 29, 2023

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

–Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)

In thanksgiving for all those who gave their lives for this country in years past, and for those who continue to serve; KSH.

P.S. The circumstances which led to this remarkable poem are well worth remembering:

It is a lasting legacy of the terrible battle in the Ypres salient in the spring of 1915 and to the war in general. McCrea had spent seventeen days treating injured men — Canadians, British, French, and Germans in the Ypres salient. McCrae later wrote: “I wish I could embody on paper some of the varied sensations of that seventeen days… Seventeen days of Hades! At the end of the first day if anyone had told us we had to spend seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands and said it could not have been done.” The next day McCrae witnessed the burial of a good friend, Lieut. Alexis Helmer. Later that day, sitting on the back of an ambulance parked near the field dressing station, McCrea composed the poem. A young NCO, delivering mail, watched him write it. When McCrae finished writing, he took his mail from the soldier and, without saying a word, handed his pad to the Sergeant-major. Cyril Allinson was moved by what he read: “The poem was exactly an exact description of the scene in front of us both. He used the word blow in that line because the poppies actually were being blown that morning by a gentle east wind. It never occurred to me at that time that it would ever be published. It seemed to me just an exact description of the scene.” Colonel McCrae was dissatisfied with the poem, and tossed it away. A fellow officer retrieved it and sent it to newspapers in England. The Spectator, in London, rejected it, but Punch published it on 8 December 1915. For his contributions as a surgeon, the main street in Wimereaux is named “Rue McCrae”.

On this #MemorialDay, we salute the courageous men and women who selflessly defended our nation. Their legacy lives on in our hearts. Today, we remember, we reflect and we express eternal gratitude.

We #HonorTheFallen. pic.twitter.com/QrlBns9IHP

— U.S. Army (@USArmy) May 29, 2023

When we saw human dignity
healing humans in the middle of the day

we moved in on him slowly
under the incalculable gravity

of old freedom, of our own freedom,
under atmospheres of consequence, of justice

under which no one needs to thank anyone.
If this was God, we would get even.

And in the end we nailed him,
lashed, spittled, stretched him limb from limb….

Read it all.

This unfinished Michelangelo is one painting telling the story of Easter in the Gallery: http://t.co/Po1mVqy6qk pic.twitter.com/TOYBdRrimD

— National Gallery (@NationalGallery) April 5, 2015

Listen to it all there.

When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain:
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.

—Christina Rossetti (1830–1894)

When I see blossoms spring,
And hear the birds’ song,
A sweet love-longing
Entirely pierces my heart,
All for a love new
That is so sweet and true,
That gladdens all my song:
I know in truth, iwis,
My joy and all my bliss
On him is all ylong. [is all because of him]

Of Jesu Christ I sing,
Who is so fair and free, [noble]
Sweetest of all thing;
His own ought I well to be.
So far for me he sought,
With suffering he me bought,
With wounds two and three;
Well sore he was swung,
And for me with spear was stung,
Nailed to the tree.

Read it all.

A medieval spring poem for Eastertide: 'When I see blossoms spring' https://t.co/EXG5ozzdhX pic.twitter.com/PkcayalnoU

— Eleanor Parker (@ClerkofOxford) April 22, 2017

I have desired to go
Where springs not fail,
To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail
And a few lilies blow.

And I have asked to be
Where no storms come,
Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,
And out of the swing of the sea.

–Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89), “Heaven-Haven”

La Résurrection du Christ, Andrea della Robbia pic.twitter.com/JiD8B0O2fv

— Academia Christiana (@AcademiaChristi) July 30, 2020

All year, death, after death, after death.
Then today look how majestically clouds float in the sky

–Barbara Ras (1949- )

amazing #clouds pic.twitter.com/XPWYy6yYHs

— Beautiful Moments (@beautfulmoments) April 12, 2021

From here:

Moist with one drop of thy blood, my dry soul
Shall (though she now be in extreme degree
Too stony hard, and yet too fleshly,) be
Freed by that drop, from being starved, hard, or foul,
And life, by this death abled, shall control
Death, whom thy death slew; nor shall to me
Fear of first or last death, bring misery,
If in thy little book my name thou enrol,
Flesh in that long sleep is not putrefied,
But made that there, of which, and for which ’twas;
Nor can by other means be glorified.
May then sin’s sleep, and death’s soon from me pass,
That waked from both, I again risen may
Salute the last, and everlasting day.

Resurrection of Christ by Bartolome Esteban Murillo. pic.twitter.com/88CyAPEScA

— Christian Culture (@Christian8Pics) October 14, 2016

From there:

Not darkness but twilight
In which even the best
of minds must make its way
now. And slowly the questions
occur, vague but formidable
for all that. We pass our hands
over their surface like blind
men feeling for the mechanism
that will swing them aside. They
yield, but only to re-form
as new problems; and one
does not even do that
but towers immovable
before us.

Is there no way
of other thought of answering
its challenge? There is an anticipation
of it to the point of
dying. There have been times
when, after long on my knees
in a cold chancel, a stone has rolled
from my mind, and I have looked
in and seen the old questions lie
folded and in a place
by themselves, like the piled
graveclothes of love’s risen body.

God,however, raised him from the dead, and to that fact we are the witnesses; and it is the name of Jesus which,through our faith in it, has brought back the strength of this man whom you see here and who is well known to you. It is faith in that name that has restored this man… pic.twitter.com/aDGKfEFLmY

— Kalina Boulter (@Kalina_Boulter) April 13, 2023

Tomb, thou shalt not hold Him longer;
Death is strong, but Life is stronger;
Stronger than the dark, the light;
Stronger than the wrong, the right.
Faith and Hope triumphant say,
Christ will rise on Easter-Day.

While the patient earth lies waking,
Till the morning shall be breaking,
Shuddering ‘neath the burden dread
Of her Master, cold and dead,
Hark! she hears the angels say,
Christ will rise on Easter-Day.
And when sunrise smites the mountains,
Pouring light from heavenly fountains,
Then the earth blooms out to greet
Once again the blessed feet;
And her countless voices say,
Christ has risen on Easter-Day.

Up and down our lives obedient
Walk, dear Christ, with footsteps radiant,
Till those garden lives shall be
Fair with duties done for Thee;
And our thankful spirits say,
Christ arose on Easter-Day.

–Phillips Brooks (1835-1893)

Happy #Easter! Jesus is risen! Today, we remember the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and His resurrection. May your day be filled with hope. pic.twitter.com/zjLWheg98c

— Samaritan's Purse (@SamaritansPurse) April 9, 2023

I have desired to go
Where springs not fail,
To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail,
And a few lilies blow.

And I have asked to be
Where no storms come,
Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,
And out of the swing of the sea.

–Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1899)

May this Easter fills your heart with renewed hope, love & peace. May all of us recognise the beauty of life..Happy Easter! ( Resurrection of Christ by Raphael) pic.twitter.com/SA48Cq63o0

— Liz Mathew (@MathewLiz) April 8, 2023