Oh King of grief! (a title strange, yet true,
To thee of all kings only due)
Oh King of wounds! how shall I grieve for thee,
Who in all grief preventest me?
Shall I weep blood? why thou has wept such store
That all thy body was one door.
Shall I be scourged, flouted, boxed, sold?
‘Tis but to tell the tale is told.
‘My God, my God, why dost thou part from me? ‘
Was such a grief as cannot be.
But how then shall I imitate thee, and
Copy thy fair, though bloody hand?
Surely I will revenge me on thy love,
And try who shall victorious prove.
If thou dost give me wealth, I will restore
All back unto thee by the poor.
If thou dost give me honour, men shall see,
The honour doth belong to thee.
I will not marry; or, if she be mine,
She and her children shall be thine.
My bosom friend, if he blaspheme thy name,
I will tear thence his love and fame.
One half of me being gone, the rest I give
Unto some Chapel, die or live.
As for thy passion – But of that anon,
When with the other I have done.
For thy predestination I’ll contrive,
That three years hence, if I survive,
I’ll build a spittle, or mend common ways,
But mend mine own without delays.
Then I will use the works of thy creation,
As if I us’d them but for fashion.
The world and I will quarrel; and the year
Shall not perceive, that I am here.
My music shall find thee, and ev’ry string
Shall have his attribute to sing;
That all together may accord in thee,
And prove one God, one harmony.
If thou shalt give me wit, it shall appear;
If thou hast giv’n it me, ’tis here.
Nay, I will read thy book, and never move
Till I have found therein thy love;
Thy art of love, which I’ll turn back on thee,
O my dear Saviour, Victory!
Then for thy passion – I will do for that –
Alas, my God, I know not what.

–George Herbert (1593-1633)

'when thou dost anneal in glass thy story,
Making thy life to shine within'
(George Herbert)
Sunlight, stained glass and incense combined – a magical moment🤍 pic.twitter.com/gyJ1mVPjfx

— Beatrice Groves (@beatricegroves1) November 23, 2025

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).

Imagine the kings, the caravans’ stilted procession
As they make for the cave, or, rather, three beams closing in
And in on the star, the creaking of loads, the clink of a cowbell;
(No thronging of Heaven as yet, no peal of the bell

That will ring in the end for the infant once he has earned it).
Imagine the Lord, for the first time, from darkness, and stranded
Immensely in distance, recognizing Himself in the Son
Of Man: His homelessness plain to him now in a homeless one.

Read it all.

Blessed be #Christ the Lord, who came to be with us, to give light to those who live in darkness and the shadow of death.

~ Christ, rising Sun, shed your light on all people.#Vespers #EveningPrayer #Prayer Weekday after #Epiphany #ChristmasSeason #ChristIsBorn pic.twitter.com/wccnOIHCC2

— PrayeroftheChurch (@Neddamred) January 7, 2026

It might have been just someone else’s story,
Some chosen people get a special king.
We leave them to their own peculiar glory,
We don’t belong, it doesn’t mean a thing.
But when these three arrive they bring us with them….

Read it all.

'Wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, 'Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage''
Matthew 2: 1-3#Epiphany pic.twitter.com/8wd3Dg7lQ6

— Westminster Abbey (@wabbey) January 6, 2026

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.

Three kings from the East arrive to worship the Christchild and offer their gifts in 15th Century glass at East Harling, Norfolk. Today's the feast of the Epiphany.

East Harling: https://t.co/YVpgapIP2A pic.twitter.com/LYUqWzj1m0

— Simon Knott (@SimoninSuffolk) January 6, 2026

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.

Chicago ushers in 2026 with a BANG! Last night at midnight along the Chicago River. #chicago #NewYear2026 #news pic.twitter.com/OvoeJueXMq

— Barry Butler Photography (@barrybutler9) January 1, 2026

And 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 of 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.

–From Simeon in the Christmas Oratorio

Philippe de Champaigne, The Adoration of the Shepherds, ca.1640 pic.twitter.com/LatSDghLD3

— Solas (@solas_na_greine) December 12, 2025

Seek not in courts, nor palaces,

Nor royal curtains draw;

But search the stable,

see your God, Extended on the straw.

–William Billings, Methinks I See a Heav’nly Host,” in The Singing Master’s Assistant (1778)

Happy Christmas from the Yorkshire Wolds.
( photo taken a few weeks ago , see you after the holidays , best wishes James ) pic.twitter.com/GGEGOYPRSh

— Yorkshire Wolds Weather (@WeatherWolds) December 23, 2025

There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.

For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay on their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.
Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honour and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.

A Child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost – how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky’s dome.

This world is wild as an old wives’ tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.

To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.

A very merry Christmas to all, from everyone here at Salisbury Cathedral pic.twitter.com/vcAUUOhyzq

— Salisbury Cathedral (@SalisburyCath) December 25, 2025

Grim was the world and grey last night: The moon and stars were fled,
The hall was dark without song or light, The fires were fallen dead.
The wind in the trees was like to the sea, And over the mountains’
teeth It whistled bitter-cold and free, As a sword leapt from its
sheath.

The lord of snows upreared his head; His mantle long and pale Upon the
bitter blast was spread And hung o’er hill and dale. The world was
blind, the boughs were bent, All ways and paths were wild: Then the
veil of cloud apart was rent, And here was born a Child.

The ancient dome of heaven sheer Was pricked with distant light; A
star came shining white and clear Alone above the night. In the dale
of dark in that hour of birth One voice on a sudden sang: Then all the
bells in Heaven and Earth Together at midnight rang.

Mary sang in this world below: They heard her song arise O’er mist and
over mountain snow To the walls of Paradise, And the tongue of many
bells was stirred in Heaven’s towers to ring When the voice of mortal
maid was heard, That was mother of Heaven’s King.

Glad is the world and fair this night With stars about its head, And
the hall is filled with laughter and light, And fires are burning red.
The bells of Paradise now ring With bells of Christendom, And Gloria,
Gloria we will sing
That God on earth is come.

Buongiorno!

La Natività, c.1165.
Mosaico/Autore anonimo
Cappella Palatina, #Palermo #Italia
STELLA PARIT SOLEM ROSA FLOREM FORMA DECOREM (Una stella diede alla luce il sole, una rosa un fiore, la forma la bellezza).
I tre Magi sono bianchi!, pastori giunti in fretta con offerte. pic.twitter.com/7tbXOWEGUu

— Miguel Calabria (@MiguelCalabria3) December 23, 2025

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

'And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.'
John 1: 14

Wishing you a very Happy Christmas from all of us at Westminster Abbey! pic.twitter.com/TwNZ9sXQlY

— Westminster Abbey (@wabbey) December 25, 2025

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

Christmas Eve Mass was packed so much so my parish opened up the church basement to hold a separate Mass; according to our priest an extra 400 people were at the basement Mass to celebrate the birth of Christ (that that's how many folding chairs he said they had and still there… pic.twitter.com/6Ev97ZazRf

— ZitoSalena (@ZitoSalena) December 24, 2025

Incarnate God, who didst grant the grace of eloquence unto thy servant Dorothy to defend thy truth unto a distressed church, and to proclaim the importance of Christian principles for the world; grant unto us thy same grace that, aided by her prayers and example, we too may have the passionate conviction to teach right doctrine and to teach doctrine rightly; We ask this in thy name, who livest and reignest with the Father, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God, for ever and ever.

Bluntisham, Cambridgeshire, for #SteepleSaturday. The writer Dorothy L Sayers grew up in this parish. Her father was the rector, a bellringing enthusiast who restored the bells here and became the model for the Reverend Venables in her book The Nine Tailors.

The landscape of… pic.twitter.com/32423XEicR

— Simon Knott (@SimoninSuffolk) July 5, 2025

O God of searing truth and surpassing beauty, we give thee thanks for Clive Staples Lewis whose sanctified imagination lighteth fires of faith in young and old alike; Surprise us also with thy joy and draw us into that new and abundant life which is ours in Christ Jesus, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

22 November 1963: Author and academic Clive Staples (“CS”) Lewis died. (aged 64). He’s best known for his works of fiction especially The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia and The Space Trilogy. pic.twitter.com/JhxfklLKSB

— Prof. Frank McDonough (@FXMC1957) November 22, 2025

Fyodor Dostoyevsky began to write what would become his last novel, “The Brothers Karamazov,” in 1878. It was published in serial installments in the magazine Russkiy Vestnik from January, 1879, to November, 1880. Dostoyevsky had a deadline to meet every month, and his wife, Anna, later complained about the pressure he was always working under. Unlike many other contemporary writers, such as Tolstoy or Turgenev, who were well off, Dostoyevsky lived by his writing and struggled throughout his life to earn enough money. If not for this, Anna wrote, in her memoirs, after his death, “He could have gone carefully through [his works], polishing them, before letting them appear in print; and one can imagine how much they would have gained in beauty. Indeed, until the very end of his life Fyodor Mikhailovich had not written a single novel with which he was satisfied himself; and the cause of this was our debts!”

No one could claim that “The Brothers Karamazov” is polished, or even beautifully written—it is characteristic of Dostoyevsky’s style that everything is desperately urgent and seems to burst forth, and that the details don’t much matter. Reckless and intense: we are headed straight to the point of the matter, and there is no time. This urgency, this wildness, the seeming unruliness of his style, which is echoed in the many abrupt twists and turns in the action toward the end of the chapters—the reader must be kept in a state of suspense until the next installment—runs against something else, something heavier and slower, a patiently insistent question that is related to everything that is happening: What are we living for?

On May 16, 1878, just months before Dostoyevsky began writing “The Brothers Karamazov” in earnest, his son Alyosha died following an epileptic fit that lasted for hours. He would have turned three that summer. Dostoyevsky “loved Lyosha somehow in a very special way, with an almost morbid love, as if sensing that he would not have him for long,” Anna wrote later. When his son stopped breathing, Dostoyevsky “kissed him, made the sign of the cross over him three times,” and broke down in tears. He was crushed with grief, Anna wrote, and with guilt—his son had inherited epilepsy from him. Outwardly, however, he was soon calm and collected; she was the one who wept and wept. Gradually, she grew worried that his suppression of grief would have a negative impact on his already fragile health, and she suggested that he visit the Optina Pustyn monastery with a young friend, the theological wunderkind Vladimir Solovyov. There they met the elder of the monastery—the starets—Ambrose. “Weep and be not consoled, but weep,” he said to Dostoyevsky.

All of this made its way into “The Brothers Karamazov.” The protagonist bears the name of Dostoyevsky’s son Alyosha and many of Solovyov’s traits. The monastery is central to the story, and its elder—named Zosima in the novel—comforts a woman who has lost her child, aged two years and nine months, with words that echo those uttered by Ambrose. But more important to the story than the autobiographical details, which in any case are swallowed up by the vortex of fiction, is the devastating loss of meaning that accompanies the death of a child. 

Read it all.

“The Brothers Karamazov” asks what we are living for, and it “seeks the answer in the little life, among the small people, in the frail, the fragile, the fallible, the failed,” Karl Ove Knausgaard writes. https://t.co/llTCBZ9rHR

— The New Yorker (@NewYorker) October 21, 2025

Tolkien later wrote that he began creating his Middle Earth mythology – the foundation for the future “The Lord of the Rings” – while “in grimy canteens, at lectures in cold fogs, in huts full of blasphemy and smut, or by candlelight in bell-tents, even some down in dugouts under shell fire.”

Yes, the man who survived days huddled in shell craters and trenches in France would later write, in a blank page in an Oxford student’s exam book, these famous words: “In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit.”

Tolkien and Lewis remain stunningly popular – in print and on digital screens. A graphic novel by John Hendrix, “The Mythmakers: The remarkable fellowship of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien,” will soon become a feature-length animated film. Netflix recently began filming the latest movie and cable-television production based on “The Chronicles of Narnia,” the seven novels Lewis wrote for children and families. Another film linked to “The Lord of the Rings” – “The Hunt for Gollum” – is scheduled for 2026 release.

Loconte stressed that the faith woven into the works of Lewis and Tolkien was a sharp contrast to the despair and doubt found in many classic books after “The War to End All Wars,” which killed 16 to 22 million soldiers and civilians.

Read it all.

#Tolkien, #Lewis and great post-World War I myths https://t.co/Iepqr5gWB0

— Religion Unplugged (@ReligionMag) August 21, 2025

Centre of equal daughters, equal sons,
All, all alike endear’d, grown, ungrown, young or old,
Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich,
Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love,
A grand, sane, towering, seated Mother,
Chair’d in the adamant of Time.

Read and listen to it all.

LIVE VIEW OF WRIGLEY FIELD pic.twitter.com/9zhixwMvHD

— Brendan Miller (@brendan_cubs) July 4, 2025

Have not many of us, in the weary way of life, felt, in some hours, how far easier it were to die than to live?

The martyr, when faced even by a death of bodily anguish and horror, finds in the very terror of his doom a strong stimulant and tonic. There is a vivid excitement, a thrill and fervor, which may carry through any crisis of suffering that is the birth-hour of eternal glory and rest.

But to live,–to wear on, day after day, of mean, bitter, low, harassing servitude, every nerve dampened and depressed, every power of feeling gradually smothered,–this long and wasting heart-martyrdom, this slow, daily bleeding away of the inward life, drop by drop, hour after hour,–this is the true searching test of what there may be in man or woman.

When Tom stood face to face with his persecutor, and heard his threats, and thought in his very soul that his hour was come, his heart swelled bravely in him, and he thought he could bear torture and fire, bear anything, with the vision of Jesus and heaven but just a step beyond; but, when he was gone, and the present excitement passed off, came back the pain of his bruised and weary limbs,–came back the sense of his utterly degraded, hopeless, forlorn estate; and the day passed wearily enough.

Long before his wounds were healed, Legree insisted that he should be put to the regular field-work; and then came day after day of pain and weariness, aggravated by every kind of injustice and indignity that the ill-will of a mean and malicious mind could devise. Whoever, in our circumstances, has made trial of pain, even with all the alleviations which, for us, usually attend it, must know the irritation that comes with it. Tom no longer wondered at the habitual surliness of his associates; nay, he found the placid, sunny temper, which had been the habitude of his life, broken in on, and sorely strained, by the inroads of the same thing. He had flattered himself on leisure to read his Bible; but there was no such thing as leisure there. In the height of the season, Legree did not hesitate to press all his hands through, Sundays and week-days alike. Why shouldn’t he?””he made more cotton by it, and gained his wager; and if it wore out a few more hands, he could buy better ones. At first, Tom used to read a verse or two of his Bible, by the flicker of the fire, after he had returned from his daily toil; but, after the cruel treatment he received, he used to come home so exhausted, that his head swam and his eyes failed when he tried to read; and he was fain to stretch himself down, with the others, in utter exhaustion.

Is it strange that the religious peace and trust, which had upborne him hitherto, should give way to tossings of soul and despondent darkness? The gloomiest problem of this mysterious life was constantly before his eyes, souls crushed and ruined, evil triumphant, and God silent. It was weeks and months that Tom wrestled, in his own soul, in darkness and sorrow. He thought of Miss Ophelia’s letter to his Kentucky friends, and would pray earnestly that God would send him deliverance. And then he would watch, day after day, in the vague hope of seeing somebody sent to redeem him; and, when nobody came, he would crush back to his soul bitter thoughts,that it was vain to serve God, that God had forgotten him. He sometimes saw Cassy; and sometimes, when summoned to the house, caught a glimpse of the dejected form of Emmeline, but held very little communion with either; in fact, there was no time for him to commune with anybody.

–Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin

#OTD, 1850: Harriet Beecher Stowe arrives in Brunswick. She wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin" in her husband Calvin's study in Appleton Hall (he was Class of 1824 and taught theology at Bowdoin) and at their home on Federal St, often hosting students to discuss drafts of the book. pic.twitter.com/6IlBvkhoDl

— Bowdoin College (@BowdoinCollege) May 25, 2020

A bird flew out at the break of day
From the nest where it had curled,
And ere the eve the bird had set
Fear on the kings of the world.

The first tree it lit upon
Was green with leaves unshed;
The second tree it lit upon
Was red with apples red;

The third tree it lit upon
Was barren and was brown,
Save for a dead man nailed thereon
On a hill above a town.
That night the kings of the earth were gay
And filled the cup and can;
Last night the kings of the earth were chill
For dread of a naked man.

If he speak two more words,’ they said,
The slave is more than the free;
If he speak three more words,’ they said,
The stars are under the sea.’

Said the King of the East to the King of the West,
I wot his frown was set,
Lo, let us slay him and make him as dung,
It is well that the world forget.’

Said the King of the West to the King of the East,
I wot his smile was dread,
Nay, let us slay him and make him a god,
It is well that our god be dead.’

They set the young man on a hill,
They nailed him to a rod;
And there in darkness and in blood
They made themselves a god.

And the mightiest word was left unsaid,
And the world had never a mark,
And the strongest man of the sons of men
Went dumb into the dark.

Then hymns and harps of praise they brought,
Incense and gold and myrrh,
And they thronged above the seraphim,
The poor dead carpenter.

Thou art the prince of all,’ they sang,
Ocean and earth and air.’
Then the bird flew on to the cruel cross,
And hid in the dead man’s hair.

Thou art the son of the world.’ they cried, `
Speak if our prayers be heard.’
And the brown bird stirred in the dead man’s hair
And it seemed that the dead man stirred.

Then a shriek went up like the world’s last cry
From all nations under heaven,
And a master fell before a slave
And begged to be forgiven.

They cowered, for dread in his wakened eyes
The ancient wrath to see;
And a bird flew out of the dead Christ’s hair,
And lit on a lemon tree.

–G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936)

"When people begin to ignore human dignity, it will not be long before they begin to ignore human rights."

—G. K. Chesterton pic.twitter.com/k3Jsh7MgbJ

— G. K. Chesterton (@GKCdaily) January 23, 2021

O God of earth and altar, who didst give G. K. Chesterton a ready tongue and pen, and inspired him to use them in thy service: Mercifully grant that we may be inspired to witness cheerfully to the hope that is in us; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who livest and reignest with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen (moved from Saturday).

"So strong is tradition that later generations will dream of what they have never seen."

— G.K. Chesterton pic.twitter.com/CjYfodS1ad

— Humble Flow (@HumbleFlow) June 1, 2025

Three

very different people — C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden, and T. S. Eliot — all thought that Charles Williams was the most genuinely good person that they had ever met. Eliot for example wrote: “He seemed to me to approximate, more nearly than any man I have known familiarly, to the saint.” On the other side, it has to be noted that he had a troubled marriage and, like Eliot, a “Beatrice” figure in his life.

Seventy years ago, the works of Williams, with their strong Christian themes, were widely appreciated. Today, he is little known, though an excellent Wikipedia article on him indicates the extraordinary range of his writings and the influence that he had not only on Eliot and Lewis, but on Dorothy Sayers and Dante studies more generally — all this while he had a full-time job at the Oxford University Press.

Stephen Barber however, has remained a big fan not only of his novels, but also of his much more difficult poetry. In this book, he assembles writings of his own on Williams, of varying length and purpose….

Read it all.

Book review: Richard Harries reflects on lesser-known work of a spiritual influencerhttps://t.co/HBvAOS57BX

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) June 10, 2025

From there:

The silver trumpets rang across the Dome:
The people knelt upon the ground with awe:
And borne upon the necks of men I saw,
Like some great God, the Holy Lord of Rome.
Priest-like, he wore a robe more white than foam,
And, king-like, swathed himself in royal red,
Three crowns of gold rose high upon his head:
In splendour and in light the Pope passed home.
My heart stole back across wide wastes of years
To One who wandered by a lonely sea,
And sought in vain for any place of rest:
‘Foxes have holes, and every bird its nest.
I, only I, must wander wearily,
And bruise my feet, and drink wine salt with tears.’

#Sunrise on Wednesday over the @forestservice tower in #DC! @capitalweather @StormHour pic.twitter.com/FEoqlzNzJI

— Jeanne Stuart McVey (@RiverGirl707) June 4, 2025

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

–Barbara Ras (1949- )

Smaller accounts, show us some clouds pic.twitter.com/cI3JKoWYD1

— AdmiredArt (@admired_art) June 2, 2025

From there:

Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.

But is there for the night a resting-place?
A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.
May not the darkness hide it from my face?
You cannot miss that inn.

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
Those who have gone before.
Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
They will not keep you standing at that door.

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
Of labour you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
Yea, beds for all who come.

La Résurrection du Christ

Charles Le Brun pic.twitter.com/mztOTM8ozw

— Histoire de France (@HistoiredeFran7) April 17, 2022

The angels speak to the disciples, explaining their joy at Christ’s return and what it means for heaven and earth. But then the poem turns from narrative to reflection, following, in its most famous section, Gregory the Great’s exposition in a homily on the Ascension of the ‘leaps of Christ’:

Hence it is that Solomon has put into the mouth of the Church the words: Behold, He cometh! leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills.

These hills are his lofty and noble achievements. “Behold, He cometh leaping upon the mountains.”

When He came to redeem us, He came, if I may so say, in leaps. My dearly beloved brethren, would you know what His leaps were?

From heaven he leapt into the womb of the Virgin, from the womb into the manger, from the manger on to the Cross, from the Cross into the grave, and from the grave up to heaven.

Lo, how the Truth made manifest in the Flesh did leap for our sakes, that He might draw us to run after Him for this end did He rejoice, as a strong man to run a race.

Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, it behoves us in heart and mind thither to ascend, where we believe Him to have already ascended bodily.

Christ is presented as a wheeling bird, moving with ease between the heavens and the earth:

Swa se fæla fugel flyges cunnode;
hwilum engla eard up gesohte,
modig meahtum strang, þone maran ham,
hwilum he to eorþan eft gestylde,
þurh gæstes giefe grundsceat sohte,
wende to worulde. Bi þon se witga song:
“He wæs upp hafen engla fæðmum
in his þa miclan meahta spede,
heah ond halig, ofer heofona þrym.”

So the beautiful bird ventured into flight.
Now he sought the home of the angels,
that glorious country, bold and strong in might;
now he swung back to earth again,
sought the ground by grace of the Spirit,
returned to the world. Of this the prophet sang:
“He was lifted up in the arms of angels
in the great abundance of his powers,
high and holy, above the glory of the heavens.”

Read it all.

'So the beautiful bird ventured into flight.
Now he sought the home of the angels above,
that glorious country, bold and strong in power.'

For Ascension Day, a wonderful Anglo-Saxon poem about Christ's 'leap' into heaven: https://t.co/MfwI6d6GOC pic.twitter.com/yVtFrGbIdc

— Eleanor Parker (@ClerkofOxford) May 29, 2025

From here: Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store,
Though foolishly he lost the same,
Decaying more and more,
Till he became
Most poore:
With thee
O let me rise
As larks, harmoniously,
And sing this day thy victories:
Then shall the fall further the flight in me.

My tender age in sorrow did beginne
And still with sicknesses and shame.
Thou didst so punish sinne,
That I became
Most thinne.
With thee
Let me combine,
And feel thy victorie:
For, if I imp my wing on thine,
Affliction shall advance the flight in me.

Benvenuto Tisi (Garofalo), The Resurrection of Christ, c.1520 pic.twitter.com/p55TaMgKOH

— Solas (@solas_na_greine) November 18, 2024

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.

On Memorial Day we honor the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military. pic.twitter.com/ZcLlN4TsZw

— BWRiverkeeper (@BWRiverkeeper) May 26, 2025

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”.

“The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.” – G.K. Chesterton

#MemorialDay pic.twitter.com/r6E9PGiSqi

— Sachin Jose (@Sachinettiyil) May 27, 2024

From there:

As I had always known
he would come, unannounced,
remarkable merely for the absence
of clamour. So truth must appear
to the thinker; so, at a stage
of the experiment, the answer
must quietly emerge. I looked
at him, not with the eye
only, but with the whole
of my being, overflowing with
him as a chalice would
with the sea. Yet was he
no more there than before,
his area occupied
by the unhaloed presences.
You could put your hand
in him without consciousness
of his wounds. The gamblers
at the foot of the unnoticed
cross went on with
their dicing; yet the invisible
garment for which they played
was no longer at stake, but worn
by him in this risen existence.

The Morning of the Resurrection
Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898) pic.twitter.com/4fLMUzWwcc

— Edward Wilkie (@wambaworld) April 16, 2017

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.

La Résurrection du Christ de Murillo (musée de l’Académie des beaux-arts de San Fernando, Madrid) pic.twitter.com/nDxjWaiNNO

— Philippe (@phdbeu) April 20, 2025