George MacDonald: My Little King, Part 1

For our Christmas read, the Catholic Thought book club selected the Christmas poems and short stories of George MacDonald collected under the title My Little King.  George MacDonald was a Scottish author writing in many different mediums who had a theological bent to his writings, writing in the Victorian era.  In time he left the Presbyterianism that he grew up with and embraced what I will characterize as a more High Church character to Christianity.  He rejected pre-destination and penal substitution, and believed in a merciful than was envisioned by Calvin.  That is my reading of MacDonald’s theology, and I’m no expert.  So take it with a grain of salt. 

 

We took on three works from this collection: the poem “A Christmas Carol,” and the short Pstories “The Gifts of the Child Christ” and “Uncle Peter.”  I’ll start with the poem first.

 

A Christmas Carol

By George MacDonald

 

(Also known as “Mary’s Lullaby” to avoid confusion with the classic Christmas story by Charles Dickens)

 

Babe Jesus lay in Mary's lap,

The sun shone in his hair;

And this was how she saw, mayhap,

The crown already there.

 

For she sang: "Sleep on, my little king;

Bad Herod dares not come;

Before thee sleeping, holy thing,

The wild winds would be dumb."

 

"I kiss thy hands, I kiss thy feet,

My child, so long desired;

Thy hands will never be soiled, my sweet;

Thy feet will never be tired."

 

"For thou art the king of men, my son;

Thy crown I see it plain!

And men shall worship thee, every one,

And cry, Glory! Amen!"

 

Babe Jesus he opened his eyes wide--

At Mary looked her lord.

Mother Mary stinted her song and sighed;

Babe Jesus said never a word.

 

 

My Comment:

I went searching on YouTube for the melody to this but alas I couldn't find one. It sounds like it would make a lovely song. I'm sure it was intended as a song. If someone finds this put to music, please post it.

 

My Comment:

Anyone else find this stanza perplexing?

 

"I kiss thy hands, I kiss thy feet,

My child, so long desired;

Thy hands will never be soiled, my sweet;

Thy feet will never be tired."

 

I know MacDonald is focused on the Lord's kingship but he is also a carpenter. His hands will definitely be soiled. But more ironic perhaps is his feet will never get tired. That seems to ignore the passion carrying of the cross where Christ is beyond tired. He even needed the help of Simon the Cyrene.

 

So is this an oversight by MacDonald or is he being ironic?

 

Michelle’s Reply:

Yes! What came to my mind was how He walked all over Judea to heal and preach. I can't imagine how tiring that must have been, and His poor sacred feet must have hurt!

 

My Reply:

Yes. MacDonald must have realized it when he wrote. He's just capturing a mother's wish, but with irony. The reality will be different.

 

Kerstin’s Reply:

I don't think it is meant in the physical sense, of the realities of living. It is meant metaphorically. Jesus will never use his hands for ill, they will never be instruments for sin. His feet are instruments for spreading the Good News, and he will never tire to fulfill his mission.

 

My Reply to Kerstin:

That is possible Kerstin. I didn’t think of that.

 

My Comment:

Reading this over and over again, now I'm stuck on this verse: "My child, so long desired." Now that is coming out of Mary's voice. But Mary had taken a vow of celibacy. She couldn't have "long desired" a child. She had intended to live childless with Joseph.

 

Michelle’s Reply:

I thought it meant how Israel longed for the Messiah.

 

My Reply to Michelle:

Ah yes. Not her personal desire but the Jewish people’s desire. Very good Michelle.

 

Sunday Meditation: The Temptations in the Desert

Jesus goes into the desert.  That is an important fact.  But why is it the Spirit leading Him to be tempted? 

At that time Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert

to be tempted by the devil.

He fasted for forty days and forty nights,

and afterwards he was hungry.

The tempter approached and said to him,

"If you are the Son of God,

command that these stones become loaves of bread."

He said in reply,

"It is written:

One does not live on bread alone,

but on every word that comes forth

from the mouth of God."

 

Then the devil took him to the holy city,

and made him stand on the parapet of the temple,

and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down.

For it is written:

He will command his angels concerning you

and with their hands they will support you,

lest you dash your foot against a stone."

Jesus answered him,

"Again it is written,

You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test."

Then the devil took him up to a very high mountain,

and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence,

and he said to him, "All these I shall give to you,

if you will prostrate yourself and worship me."

At this, Jesus said to him,

"Get away, Satan!

It is written:

The Lord, your God, shall you worship

and him alone shall you serve."

Then the devil left him and, behold,

angels came and ministered to him.

~Mt 4:1-11 

 

Fr. Geoffrey explains the readings.

 

 

Can you withstand these three temptations?

Poetry: Part I of T.S. Eliot’s Ash Wednesday

I adore this blessed day, Ash Wednesday, and the beginning of Lent.  Time for penance is so critical to the Christian life.  T.S. Eliot knew this.  His poem Ash Wednesday is his first major poem after his religious conversion captures the penitential need.  Indeed, Brad Birzer at The Imaginative Conservative in his essay, “T.S. Eliot’s “Ash Wednesday,” considers the poem to be Eliot’s ‘the Purgatorio between the Inferno of “The Waste-land” and the Paradiso of the “Four Quartets”’.  That is an interesting analogy and mostly accurate I would say.  Birzer’s essay is worth reading.

I’m not going to get into any analysis, and I am not posting the entire poem here.  I have written on it in the past.  In 2013 I posted on Part II.  There are six parts to the poem.  It’s too lengthy to explicate the entire poem in a post, and I’m not really going to explicate even Part I which I am posting here.  You can read it in its entirety at All Poetry here.     

I am going to post Part I, and I will say a few words on it.

 

Ash Wednesday

By T. S. Eliot

 

I

Because I do not hope to turn again

Because I do not hope

Because I do not hope to turn

Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope

I no longer strive to strive towards such things

(Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?)

Why should I mourn

The vanished power of the usual reign?

 

Because I do not hope to know

The infirm glory of the positive hour

Because I do not think

Because I know I shall not know

The one veritable transitory power

Because I cannot drink

There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is nothing again

 

Because I know that time is always time

And place is always and only place

And what is actual is actual only for one time

And only for one place

I rejoice that things are as they are and

I renounce the blessèd face

And renounce the voice

Because I cannot hope to turn again

Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something

Upon which to rejoice

 

And pray to God to have mercy upon us

And pray that I may forget

These matters that with myself I too much discuss

Too much explain

Because I do not hope to turn again

Let these words answer

For what is done, not to be done again

May the judgement not be too heavy upon us

 

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly

But merely vans to beat the air

The air which is now thoroughly small and dry

Smaller and dryer than the will

Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still.

 

Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death

Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.

So what we see in Part 1 is a man caught in despair (“I do not hope” of the first three lines and beyond) who is reaching out for mercy.  It does echo the Purgatorio of Dante’s Divine Comedy.  Purgatory in Dante is constructed as a mountain which you corkscrew around to the top.  And so Eliot provides allusion to turning, and the eagle alludes to Dante the character being carried up by an eagle from the lower section of Purgatory to the start of the terraces (Pur. IX). And the Eliot central character is trying to expunge his sin of envy: “Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope,” an allusion to a line from Shakespeare’s sonnet 29, envying another writer’s talent.  Now that I’ve oriented you, I think the rest follows.  He ends Part I with the closing lines of the Hail Mary prayer.

Remember, unto dust you shall return. 

I hope you had a blessed Ash Wednesday.

Sunday Meditation: Turn the Other Cheek and Be Perfect

The Sermon on the Mount Continues for a third Sunday.  Today Jesus tells us some of His most difficult exhortations.

Jesus said to his disciples:

"You have heard that it was said,

An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil.

When someone strikes you on your right cheek,

turn the other one as well.

If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic,

hand over your cloak as well.

Should anyone press you into service for one mile,

go for two miles.

Give to the one who asks of you,

and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow.

 

"You have heard that it was said,

You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

But I say to you, love your enemies

and pray for those who persecute you,

that you may be children of your heavenly Father,

for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good,

and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.

For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have?

Do not the tax collectors do the same?

And if you greet your brothers only,

what is unusual about that?

Do not the pagans do the same?

So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect."

~Mt 5:17-37

Bishop Barron has a superb, must hear sermon on this.

 

“So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect."  So if your right cheek is struck, it may not be a sin to protect yourself, but turning the other cheek is perfect, to be holy. 

Notable Quote: Logical and Coherency by James Joyce

James Joyce in his Bildungsroman (a novel of the development of a protagonist), A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, has the protagonist, Stephen Dedalus, go from a devout kid growing up in Catholic Dublin to an atheist.  It’s been a while since I read the novel, but this always comes to mind every time I discuss religion with a Protestant.  Steven, who is really Joyce’s persona, fields questions from his intellectual friends about his leaving the faith.  Obviously I think Joyce through Steven was wrong about atheism, but he has this remarkable comeback to his friend asking if he is really converting to Protestantism.  Cranly is Steven’s friend probing his thoughts.

 —Then, said Cranly, you do not intend to become a protestant?

—I said that I had lost the faith, Stephen answered, but not that I had lost self-respect. What kind of liberation would that be to forsake an absurdity which is logical and coherent and to embrace one which is illogical and incoherent?”

-James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Catholicism is logical and coherent; Protestantism is illogical and incoherent.  Perhaps I’m biased here, but that is so true.

Sunday Meditation: Fulfilling the Law

It’s a long Gospel this Sunday.  The Sermon on the Mount Continues

 

Jesus said to his disciples:

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.

I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.

Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away,

not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter

will pass from the law,

until all things have taken place.

Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments

and teaches others to do so

will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.

But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments

will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses

that of the scribes and Pharisees,

you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

 

"You have heard that it was said to your ancestors,

You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment.

But I say to you,

whoever is angry with his brother

will be liable to judgment;

and whoever says to his brother, 'Raqa,'

will be answerable to the Sanhedrin;

and whoever says, 'You fool,'

will be liable to fiery Gehenna.

Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar,

and there recall that your brother

has anything against you,

leave your gift there at the altar,

go first and be reconciled with your brother,

and then come and offer your gift.

Settle with your opponent quickly while on the way to court.

Otherwise your opponent will hand you over to the judge,

and the judge will hand you over to the guard,

and you will be thrown into prison.

Amen, I say to you,

you will not be released until you have paid the last penny.

 

"You have heard that it was said,

You shall not commit adultery.

But I say to you,

everyone who looks at a woman with lust

has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

If your right eye causes you to sin,

tear it out and throw it away.

It is better for you to lose one of your members

than to have your whole body thrown into Gehenna.

And if your right hand causes you to sin,

cut it off and throw it away.

It is better for you to lose one of your members

than to have your whole body go into Gehenna.

 

"It was also said,

Whoever divorces his wife must give her a bill of divorce.

But I say to you,

whoever divorces his wife -  unless the marriage is unlawful -

causes her to commit adultery,

and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

 

"Again you have heard that it was said to your ancestors,

Do not take a false oath,

but make good to the Lord all that you vow.

But I say to you, do not swear at all;

not by heaven, for it is God's throne;

nor by the earth, for it is his footstool;

nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King.

Do not swear by your head,

for you cannot make a single hair white or black.

Let your 'Yes' mean 'Yes,' and your 'No' mean 'No.'

Anything more is from the evil one."

~Mt 5:17-37

It’s a long passage but I’m going to give you a short insight, this by John Michael Talbot.

 

Is there a particular line or exhortation that gets your attention?  For me it’s this:

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.  I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.”