ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET

Mass for Parish Pilgrimage to Walsingham
28th April, 2006

Fr Alan Moses


Yesterday, the Church of England commemorated the poet Christina Rossetti. We are the custodians of her memorial altar piece which used to be in Christ Church, Woburn Square. Her elder sister was a nun here.

Christina Rossetti has been out of fashion for some time; relegated to that twilight world of Victorian spinsterhood; a poet of loss and melancholy, worse still for many, a “religious” poet.

She is most widely known for “In the bleak midwinter”, although I wonder how many of those who sing its words at Christmas time, know anything of the woman who wrote:

“Only his mother, in her maiden bliss, worshipped the beloved, with a kiss.”

Words we might ponder on our way to the Holy House of Walsingham, England’s Nazareth:

At Evensong last night, we were given a choice of two of her poems to read. In fact. Fr. Ivan chose “Uphill”, which was the one I had already settled on as apt for you set off on your pilgrimage. It speaks of this life as a journey, but one with a goal, a destination, a homecoming; one with companions along the way.

“Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?
from morn to night, my friend.”

Well we hope not this time, although some will recall one journey which threatened too when the driver veered off into the wilds of East Anglia and ended up somewhere near Ipswich. But the Christian Way does last from morn to night, a lifetime.

“But is there for the night a resting place?” Well, we can be sure that there will be room for you by the Holy House, that there will be those there to welcome us as they welcome other pilgrims and wayfarers.

The other poem suggested for reading at the office is called “Passing Away”. It begins:

“Passing away, saith the World, passing away”

then

“Passing away, saith my soul, passing away:
With its burden of fear and hope, and labour and play,
Hearken what the past doth witness and say:
Rust in thy gold, a moth in thine array,
A canker is in thy bud, thy leaf must decay.
At midnight, at cockcrow, at morning one certain day
Lo, the bridegroom shall come and shall not delay;
Watch thou and pray.
Then I answered: Yea.

Passing away, saith my God, passing away:
Winter passeth after the long delay:
New grapes on the vine, new figs on the tender spray,
Turtle calleth to turtle in Heaven’s May.
Though I tarry, wait for Me, trust Me, watch and pray:
Arise, come away, night is past, and lo it is day
My love, My sister, My spouse, thou shalt hear me say.
Then, I answered: Yea.”

You go to Walsingham in this springtime to “watch and pray”; to hear again the call of God as Mary heard it in the Annunciation, and as she did to make our “Yea”