We May, We Must

First Evensong of Lady Day has been said and tea and cake enjoyed to celebrate, in more muted a manner than usual, the Solemnity of the Annunciation. Our Lady of Walsingham, enthroned just to the left of where I say my Office, has been a great comfort in these days, especially as we’ve worked through the novena to her in preparation for Sunday’s rededication of England as her dowry. One of the prayers in the second form of the novena, as provided in the Ordinariate’s rather excellent St Gregory Prayer Book, addresses Our Lady with these words, ‘Our Lady of Walsingham, we commend to thy loving intercession our parish, its priests, deacons, and people. Guard us beneath thy loving protection from sin and sorrow, shield us against pride and envy, and all the snares of the devil; and teach us, loving thee, to love the Lord Jesus, and all souls for his sake’. Loving protection is absolutely what we all need at the moment, and Our Lady doesn’t disappoint in offering her loving maternal consolations and protection, especially in moments of great anxiety and distress.

Which is a nice segue to an e-mail received from my colleague Mgr Wilkinson this morning. He says that ‘one way we can keep our people focused on the season is through [the St Gregory Prayer Book]. There is of course a whole section on Lent and on Passiontide, and on Our Lady. People don’t know... what to say... this book would help them’. And he’s right. The book has proved indispensable on a number of liturgical and pastoral occasions; a treasury of our Anglican patrimony, user-friendly and full of gems not easily found elsewhere. I heartily recommend it, and even have a lead on a much-reduced offer. Contact me for details!

​Lord, teach us how to pray aright
With rev’rence and with fear;
Though dust and ashes in thy sight,
We may, we must draw near.
 
We perish if we cease from prayer;
O grant us power to pray.
And when to meet thee we prepare,
Lord, meet us by the way.

James Montgomery, 1771-1854