20080209

Lent 1 Saturday

The cock crowed again, and several of the Irishmen cried, 'Mac na h'Oighe slan.'

'What do the say?' asked Jack, tuning to Stephen.

‘Hail to the Virgin's Son,' said Stephen. ‘We say that in Ireland, when we hear the first cockcrow of the day, so that if we meet a sudden death before the day is out , we may also meet with grace.


(O'Brian, Patrick. The Fortune of War, Chapter Nine.)


I have loved the Aubrey-Maturin seafaring novels of Patrick O'Brian since our first acquiantance, which must have been these couple or three years now. I love the superstition above. If I might quibble regarding the self interested, ungenerous theology, the object of the hail at least is dear.

Crown Him the virgin's Son
The God incarnate born
Whose arm those crimson trophies won
Which now His brow adorn


As well, I have great affection for Crowm Him With Many Crowns, the hymn by Bridges, and later, Thring. I hadn't the foggiest notion before googling "Hail to the Virgin's Son" that one of the stanzas of the old hymn referenced the Mother of God, the Christbearer.

I do wonder what the crimson trophies are that his arm won,--is suffering a crown?

Crown Him the Son of God
Before the worlds began
And ye who tread where He hath trod
Crown Him the Son of man
Who every grief hath known
That wrings the human breast
And takes and bears them for His own
That all in Him may rest


The appeal to Jesus' dominion, to the coming of his kingdom, I rarely have heard so directly expressed. Perhaps I do not attend well. Like most hymns, I take more from reading it than singing it.

The "son of man." How absurdly evocative.

Best,

No comments: