Lent – Art & Theology

Roundup: Ants after Carnival, organic memento mori, “Turning” by Deanna Witkowski, and more

February 13, 2026February 18, 2026 Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

Lent starts next Wednesday, February 18, so I want to remind you about my Lent Playlist on Spotify. There are plenty of songs for contemplative listening throughout the season. I periodically add new entries to the bottom. Recent additions include a song by Amanda Held Opelt about being in the belly of a whale; “Living Water” by Sr. Miriam Therese Winter of the Medical Mission Sisters; Paul Zach’s cover of Johnny Cash’s “The Beast in Me”; and a setting of Matthew 4:17 by Seth Thomas Crissman of The Soil and The Seed Project, whose parallel verse, Mark 1:15, is commonly recited with the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday.

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VIDEO ART: Quarta-Feira de Cinzas / Epilogue (Ash Wednesday / Epilogue) by Rivane Neuenschwander with Cao Guimarães: When visiting the Museum of Modern Art in New York last month, I encountered a video work from Brazil that I found mesmerizing. The Perez Art Museum Miami describes it this way:

In Rivane Neuenschwander’s video Quarta-Feira de Cinzas / Epilogue (Ash Wednesday / Epilogue), made in collaboration with artist Cao Guimarães, ants become the protagonists of a captivating journey. Shot on Ash Wednesday, after the end of Brazilian Carnival, the video follows a colony of leafcutter ants as they traverse the rough terrain of a forest floor, transporting pieces of colored confetti to their underground nest. The video is set to a digitally composed soundtrack that blends ambient natural sounds with the sound of matchsticks dropping onto the floor. At the video’s end, we watch the ants descend into the darkness of their nest, intent, perhaps, on furnishing a celebration of their own.

You can watch a one-minute clip from the nearly six-minute video on Guimarães’s website: https://www.caoguimaraes.com/en/obra/quarta-feira-de-cinzas/.

Originating in the Middle Ages, Carnival—from the Latin carve vale, meaning “flesh, farewell!” (flesh = meat)—is a period of merrymaking before the solemn restraints of Lent. It’s primarily a secular folk custom, celebrated by many with hedonistic parties involving excessive drinking. But Carnival need not be debauched, and some Christians celebrate it with social gatherings, games, parades, and/or food traditions. A Polish Catholic coworker of mine would always bring pączki (jelly donuts) to the office on Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras in French), the day before Ash Wednesday. Some churches host a pancake supper on that evening, using up eggs, milk, and sugar, ingredients that were historically forbidden during Lent, along with bacon and sausage. At The Liturgical Home, Ashley Tumlin Wallace describes Fat Tuesday as a transition day moving God’s people out of Epiphanytide.

Neuenschwander and Guimarães’s Ash Wednesday / Epilogue is, first and foremost, fun and playful. We don’t tend to think of insects having parties! I wonder what the ants are doing with those vibrant little metallized discs. But the video also, for me, captures something of the tone of the first day of Lent—a quiet sweeping up after the previous day’s festivities, the humans of this place having left their revelries to go to church, where they enter a time of penitence.

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BLOG POST: “Ash Wednesday” by Libby John: I really appreciated these four guided journal prompts that Libby John, founder of the Vivid Artistry creative collective, gave last Lent:

What is something in my life I am seeking for God to renew and restore?
What rhythms in my life need to be interrupted and reoriented to God’s heart for me?
What are some ways I can surrender my schedule to help attune my senses to more of God’s presence?
Am I bringing my whole self to God or do I divide and keep parts of my life from him?

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ARTICLE: “Anya Gallaccio’s Organic Mementos Mori” by Eliza Goodpasture, Hyperallergic: Rotting apples threaded with hanging twine, shriveling red daisies pressed between plexiglass, burning candles creating waxen landscapes on aluminum foil, a hundred-plus-year-old ash tree stricken with ash dieback disease—these were among the memento mori (reminders of death) installed at artist Anya Gallaccio’s exhibition preserve at Turner Contemporary in Margate, England, in fall 2024. “The potency of the transient works is so magnetic,” writes reviewer Eliza Goodpasture. “The Christian motif of dust to dust undergirds it all. . . . The artist reminds us that decay is full of energy—not just an ending, but part of an endless circle of life.”

Gallaccio, Anya_Falling from grace — Anya Gallaccio (Scottish, 1963–), *Falling from grace*, 2000. 2,700 Gala apples, hop twine. Installation view at Turner Contemporary, Margate, 2024. Photo: Jo Underhill, courtesy of the artist.

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SONGS:

>> “Turning” by Deanna Witkowski: Deanna Witkowski is a jazz composer and pianist living in Chicago. She wrote this choral piece for Lent, a season in which the liturgies call us to turn away from sin and toward God. That’s what repentance means: changing direction. The first verse is taken from Psalm 119:36–40. “Turn our hearts, O Lord, from selfish gain to your commandments . . .”

For a 2023 performance by the Hendricks Chapel Choir at Syracuse University, see here. Purchase the score here.

>> “Miraculous Salvation” by Tenielle Neda: This song by the Australian singer-songwriter Tenielle Neda praises God for the grace he lavishes on us and for his great love. Backing vocals are provided by Chris Cho.

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CAROL TEXT: “Revert, revert” by James Ryman, ca. 1492: Medievalist Eleanor Parker shares this Lenten carol text by the fifteenth-century Franciscan friar James Ryman, from Cambridge University Library MS Ee 1.12. The burden (repeated stanza) is “Revert, revert, revert, revert; / O sinful man, give me thine heart”—an echo of Isaiah 44:22, “Return to me, for I have redeemed you.” Written in Christ’s voice, it calls us to remember how he took on our flesh, was baptized, and was flogged and crucified for our sakes. I think the shield in stanza 3 refers to the cross; the Via Dolorosa was a battlefield on which Christ fought the devil, and paradoxically, the instrument of his execution was the means of victory.

Fast from X, Feast on Y

February 9, 2026February 10, 2026 Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

Holi celebration — One of thirteen wall-mounted display panels (with opening doors) designed by Kossmanndejong for the ambulatory of the Church of St. Lawrence in Rotterdam, portraying the city’s diverse religious festivals. This one portrays Holi, a Hindu festival in March celebrating the victory of light over darkness and involving the throwing of colored powder and water. I took this photo when visiting during Lent 2019.

The following text has been floating around the internet for some time. It’s often attributed to the American motivational writer and Methodist lay leader William Arthur Ward (1921–1994), but it is not in his compilation of maxims, Fountains of Faith (Droke House, 1970), and it doesn’t sound like his other writings.

Fast from judging others; feast on the Christ within them.
Fast from emphasis on difference; feast on the unity of life.
Fast from apparent darkness; feast on the reality of light.
Fast from thoughts of illness; feast on the healing power of God.

Fast from words that pollute; feast on phrases that purify.
Fast from discontent; feast on gratitude.
Fast from anger; feast on patience.
Fast from pessimism; feast on optimism.

Fast from complaining; feast on appreciation.
Fast from worry; feast on trust in God’s care.
Fast from unrelenting pressure; feast on unceasing prayer.
Fast from facts that depress; feast on verities that uplift.

Fast from lethargy; feast on enthusiasm.
Fast from thoughts that weaken; feast on promises that inspire.
Fast from shadows of sorrow; feast on the sunlight of serenity.
Fast from problems that overwhelm; feast on prayer that undergirds.

Fast from bitterness; feast on forgiveness.
Fast from self-concern; feast on compassion for others.
Fast from personal anxiety; feast on eternal truth.
Fast from discouragements; feast on hope.

(Related post: “John Chrysostom on holistic fasting”)

It’s a stirring exhortation, and it always gets special traction during Lent, a penitential season in which many Christians practice the spiritual discipline of fasting (in the traditional sense of limiting food intake) and/or abstinence (refraining from eating a certain type of food). The language of “fasting” can be confusing, because traditionally, you’re to fast from good things for a set period of time, and then enjoy them all the more fully during a period of feasting; but people sometimes use the word “fast” to describe the act of giving up something that’s bad for them or that’s unholy and that, truth be told, would best be given up year-round. This text uses the latter meaning: reducing or abstaining from attitudes and behaviors that drag you or others down. It also acknowledges, as did the church fathers, that when you cut something unwholesome out of your life, it’s often wise to replace it with something wholesome.

Lent is an annual prompt for self-examination, a spiritual wellness check in which we’re invited to identify the ways we’ve veered off course from the way of Christ (or where we’re stumbling) and to let Christ’s grace draw us back (or help us surmount the obstacles). It’s a chance to tend to our disordered manners of being and develop healthy new habits as we seek to live more faithfully as people of God.

In February 2010, Msgr. Kerry Beaulieu adapted the above text for Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church in Newport Beach, California, which he pastored from 2004 to 2018:

Fast from a gloomy outlook on life;
Feast on what is bright and cheerful.

Fast from always being right;
Feast on seeing another’s point of view.

Fast from always pointing out differences;
Feast on what unites us all.

Fast from words that pollute;
Feast on those that purify.

Fast from complaining;
Feast on appreciation.

Fast from self-pity;
Feast on goodness in others and self.

Fast from self-concern;
Feast on going out to others.

Fast from overdoing;
Feast on time for prayer.

Fast from worry;
Feast on God’s love.

It was also adapted into the song “Fast from, Feast On” in 2014 by Latifah Alattas and Dave Wilton and is performed by Alattas (under the artist name Page CXVI) on the album Lent to Maundy Thursday.

Fast from the swelling darkness
Feast on the power of his light
Fast from discontentment
Feast on the joy that he brings

Refrain:
Sustainer, protector, the well of life
My helper, my comfort, the bread of life
Is you
Is you

Fast from the fear that haunts us
Feast on the power of his might
Fast from the trap of judgment
Feast on all that’s been redeemed [Refrain]

Bridge:
From the sorrow’s shadow to perfect light
From the darkness of our doubt to a cleansing white
From the sorrow’s shadow to perfect light
From the blindness of our sin to healing sight [Refrain]

I recommend choosing one or more of these fast-feast pairings to partake of during Lent. Or you could write your own aspirational list, tailored to the areas where you struggle and want to see growth. Rephrase it as a vow: “I will fast from . . . I will feast on . . .” If you are comfortable sharing for the edification of other readers, feel free to do so in the Comments section below.

“Confusion” by Christopher Harvey (poem)

March 11, 2025 Victoria Emily Jones2 Comments

Claudia Fontes sculpture — Claudia Fontes (Argentine, 1964–), sculptures from the *Foreigners* series, 2013–15. Flaxseed paper porcelain, height 25 cm. Photo: Bernard G. Mills.

Oh! how my mind
          Is gravel’d!
                    Not a thought
That I can find,
          But’s ravel’d
                    All to nought.
Short ends of threads,
          And narrow shreds
                    Of lists,
Knots, snarled ruffs,
          Loose broken tufts
                    Of twists,
Are my torn meditation’s ragged clothing;
Which, wound and woven, shape a suit for nothing.
One while I think, and then I am in pain
To think how to unthink that thought again.

How can my soul
          But famish
                    With this food?
Pleasure’s full bowl
          Tastes rammish,
                    Taints the blood:
Profit picks bones,
          And chews on stones
                    That choke.
Honor climbs hills;
          Fats not, but fills
                    With smoke.
And whilst my thoughts are greedy upon these,
They pass by pearls, and stoop to pick up peas.
Such wash and draff is fit for none but swine;
And such I am not, Lord, if I am thine.
          Clothe me anew, and feed me then afresh;
          Else my soul dies famish’d and starv’d with flesh.

I first encountered this poem in Before the Door of God: An Anthology of Devotional Poetry, edited by Jay Hopler and Kimberly Johnson. I had never heard of Christopher Harvey (1597–1663), an English clergyman and minor poet who was a contemporary of John Donne, George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, and Richard Crashaw, the so-called Metaphysical poets. Apparently out of a sense of humility, Harvey published his poetry anonymously during his lifetime. This poem is from a slim 1640 volume of his titled The Synagogue, or, The Shadow of The Temple, but his name didn’t start appearing on the title page until the nineteenth century. Read about the mysterious publication history of The Synagogue here.

“Confusion” uses an unusual stanza form that befits the subject, with uneven line lengths that produce a raggedy appearance on the page. The rhyme scheme is abc abc dde ffe gghh, with an additional rhyming couplet at the end of the second stanza.

The speaker says his mind is all jumbled, unsettled. “Oh! how my mind is graveled!” he laments. “Not a thought that I can find, but’s raveled all to nought.” (“Graveled” is an archaic word meaning disarrayed, and “raveled” means entangled.) Launching into sartorial imagery, he compares his fragmented thoughts to old, partial, mismatched pieces of dress that fail to make up a coherent attire.

He doesn’t yet specify the nature of his thoughts, whether sinful (e.g., prideful, hateful, lustful) or simply trivial and unfocused on God or dominated by worry. Either way, he is suffering from intrusive and distracting thoughts that undo him.

In stanza 2 he shifts to the metaphor of food, and reveals that it is avarice he is struggling with—an insatiable need to acquire more and to be perceived as successful and important. In part to maintain an image, he indulges in the pleasures typical of rich men, which appear juicy and delicious, he says, but they actually taste quite rank (“rammish”) and make him sick. He cautions that wealth, social status, and human praise, if that’s what we feed on, not only fail to nourish (fatten) our souls; they can ultimately choke us or starve us to death.

Feasting on sensual gratification, expensive toys, and accolades instead of on Christ is like passing up pearls for peas, the speaker remarks. Such foods are the dregs, the refuse (“draff”), fit only for pigs, not for God’s children.

The closing couplet pulls together both stanzas, as the speaker asks God to clothe him in a whole new garment and to feed him afresh so that he is not “starved with flesh.” This final phrase, an oxymoron, suggests how the dishes served up by this world seem meaty but ultimately do not satisfy; when it comes to filling us, they’re as good as nothing, only leaving us empty.

Instead of being content to go about in tatters, eating slop, we must “clothe ourselves with the new self . . . in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph. 4:24) and feed on Jesus, “the bread of life . . . come down from heaven” (John 6:35, 33).

Roundup: Weighed-down sheep, sin and grace, Bermejo’s devil, and more

March 8, 2025March 8, 2025 Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

POEM: “Lost Sheep” by Margaret DeRitter: DeRitter writes about a lost Merino sheep in Australia who, because left unsheared for so long, was carrying over seventy-five pounds of wool on his back. He was found in 2021 and rescued by Edgar’s Mission Farm Sanctuary in Lancefield.

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SONGS:

>> “What Have We Become” by the Sweeplings: The Sweeplings are Cami Bradley and Whitney Dean, a singing-songwriting folk pop duo. From their album Rise and Fall (2015), “What Have We Become” laments how sin encroaches on our lives—we may welcome it in at first, but then it takes over, makes of our house a wasteland. This theme is embodied by a shadowy, thorny-veiled dancer in the music video.

>> “It Knows Me” by Avi Kaplan: Living outside Nashville, Tennessee, Avi Kaplan is best known for being the original vocal bass of the a cappella group Pentatonix, from 2011 to 2017. This song of self-probing is from his second solo EP, I’ll Get By (2020). It’s about the freedom that comes from reckoning with one’s inner darkness and accepting grace. The animation in the video is by Mertcan Mertbilek.

Kaplan, who is Jewish, wrote on Facebook,

“It Knows Me” is an extremely personal song to me. I believe that everyone has a darker side of them, and that you can choose to play into that, or you can choose to not. This song is about that battle between those two forces, and having a little grace for yourself when you do falter on your path.

>> “Not the Devil Song” by Marcus & Marketo: Marcus & Marketo (Marcus Clingaman and Marketo Michel) are a worship music duo from South Bend, Indiana, fusing the styles of gospel, classical, country, and soul. “Not the Devil Song,” which they wrote in 2019, is about the power Christians are given to tell Satan to back off! When he dangles temptations in front of you, whispers lies in your ear, sows seeds of doubt or fear or hopelessness, you can confidently retort, “Devil, no, you gotta let go; Jesus died to save my soul.”

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WOODCUT SERIES: Das Herz de Menschen (The Heart of Man): “The following illustrations—which, in a wonderful marriage of word and image, plot out the life of the Christian soul—form the central strain in The Heart of Man: Either a Temple of God, or a Habitation of Satan: Represented in Ten Emblematical Figures, Calculated to Awaken and Promote a Christian Disposition (1851), an English edition of a German book published in 1812 in Berlin by the ‘divine’ and philanthropist Johannes Gossner (1773-1858),” which was itself based on an older French text. The illustrations are not credited and are probably copies of ones that originated in France in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century.

In his book The Forge of Vision (2015), visual studies scholar David Morgan contrasts this emblematic series with the related Cor Jesu amanti sacrum by Anton Wierix (which I wrote about here). Whereas the Wierix engravings from Antwerp are marked by sweetness, with the Christ child gently cleaning and setting up house in the human heart, the anonymous illustrations Gossner uses portray more of a psychomachia (battle for the soul), with armed angels seeking to oust Satan and his minions.

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VIDEO: “How Bermejo paints good and evil in Saint Michael Triumphs over the Devil”: In this nine-minute video, Daniel Sobrino Ralston, associate curator for Spanish paintings at the National Gallery in London, examines a late Gothic painting in the museum’s collection by the Spanish artist Bartolomé Bermejo, showing the archangel Michael slaying Satan. Based on Revelation 12:7–9, this subject gave artists the chance to flex their imaginations in portraying evil incarnate and its vanquishment. Possessing an impressive capacity for fantastical invention, Bermejo gives the devil snakes for arms, eyes for nipples, bird claws, moth-like wings, a spiky tail, and a cactus growing out of its head!

Bermejo, Bartolome_St. Michael (detail) — Bartolomé Bermejo (Spanish, ca. 1440–after 1495), *Saint Michael Triumphs over the Devil* (detail), 1468. Oil and gold on wood, 179.7 × 81.9 cm. National Gallery, London.

If this visual subject interests you, I recommend the book Angels and Demons in Art by Rosa Giorgi, from the J. Paul Getty Museum’s Guide to Imagery series.

Our lives like a flower

March 5, 2025 Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: but the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.

—1 Peter 1:24–25 (KJV) (cf. Isaiah 40:7–8)

Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow.

—Psalm 144:4 (ESV)

LOOK: Fraktur attributed to David Kriebel

Fraktur by David Kriebel — Fraktur attributed to David Kriebel (1787–1848), Gwynedd Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, 1802. Watercolor and ink on laid paper, 9 1/2 × 7 1/2 in. (24.1 × 19.1 cm). Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Referring to exuberantly decorated pages made by Pennsylvania Germans, fraktur is a type of folk art that flourished in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Traditionally handwritten in ink and hand-painted with letter embellishments and design motifs like birds, hearts, and tulips, these works on paper often contain religious texts and/or commemorate important life events like births, deaths, and baptisms. They were made primarily by pastors and schoolmasters, who gifted them to parishioners or students. The recipients did not frame or hang them, but rather kept them in Bibles, drawers, or chests.

The German text of this fraktur translates to “Flowers are not all red. All men hasten toward death. Man cannot remain here, so direct your heart upward.” The piece features a foliate border and a color palette of reds and browns that captures both the bloom of youth and life’s inevitable withering. It was made by David Kriebel, a farmer from Gwynedd Township in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, who would later move to nearby Worcester Township and become a minister in the Schwenkfelder Church, a small Christian denomination rooted in the Protestant Reformation teachings of Caspar Schwenkfeld von Ossig (1489–1561), which emphasize inner spirituality over outward form.

LISTEN: “As the Life of a Flower” by Laura E. Newell (words) and George H. Ramsey (music), 1904 | Performed by the Chuck Wagon Gang, 1953 [HT]

As the life of a flow’r, as a breath or a sigh
So the years that we live as a dream hasten by
True, today we are here, but tomorrow may see
Just a grave in the vale and a mem’ry of me

Refrain:
As the life of a flow’r, as a breath or a sigh
So the years glide away, and alas, we must die

As the life of a flow’r, be our lives pure and sweet
May we brighten the way for the friends that we greet
And sweet incense arise from our hearts as we live
Close to him who doth teach us to love and forgive [Refrain]

While we tarry below, let us trust and adore
Him who leads us each day toward the radiant shore
Where the sun never sets and the flow’rs never fade
Where no sorrow or death may its borders invade [Refrain]

This early twentieth-century gospel hymn is performed here by D. P. Carter (tenor) and three of his nine children: Rose Carter Karnes (soprano), Anna Carter Gordon (alto), and Ernest (Jim) Carter (bass, guitar). The quartet formed in 1935 and started appearing on WBAP radio in the family’s hometown of Fort Worth, Texas, the following year, billing themselves as the Chuck Wagon Gang.

“As the Life of a Flower” draws on biblical passages that compare human life to a flower for its ephemerality (e.g., Job 14:2; Psalm 103:15–16; Isa. 40:6–8; 1 Pet. 1:24–25). But flowers are also fragrant, and the song makes that comparison too, echoing verses like 2 Corinthians 2:14–15, where Paul writes, “Thanks be to God, who . . . through us spreads in every place the fragrance that comes from knowing him. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.”

Though we are fading, we are glorious creations of God with joyous and sweet-smelling potential. While we live on this earth, may we exude the beauty and aroma of Christ in all we say and do.

Roundup: Cello in a canyon, John Cage and silence, and more

March 1, 2025August 18, 2025 Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

SPOTIFY PLAYLIST: March 2025 (Art & Theology):

(See also my Lent Playlist.)

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ANIMATED VIDEO: “Why Jesus Warns Us About Giving, Praying, and Fasting Publicly” by BibleProject: Giving, praying, and fasting are the three major practices of Lent, which begins March 5 this year. Jesus encouraged his followers to engage in all three, but in his Sermon on the Mount he also cautioned them not to do so with the motive of being seen by others. That’s why Matthew 6 is one of the lectionary readings for Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. Written by Tim Mackie and Jon Collins and directed by Rose Mayer, with art direction by Joshua Espasandin and PMurphy, the following BibleProject video exposits this teaching.

BibleProject is a nonprofit in Portland, Oregon, that offers free videos, podcasts, articles, and classes to help people experience the Bible in a way that is approachable and transformative.

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SONGS from Advent Birmingham [previously]:

The following two songs are from the music ministry of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in downtown Birmingham, Alabama. The ministry flourished under the leadership of Rev. Dr. Zac Hicks, who served as the church’s canon for worship and liturgy from 2016 to 2021. (He is now pastor of Church of the Cross, also in Birmingham.)

The music videos used to be available on YouTube, but it appears that the church has undergone some restructuring, and they have been removed. For now, though, they are still available through Facebook, and the audio releases are available through streaming services.

>> “Lord, Who Throughout These Forty Days”: This 1873 hymn by Claudia Frances Hernaman recounts the forty days Jesus spent in fasting and prayer in the Judean wilderness at the outset of his ministry and beseeches God to give us strength, like Jesus, to fight temptation, to die to self, and to live by his word and with a keen sense of his abiding presence. It’s set to an American folk tune from the Sacred Harp tradition, known as LAND OF REST, which has roots in the ballads of northern England and Scotland. The hymn is sung by Madison Craig (née Hablas), with Emma Lawton (née Dry) and Annie Lee on background vocals, Joey Seales on pump organ, Charley Rowe on cajon, and Zac Hicks on acoustic guitar.

>> “Spring Up, O Well”: This is an original song by Zac Hicks, sung by Jordan Brown. It draws especially on the narrative in John 4, where Jesus tells a Samaritan woman at a well, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life” (vv. 13–14). The exclamation “Spring up, O well!” in the song’s refrain comes from Numbers 21:17, where the Israelites praise God for providing them water in the desert, and that musical phrase is adapted from the old children’s church song “I’ve Got a River of Life.”

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SHORT FILM: “Silences,” dir. Nathan Clarke: Shot in 2016 at Box Canyon near Laity Lodge in the Texas Hill Country, this contemplative short film features cellist Steuart Pincombe playing a short improvisation that interacts with the natural space. The impromptu music making was for him an exercise in prayer.

Three years earlier, also while on retreat at Laity Lodge, Pincombe’s wife shot him doing the same inside the newly constructed Threshold, an interactive, site-specific, permanent outdoor installation by Roger Feldman consisting of three curved walls:

The Threshold improvisation, Pincombe writes, “stemmed from a particular note (and its harmonic overtones) that naturally resonated in the space—the cello’s lowest strings were tuned to match this strongest resonation. Playing with the confusion of resonances (or pitches) was an important part of this short musical and spatial exploration—pitches are bent or adjusted in a way that create audible pulses in the sound and play on the conflicts of resonation within the space.”

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ESSAY: “Silence in an Age of Mass Media: John Cage and the Art of Living” by Dr. Jonathan A. Anderson, ARTS (Spring 2017): Many twentieth- and twenty-first-century artists have explored the necessities and possibilities for aesthetic stillness and silence, Anderson writes. In this essay he considers the composer John Cage (1912–1992), best known—and most excoriated—for his modernist piano composition 4′33″ (1952), in which the pianist sits at the bench for four minutes and thirty-three seconds, playing no notes. The point was to attune the audience to the ambient sounds of the concert hall (coughing, rustling, creaking, mechanical humming, outside traffic, etc.), testing the distinction between “music” and “noise.” Cage found the fundamental difference between the two to be not in the qualities of sound but in the attentiveness of the listener.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn from Anderson’s article that even after Cage left Christianity (in which he was raised) and turned to Zen Buddhism, he continued to link his love for the givenness of environmental sounds to Jesus’s admonition to “consider the lilies” (Luke 12:27). “Cage sought to quiet his own aesthetic ‘worry’ for musical meaning,” Anderson writes, “and to instead receive the given sounds of the world as richly meaningful in themselves.”

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VIDEO: Lenten Jazz Vespers, Duke University Chapel, March 23, 2023: This Jazz Vespers service combines the liturgical traditions of Vespers with the musical improvisation of jazz. Exploring the theme of hope, the service is presided over by Rev. Racquel C. N. Gill, minister for intercultural engagement at Duke University Chapel. Musical leadership is provided by the John Brown Little Big Band.

Here are the time stamps:

0:01: Song: “I Came to Tell You” by Trinity Inspirational Choir
5:40: Welcome and Prayer
8:33: Song: “Miracle (It’s Time for Your Miracle)” by Marvin Sapp
14:38: Poetry reading: “Dark Testament (8)” by Pauli Murray
16:11: Song: “Be Ye Steadfast” by Arthur T. Jones
21:25: Scripture reading: Romans 5:1–11
24:02: Song: “Through It All” by Andraé Crouch
28:10: Sermon by Rev. Bruce Puckett, assistant dean of Duke University Chapel
35:56: Response
52:18: Prayer and Benediction
54:36: Song: “Down on My Knees” by John P. Kee

Roundup: “God’s Love” playlist, embracing the ephemeral, and more

February 25, 2025January 20, 2026 Victoria Emily Jones2 Comments

LENT SERIES: “Let go of unlove this Lent: Let’s practice love together—a new and improved Lenten reflection series starting March 5th” by Tamara Hill Murphy: I’ve been nurtured for years by Murphy’s gentle spiritual writing and curated beauty and wisdom, and I especially appreciate her annual Advent and Lent Daybook series. This Lent, she’ll be exploring four postures of cruciform love given to us in 1 Corinthians 13, providing daily scripture readings, prayers, and art, along with weekly practices. You can gain access for just $16. (She uses the Substack platform.)

Erickson, Scott_Forgive Thy Other — *Forgive Thy Other* by Scott Erickson

I like how Murphy frames the season: “Lent is a significant time for us to seek a deeper understanding of God’s heart and recognize the gaps in our experiences of His love. Through its beautiful stories, prayers, and practices, Lent also invites us to reflect on our own expressions of love and unlove. The Book of Common Prayer encourages us to let go of our unloving ways so we can love what (and who) God loves. Let’s joyfully embrace this transformative season together, reflecting God’s love with compassion and understanding.”

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NEW PLAYLIST: God’s Love (Art & Theology): Related to Tamara Hill Murphy’s 2025 Lent Daybook theme: here’s a new playlist I put together of songs about the abounding, ever-present love of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a love that seeks, heals, and transforms.

The cover photo is of an early twentieth-century relief sculpture from the exterior of Holy Trinity Church in the town of St Andrews, Scotland, taken by Joy Marie Clarkson; it shows a pelican pecking her breast to feed her young with her own blood, a medieval symbol of Christ’s self-giving love.

There’s some overlap between this playlist and my dedicated Lent Playlist. I hope it uplifts you in the knowledge of the depths and riches of God’s love for you.

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SONGS:

>> “And Am I Born to Die?”: Lent opens with a call to “remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” A reflection on human mortality, this somber hymn was written by the great English Methodist hymnist Charles Wesley (1707–1788) and set to music—a shape-note tune—by Ananias Davisson (1780–1857), a Presbyterian elder from Virginia. In this video from January 2023, it’s performed by the Appalachian folk musician Nora Brown, with Stephanie Coleman on fiddle and James Shipp on harmonium.

And am I born to die?
To lay this body down?
And must my trembling spirit fly
Into a world unknown?

Awaked by trumpet sounds,
I from my grave shall rise,
And see the Judge, with glory crowned,
And see the flaming skies.

Soon as from earth I go,
What will become of me?
Eternal happiness or woe
Must then my portion be.

>> “Nunc tempus acceptabile” (Now Is the Accepted Time): Second Corinthians 5:20b–6:10 is traditionally read on Ash Wednesday, a passage that includes the adjuration, “Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation!” (2 Cor. 6:2). There’s a beautiful tenth-century Latin hymn for Lent, from the Liber Hymnarius, that opens with this line. In 2013, the Chicago-based composer and conductor Paul M. French set it to music for SSA a cappella choir, its unison opening unfolding into an increasingly expressive three-part harmony. It’s performed here by the Notre Dame Magnificat Choir under the direction of Daniel Bayless.

Nunc tempus acceptabile 
Fulget datum divinitus,
Ut sanet orbem languidum
Medela parsimoniae.

Christi decoro lumine
Dies salutis emicat,
Dum corda culpis saucia
Reformat abstinentia.

Hanc mente nos et corpore,
Deus, tenere perfice,
Ut appetamus prospero
Perenne pascha transitu.

Te rerum universitas,
Clemens, adoret, Trinitas,
Et nos novi per veniam
Novum canamus canticum.

Amen.

Today is the accepted time.
Christ’s healing light, the gift divine,
shines forth to save the penitent,
to wake the world by means of Lent.

The light of Christ will show the way
that leads to God’s salvation day.
The rigor of this fasting mends
the hearts that hateful sinning rends.

Keep all our minds and bodies true
in sacrifice, O God, to you,
that we may join, when Lents have ceased,
the everlasting Paschal feast.

Let all creation join to raise,
most gracious Trinity, your praise.
And when your love has made us new,
may we sing new songs, Lord, to you.

Amen.

Translation © 2006 Kathleen Pluth

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LECTURE: “Embracing the Ephemeral: How Art Honors Creaturehood” by James K. A. Smith, Duke Divinity School, February 17, 2022: Mortality means something more than being a creature who will someday die, says philosopher James K. A. Smith; it is a way of being, not defined solely by its terminus. “To be created is to be ephemeral, fugitive, contingent. To be a creature is to be a mortal, subject to the vicissitudes of time.” Part of the Duke Initiatives in Theology and the Arts Distinguished Lecture Series, this talk about developing a Christian temporal awareness is based on chapter 4 of Smith’s then-forthcoming, award-winning book How to Inhabit Time (Brazos, 2022), titled “Embrace the Ephemeral: How to Love What You’ll Lose.”

Degas, Edgar_The Star — Edgar Degas (French, 1834–1917), *The Star: Dancer on Pointe*, ca. 1878–80. Gouache and pastel on paper, mounted on board, 22 1/4 × 29 3/4 in. (56.5 × 75.6 cm). Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, California.

Randall, Herbert_Untitled (Lower East Side, NY) — Herbert Randall (American, 1936–), *Untitled (Lower East Side, New York)*, 1960s. Gelatin silver print, 13 7/16 × 8 7/8 in. (34.2 × 22.5 cm). J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

Some notes I took:

“We need not only memento mori, but also memento tempore—reminders of our temporality, not just our mortality.”
“Imagine embracing the ephemeral as a discipline of not only conceding our mortality as a condition but also receiving our mortality as a gift.”
“Our finitude is not a fruit of the fall, even if it is affected by the fall. Contingency is not a curse. . . . Aging is not a curse. Autumn is not a punishment. Not all that is fleeting should be counted as loss. The coming to be and passing away that characterize our mortal life are simply the rhythms of creaturehood.”
Resting in our mortality instead of resenting it
Theologian Peter Leithart says hebel means not “emptiness,” “vanity,” or “meaninglessness” but, literally, “mist” or “vapor.” The Teacher in Ecclesiastes uses that word repeatedly to describe human life: it’s vaporous, elusive, escapes our efforts to hold on to it, to manage it.
“The Fly” by William Oldys
Mono no aware, a Japanese aesthetic principle—what the thirteenth-century Japanese Buddhist nun Abutsu-ni referred to as “the ah-ness of things”
“It may be artists who help us best appreciate the fragile dynamism of creaturehood.”
Exhibition: Working Together: The Photographers of the Kamoinge Workshop. A collective of Black photographers founded in New York City in 1963. Their photographs don’t capture the ephemeral; they hallow it.
How to sift tragedy from good creaturely rhythms in which good things fade?
“To dwell faithfully mortally is to achieve a way of being in the world for which not all change is loss and not all loss is tragic, while at the same time naming and lamenting those losses that ought not to be. . . . To be faithfully mortal is a feat of receiving and letting go, celebrating and lamenting. Being mortal is the art of living with loss, knowing when to say thank you and knowing when to curse the darkness.”
“One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop: “The art of losing isn’t hard to master . . .”

A Q&A takes place from 39:00 onward. The first question, asked by theologian Jeremy Begbie, is the one I had, and it recurs with different phrasing at 58:17.

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POEM: “Ash Wednesday” by Anya Krugovoy Silver: I first encountered this poem in the excellent devotional Between Midnight and Dawn: A Literary Guide to Prayer for Lent, Holy Week, and Eastertide, and it has stuck with me ever since. (It was originally published in the equally excellent The Ninety-Third Name of God, Silver’s first poetry collection.)

Mortality is one of the main themes in Silver’s poetry, including the physicalities of being human, as reflected in “Ash Wednesday,” in which she, the speaker, muses on the shared Christian ritual of the imposition of ashes at the beginning of Lent. Silver, who died of breast cancer eight years after writing this poem, was used to practicing memento mori (“remember you must die”): her mastectomy scar and silicone breast prosthesis are constant reminders of the fact, she writes. She wants to touch the body of God, wants to wrap her fingers around some tangible promise of healing, but both remain elusive. Instead she resolves to embrace the finiteness of her present form, taking the burnt remains of those Hosanna palms from last year and wearing them with repentance and praise, knowing that what is sown in perishability will be raised in imperishability (1 Cor. 15:42).

I’m compelled by how Silver both laments her fragility and owns it. There’s a defiant quality to the tone, the ash-and-oil mixture that’s thumbed into her forehead in the shape of a cross evoking a football player applying eye black in front of a locker room mirror before the big game. Wearing the mark of Christ, she’s ready for the face-off between herself and death.

John Chrysostom on holistic fasting

February 22, 2025 Victoria Emily Jones2 Comments

Do you fast? Give me proof of it by your works.
If you see a person who is poor, take pity on them.
If you see an enemy, be reconciled to them.
If you see a friend being honored, do not envy them.
Let not only your mouth fast, but also your hands and feet and eyes and ears and all the members of your body.
Let the hands fast by being free of avarice.
Let the feet fast by ceasing to run after sin.
Let the eyes fast by not looking with lust.
Let the ears fast by not listening to malicious talk or false reports.
Let the mouth fast from hateful words and unjust rants.
For what good is it if we abstain from birds and fishes but bite and devour our brothers and sisters?

—John Chrysostom, from Homily 3 on the Statutes, secs. 11–12, written in Greek in 387 CE

* I adapted this excerpt from a public-domain translation by W. R. W. Stephens provided by Kevin Knight at New Advent.

Roundup: New choral setting of R. S. Thomas poems, “Christ Jesus Knew a Wilderness,” “St. Gabriel to Mary flies,” and more

March 9, 2024February 10, 2026 Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

WORLD PREMIERE: “Yr Oedd Gardd / There Was a Garden” by Alex Mills, March 29, 2024, Saint Deiniol’s Cathedral, Bangor, Wales: On Good Friday this year, a new setting of seven unpublished R. S. Thomas poems, curated from the archives of the R. S. Thomas Research Centre, will be performed for the first time by Saint Deiniol’s Cathedral Choir under the direction of Joe Cooper, accompanied by devotional readings. The choral composition is by Alex Mills [previously], and it was commissioned by Saint Deiniol’s for Holy Week. The title comes from John 19:41–42: “Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid. And so, because it was the Jewish day of Preparation, and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.”

Thomas was a priest in the Church of Wales and one of the twentieth century’s greatest poets, his works exploring the cross, the presence and absence of God, forgiveness, and redemption.

This is the second commission Mills has fulfilled for the cathedral; last year he wrote “Saith Air y Groes / Seven Last Words from the Cross,” a choral setting of the seven short phrases uttered by Jesus from the cross, according to the Gospel writers, but in Welsh.

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CONTEMPORARY HYMNS/GOSPEL SONGS BY WOMEN:

I try to be intentional about featuring the work of women throughout the year, but as March is Women’s History Month, I wanted to call attention to these three sacred songs by Christian women from the generation or two before me.

>> “Christ Jesus Knew a Wilderness” by Jane Parker Huber (1986): Born in China to American Presbyterian missionaries, Jane Parker Huber (1926–2008) is best known as a hymn writer and an advocate for women in the church. This hymn—which can be found in A Singing Faith (1987), among other songbooks—is particularly suitable for Lent. Huber wrote the words, pairing them with an older tune by George J. Elvey. Lucas Gillan, a drummer, educator, church music director, composer, and occasional singer-songwriter from Chicago and founding member of the jazz quartet Many Blessings, arranged the hymn and performs it here with his wife, Anna Gillan, a project commissioned by Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Walnut Creek, California. What a great violin part!

Christ Jesus knew a wilderness
Of noonday heat and nighttime cold
Of doubts and hungers new and old
Temptation waiting to take hold

Christ Jesus knew uncertainty
Would all forsake, deny, betray?
Would crowds that followed turn away?
Would pow’rs of evil hold their sway?

Christ Jesus knew an upper room
An olive grove, a judgment hall
A skull-like hill, a drink of gall
An airless tomb bereft of all

Christ Jesus in our wilderness
You are our bread, our drink, our light
Your death and rising set things right
Your presence puts our fears to flight

>> “For Those Tears I Died (Come to the Water)” by Marsha Stevens-Pino (1969): I grew up in an independent Baptist church in the southern US, and though the worship music consisted almost entirely of traditional hymns, I have a faint recollection of a woman singing this song as an offertory one Sunday. (Or maybe I heard it on a Gaithers’ television special at my grandma’s house?) It is an early CCM (contemporary Christian music) song that was popular with the emerging Jesus Movement. Marsha Stevens-Pino (née Carter) (born 1952) of Southern California wrote it in 1969 when she was sixteen and a brand-new Christian, and it was recorded by Children of the Day in 1971.

In the video below, excerpted from the DVD Stories and Songs, vol. 1, it is sung by Callie DeSoto and Maggie Beth Phelps with their father, David Phelps.

>> “The First One Ever” by Linda Wilberger Egan (1980): An alumna of the Union Theological Seminary School of Sacred Music with a background in voice and organ, Linda Wilberger Egan (born 1946) has served Lutheran, United Methodist, and Presbyterian congregations as music director throughout her career. Based on Luke 1:26–38, John 4:7–30, and Luke 24:1–11, her hymn “The First One Ever” honors the gospel witness of biblical women: Mother Mary, who said yes to God’s plan for her life, bearing the Messiah into the world; the unnamed woman of Samaria, who, after Jesus personally revealed his messianic identity to her, evangelized her whole village; and Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, the first people to receive the news of Jesus’s resurrection and to preach it to the apostles.

The hymn is sung in the following video by Lauren Gagnon at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Chenango Bridge, New York, accompanied by her husband, Jacob Gagnon, on guitar.

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SUBSTACK POST: “St. Gabriel to Mary flies / this is the end of snow & ice” by Kristin Haakenson: Kristin Haakenson, creator of Hearthstone Fables, is an artist, farmer, and mom from the Pacific Northwest who shares art and reflections inspired by the sacred and the seasonal, place and past. In this most recent post of hers, she discusses the yearly intersection of Lent and the Feast of the Annunciation. “In a time when the Annunciation isn’t celebrated as universally within the Church as it once was, it may feel somewhat disjointed to stumble upon this joyful feast – celebrating the conception of Jesus – during the penitential season of Lent,” she writes. “This timing, though, is part of a revelatory harmony within the Christian calendar. When we step back to see it in the context of the rest of the liturgical year – and also in the context of the natural, astronomical seasons – the theology embedded in this system of sacred time begins to absolutely bloom.”

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LITURGICAL POEM: “Annunciation 2022” by Kate Bluett: Kate Bluett from Indiana writes metrical verse around the liturgical calendar and is also one of the lyricists of the Porter’s Gate music collective. In this poem (which she said was inspired in part by the timing of this blog post!) she brings the Annunciation into conversation with the Song of Solomon in such resonant ways.

Annunciation (Gladzor Gospels) — Toros Taronatsi (Armenian, 1276–ca. 1346), *The Annunciation to the Virgin Mary*, 1323, from a Gospel-book made at Gladzor Monastery, Siunik, Armenia. MS 6289, fol. 143, Matenadaran Collection (Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts), Yerevan.

On Holy Saturday I’m planning to feature a song that connects the Song of Solomon to the women at Jesus’s tomb! If you haven’t read that Old Testament book or it’s been a while, I’d encourage you to do so, as then you’ll be able to more easily identify the references in Bluett’s poem and the upcoming song I’ve scheduled for the Paschal Triduum.

The Southwell Litany

March 3, 2024March 3, 2024 Victoria Emily Jones4 Comments

A litany is a prayer consisting of a series of invocations and supplications by a pastor or other leader with alternate responses (text in boldface) by the congregation. Originally published in 1905, the following twenty-one-pronged litany is by the Rt. Rev. George Ridding (1828–1904), who in 1884 became the first bishop of Southwell in Nottinghamshire.

Offo, Gbenga_Fervent Prayer — Gbenga Offo (Nigerian, 1957–), *Fervent Prayer*, 2015. Acrylic on canvas, 121 × 173 cm.

O Lord, open our minds to see ourselves as thou seest us, or even as others see us and we see others; and from all unwillingness to know our infirmities, save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

From moral weakness of spirit, from timidity, from hesitation, from fear of others and dread of responsibility, strengthen us with the courage to speak the truth in love and self-control; and alike from the weakness of hasty violence and the weakness of moral cowardice, save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

From weakness of judgment, from the indecision that can make no choice and the irresolution that carries no choice into act, and from losing opportunities to serve thee, save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

From infirmity of purpose, from want of earnest care and interest, from the sluggishness of indolence and the slackness of indifference, and from all spiritual deadness of heart, save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

From dullness of conscience, from a feeble sense of duty, from thoughtless disregard of consequences to others, from a low idea of the obligations of our Christian calling, and from all half-heartedness in our service for thee, save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

From weariness in continuing struggles, from despondency in failure and disappointment, from an overburdened sense of unworthiness, from morbid fancies of imaginary backslidings, raise us to a lively hope and trust in thy presence and mercy, in the power of faith and prayer; and from all exaggerated fears and vexations, save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

From self-conceit and vanity and boasting, from delight in supposed success and superiority, raise us to the modesty and humility of true sense and taste and reality; and from all the harms and hindrances of offensive manners and self-assertion, save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

From affectation and untruth, conscious or unconscious, from pretense and acting a part, which is hypocrisy, from impulsive self-adaptation to the moment in unreality to please persons or make circumstances easy, strengthen us to simplicity; and from all false appearances, save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

From love of flattery, from overready belief in praise, from dislike of criticism, from the comfort of self-deception in persuading ourselves that others think better than the truth of us, save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

From all love of display and sacrifice to popularity, from thought of ourselves and forgetfulness of thee in our worship, hold our minds in spiritual reverence; and in all our words and works from all self-glorification, save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

From pride and self-will, from the desire to have our own way in all things, from an overweening love of our own ideas and obliviousness to the value of others, enlarge the generosity of our hearts and enlighten the fairness of our judgments; and from all selfish arbitrariness of temper, save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

From all jealousy, whether of equals or superiors, from grudging others’ success, from impatience of submission and eagerness for authority, give us the spirit of kinship to share loyally with fellow workers in all true proportions; and from all insubordination to law, order, and authority, save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

From all hasty utterances of impatience, from the retort of irritation and the taunt of sarcasm, from all infirmity of temper in provoking or being provoked, from love of unkind gossip, and from all idle words that may do hurt, save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

In all times of temptation to follow pleasure, to leave duty for amusement, to indulge in distraction and dissipation, in dishonesty and debt, to degrade our high calling and forget our Christian vows, and in all times of frailty in our flesh, save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

In all times of ignorance and perplexity as to what is right and best to do, direct us, O Lord, with wisdom to judge aright; order our ways and overrule our circumstances as thou canst in thy good providence, and in our mistakes and misunderstandings, save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

In times of doubts and questionings, when our belief is perplexed by new learning, new thought, when our faith is strained by creeds, by doctrines, by mysteries beyond our understanding, give us the faithfulness of learners and the courage of believers in thee; alike from stubborn rejection of new revelations and from hasty assurance that we are wiser than our forebears, save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

From strife and partisanship and division among thy people, from magnifying our certainties to condemn all differences, from all arrogance in our dealings with others, save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

Give us knowledge of ourselves, our powers and weaknesses, our spirit, our sympathy, our imagination, our knowledge, our truth; teach us by the standard of thy Word, by the judgments of others, by examinations of ourselves; give us the earnest desire to strengthen ourselves continually by study, by diligence, by prayer and meditation; and from all fancies, delusions, and prejudices of habit, temper, or society, save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

Give us true knowledge of other people in their differences from us and in their likenesses to us, that we may deal with their real selves, measuring their feelings by our own but patiently considering their varied lives and thoughts and circumstances; and in all our relations to them, from false judgments of our own, from misplaced trust and distrust, from misplaced giving and refusing, from misplaced praise and rebuke, save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

Chiefly, O Lord, we beseech thee, give us knowledge of thee, to see thee in all thy works, always to feel thy presence near, to hear and know thy call. May thy Spirit be our spirit, thy words our words, and thy will our will, and in all shortcomings and infirmities may we have sure faith in thee. Save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

Finally, O Lord, we humbly beseech thee, blot out our past transgressions, heal the evils of our past negligences and ignorances, make us amend our past mistakes and misunderstandings; uplift our hearts to new love, new energy and devotion, that we may be unburdened from the grief and shame of past faithlessness to go forth in thy strength to persevere through success and failure, through good report and evil report, even to the end; and in all time of our tribulation, in all time of our prosperity, save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

Source: George Ridding, A Litany of Remembrance, Compiled for Retreats and Quiet Days for His Clergy (London: Bemrose and Sons, 1905) [HT]