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This is from Fr Doyle’s writings.

9 September 1916 – Mass at the Battle of the Somme

By cutting a piece out of the side of the trench I was just able to stand in front of my tiny altar, a biscuit box supported on two German bayonets. God’s angels, no doubt, were hovering overhead, but so were the shells, hundreds of them, and I was a little afraid that when the earth shook with the crash of the guns, the chalice might be overturned. Round about me on every side was the biggest congregation I ever had: behind the altar, on either side, and in front, row after row, sometimes crowding one upon the other, but all quiet and silent, as if they were straining their ears to catch every syllable of that tremendous act of Sacrifice — but every man was dead! Some had lain there for a week and were foul and horrible to look at, with faces black and green. Others had only just fallen, and seemed rather sleeping than dead, but there they lay, for none had time to bury them, brave fellows, every one, friend and foe alike, while I held in my unworthy hands the God of Battles, their Creator and their Judge, and prayed Him to give rest to their souls. Surely that Mass for the Dead, in the midst of, and surrounded by the dead, was an experience not easily to be forgotten.

Poem of John Henry Cardinal Newman

The Dream of Gerontius

{323}

§ 1. Gerontius

JESU, MARIA—I am near to death,

And Thou art calling me; I know it now.

Not by the token of this faltering breath,

This chill at heart, this dampness on my brow,—

(Jesu, have mercy! Mary, pray for me!)

‘Tis this new feeling, never felt before,

(Be with me, Lord, in my extremity!)

That I am going, that I am no more.

‘Tis this strange innermost abandonment,

(Lover of souls! great God! I look to Thee,)

This emptying out of each constituent

And natural force, by which I come to be. {324}

Pray for me, O my friends; a visitant

Is knocking his dire summons at my door,

The like of whom, to scare me and to daunt,

Has never, never come to me before;

‘Tis death,—O loving friends, your prayers!-’tis

he! …

As though my very being had given way,

As though I was no more a substance now,

And could fall back on nought to be my stay,

(Help, loving Lord! Thou my sole Refuge,

Thou,)

And turn no whither, but must needs decay

And drop from out the universal frame

Into that shapeless, scopeless, blank abyss,

That utter nothingness, of which I came:

This is it that has come to pass in me;

Oh, horror! this it is, my dearest, this;

So pray for me, my friends, who have not strength

to pray.

Assistants

Kyrie eleïson, Christe eleïson, Kyrie eleïson.

Holy Mary, pray for him.

All holy Angels, pray for him.

Choirs of the righteous, pray for him. {325}

Holy Abraham, pray for him.

St. John Baptist, St. Joseph, pray for him.

St. Peter, St. Paul, St Andrew, St. John,

All Apostles, all Evangelists, pray for him.

All holy Disciples of the Lord, pray for him.

All holy Innocents, pray for him.

All holy Martyrs, all holy Confessors,

All holy Hermits, all holy Virgins,

Gerontius

Rouse thee, my fainting soul, and play the man;

And through such waning span

Of life and thought as still has to be trod,

Prepare to meet thy God.

And while the storm of that bewilderment

Is for a season spent,

And, ere afresh the ruin on me fall,

Use well the interval.

Assistants

Be merciful, be gracious; spare him, Lord.

Be merciful, be gracious; Lord, deliver him.

From the sins that are past;

From Thy frown and Thine ire; {326}

From the perils of dying;

From any complying

With sin, or denying

His God, or relying

On self, at the last;

From the nethermost fire;

From all that is evil;

From power of the devil;

Thy servant deliver,

For once and for ever.

By Thy birth, and by Thy Cross,

Rescue him from endless loss;

By Thy death and burial,

Save him from a final fall;

By Thy rising from the tomb,

By Thy mounting up above,

By the Spirit’s gracious love,

Save him in the day of doom.

Gerontius

Sanctus fortis, Sanctus Deus,

De profundis oro te,

Miserere, Judex meus,

Parce mihi, Domine. {327}

Firmly I believe and truly

God is three, and God is One;

And I next acknowledge duly

Manhood taken by the Son.

And I trust and hope most fully

In that Manhood crucified;

And each thought and deed unruly

Do to death, as He has died.

Simply to His grace and wholly

Light and life and strength belong,

And I love, supremely, solely,

Him the holy, Him the strong.

Sanctus fortis, Sanctus Deus,

De profundis oro te,

Miserere, Judex meus,

Parce mihi, Domine.

And I hold in veneration,

For the love of Him alone,

Holy Church, as His creation,

And her teachings, as His own.

And I take with joy whatever

Now besets me, pain or fear,

And with a strong will I sever

All the ties which bind me here. {328}

Adoration aye be given,

With and through the angelic host,

To the God of earth and heaven,

Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Sanctus fortis, Sanctus Deus,

De profundis oro te,

Miserere, Judex meus,

Mortis in discrimine.

I can no more; for now it comes again,

That sense of ruin, which is worse than pain,

That masterful negation and collapse

Of all that makes me man; as though I bent

Over the dizzy brink

Of some sheer infinite descent;

Or worse, as though

Down, down for ever I was falling through

The solid framework of created things,

And needs must sink and sink

Into the vast abyss. And, crueller still,

A fierce and restless fright begins to fill

The mansion of my soul. And, worse and worse,

Some bodily form of ill

Floats on the wind, with many a loathsome curse {329}

Tainting the hallow’d air, and laughs, and flaps

Its hideous wings,

And makes me wild with horror and dismay.

O Jesu, help! pray for me, Mary, pray!

Some Angel, Jesu! such as came to Thee

In Thine own agony …

Mary, pray for me. Joseph, pray for me. Mary,

pray for me.

Assistants

Rescue him, O Lord, in this his evil hour,

As of old so many by Thy gracious power:—

(Amen.)

Enoch and Elias from the common doom; (Amen.)

Noe from the waters in a saving home; (Amen.)

Abraham from th’ abounding guilt of Heathenesse;

(Amen.)

Job from all his multiform and fell distress;

(Amen.)

Isaac, when his father’s knife was raised to slay;

(Amen.)

Lot from burning Sodom on its judgment-day;

(Amen.) {330}

Moses from the land of bondage and despair;

(Amen.)

Daniel from the hungry lions in their lair;

(Amen.)

And the Children Three amid the furnace-flame;

(Amen.)

Chaste Susanna from the slander and the shame;

(Amen.)

David from Golia and the wrath of Saul;

(Amen.)

And the two Apostles from their prison-thrall;

(Amen.)

Thecla from her torments; (Amen:)

—so to show Thy power,

Rescue this Thy servant in his evil hour.

Gerontius

Novissima hora est; and I fain would sleep.

The pain has weaned me … Into Thy hands,

O Lord, into Thy hands …

The Priest

Proficiscere, anima Christiana, de hoc mundo!

Go forth upon thy journey, Christian soul!

Go from this world! Go, in the Name of God

The Omnipotent Father, who created thee! {331}

Go, in the Name of Jesus Christ, our Lord,

Son of the living God, who bled for thee!

Go, in the Name of the Holy Spirit, who

Hath been pour’d out on thee! Go, in the name

Of Angels and Archangels; in the name

Of Thrones and Dominations; in the name

Of Princedoms and of Powers; and in the name

Of Cherubim and Seraphim, go forth!

Go, in the name of Patriarchs and Prophets;

And of Apostles and Evangelists,

Of Martyrs and Confessors; in the name

Of holy Monks and Hermits; in the name

Of Holy Virgins; and all Saints of God,

Both men and women, go! Go on thy course;

And may thy place today be found in peace,

And may thy dwelling be the Holy Mount

Of Sion:—through the Same, through Christ, our

Lord.

§ 2. Soul of Gerontius

I went to sleep; and now I am refresh’d,

A strange refreshment: for I feel in me

An inexpressive lightness, and a sense {332}

Of freedom, as I were at length myself,

And ne’er had been before. How still it is!

I hear no more the busy beat of time,

No, nor my fluttering breath, nor struggling pulse;

Nor does one moment differ from the next.

I had a dream; yes:—some one softly said

“He’s gone;” and then a sigh went round the

room.

And then I surely heard a priestly voice

Cry “Subvenite;” and they knelt in prayer.

I seem to hear him still; but thin and low,

And fainter and more faint the accents come,

As at an ever-widening interval.

Ah ! whence is this? What is this severance?

This silence pours a solitariness

Into the very essence of my soul;

And the deep rest, so soothing and so sweet,

Hath something too of sternness and of pain.

For it drives back my thoughts upon their spring

By a strange introversion, and perforce

I now begin to feed upon myself,

Because I have nought else to feed upon.—

Am I alive or dead? I am not dead, {333}

But in the body still; for I possess

A sort of confidence which clings to me,

That each particular organ holds its place

As heretofore, combining with the rest

Into one symmetry, that wraps me round,

And makes me man; and surely I could move,

Did I but will it, every part of me.

And yet I cannot to my sense bring home

By very trial, that I have the power.

‘Tis strange; I cannot stir a hand or foot,

I cannot make my fingers or my lips

By mutual pressure witness each to each,

Nor by the eyelid’s instantaneous stroke

Assure myself I have a body still.

Nor do I know my very attitude,

Nor if I stand, or lie, or sit, or kneel.

So much I know, not knowing how I know,

That the vast universe, where I have dwelt,

Is quitting me, or I am quitting it.

Or I or it is rushing on the wings

Of light or lightning on an onward course,

And we e’en now are million miles apart.

Yet … is this peremptory severance {334}

Wrought out in lengthening measurements of space

Which grow and multiply by speed and time?

Or am I traversing infinity

By endless subdivision, hurrying back

From finite towards infinitesimal,

Thus dying out of the expansive world?

Another marvel: some one has me fast

Within his ample palm; ’tis not a grasp

Such as they use on earth, but all around

Over the surface of my subtle being,

As though I were a sphere, and capable

To be accosted thus, a uniform

And gentle pressure tells me I am not

Self-moving, but borne forward on my way.

And hark! I hear a singing; yet in sooth

I cannot of that music rightly say

Whether I hear, or touch, or taste the tones.

Oh, what a heart-subduing melody!

Angel

My work is done,

My task is o’er,

And so I come, {335}

Taking it home,

For the crown is won,

Alleluia,

For evermore.

My Father gave

In charge to me

This child of earth

E’en from its birth,

To serve and save,

Alleluia,

And saved is he.

This child of clay

To me was given,

To rear and train

By sorrow and pain

In the narrow way,

Alleluia,

From earth to heaven.

Soul

It is a member of that family

Of wondrous beings, who, ere the worlds were

made, {336}

Millions of ages back, have stood around

The throne of God:—he never has known sin

But through those cycles all but infinite,

Has had a strong and pure celestial life,

And bore to gaze on the unveil’d face of God,

And drank from the everlasting Fount of truth,

And served Him with a keen ecstatic love.

Hark! he begins again.

Angel

O Lord, how wonderful in depth and height,

But most in man, how wonderful Thou art!

With what a love, what soft persuasive might

Victorious o’er the stubborn fleshly heart,

Thy tale complete of saints Thou dost provide,

To fill the thrones which angels lost through pride!

He lay a grovelling babe upon the ground,

Polluted in the blood of his first sire,

With his whole essence shatter’d and unsound,

And coil’d around his heart a demon dire,

Which was not of his nature, but had skill

To bind and form his op’ning mind to ill. {337}

Then was I sent from heaven to set right

The balance in his soul of truth and sin,

And I have waged a long relentless fight,

Resolved that death-environ’d spirit to win,

Which from its fallen state, when all was lost,

Had been repurchased at so dread a cost.

Oh, what a shifting parti-colour’d scene

Of hope and fear, of triumph and dismay,

Of recklessness and penitence, has been

The history of that dreary, life-long fray!

And oh, the grace to nerve him and to lead,

How patient, prompt, and lavish at his need!

O man, strange composite of heaven and earth!

Majesty dwarf’d to baseness! fragrant flower

Running to poisonous seed! and seeming worth

Cloking corruption! weakness mastering power!

Who never art so near to crime and shame,

As when thou hast achieved some deed of name;—

How should ethereal natures comprehend

A thing made up of spirit and of clay,

Were we not task’d to nurse it and to tend, {338}

Link’d one to one throughout its mortal day?

More than the Seraph in his height of place,

The Angel-guardian knows and loves the ran-

som’d race.

Soul

Now know I surely that I am at length

Out of the body; had I part with earth,

I never could have drunk those accents in,

And not have worshipp’d as a god the voice

That was so musical; but now I am

So whole of heart, so calm, so self-possess’d,

With such a full content, and with a sense

So apprehensive and discriminant,

As no temptation can intoxicate.

Nor have I even terror at the thought

That I am clasp’d by such a saintliness.

Angel

All praise to Him, at whose sublime decree

The last are first, the first become the last;

By whom the suppliant prisoner is set free,

By whom proud first-borns from their thrones

are cast; {339}

Who raises Mary to be Queen of heaven,

While Lucifer is left, condemn’d and unforgiven.

§ 3. Soul

I will address him. Mighty one, my Lord,

My Guardian Spirit, all hail!

Angel

All hail, my child!

My child and brother, hail! what wouldest thou?

Soul

I would have nothing but to speak with thee

For speaking’s sake. I wish to hold with thee

Conscious communion; though I fain would know

A maze of things, were it but meet to ask,

And not a curiousness.

Angel

You cannot now

Cherish a wish which ought not to be wish’d.

Soul

Then I will speak. I ever had believed

That on the moment when the struggling soul {340}

Quitted its mortal case, forthwith it fell

Under the awful Presence of its God,

There to be judged and sent to its own place.

What lets me now from going to my Lord?

Angel

Thou art not let; but with extremest speed

Art hurrying to the Just and Holy Judge:

For scarcely art thou disembodied yet.

Divide a moment, as men measure time,

Into its million-million-millionth part,

Yet even less than that the interval

Since thou didst leave the body; and the priest

Cried “Subvenite,” and they fell to prayer;

Nay, scarcely yet have they begun to pray.

For spirits and men by different standards mete

The less and greater in the flow of time.

By sun and moon, primeval ordinances—

By stars which rise and set harmoniously—

By the recurring seasons, and the swing,

This way and that, of the suspended rod

Precise and punctual, men divide the hours,

Equal, continuous, for their common use. {341}

Not so with us in the immaterial world;

But intervals in their succession

Are measured by the living thought alone,

And grow or wane with its intensity.

And time is not a common property;

But what is long is short, and swift is slow,

And near is distant, as received and grasp’d

By this mind and by that, and every one

Is standard of his own chronology.

And memory lacks its natural resting-points

Of years, and centuries, and periods.

It is thy very energy of thought

Which keeps thee from thy God.

Soul

Dear Angel, say,

Why have I now no fear at meeting Him?

Along my earthly life, the thought of death

And judgment was to me most terrible.

I had it aye before me, and I saw

The Judge severe e’en in the Crucifix.

Now that the hour is come, my fear is fled;

And at this balance of my destiny,

Now close upon me, I can forward look

With a serenest joy. {342}

Angel

It is because

Then thou didst fear, that now thou dost not fear,

Thou hast forestall’d the agony, and so

For thee the bitterness of death is past.

Also, because already in thy soul

The judgment is begun. That day of doom,

One and the same for the collected world,—

That solemn consummation for all flesh,

Is, in the case of each, anticipate

Upon his death; and, as the last great day

In the particular judgment is rehearsed,

So now, too, ere thou comest to the Throne,

A presage falls upon thee, as a ray

Straight from the Judge, expressive of thy lot.

That calm and joy uprising in thy soul

Is first-fruit to thee of thy recompense,

And heaven begun.

§ 4. Soul

But hark! upon my sense

Comes a fierce hubbub, which would make me fear

Could I be frighted. {343}

Angel

We are now arrived

Close on the judgment-court; that sullen howl

Is from the demons who assemble there.

It is the middle region, where of old

Satan appeared among the sons of God,

To cast his jibes and scoffs at holy Job.

So now his legions throng the vestibule,

Hungry and wild, to claim their property,

And gather souls for hell. Hist to their cry.

Soul

How sour and how uncouth a dissonance!

Demons

Low-born clods

Of brute earth

They aspire

To become gods,

By a new birth,

And an extra grace,

And a score of merits,

As if aught

Could stand in place {344}

Of the high thought,

And the glance of fire

Of the great spirits,

The powers blest,

The lords by right,

The primal owners,

Of the proud dwelling

And realm of light,—

Dispossess’d,

Aside thrust,

Chuck’d down

By the sheer might

Of a despot’s will,

Of a tyrant’s frown,

Who after expelling

Their hosts, gave,

Triumphant still,

And still unjust,

Each forfeit crown

To psalm-droners,

And canting groaners,

To every slave,

And pious cheat,

And crawling knave, {345}

Who lick’d the dust

Under his feet.

Angel

It is the restless panting of their being;

Like beasts of prey, who, caged within their bars,

In a deep hideous purring have their life,

And an incessant pacing to and fro.

Demons

The mind bold

And independent,

The purpose free,

So we are told,

Must not think

To have the ascendant

What’s a saint?

One whose breath

Doth the air taint

Before his death;

A bundle of bones,

Which fools adore,

Ha! ha!

When life is o’er; {346}

Which rattle and stink,

E’en in the flesh.

We cry his pardon!

No flesh hath he;

Ha! ha!

For it hath died,

‘Tis crucified

Day by day,

Afresh, afresh,

Ha! ha!

That holy clay,

Ha! ha!

This gains guerdon,

So priestlings prate,

Ha! ha!

Before the Judge,

And pleads and atones

For spite and grudge,

And bigot mood,

And envy and hate,

And greed of blood. {347}

Soul

How impotent they are! and yet on earth

They have repute for wondrous power and skill;

And books describe, how that the very face

Of the Evil One, if seen, would have a force

Even to freeze the blood, and choke the life

Of him who saw it.

Angel

In thy trial-state

Thou hadst a traitor nestling close at home,

Connatural, who with the powers of hell

Was leagued, and of thy senses kept the keys,

And to that deadliest foe unlock’d thy heart.

And therefore is it, in respect of man,

Those fallen ones show so majestical.

But, when some child of grace, Angel or Saint,

Pure and upright in his integrity

Of nature, meets the demons on their raid,

They scud away as cowards from the fight.

Nay, oft hath holy hermit in his cell,

Not yet disburden’d of mortality,

Mock’d at their threats and warlike overtures; {348}

Or, dying, when they swarm’d, like flies, around,

Defied them, and departed to his Judge.

Demons

Virtue and vice,

A knave’s pretence,

‘Tis all the same;

Ha! ha!

Dread of hell-fire,

Of the venomous flame,

A coward’s plea.

Give him his price,

Saint though he be,

Ha! ha!

From shrewd good sense

He’ll slave for hire

Ha! ha!

And does but aspire

To the heaven above

With sordid aim,

And not from love.

Ha! ha!

Soul

I see not those false spirits; shall I see {349}

My dearest Master, when I reach His Throne?

Or hear, at least, His awful judgment-word

With personal intonation, as I now

Hear thee, not see thee, Angel? Hitherto

All has been darkness since I left the earth;

Shall I remain thus sight-bereft all through

My penance-time? If so, how comes it then

That I have hearing still, and taste, and touch,

Yet not a glimmer of that princely sense

Which binds ideas in one, and makes them live?

Angel

Nor touch, nor taste, nor hearing hast thou

now;

Thou livest in a world of signs and types,

The presentations of most holy truths,

Living and strong, which now encompass thee.

A disembodied soul, thou hast by right

No converse with aught else beside thyself;

But, lest so stern a solitude should load

And break thy being, in mercy are vouchsafed

Some lower measures of perception,

Which seem to thee, as though through channels

brought, {350}

Through ear, or nerves, or palate, which are

gone.

And thou art wrapp’d and swathed around in

dreams,

Dreams that are true, yet enigmatical;

For the belongings of thy present state,

Save through such symbols, come not home to

thee.

And thus thou tell’st of space, and time, and

size,

Of fragrant, solid, bitter, musical,

Of fire, and of refreshment after fire;

As (let me use similitude of earth,

To aid thee in the knowledge thou dost ask)—

As ice which blisters may be said to burn.

Nor hast thou now extension, with its parts

Correlative,—long habit cozens thee,—

Nor power to move thyself, nor limbs to move.

Hast thou not heard of those, who after loss

Of hand or foot, still cried that they had pains

In hand or foot, as though they had it still?

So is it now with thee, who hast not lost

Thy hand or foot, but all which made up man.

So will it be, until the joyous day {351}

Of resurrection, when thou wilt regain

All thou hast lost, new-made and glorified.

How, even now, the consummated Saints

See God in heaven, I may not explicate;

Meanwhile, let it suffice thee to possess

Such means of converse as are granted thee,

Though, till that Beatific Vision, thou art blind;

For e’en thy purgatory, which comes like fire,

Is fire without its light.

Soul

His will be done!

I am not worthy e’er to see again

The face of day; far less His countenance,

Who is the very sun. Natheless in life,

When I looked forward to my purgatory,

It ever was my solace to believe,

That, ere I plunged amid the avenging flame,

I had one sight of Him to strengthen me.

Angel

Nor rash nor vain is that presentiment;

Yes,—for one moment thou shalt see thy Lord.

Thus will it be: what time thou art arraign’d {352}

Before the dread tribunal, and thy lot

Is cast for ever, should it be to sit

On His right hand among His pure elect,

Then sight, or that which to the soul is sight,

As by a lightning-flash, will come to thee,

And thou shalt see, amid the dark profound,

Whom thy soul loveth, and would fain approach,—

One moment; but thou knowest not, my child,

What thou dost ask: that sight of the Most Fair

Will gladden thee, but it will pierce thee too.

Soul

Thou speakest darkly, Angel; and an awe

Falls on me, and a fear lest I be rash.

Angel

There was a mortal, who is now above

In the mid glory: he, when near to die,

Was given communion with the Crucified,—

Such, that the Master’s very wounds were stamp’d

Upon his flesh; and, from the agony

Which thrill’d through body and soul in that

embrace,

Learn that the flame of the Everlasting Love

Doth burn ere it transform … {353}

§ 5.

…. Hark to those sounds!

They come of tender beings angelical,

Least and most childlike of the Sons of God.

First Choir of Angelicals

Praise to the Holiest in the height,

And in the depth be praise:

In all His words most wonderful;

Most sure in all His ways!

To us His elder race He gave

To battle and to win,

Without the chastisement of pain,

Without the soil of sin.

The younger son He will’d to be

A marvel in His birth:

Spirit and flesh his parents were;

His home was heaven and earth.

The Eternal bless’d His child, and arm’d,

And sent him hence afar,

To serve as champion in the field

Of elemental war. {354}

To be His Viceroy in the world

Of matter, and of sense;

Upon the frontier, towards the foe

A resolute defence.

Angel

We now have pass’d the gate, and are within

The House of Judgment; and whereas on earth

Temples and palaces are form’d of parts

Costly and rare, but all material,

So in the world of spirits nought is found,

To mould withal, and form into a whole,

But what is immaterial; and thus

The smallest portions of this edifice,

Cornice, or frieze, or balustrade, or stair,

The very pavement is made up of life—

Of holy, blessed, and immortal beings,

Who hymn their Maker’s praise continually.

Second Choir of Angelicals

Praise to the Holiest in the height,

And in the depth be praise:

In all His words most wonderful;

Most sure in all His ways! {355}

Woe to thee, man! for he was found

A recreant in the fight;

And lost his heritage of heaven,

And fellowship with light.

Above him now the angry sky,

Around the tempest’s din;

Who once had Angels for his friends,

Had but the brutes for kin.

O man! a savage kindred they;

To flee that monster brood

He scaled the seaside cave, and clomb

The giants of the wood.

With now a fear, and now a hope,

With aids which chance supplied,

From youth to eld, from sire to son,

He lived, and toil’d, and died.

He dreed his penance age by age;

And step by step began

Slowly to doff his savage garb,

And be again a man. {356}

And quicken’d by the Almighty’s breath,

And chasten’d by His rod,

And taught by angel-visitings,

At length he sought his God;

And learn’d to call upon His Name,

And in His faith create

A household and a father-land,

A city and a state.

Glory to Him who from the mire,

In patient length of days,

Elaborated into life

A people to His praise!

Soul

The sound is like the rushing of the wind—

The summer wind—among the lofty pines;

Swelling and dying, echoing round about,

Now here, now distant, wild and beautiful;

While, scatter’d from the branches it has stirr’d,

Descend ecstatic odours. {357}

Third Choir of Angelicals

Praise to the Holiest in the height,

And in the depth be praise:

In all His words most wonderful;

Most sure in all His ways!

The Angels, as beseemingly

To spirit-kind was given,

At once were tried and perfected,

And took their seats in heaven.

For them no twilight or eclipse;

No growth and no decay:

‘Twas hopeless, all-ingulfing night,

Or beatific day.

But to the younger race there rose

A hope upon its fall;

And slowly, surely, gracefully,

The morning dawn’d on all.

And ages, opening out, divide

The precious, and the base,

And from the hard and sullen mass

Mature the heirs of grace. {358}

O man! albeit the quickening ray,

Lit from his second birth,

Makes him at length what once he was,

And heaven grows out of earth;

Yet still between that earth and heaven—

His journey and his goal—

A double agony awaits

His body and his soul.

A double debt he has to pay—

The forfeit of his sins:

The chill of death is past, and now

The penance-fire begins.

Glory to Him, who evermore

By truth and justice reigns;

Who tears the soul from out its case,

And burns away its stains!

Angel

They sing of thy approaching agony,

Which thou so eagerly didst question of:

It is the face of the Incarnate God

Shall smite thee with that keen and subtle pain; {359}

And yet the memory which it leaves will be

A sovereign febrifuge to heal the wound;

And yet withal it will the wound provoke,

And aggravate and widen it the more.

Soul

Thou speakest mysteries; still methinks I know

To disengage the tangle of thy words:

Yet rather would I hear thy angel voice,

Than for myself be thy interpreter.

Angel

When then—if such thy lot—thou seest thy Judge,

The sight of Him will kindle in thy heart

All tender, gracious, reverential thoughts.

Thou wilt be sick with love, and yearn for Him,

And feel as though thou couldst but pity Him,

That one so sweet should e’er have placed Himself

At disadvantage such, as to be used

So vilely by a being so vile as thee.

There is a pleading in His pensive eyes

Will pierce thee to the quick, and trouble thee.

And thou wilt hate and loathe thyself; for, though

Now sinless, thou wilt feel that thou hast sinn’d, {360}

As never thou didst feel; and wilt desire

To slink away, and hide thee from His sight:

And yet wilt have a longing aye to dwell

Within the beauty of His countenance.

And these two pains, so counter and so keen,—

The longing for Him, when thou seest Him not;

The shame of self at thought of seeing Him,—

Will be thy veriest, sharpest purgatory.

Soul

My soul is in my hand: I have no fear,—

In His dear might prepared for weal or woe.

But hark! a grand, mysterious harmony:

It floods me like the deep and solemn sound

Of many waters.

Angel

We have gain’d the stairs

Which rise towards the Presence-chamber; there

A band of mighty Angels keep the way

On either side, and hymn the Incarnate God.

Angels of the Sacred Stair

Father, whose goodness none can know, but they

Who see Thee face to face, {361}

By man hath come the infinite display

Of thy victorious grace;

But fallen man—the creature of a day—

Skills not that love to trace.

It needs, to tell the triumph Thou hast wrought,

An Angel’s deathless fire, an Angel’s reach of

thought.

It needs that very Angel, who with awe,

Amid the garden shade,

The great Creator in His sickness saw,

Soothed by a creature’s aid,

And agonized, as victim of the Law

Which He Himself had made;

For who can praise Him in His depth and height,

But he who saw Him reel amid that solitary fight?

Soul

Hark! for the lintels of the presence-gate

Are vibrating and echoing back the strain.

Fourth Choir of Angelicals

Praise to the Holiest in the height,

And in the depth be praise: {362}

In all His words most wonderful;

Most sure in all His ways!

The foe blasphemed the Holy Lord,

As if He reckon’d ill,

In that He placed His puppet man

The frontier place to fill.

For, even in his best estate,

With amplest gifts endued,

A sorry sentinel was he,

A being of flesh and blood.

As though a thing, who for his help

Must needs possess a wife,

Could cope with those proud rebel hosts

Who had angelic life.

And when, by blandishment of Eve,

That earth-born Adam fell,

He shriek’d in triumph, and he cried,

“A sorry sentinel;

“The Maker by His word is bound,

Escape or cure is none; {363}

He must abandon to his doom,

And slay His darling son.”

Angel

And now the threshold, as we traverse it,

Utters aloud its glad responsive chant.

Fifth Choir of Angelicals

Praise to the Holiest in the height

And in the depth be praise:

In all His words most wonderful;

Most sure in all His ways!

O loving wisdom of our God!

When all was sin and shame,

A second Adam to the fight

And to the rescue came.

O wisest love! that flesh and blood

Which did in Adam fail,

Should strive afresh against the foe,

Should strive and should prevail; {364}

And that a higher gift than grace

Should flesh and blood refine,

God’s Presence and His very Self,

And Essence all-divine.

O generous love! that He who smote

In man for man the foe,

The double agony in man

For man should undergo;

And in the garden secretly,

And on the cross on high,

Should teach His brethren and inspire

To suffer and to die.

§ 6. Angel

Thy judgment now is near, for we are come

Into the veilèd presence of our God.

Soul

I hear the voices that I left on earth. {365}

Angel

It is the voice of friends around thy bed,

Who say the “Subvenite” with the priest.

Hither the echoes come; before the Throne

Stands the great Angel of the Agony,

The same who strengthen’d Him, what time He

knelt

Lone in that garden shade, bedew’d with blood.

That Angel best can plead with Him for all

Tormented souls, the dying and the dead.

Angel of the Agony

Jesu! by that shuddering dread which fell on Thee;

Jesu! by that cold dismay which sicken’d Thee;

Jesu! by that pang of heart which thrill’d in Thee;

Jesu! by that mount of sins which crippled Thee;

Jesu! by that sense of guilt which stifled Thee;

Jesu! by that innocence which girdled Thee;

Jesu! by that sanctity which reign’d in Thee;

Jesu! by that Godhead which was one with Thee;

Jesu! spare these souls which are so dear to Thee;

Souls, who in prison, calm and patient, wait for

Thee; {366}

Hasten, Lord, their hour, and bid them come to

Thee,

To that glorious Home, where they shall ever gaze

on Thee.

Soul

I go before my Judge. Ah! ….

Angel

…. Praise to His Name!

The eager spirit has darted from my hold,

And, with the intemperate energy of love,

Flies to the dear feet of Emmanuel;

But, ere it reach them, the keen sanctity,

Which with its effluence, like a glory, clothes

And circles round the Crucified, has seized,

And scorch’d, and shrivell’d it; and now it lies

Passive and still before the awful Throne.

O happy, suffering soul! for it is safe,

Consumed, yet quicken’d, by the glance of God.

Soul

Take me away, and in the lowest deep

There let me be, {367}

And there in hope the lone night-watches keep,

Told out for me.

There, motionless and happy in my pain,

Lone, not forlorn,—

There will I sing my sad perpetual strain,

Until the morn.

There will I sing, and soothe my stricken breast,

Which ne’er can cease

To throb, and pine, and languish, till possest

Of its Sole Peace.

There will I sing my absent Lord and Love:—

Take me away,

That sooner I may rise, and go above,

And see Him in the truth of everlasting day.

§ 7. Angel

Now let the golden prison ope its gates,

Making sweet music, as each fold revolves

Upon its ready hinge. And ye, great powers,

Angels of Purgatory, receive from me

My charge, a precious soul, until the day,

When, from all bond and forfeiture released,

I shall reclaim it for the courts of light. {368}

Souls in Purgatory

1. Lord, Thou hast been our refuge: in every

generation;

2. Before the hills were born, and the world was:

from age to age Thou art God.

3. Bring us not, Lord, very low: for Thou hast said,

Come back again, ye sons of Adam.

4. A thousand years before Thine eyes are but as

yesterday: and as a watch of the night which

is come and gone.

5. The grass springs up in the morning: at evening

tide it shrivels up and dies.

6. So we fail in Thine anger: and in Thy wrath are

we troubled.

7. Thou hast set our sins in Thy sight: and our

round of days in the light of Thy countenance.

8. Come back, O Lord! how long: and be entreated

for Thy servants.

9. In Thy morning we shall be filled with Thy

mercy: we shall rejoice and be in pleasure all

our days. {369}

10. We shall be glad according to the days of our

humiliation: and the years in which we have

seen evil.

11. Look, O Lord, upon Thy servants and on Thy

work: and direct their children.

12. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be

upon us: and the work of our hands, establish

Thou it.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the

Holy Ghost.

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall

be: world without end. Amen.

Angel

Softly and gently, dearly-ransom’d soul,

In my most loving arms I now enfold thee,

And, o’er the penal waters, as they roll,

I poise thee, and I lower thee, and hold thee.

And carefully I dip thee in the lake,

And thou, without a sob or a resistance,

Dost through the flood thy rapid passage take,

Sinking deep, deeper, into the dim distance. {370}

Angels, to whom the willing task is given,

Shall tend, and nurse, and lull thee, as thou

liest;

And masses on the earth, and prayers in heaven,

Shall aid thee at the Throne of the Most

Highest.

Farewell, but not for ever! brother dear,

Be brave and patient on thy bed of sorrow;

Swiftly shall pass thy night of trial here,

And I will come and wake thee on the morrow.

The Oratory.
January, 1865.

9 September 1916 – Mass at the Battle of the Somme

The Dream of Gerontius

§ 1. Gerontius

Assistants

Gerontius

Assistants

Gerontius

Assistants

Gerontius

The Priest

§ 2. Soul of Gerontius

Angel

Soul

Angel

Soul

Angel

§ 3. Soul

Angel

Soul

Angel

Soul

Angel

Soul

Angel

§ 4. Soul

Angel

Soul

Demons

Angel

Demons

Soul

Angel

Demons

Soul

Angel

Soul

Angel

Soul

Angel

§ 5.

First Choir of Angelicals

Angel

Second Choir of Angelicals

Soul

Third Choir of Angelicals

Angel

Soul

Angel

Soul

Angel

Angels of the Sacred Stair

Soul

Fourth Choir of Angelicals

Angel

Fifth Choir of Angelicals

§ 6. Angel

Soul

Angel

Angel of the Agony

Soul

Angel

Soul

§ 7. Angel

Souls in Purgatory

Angel

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