Alleluia-verse for the Virgin

Alleluia! lightburst from your untouched

womb like a flower

on the farther side

of death. The world-tree

is blossoming. Two

realms become one.

- Hildegard of Bingen, translated by Barbara Newman

Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus

Today is the 300th Anniversary of the birth of Charles Wesley. As we ‘pass this way but once’ we wistfully think of what we might leave behind. I’d gladly settle for Wesley’s legacy of hymns written on the hearts of generations of people of faith and almost/becoming faith. It seems to me that hymns are the great engines which teach faith and engender hope - to sing our faith in the great hymns is to imprint it on heart and mind and soul.

So as we sing in this Advent season, ‘Come thou long-expected Jesus, born to set thy people free’, we are moving towards, ‘Hark, the Herald Angels sing, Glory to the new-born King.’

+David