A Window on Petertide

Lord, how can man preach thy eternal word?
    He is a brittle crazy glass;
Yet in thy temple thou dost him afford
    This glorious and transcendent place,
    To be a window, through thy grace.

But when thou dost anneal in glass thy story,
    Making thy life to shine within
The holy preachers, then the light and glory
    More reverend grows, and more doth win;
    Which else shows waterish, bleak, and thin.

Doctrine and life, colors and light, in one
    When they combine and mingle, bring
A strong regard and awe; but speech alone
    Doth vanish like a flaring thing,
    And in the ear, not conscience, ring.

                                George Herbert (1593-1633)

Petertide is ordination season in the Church of England. Last week, Claire Browes was ordained Priest, and this weekend Esther Brazil will be ordained Deacon. Both were ministerial assistants at St Mary’s and are now serving in parishes in the city of Oxford. This weekend also marks the 25th anniversary of my ordination as a priest. It’s a good opportunity to think about the role of a priest, and what we expect of our clergy.

‘Lord, how can man preach thy eternal word?’ Is not a bad question to start with. Herbert uses the image of glass to reflect on this rather precarious exercise, ‘a brittle crazy glass’. It is a powerful and suggestive image. Glass is one of the miracles of life. It is an incredibly strong and resilient material, but it is also delicate, brittle, and fragile.

One of the churches where I served in the early years of ministry was St Anne’s, Carlecotes, in South Yorkshire. This little Victorian church was built on the estate of Carlecotes Hall. When presiding at the altar at the east end, the priest looked directly on a stained glass window, which portrayed the crucifixion. I often found myself meditating on this window, because something had gone wrong with the firing process when the stained glass was made. With the combination of damp and a succession of wet Pennine winters, all the detail had been completely washed away. So all you could see was the outline of the lead, the change in colours, and where the face and torso of Jesus would have been on the cross, there was just a blank, an area of plain glass. 

It’s a symbol perhaps of what can happen when we forget that it is through the gift of the Spirit that our lives are sealed with the fire of God’s love. If we do not attend to our relationship with God, if we do not continually stir up the gift which is within us, if we do not take the life of prayer seriously (because we are so busy and so absorbed in other things), then we may find that the beauty and likeness of Christ within us is diminished. George Herbert was not just a poet. He was also a priest. And he reminds us of a searching and demanding, a joyful and glorious, mystery: it is not enough simply to speak of Jesus Christ, the life of Christ must shine within each and every one of us. As Herbert so memorably puts it:

Yet in thy temple thou dost him afford
    This glorious and transcendent place,
    To be a window, through thy grace.

The Revd Dr William Lamb