Ash Wednesday

Image: George Shaw, Ash Wednesday, 8:30 a.m., 2004/5, Humbrol enamel on board.

Today is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the season of Lent, the traditional time in the Christian calendar when we are called to be opened up to a greater spiritual awareness both on an individual level and as a society. As we journey on a 40 day period of prayer and reflection as Christians we invite you to join us alongside the great poet T.S Eliot and strip back to the essentials in life, sit still and reflect on our humanity, mortality and God’s love for all of us.

Excerpt from Ash Wednesday by T.S Eliot

VI

Although I do not hope to turn again

Although I do not hope

Although I do not hope to turn

Wavering between the profit and the loss

In this brief transit where the dreams cross

The dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying

(Bless me father) though I do not wish to wish these things

From the wide window towards the granite shore

The white sails still fly seaward, seaward flying

Unbroken wings

And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices

In the lost lilac and the lost sea voices

And the weak spirit quickens to rebel

For the bent golden-rod and the lost sea smell

Quickens to recover

The cry of quail and the whirling plover

And the blind eye creates

The empty forms between the ivory gates

And smell renews the salt savour of the sandy earth

This is the time of tension between dying and birth

The place of solitude where three dreams cross

Between blue rocks

But when the voices shaken from the yew-tree drift away

Let the other yew be shaken and reply.

Blessèd sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit

of the garden,

Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood

Teach us to care and not to care

Teach us to sit still

Even among these rocks,

Our peace in His will

And even among these rocks

Sister, mother

And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,

Suffer me not to be separated

And let my cry come unto Thee.