St Bede on the Ascension

This morning at the end of the Mass for the transferred Solemnity of the Ascension at the Oratory the recessional hymn was, as is usual on the feast there, Mgr Ronald Knox's translation of St Bede's hymn for the Ascension, and sung to the tune of Immortal, Invisible,God only wise. Like others of Knox's translations the text is sometimes awkward, and I realise that I am not alone in thinking that. That slightly unmusical style is perhaps surprising given Knox's felicity in producing the elegant pieces containedin Essays in Satire or Let Dons Delight :

New praises be given to Christ newly crowned,
who back to his heaven a new way hath found;
God’s blessedness sharing before us he goes,
what mansions preparing, what endless repose!


His glory still praising on thrice-holy ground
the apostles stood gazing, his mother around;
with hearts that beat faster, with eyes full of love,
they watched while their Master ascended above.


‘No star can disclose him’ the bright angels said;
‘Eternity knows him, your conquering head;
those high habitations he leaves not again,
till, judging all nations, on earth he shall reign.’


Thus spoke they and straightway, where legions defend
heaven’s glittering gateway, their Lord did attend,
and cry, looking thither, ‘Your portals let down
for him who rides hither in peace and renown.’

They asked, who keep sentry in that blessed town,
‘Who thus claimeth entry, a king of renown?’
‘The Lord of all valiance,’ that herald replied,
‘Who Satan’s battalions laid low in their pride.’

 
Grant, Lord, that out longing may follow thee there,
on earth who are thronging thy temples with prayer;
and unto thee gather, Redeemer, thine own,
where thou with thy Father dost sit on the throne.

Source:minipilgrim.com

 I found another translation online, which is by Benjamin Webb (1820-1885), and sung to "Lasst uns erfreuen": 

A hymn of glory let us sing:
New songs throughout the world shall ring:
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Chirst, by a road before untrod,
Ascendeth to the throne of God.
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

The holy apostolic band
Upon the Mount of Olives stand;
Alleluia! Alleluia!
And with his followers they see
Jesus' resplendent majesty.
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

To whom the angels, drawing nigh,
"Why stand and gaze upon the sky?
Alleluia! Alleluia!
This is the Saviour!" thus they say;
"This is his noble triumph-day."
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

"Again shall ye behold him so
As ye today have seen him go
Alleluia! Alleluia!
In glorious pomp ascending high,
Up to the portals of the sky."
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

Oh, grant us thitherward to tend
And with unwearied hearts ascend
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Unto thy kingdom's throne, where thou,
As is our faith, art seated now.
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

Be thou our Joy and strong Defence
Who art our future Recompense:
Alleluia! Alleluia!
So shall the light that springs from thee
Be ours through all eternity.
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

O risen Christ, ascended Lord,
All praise to thee let earth accord,
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Who art, while endless ages run,
With Father and with Spirit One.
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! 

Source:fministry.com

Not having Bede's Omnia Opera to hand I do not know how long is the original text - both Knox and Webb appear to have made a selection of stanzas from a lengthy original.

Two thoughts arise. Firstly what might John Mason Neale have done with the text is he had translated it, given his immense skill as a translator, or what might Edward Caswell produced?

Secondly, and assuming that Kox was not taking undue liberties with the text - and his style might very well suggest that he was in this case being very literal in his translation - what were the sights that inspired St Bede with his images of fortifications and gateways? In addition to the Apocalypse did he have in mind the undoubtedly extensive remains in his lifetime of Roman town defences and buildings in his native Northumbria? Was he thinking of Hadrian's Wall or Eboracum (York) and peopling them with the Angelic host? What also might his imagery suggest, in a reflex way, about the outward state and display about Northumbrian kingship?

Second Spring

This week I have been working with an Oxford Summer School run by Second Spring, who are based here in the city, on the theme of Catholic Faith and Culture. The students were from the USA and Canada and based here at Blackfriars. Their course was wide-ranging and included visits to local places of Catholic and historic interestv as well as a series of talks from experts (so-called in my case...).

On Tuesday afternoon I gave a talk on four Oxford educated Catholic writers - Hilaire Belloc, Ronald Knox, Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene. Although all of them were educated in Oxford, three of them at Balliol - Waugh was at Hertford - and three of them were converts - Belloc was a cradle Catholic, but had had a crisis of belief as a young man (but then in some senses he was a convert to being English, having a French father and being born in France himself) but the key point I stressed was their diversity of views on so many topics. They knew one another, but were not a group like the Inklings. What they did do was to bring a Catholic view or views into different aspects of writing and literature. By being well known and popular as writers and being known to be Catholics they thereby raised the profile of Catholicism in the perception of the wider reading public.

Today I gave the group a tour of Newman's Oxford. This was centred on visits to his undergraduate college at Trinity and Oriel where he was a Fellow. Along the way it was possible to visit St Mary's where he was Vicar and preached so many of his Anglican sermons.On such occasions one can indeed feel close to newman and that one is walking in his footsteps.

These were two very enjoyable sessions with agreeable people, and it was good to have a shared interest in the renewal and revival of an integrated Catholic visual and literary culture alongside the practise of the Faith.

Walking round Catholic Literary Oxford

Yesterday I gave a walking tour on the theme of Catholic Literary Oxford. I had been asked to do this by my friends who run Second Spring Oxford, which organises a summer school on Catholic culture each year. Having been told that the participants, from the US and from Chile, were particularly interested in J.R.R. Tolkien we started at the Eagle and Child (the "Bird and Baby") where Tolkien used to meet with the other Inklings, including C.S.Lewis and Charles Williams, in the 1930s and 40s to discuss their literary interests.

From there we looked in at St John's College, the alma mater of St Edmund Campion, before moving on to Balliol, the college of Cardinal Manning (no mean wordsmith himself), Gerard Manley Hopkins and that somewhat problematical Catholic Graham Greene. Balliol was also the undergraduate college of Ronald Knox, who went on to become the Anglican chaplain of Trinity, which is next door, on the eve of the Great War. It was in those years that he established himself as a leading Anglo-Catholic preacher and was a great influence in the spiritual life of Harold Macmillan. It was not far away in the Sheldonian Theatre that Knox gave his final public address, the Romanes Lecture, a few weeks before his death.

Trinity is, of course, the undergraduate college of Bl. John Henry Newman, and we took time to visit the chapel and to look at the outside of one of the rooms he occupied there and also the modern memorial bust of him as a Cardinal in the grounds.

Across Broad Street is Exeter, the college originally intended for Newman, and that of Tolkien from 1911-15. From there we walked round to Radcliffe Square to look at Hertford, Evelyn Waugh's college, and to talk about the sources for characters in Bridehead Revisited .

We managed to get into the building site that is currently the interior of the St Mary's University Church to try to see the pulpit from which Newman preached before crossing the High to Oriel, where Newman was a Fellow from 1822 until 1845. This being my own college I was able to take the party inside to show them where he had lived, before going round to Merton, which also has Newman links, but which was Tolkien's base as Professor of English from 1945 until 1959.

By walking into Christ Church Meadow we could view Lewis's Magdalen to the east before going to look at the outside of the Catholic Chapliancy, home to Mgr Knox in the 1920s and 30s, and pointing out Campion Hall - partly funded by Waugh's biography of St Edmund - and Pembroke College where Tolkien was Professor of Anglo-Saxon from 1925-45.

In a relatively short time we were able to cover a good selection of places of interest and a variety of authors. I hope my audience enjoyed their morning, and I certainly enjoyed meeting them.