United with the Christians of Iraq and Syria

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Lo! How She Brings Life With Her

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I wrote the text of the following hymn when I was still a priest in the Anglican Communion.  I started work on it at Ein Kerem in the Holy Land and continued working on it in Ellon and Cruden Bay, Aberdeenshire, and finished it on Galveston Island near Texas.  It was first sung at the Catholic Parish and Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham in Houston, Texas.  A thousand million kindnesses were extended to me by people of many lands as I wrote this text and heard it sung for the first time.

The tune FAR OFF LANDS employed below was popular in The Hymnal 1940 of the Episcopal Church of the USA.  The text may also be sung to the lovely tune WIE LIEBLICH IST DER MAIEN.  Noel Jones has also written a magnificent setting of the text, and his tune is entitled EIN KEREM.

The text may be used for the Visitation of St. Elisabeth by the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Also, it may be used in Advent, on Marian feasts and feasts of the Forerunner as well as the feast of St. Elisabeth. There are other possible applications.

The text is now under a Creative Commons 3.0 license, so my desire is to see the text used and shared provided my name — Vincent Uher — is included as the author of the text.  It would also be nice to be contacted by email. My email address may be found in the sidebar.  By clicking on the images below, a larger image should be revealed which one may download and print.  

Blessings to all who read or make use of this hymn.

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Mammon speaks

IC XC

 NIKA


No man can serve two masters.
For either he will hate the one, and love the other:
or he will sustain the one and despise the other.
You cannot serve God and  Mammon.
St. Matthew 6:24 

In the Infernal Council, Mammon holds forth: 

                   … how wearisome

Eternity so spent in worship paid

To whom we hate. Let us not then pursue

By force impossible, by leave obtain’d

Unacceptable, though in Heav’n our state

Of splendid vassalage, but rather seek

Our own good from ourselves, and from our own

Live to our selves, though in this vast recess,

Free, and to none accountable, preferring

Hard liberty before the easy yoke

Of servile pomp. Our greatness will appear

Then most conspicuous, when great things of small,

Useful of hurtful, prosperous of adverse

We can create, and in what place so e’er

Thrive under evil, and work ease out of pain

Through labour and endurance. This deep world

Of darkness do we dread? How oft amidst

Thick clouds and dark doth heaven’s all-ruling sire

Choose to reside, His glory unobscured,

And with the majesty of darkness round

Covers his throne; from whence deep thunders roar

Mustering thir rage, and Heav’n resembles hell?

As he our darkness, cannot we his light

Imitate when we please? This desert soil

Wants not her hidden lustre, gems and gold;

Nor want we skill or art, from whence to raise

Magnificence; and what can heaven show more?

Our torments also may in length of time

Become our elements, these piercing fires

As soft as now severe, our temper changed

Into their temper; which must needs remove

The sensible of pain. All things invite

To peaceful counsels, and the settled state

Of order, how in safety best we may

Compose our present evils, with regard

Of what we are and were, dismissing quite

All thoughts of war: ye have what I advise.

John Milton, Paradise Lost, II, 247-283.

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Double Agent of Note: WWII

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The extraordinary story of Agent GARBO:
click here.

Or, if you prefer,
en Español.

David Warren: The Flight from Iraq

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David Warren begins his article with references to the last Jews left in Afghanistan:

When the Americans (“and allies”) took Kabul, they discovered that one of the clichés about Afghanistan was wrong. It was not true that there were no Jews left in that country. An elderly gentleman emerged from the rubble, a certain Ishaq Levin (may he rest in peace). All these years he had kept his head down, but was now under the impression he could come out.

The article continues with a few profound insights into what is happening to the Christian population in the territories under ISIS control.  

To finish the article, please CLICK HERE.

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Anna Mater Matris Christi

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O Lord God of our fathers, Thou didst give us the Mother of Thine Incarnate Son through blessed Saint Anne: Grant that, by her intercession, we may attain to the salvation Thou hast promised to Thy people; through her grandson, Thine Only-begotten Son, Our and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

If Christian, must watch...

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Remember that ISIS/ISIL was created, trained and funded by the USA and Saudi Arabia.  

You who are citizens of the USA, your federal government is responsible for this.  

Only you can make it stop by demanding the decoupling of U.S. foreign policy from the demands of the Saudi Arabian royal family.

Only you can make it stop by demanding the defunding of any government agency or department that in any way supports the various so-called "rebels" throughout Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon, so-called rebels like al-Nusra, ISIS, or the newly declared fake Caliphate.

And we who have no earthly power, we must lay siege to Heaven with our prayers that God will act for His people and save them from this scourge.  

Someday those of us who are both U.S. Citizens and Christians will realise how great is the need for deep repentance on our part for our failure to take action to stop the evil done with impunity by our federal government,  its agencies, its armed forces — and its black projects.

Mother Winsome, SBVM: "Grace and Blessing"

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Mother Winsome, SBVM

Dear reader, I have been profoundly moved by an article by Mother Winsome, SBVM on the website of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham in the UK.  Do have a read of Mother Winsome's account of her community's pilgrimage which has culminated in finding a home and a new birth: click here.

Anne Graham Lotz

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The daughter of Dr. Billy Graham, Anne Graham Lotz, issued a call to prayer for the USA that is a most urgent appeal culminating on July 7th with seven hours of prayer and fasting.

Although her appeal has been underway for a number of days, on the Seventh of July it is still possible to join in prayer and fasting for seven hours if one feels called.  Click on the banner below, and you will be taken to the Graham Lotz website:

The Purpose:

• For God the Father to restrain, protect, and deliver His people from the evil that has come into our world.
• For God the Son to be exalted, magnified, and glorified in His church, in our nation, and in our lives.
• For God the Holy Spirit to fall on us in a fresh way, compelling the church to repent of sin and our nation to return to faith in the living God, resulting in a great national spiritual awakening.

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R. Somerset Ward: The Road to God in darkness

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R. Somerset Ward writes:

“And what can possibly be the meaning of this coldness and darkness of the soul? Surely it is God’s test. How should we ever grow without tests? We say to God, ‘I want Thee more than I can say.’ God replies, ‘Do you really want Me?’ And straightaway in our prayers we find darkness and coldness, and the numbing loss of energy. If we were speaking the truth, we go on praying in spite of it; if we were not, we stop. And if we go on praying, the darkness becomes not a hindrance but a help, for the measure by which God values our prayers is the amount of desire in them, and it shows much greater desire to pray in darkness than in the light.

For this reason it has been said that we walk faster on the Road to God in darkness than in light. If you persist in prayer through darkness, you will assuredly find yourself after the darkness has passed much nearer to God.”

Reginald Somerset Ward: His Life and Letters 

Bishop Edmund R. Morgan, ed.

London: A. R. Mowbray & Co., Ltd, 1963, p. 141.

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Dorothy Kerin, Anglican stigmatist

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A prayer by the sainted Dorothy Kerin from her own notebook:

By the bruising of my whole life,
strengthen me with sympathy
for every wounded soul, 

and let my prayers be as balm 
for the wounds of thy children, 
that they may be healed.

And here is another blessing for you, dear reader, from Dorothy Kerin's vision of the Garden and of the weeds concerning which she writes:

"After some years, I was unhappy in my heart, that I had done so badly, with difficulties and how badly I had used the grace given me.

Dorothy Kerin
Anglican, healing ministry

"I was in prayer, when I found myself in the Garden. I had not been there for some time and there was a difference. It was fuller of flowers, and the scent more exquisite. Our Lady was there. She took my hand for she knew how bewildered I was about things. She led me to different plants. Her tears were still wet on them. Then I was alone. I saw a heap of weeds Our Lady must have pulled up. Then the Holy Spirit showed me everything I had done to produce these weeds, since the King made the garden. The stem of the Hope plant has a tendril clutching it, the weed was fear, the Charity weed was judging, the Faith plant was despair. Then I knelt down on the grass and confessed my faults to the King of the Garden. It is impossible to tell you the joy that forgiveness brought me."

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