Sunday, April 19, 2020

                                       Links for Low Sunday Traditional Latin Mass
                                         St. Martha Live stream (taped video)
St. Martha Facebook   https://www.facebook.com/SaintMarthaParish/videos/844760622685812/
Una Voce Enfield Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/485789618270439/

                                     
                             THE PRIESTLY ROBE

Touch it lightly, or not at all.
Let it not fall !
Let not a fabric so august
Trail in the dust!
`Tis a costly thing,
Woven by love in suffering.
`Twas Jesus` parting gift to men.
When the Lord rose to Heaven again,
His latest breathing fell on it.
A mystery hides within its folds.
Quickened by sacramental breath,
It holds
The power of life and death.
Would you sully it ? Would you rend it?
Is there a Christian would not defend it-
A robe so costly and so rare,
So wonderfully fair ?
Woe to the hand profane
Woe to the heart ungracious,
Woe to the tongue unheeding,
Would dare to cast a stain
On a vestment made so precious
By such costly bleeding!

II

I know this robe and its history,
And what strange virtue goeth forth
From its hem to bless the earth;
And I adore the mystery
That gives it grace,
In Jesus` name, to soothe and heal.
With more than human tenderness
I prize the priestly order;
And, while the reverent knee I kneel,
I do not see beneath the border
Frail feet of clay,
But seek to find, if so I may,
By feeling,
Some gracious thread which will convey
To my sore spirit healing.
Vicars of Christ ! deem me not rude,
If nearer than is wont I press me;
But turn and bless me
Amid the kneeling multitude.

The priestly robe  Rev. Clarence Walworth  anno 1888

Amid the kneeling multitude.

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