Come, ye
disconsolate, where’er ye languish,
Come, at the
shrine of God fervently kneel;
Here bring
your wounded hearts; here tell your anguish;
Earth has no
sorrow that heaven cannot heal.
Joy of the
desolate, light of the straying,
Hope when
all others die, fadeless and pure;
Here speaks
the Comforter, in God’s name saying,
“Earth has
no sorrow that Heaven cannot cure.”
Come, ask
the infidel what boon he brings us,
What charm
for aching hearts he can reveal,
Sweet is
that heavenly promise Hope sings us—
“Earth has
no sorrow that God cannot heal.”[i]
The last
verse of this fine old hymn was changed by Thomas Hastings in his Spiritual
Songs for Social Worship in 1831, probably because of the implication of
calling non-believers ‘infidels.’ I’m
not suggesting that we start doing that, but neither do I want us to miss the
point of the Irish poet Thomas Moore.
What does that embarrassing line ask?
“Come, ask the infidel what boon
he brings us,
What charm for aching hearts he
can reveal.”
That is
indeed the question! We are first of all
loath to admit that those who are not Christians are infidels, and once having
surmounted that insurmountable obstacle we are loath to admit the infidel has
no boon to offer, no charm for aching hearts.
The word ‘infidel’ comes from the Middle English ‘infidele’ and means
unbelieving. No other religion, no
infidel, offers the comfort that is an essential element of Christian faith. ‘He
leadeth me: O blessed thought! O words with heavenly comfort fraught! Whate'er I do, where'er I be, still 'tis
God's hand that leadeth me.”[ii]
We live in a
world fraught with many fears. Hear the
words of the Psalmist: “Destroy, O Lord, divide their tongues; for I see
violence and strife in the city. Day and
night they go around it on its walls, and iniquity and trouble are within it;
ruin is in its midst; oppression and fraud do not depart from its marketplace.”[iii] We need the reassurance that “Earth has no
sorrow that God cannot heal,’ and we need those “words with heavenly comfort
fraught.” After all, let me ask you,
where can you go but to the Lord?
The words of
the Psalmist sound surprisingly like the evening news. We live in the midst of Babylon. There is violence and strife in the city;
there is iniquity, trouble, ruin, oppression and fraud, and today there are
many voices declaiming the moral decay of our society. As a society we are like so many drunks
sitting on bar stools mourning the fact that we are having a problem with
alcohol and calling for another beer. It’s
not that we don’t see and to some extent even understand the situation we are
in, but we have seemingly lost the will to do something about it. But we Christians are in the world but not of
the world.[iv] There is a difference between the believer
and the hopeless infidel.
The place to
start is in persistent humble prayer.
The Psalmist cries, “But
I call to God, and the LORD will save me.
Evening and morning and at noon I utter my complaint and moan, and he
hears my voice.”[v] The Hebrew way of reckoning the day started
in the evening and The Book of Common Prayer does the same, which explains why
the first services of Christmas and Easter are on the Saturday evenings before
the Feast Day. In the midst of the
spiritual dangers of our society we are to cry out, we would say, “morning,
noon, and night.” The day is to be
encompassed in prayer.
The
Psalmist exhorts us, “Cast your burden on the LORD, and he will sustain you; he
will never permit the righteous to be moved.”[vi] The Psalmist prays, “When I am afraid, I put
my trust in you.” He confesses, “In God,
whose word I praise, in the LORD, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall
not be afraid. What can man do to me?”
Neither the Psalmist, nor Jesus in the Gospels, are naïve about the very
real dangers. Jesus tells us, “Do not fear those who kill the
body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and
body in hell.” The Christian living in a
world with infidels filled faces very real dangers and today there are many who
are martyrs the world over, especially in Muslim lands. As hard as it is to hear, there are worse
things than suffering pain or the loss of life.
The martyrs know what boon the infidel brings; they know what charm the
infidel offers for aching hearts.
Peter, who himself was going to suffer martyrdom, asks us, “Now who is
there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for
righteousness' sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be
troubled, but in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, always being
prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope
that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good
conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good
behavior in Christ may be put to shame.
For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will,
than for doing evil.”[vii]
Put your trust alone in Jesus. Life
is transitory. Heaven is for ever, and
heaven is real. “Sweet is that heavenly
promise (that) Hope sings us—Earth has no sorrow that God cannot heal.” That is why, among other reasons, that St.
Benedict tells us to “Prefer nothing whatever to Christ.”[viii]
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