All Souls Day, Monday 3 November 2008

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lacked anything.

A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?

Truth Lord, but I have marr’d them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.


One of the realities of ordained life is that if a priest is invited to supper the meal will inevitably be preceded by an awkward pause in which the host wrestles with whether or not Grace should be said and, if it should, by whom it should be said. A priest I know regularly overcomes this embarrassment by declaring categorically that only meals involving potatoes are proper meals, and necessitate Grace, while others are not and do not. I had supper with him last week and was thrown into confusion when, confronted with a plate of chicken and rice I assumed myself to be in safe territory and picked up my knife and fork. He took this as the cue to launch us into prayer. I blurted out my ‘Amen’ and in my defence pointed out the lack of the aforementioned root vegetable. He smiled and said ‘ah, but the presence of a friend makes the meal proper’.

I should not have been surprised. The priest in question is in fact a rather senior bishop of the Church of England, and he has made known on several occasions his opinion that priests ought to be taught less about the Bible and more about how to cook.

This opinion has (in my view) much to commend it, although it is considered shocking by many. It’s been much influenced by the sublime words of George Herbert, with which I began. They comprise a dialogue between the poet and his host, between humankind and God. Invited to dine and painfully conscious of his frailty the poet tells his host that, in response to his enquiry, all he lacks is a guest worthy of the invitation. ‘You shall be he’ insists the host. But ‘I cannot look on thee’ returns the poet. ‘Who made the eyes but I?’ says the host; ‘but I have marr’d them’ says the poet, ‘let my shame go where it doth deserve’. He is fearful. He dares not approach the table.

It is no coincidence that tonight, as we remember those we love but see no longer, we do so in a setting similar to that envisaged by Herbert. We gather around a table, around a table at which we are invited to sit and eat. Each of us stands where the poet stands, and in our Eucharist we discover the truth of what Herbert believed of God. This is that he is not the zealous receptionist, armed with a roll call of those who are invited and those who are not. Nor is he the muscular door-keeper, whose task it is to root out the unwashed and eject them from the party. He is instead the eternally generous host, welcoming in whoever wishes to approach, cooking and serving, and paying the bill. What he serves, what we feast upon, is his life, his presence, given to us and for us.

For the readings for All Souls Day attest that God is as George Herbert portrays him: he is Love, eternally turned towards the world with arms outstretched, the world which he loves into being and constantly holds in being. His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; and they are offered to every one of his children, to the departed as to the living. In that invitation; in that hospitality; in that love is our hope.

And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat.

Come, let us taste Love’s feast. Amen.