Wilde: E tenebris

Saturday, December 29, 2018
    Feast of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr, 1170
Meditation:
    A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”
    He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.
    —Mark 4:37-39 (NIV)
Quotation:
Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach Thy hand
For I am drowning in a stormier sea
Than Simon on the lake of Galilee:
The wine of life is spilt upon the sand,
My heart is as some famine-murdered land
Whence all good things have perished utterly,
And well I know my soul in Hell must lie
If I this night before God’s throne must stand.

“He sleeps perchance, or rideth to the chase,
Like Baal, when his prophets howled that name
From morn to noon on Carmel’s smitten height.”
Nay, peace! I shall behold, before the night,
The feet of brass, the robe more white than flame,
The wounded hands, the weary human face.
    ... Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), from Rosa Mystica [1881]The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, v. IV, Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 39-40 (see the book)
    See also Mark 4:37-39; 1 Kings 18:26-27; Ps. 69:3; 130:1-4; John 20:26-29
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have rescued me from my darkness.

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