Preview: John Keble's Poem for the Feast of Saint James the Greater

On Monday, July 20, we'll continue our Son Rise Morning Show series on John Keble's book of poetry celebrating The Christian Year, the liturgical year according to the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. This poem is for the feast of Saint James the Apostle, which we will celebrate on Saturday, July 25. The Gospel for that day at Mass (in the Catholic Church) is Matthew 20: 20-28, the passage in which the "Mother of the sons of Zebedee [James and John] approached Jesus with her sons and did him homage, wishing to ask him for something" for her sons--something that will make the other ten Apostles "indignant at the brothers"!

Keble chooses the verse in which Jesus explains the situation further to the brothers, and probably to the confusion and consternation of their Mother (does she know what Jesus means by the "chalice that [He] is going to drink" and what that baptism is?):

Ye shall drink indeed of My cup, and be baptised with the baptism that I am baptised with: but to sit on My right hand, and on My left, is not Mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of My Father.  St. Matthew xx. 23.

Sit down and take thy fill of joy
   At God’s right hand, a bidden guest,
Drink of the cup that cannot cloy,
   Eat of the bread that cannot waste.
O great Apostle! rightly now
   Thou readest all thy Saviour meant,
What time His grave yet gentle brow
   In sweet reproof on thee was bent.

“Seek ye to sit enthroned by me?
   Alas! ye know not what ye ask,
The first in shame and agony,
   The lowest in the meanest task—
This can ye be? and came ye drink
   The cup that I in tears must steep,
Nor from the ’whelming waters shrink
   That o’er Me roll so dark and deep?”

“We can—Thine are we, dearest Lord,
   In glory and in agony,
To do and suffer all Thy word;
   Only be Thou for ever nigh.”—
“Then be it so—My cup receive,
   And of My woes baptismal taste:
But for the crown, that angels weave
   For those next Me in glory placed,

“I give it not by partial love;
   But in My Father’s book are writ
What names on earth shall lowliest prove,
   That they in Heaven may highest sit.”
Take up the lesson, O my heart;
   Thou Lord of meekness, write it there,
Thine own meek self to me impart,
   Thy lofty hope, thy lowly prayer.

If ever on the mount with Thee
   I seem to soar in vision bright,
With thoughts of coming agony,
   Stay Thou the too presumptuous flight:
Gently along the vale of tears
   Lead me from Tabor’s sunbright steep,
Let me not grudge a few short years
   With thee t’ward Heaven to walk and weep:

Too happy, on my silent path,
   If now and then allowed, with Thee
Watching some placid holy death,
   Thy secret work of love to see;
But, oh! most happy, should Thy call,
   Thy welcome call, at last be given—
“Come where thou long hast storeth thy all
   Come see thy place prepared in Heaven.”

Keble first addresses Saint James the Greater in Heaven, who knows fully what this Gospel story means, the suffering (and martyrdom) and joy, with highs and lows and consolations, on Earth and the eternal joy of Heaven. 

He expands the dialogue between Jesus and the Sons of Zebedee to explore exactly what that chalice or cup meant and then in the fourth stanza addresses his own heart ("Take up thy lesson") and even applies the experience of the Transfiguration to his own Christian life, with its highs and lows.

Most of all, he prays for that happy and welcome call (even noting the provisional aspect of this call) when he will be invited into Heaven!

My late father was named James and he converted to Catholicism after years of attending Sunday Mass with our family when I was in high school. He chose Saint Joseph as his Confirmation name.

Saint James the Greater, pray for us!

Image Credit (public domain): St James the Elder (c. 1612–1613) by Peter Paul Rubens