Preview: John Keble's "Ave Maria"

Since August is traditionally a month of special devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I thought it appropriate to highlight a Marian poem from John Keble's The Christian Year on the Son Rise Morning Show on Monday, August 17 (especially after celebrating the Solemnity of the Assumption). He included a poem on "The Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary" in his survey of the feasts of the Anglican liturgical year. 

He takes, of course, a verse from Saint Luke's Gospel as his inspiration, "And the Angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women." (1:28), but Keble also goes on at the end of the poem to reference Luke chapter 11 ("And it happened that, when he was saying these things, a certain woman from the crowd, lifting up her voice, said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you.” Then he said, “Yes, but moreover: blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it.” 27-28):

Oh! Thou who deign’st to sympathise
With all our frail and fleshly ties,
   Maker yet Brother dear,
Forgive the too presumptuous thought,
If, calming wayward grief, I sought
   To gaze on Thee too near.

Yet sure ’twas not presumption, Lord,
’Twas Thine own comfortable word
   That made the lesson known:
Of all the dearest bonds we prove,
Thou countest sons and mothers’ love
   Most sacred, most Thine own.

When wandering here a little span,
Thou took’st on Thee to rescue man,
   Thou had’st no earthly sire:
That wedded love we prize so dear,
As if our heaven and home were here,
   It lit in Thee no fire.

On no sweet sister’s faithful breast
Wouldst Thou Thine aching forehead rest,
   On no kind brother lean:
But who, O perfect filial heart,
E’er did like Thee a true son’s part,
   Endearing, firm, serene?

Thou wept’st, meek maiden, mother mild,
Thou wept’st upon thy sinless Child,
   Thy very heart was riven:
And yet, what mourning matron here
Would deem thy sorrows bought too dear
   By all on this side Heaven?

A Son that never did amiss,
That never shamed His Mother’s kiss,
   Nor crossed her fondest prayer:
E’en from the tree He deigned to bow,
For her His agonised brow,
   Her, His sole earthly care.

Ave Maria! blessèd Maid!
Lily of Eden’s fragrant shade,
   Who can express the love
That nurtured thee so pure and sweet,
Making thy heart a shelter meet
   For Jesus’ holy dove?

Ave Maria!  Mother blest,
To whom, caressing and caressed,
   Clings the eternal Child;
Favoured beyond Archangels’ dream,
When first on Thee with tenderest gleam
   Thy new-born Saviour smiled:—

Ave Maria! thou whose name
All but adoring love may claim,
   Yet may we reach thy shrine;
For He, thy Son and Saviour, vows
To crown all lowly lofty brows
   With love and joy like thine.

Blessed is the womb that bare Him—blessed
The bosom where His lips were pressed,
   But rather blessed are they
Who hear His word and keep it well,
The living homes where Christ shall dwell,
   And never pass away.

He begins with meditation upon Our Lord, but turns soon to the relationship between Jesus and His Mother Mary. The use of "Ave Maria", a very Roman Catholic phrase, is balanced by Keble's reticence about devotion to the Mother of God ("All but adoring love may claim"), even though he hints at a coronation ("To crown all lowly lofty brows/With love and joy like thine.") I'd also call attention to the lovely reference to Mary at the foot of the Cross in the Gospel of John ("E’en from the tree He deigned to bow,/For her His agonised brow,/Her, His sole earthly care.") as a special aspect of Our Lord's love for His Mother, the Mother of God.

Nevertheless, his poem demonstrates the delicacy of the Oxford Movement leaders when they touched on matters that would seem "too Catholic" to some Anglicans. But when Newman prepared a sermon for the Annunciation in one of his Anglican Plain and Parochial Sermons, "The Reverence Due to the Virgin Mary" (Sermon 12 in Volume 2, with the verse from Luke 1:43 "From henceforth all generations shall call me blessed."), he seems to have to hinted at her sinlessness and virtue-- in contrast to our condition--although not according to our Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception:

Observe the lesson which we gain for ourselves from the history of the Blessed Virgin; that the highest graces of the soul may be matured in private, and without those fierce trials to which the many are exposed in order to their sanctification. So hard are our hearts, that affliction, pain, and anxiety are sent to humble us, and dispose us towards a true faith in the heavenly word, when preached to us. Yet it is only our extreme obstinacy of unbelief which renders this chastisement necessary. The aids which God gives under the Gospel Covenant, have power to renew and purify our hearts, without uncommon providences to discipline us into receiving them. God gives His Holy Spirit to us silently; and the silent duties of every day (it may be humbly hoped) are blest to the sufficient sanctification of thousands, whom the world knows not of. The Blessed Virgin is a memorial of this; and it is consoling as well as instructive to know it. When we quench the grace of Baptism, then it is that we need severe trials to restore us. This is the case of the multitude, whose best estate is that of chastisement, repentance, supplication, and absolution, again and again. But there are those who go on in a calm and unswerving course, learning day by day to love Him who has redeemed {137} them, and overcoming the sin of their nature by His heavenly grace, as the various temptations to evil successively present themselves. And, of these undefiled followers of the Lamb, the Blessed Mary is the chief. Strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might, she "staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief;" she believed when Zacharias doubted,—with a faith like Abraham's she believed and was blessed for her belief, and had the performance of those things which were told her by the Lord. And when sorrow came upon her afterwards, it was but the blessed participation of her Son's sacred sorrows, not the sorrow of those who suffer for their sins.

Of course, as a Catholic priest, Newman would not only accept but defend the definition of the Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, engaging in a written debate with another old Oxford Movement friend, E. B. Pusey!

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!