the silent sermon of the months. v. may: the sermon of the birds

Irish Jesuit Province

The Silent Sermon of the Months. V. May: The Sermon of the BirdsSource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 45, No. 527 (May, 1917), pp. 273-278Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20504790 .

Accessed: 17/06/2014 21:20

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Irish Jesuit Province is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Irish Monthly.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 91.229.229.49 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 21:20:13 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ijp

http://www.jstor.org/stable/20504790?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


THE IRISH MONTHLY

MAY, 1917

THE SILENT SERMON OF THE

MONTHS V.-MAY-THE SERMON OF THE BIRDS

THERE are city folk who are quite convinced they could

never endure the ennui and the dulliness of country life. Take an example from our own capital. A Dubliner born and bred, and, let us say, moderately circumnstanced and

leisured, delights in the streets and the crowds, the train, and the railway carriage, the theatre and the cinema, the

whist-drive and the ballroom. For fashion's sake he, or she, spends a slhort holiday at the seaside town, just toler ating the sameness of the ocean's ebb and flow, and execrating the un-up-to-dateness of everything else-the tide, of couirse, being regarded as hopelessly stereotyped, if we

migult so express it. BTe is simply incapable of seeing or

hearingr the thousand and one little sights and sounds which

constituite the charm of the couintry. Of such a one it

night be said, in the words of the miaster-exponent of the beauties of Nature, W ordsworth:

"The soft blue sky did never melt Into his heart; he never felt The witching of the soft blue sky."

The denizens of the city see miniature parks and lakes, and listen to caged songbirds; but have they ever experi enced the charm and the glanmour and the ecstasy of av

May morning in the country, at the dawn of day? If not, I say to them, come to any part of our fair and beau

tiful land, rise with the sun, and listen to the full chorus of God's birds singing the Creator's praise in one grand symphony, to which nothing can be compared outside of

Heaven.

81



274 THE IRISH MONTHLY

There is miusic in the skies above and on the earth below. There is a full orchestra, in which all the birds take part, from the finished singer of all the notes of the gamut to the humble chirper of one poor note. It is an oratorio grander than any composed by man, more varied in its parts, sweeter in its harmony, for whatever is harsh or jarring is toned down, or lost, in the vastness of Nature's theatre. And although we cannot boast of a nightingale, or a mocking-bird, yet we can muster a goodly number of voices of exquisite tone and timbre.

The larks, spurning the ground as uniiworthy of thleii melody, mount with the dayspring into the golden glory of the blushing aurora to hymn their matin song as near

to the golden gates as they may. Some are ascending in graceful short flights, working themselves into ecstasies as they rise; some are descending with a rushing rain of song, which, however, borrows a strain of plaintiveness, as they near the gross, common-place earth; and very many are thrilling faintly with a new wild sweetness and rapture far up in the blue empyrean, beyond the ken of vision, as if they had been transformed into celestial spirits and would return no more. Ah, what must the music of Heaven be, when that of God's little birds is so ravish

ingly sweet !

In the fresh verdure of every tree-top the thrush sits sedately, and carelessly pours out its exquisite love-song, the same, yet seemingly never the same, so wonderful and

puzzling are its quick variations and modulations; while its congener and choir-mate, the blackbird, acting as accom panist, pipes its clear, full-throated whistle, piercing the ear of day with its clarion sound of gladness. In the grand concert their blended notes predominate, rising into a chorus of myriad voices-for their number is legion

calling to one another, echoing and re-echoing fromn near and far in the calm of the balmy, peaceful morning, till

they gradually die away in the distance in faint sweet

music of dreamy melody. Indeed, the thrush and black bird are the prima-donnas of the lower atmosphere, as the lark is of the higher.

The gorgeous goldfinch plays its sprightly dance-tune in



THE SILENT SERMON OF THE MONTHS 275

its boudoir among the fragrant apple-blossoms, while the proud linnet, in its robe of glorious emerald, adds its rich, mellow voice to the entertainment. The gay chaffinch repeats again and again, with untiring zest, its strange, tantalising titter, so oddly and abruptly ended; while the bold yellow-hammer unbluishingly intrudes its humble, monotonous stave for all its worth. The rare, exclusive bullfinch contributes its fine, voluptuous note, that seems more human than bird-like. The perky, bright-eyed robin sings cheerfully its bright, homely lay, while the restless, energetic little wren in a fine frenzy makes the air vibrate with its delirious thrill. And the stranger within our gates, the sum:mer-loving swallow, serenades you outside your window with its comforting, cozening little song of honied gladness. The quarrelling, chattering sparrows perpetrate a musical extravaganza, that is somehow not

unpleasant in its grand crash of familiar discord, which reminds us that Summer has come.

As for the rest of the small-bird tribe, the common chirp ing rabble, they give out incontinently whatever sound is

in them, which, in its general effect, serves like the drone of the bagpipes to give softness and charm to the full-toned volume of melody from the leading songsters, ringing clear and high above all.

Nor should the humble part of the shy wild-birds of the teld and moor be forgotten; for they, too, join in the grand oratorio, which fills the cathedral vault of heaven with swelling music. The cuckoo flits noiselessly fromn tree to tree chanting, amidst the young, fresh verdour, its solitary, bland note of almost human softness and tender ness; the wood-pigeon is crooning its love-lorn monody; the curlew is humming its drowsy lullaby; the wheeling plover is keening its lonely, querulous wail; and hidden in the lush meadows innumerable corncrakes keep rasping away for dear life, making the air as if muffled drums

were beating the last tattooa But, to fully appreciate the charm and witchery of all

this, one should have the background and setting of it before one; and, moreover, should both see and listen with a reverent mind, and with the delighted wonder of a child.



276 THE IRISH MONTfILY

Just consider the scenery and atmosphere of this grand matinee of God's birds, on a May morning in God's

country. The trees are loaded with greenery; the hedgerows and

bushes, far as the eye can reach, are snowed over with pearly whiteness; the gorse is a blaze of gold; the fields are shot over with white and yellow; the myriad insects dance and hum in the sunbeam; the streams glance and sing softly as they go; and the zephyrs of early morning, laden with the perfunme of wild flowers and blossoms, in their first fresh bloom, pass and softly kiss your brow.

These are in prodigal abundance everywhere, each aind everyone a swinging censer of incense before the Lord.

Truly, the May morning is a sermon, and more than a sermon. It is a hvmn of praise to God, Nature's articu late voice thanking Him, blessing Him for the gift and the joy of living. Yes, it inculcates the same lesson St. Paul taught-and be was ever the cheeriest and inost con soling of Moralists-" Rejoice in the Lord always, againi I say, rejoice."

Yes, jov, holv joy, visible even in the countenance, was

and is a marked claracteristic of the children of the Churchi, who are never sour-faced, or gloomy-browed. The Apostles rejoice in stripes, the martyrs in tortures, the confessors in austerities and contumelies, and the elect souls fromn the beginning in the privation of the good things of the

world, as they are falsely termed.

In that famous classic of ascetical theology, "The Practice of Christian and Religious Perfection," Father Alphonsus Rodriguez-whose tercentenary occurred last year-devotes many luminous chapters to proving that in the spiritual

life sadness is a positive evil, and joy in the service of

God a bounden duty. In the lives of the servants of God, greater and lesser, there is abundant evidence of this truth.

The seraphic St. Francis-the blithe, happy, poor little man of Assisi, who revolutioaised society in his day-in the child-like gaiety of his heart became a jester of the

Lord, a fool of God, making a boyish pretence of per forming on a violin with two sticks, as he trudged along,

and stopping on the wayside to preach to his little friends,



THE SILENT SERMON OF THE MONTHS 277

the birds. And St. Anthony, the Wonder-worker, another apostle of the cheerful life, would go to the seashore, and

with babyish simplicity preach to the fishes, that came from all quarters and lifted up their heads to listen to one, "who loved all things both great and small."

The Curb of Ars, even while he attempted to subsist on grass, was gay as a lark and merry as a grig. How

refreshing to read in his life the many stories related of his unaffected simplicity and abysmal humility. There is a fine touch of humour-rude, honest, rustic humour in the picture of the Saint chuckling hugely over the disappointment of the distinguished visitor, who had come afar to see him, and was informed that the shabby little

man, whom he saw hurrying along the street munching a dry crust-his one square meal of the day, probably

was no other than the great lion he had heard so much

about. To take an example from an early page of Church

history, is it not related of St. Laurence, the martyr, that he twitted his executioners facetiously, even while roast ing on the gridiron. And when St. Stephen preached his last inspiring sermon, which earned for him the martyr's crown, his face for joy was like the face of an angel.

The great painters have ever represented the face of The Christ as calm, cheerful and serene. In his picture of " Jesus leaving the Praetoriume," after passing a night

of horrors there, Dore depicts Him with a countenance so radiantly joyfuil that His accusers and enemies seem per

plexed and dumbfounded, as they look at Him with extreme astonishment, not unmixed with awe. They evidently cannot understand how anyone could meet death so joyfully.

There is only one kind of sadness that is laudable and profitable, and that is sadness on account of sin. As for the rest, let the watchword be, Sursum corda-lift up your hearts. Oh, ye bereaved and afflicted ones, pale

martyrs of suffering and sorrow, learn a lesson from the

brave little birds. When the cosy nest, so carefully, so laboriously constructed, is wantonly destroyed, and their helpless, bright-eyed little fledglings cruelly slain, see how courageouisly they will set about retrieving their seemingly



278 THE IRISH MONTHLY

hopeless fortunes. They will build themselves another nest, and rear another progeny, sweet and beautiful as the lost ones, and sing and make merry as before in the midst of their happy little family, flitting on exulting wing in their new-found element.

Few countries have had such acquaintance with misery in all its forms as our own, the Niobe of nations, with a history written in blood and tears; and yet, instead of indulging in a jeremiad over his woes, the light-hearted, irrepressible Celt makes them the subject of a quaint pleasantry, "You might as well sing grief as cry it."

Blessed optimism, founded, not on bravado or reckless ness, but on a humble faith and trust in that gracious Providence that wounds and heals, and disposes all things sweetly for our good. There should be nothing but rejoicing among those who are on their way to a king

dom, "where death shall be no more, nor mourning, nor

crying, for the former things are passed away."

AT EVE

I bless the golden light, at eve, that f alls From hallowed windows on the chancel floor;

With rainbow tint that gilds the sacred walls, And decks with gems the Tabernacle Door.

Oh, Door on flame, as Horeb's Tree of fire, Gleam worshipful before the Royal One! All burning thus, sweet Lord, I do desire

To kneel at eve in peace before Thy Throne.

R. O'K.



the silent sermon of the months. v. may: the sermon of the birds

Documents