Mar. 28: Maundy Thursday

By Rob Martin

Washing of the Feet by John August Swanson

One of my favorite poets is John Donne.  He was born in London to an affluent Catholic family, converted to Anglicanism as a young man and became an Anglican priest.

On this Maundy Thursday I share with you one of his poignant poems “Hymn to God, my God, in my Sickness”:

Since I am coming to that holy room,

            Where, with the choir of saints for evermore,

I shall be made thy music as I come

            I tune the instrument here at the door,

And what I must do then, think here before.

Whilst my physicians by their love are grown

            Cosmographers, and I their map, who lie

Flat on this bed, that by them may be shown

            That this is my south-west discovery

            Per fretum febris, by these straits to die.

I joy, that in these straits, I see my west;

            For, though their currents yield return to none,

What shall my west hurt me?  As west and east

            In all flat maps (and I am one) are one,

            So death doth touch the resurrection.

Is the Pacific Sea my home?  Or are

            The eastern riches?  Is Jerusalem?

Anyan, and Magellan, and Gibraltar,

            All straits, and none but straits, are ways to them,

            Whether where Japhet  dwelt, or Cham, or Shem.

We think that Paradise and Calvary,

            Christ’s Cross and Adam’s tree, stood in one place;

Look Lord, and find both Adam met in me;

            As the first Adam’s sweat surrounds my face,

May the last Adam’s blood my soul embrace.

So, in his purple wrapped receive me Lord,

            By these his thorns give me his other crown;

And as to others’ souls I preached thy word,

            Be this my text, my sermon to mine own,

            Therefore that he may raise the Lord throws down.

Much peace and grace,

Rob