A Sermon delivered at St
Matthew's Church, Northampton,
5 May 1946
First published as Five Sermons by Laymen, 1946 Matthew 11.28. 'Come unto me, all ye that labour and
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.'
"When I came into this church for the
first time in my life, which was yesterday
evening - coming in by that South West door
over there - I wanted to go down on my
knees. For this is the sort of church which
brings you to your knees. These soaring
vistas of pale stone arches, the superb
proportion of window to wall space, the
delicacy of much of the detail from the
profound, primitive simplicity of Henry
Moore's Madonna and Child, to the lace-like
tracery of this beautiful wrought-iron
chancel screen, the way the genius of
Holding, the architect, leads your eye to
the high altar there below the flashing
jewels of the East Window, that altar where
the Greatest
Mystery in the World happens Sunday after
Sunday, and where, as we who try to be
Christians try to believe, the Creator of
the world, of the universe, of the trees and birds in the road
outside, of the stones which Holding used to
build the church, of the bones which help
you sit upright in your seats tonight, where
the Maker of our souls and minds, our very
selves becomes present to hear our needs and
answer our prayers in accordance with His
Will - as I thought of all these things I
did indeed want to fall on my knees and
thank God for the beauty which man has made
to the Glory of God in St Matthew's."
"Then
as I joined with you in worship at the
great mystery of Holy Communion this
morning, I realized that it was more
than mere aesthetic beauty which made me
want to kneel and which made me lower my
voice as I entered the church last
night. For this is a building which has
been loved and prayed in. Your prayers,
particularly at the Holy Communion, have
soaked its stones in worship and have
made St Matthew's a place where it is
easy for a stranger to humble himself
before God, to ask Him questions and to
wait, in the reverent stillness of the
congregation at the beautiful singing of
'O Lamb of God', for His answer. And I
asked - what can I possibly tell these
people, who come to church in such
numbers, who have a beautiful building
and the advantages of the full
sacraments - what can I possibly tell
them which will help? So please do not
think of me as some special sort of
person, a layman who is nearly a
clergyman or any kind of expert in
theology. I don't feel I ought to be in
this pulpit. I would much rather one of
you were here preaching instead of me.
But since I am here, the best thing I
can do is to expound my particular
problems and what has helped me to solve
them."
"I
feel sometimes that it is very hard
to believe in God. And sometimes I
envy those who have never had any
doubt. I mean, I say to myself, can
it really be true that nineteen
hundred and forty-six years ago a
child was born to a Jewish peasant
woman, and this child was the very
God who made the sun, the moon, the
stars, this earth with me on it and
all the spiders, alligators and
everything else? And did this child
grow to be a man, was He crucified,
did He rise from the dead and send
His Holy Spirit down to dwell in His
Church? And there, where that light
is twinkling through the iron screen
in the Lady Chapel, nearly 2,000
years later, is that where He is
Himself present in the form of
consecrated bread and wine? When I
worship with you at Mass I know it
is true. And those moments when I
know this is true remain in the
memory so that doubt is dispelled.
And because this is true, because
the Creator of the World is present
in this church and in thousands and
thousands of others raised by the
faith of so short a time as the last
2,000 years - because this is true,
then nothing else is so important."
"Nothing
else. Saints and far cleverer
men than I have believed this,
and so I will myself. It is no
longer fashionable to be an
atheist. And if it were not
true, if the universe were an
inexplicable accident, there is
no point in anything. We would
all have to go on living on this
earth as long as possible,
forever if we could, for there
would be nothing afterwards. And
if you read advertisements for
medicines, breakfast foods and
what not, you would think the
people who write the lies about
them really believed that we
will live forever by gargling
with TCP every night or eating
Shredded Wheat in the morning.
But you know and I know that
somewhere in some builder's yard
or at a saw mill or in virgin
forest there is wood waiting and
somewhere else screws are being
made which will come together to
make our coffins. To make your
coffin, the coffin of the only
person who is really you. And it
is a very healthy thought - not
a bit morbid - a very healthy
thought, the thought of death.
For it stops you worrying too
much about those things of this
world that don't really matter.
Death makes me at any rate long
to believe in God and to know,
as we heard in the Gospel this
morning, that He is the Good
Shepherd."
"But
now here's the difficulty of a
layman like me who has to work for
his living. And I expect it is the
same for most of you. The world is
too much with us. Last week I heard
the parliamentary secretary of the
Ministry of Education make a speech.
He said there was a cultural
breakdown in Europe. Cultural
breakdown! There's more than that.
We live in mechanical barbarism, not
in civilization at all. Nearly all
of us are doing jobs which take up
too much time so that we cannot get
home, our wives are worked off their
heads and are too tired to be
cheerful when they see us. We earn
money in office or factory simply to
earn the right not to have to work
all our lives. Our work is either
too manual or too much office work.
Our lives are unbalanced. He is
either a very lucky man or a man
wholly deadened by the social system
who has a job today which gives him
so much pleasure that he looks
forward to returning to work after a
holiday."
"Think
of the man working on a chain belt. Poor
feller! He tightens a nut as it comes along
on the belt. He gets adept at this and in
case he should go mad or become careless, he
is now and then allowed to tighten another
sort of nut by way of variation. He will
probably be doing it all next week to the
accompaniment of music while he works and
possibly his wife may be working somewhere
else while the children are farmed out in a
community crèche to play with the
psychological toys. And when the day is over
the man will bicycle back down treeless
roads to his sleeping box and his food will
come out of a tin and his music will come
out of a wireless set and his opinions will
be given to him in the newspaper. We let
machines run our lives. We listen but we do
not sing; we read, but we do not write; we
feel, but we do not think; we buy, but we do
not make; we judge things by money standards
because money buys us escape from the
roaring lunacy around us. We escape to see
games which we do not play, towns where we
do not live; lives, in screen and play,
which are not our own. We escape from one
vacuum into another. 'Come unto me, all ye
that labour and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest.' "
"And
here comes the point of all I have been
saying to you. 'Come unto me, all ye that
labour and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest.' That does not mean a rest in a
deck chair when the grass is mown or a rest
by the seaside, it means the true rest in
the Lord. It means the faculty for not being
worried by the world, for being able to
distinguish good from evil; it means the
calm of those really good people you know
and everyone of us here can think of one or
two among our friends or relations."
"There is only one way of finding this
true rest and that is by prayer. Let me make
a suggestion to you, and forgive me as a
layman for making it."
"Supposing every day this coming week
every person here goes into a church, this
church if you like, and kneels before the
altar or before the Blessed Sacrament where
our Lord lives more intensely than anywhere
else. Ask for the faith to believe that He
is there, put yourself into the presence of
the Creator of the World who loves you by
saying 'In the Name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Ghost'. Wait and listen.
All kinds of things may distract you: people
talking; an argument going on in your head;
the thought of some lying advertisement;
buses changing gear outside; aeroplanes
roaring; gradually a silence will be
caverned out of the noise and you are in the
Presence of God. Even if you can't believe
this, go and try, the effort to believe will
help you. And then say the Lord's Prayer
slowly three times. Once thinking of your
friends, once thinking of your enemies, once
thinking of all those in the world who are
doing disinterested acts of kindness in
their fellow creatures whether they are
Christians or not."
"Then when you have done this each day
for a week, you will want to do it for
another week. It should not take you more
than five minutes a day. Believe me, this is
the way to find true rest, the real calm
sense of proportion in this roaring world
where we are watching the slow changeover
from the agricultural to the industrial age.
God's time is not our time. Do not worry
about that. He will settle your problems for
you, if you listen to Him and pray. And
while you are about it, thank God for the
priests and people who keep His churches
alive. There where the light twinkles in the
Lady Chapel and daily on the altar our Lord
says, 'Come unto me, all ye that labour and
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.'
"
The Director of Music, Thomas Moore, is
looking to recruit BOYS from school year 4
to 7 and GIRLS from school year 5 upwards
who are keen to sing and eager to learn.
