NAPOMO, Day 4: Fire and Spirit
Apr. 4th, 2009 04:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tree_and_leafBehold: Fire and Spirit in the womb that bore you:
Behold: Fire and Spirit in the river where you were baptised.
Fire and Spirit in our baptism:
In the Bread and the Cup, Fire and Holy Spirit.
In your Bread is hidden a Spirit not to be eaten,
In your Wine dwells a Fire not to be drunk.
Spirit in your Bread, Fire in your Wine,
A wonder set apart, yet received by our lips.
How wonderful your footsteps, walking on the waters!
You subdued the great sea beneath your feet.
Yet to a little stream you subjected your head,
Bending down to be baptised in it.
The stream was like John who performed the baptism in it,
In their smallness each an image of the other.
To the stream so little, to the servant so weak,
The Lord of them both subjected himself.
(Ephrem the Syrian, originally part of Hymn 10 of De fide†. I don't know who did the translation; it is the one which appears in Common Worship: Daily Prayer, the C of E daily liturgy - Other Canticles, number 80).
† Of which there is an exceedingly poor electronic text of a full translation online, but it has not been corrected after scanning, and the resulting corruption is so great that it's pretty much unreadable.
Behold: Fire and Spirit in the river where you were baptised.
Fire and Spirit in our baptism:
In the Bread and the Cup, Fire and Holy Spirit.
In your Bread is hidden a Spirit not to be eaten,
In your Wine dwells a Fire not to be drunk.
Spirit in your Bread, Fire in your Wine,
A wonder set apart, yet received by our lips.
How wonderful your footsteps, walking on the waters!
You subdued the great sea beneath your feet.
Yet to a little stream you subjected your head,
Bending down to be baptised in it.
The stream was like John who performed the baptism in it,
In their smallness each an image of the other.
To the stream so little, to the servant so weak,
The Lord of them both subjected himself.
(Ephrem the Syrian, originally part of Hymn 10 of De fide†. I don't know who did the translation; it is the one which appears in Common Worship: Daily Prayer, the C of E daily liturgy - Other Canticles, number 80).
† Of which there is an exceedingly poor electronic text of a full translation online, but it has not been corrected after scanning, and the resulting corruption is so great that it's pretty much unreadable.