Newman's Lenten-Related Sermons

According to the traditional Roman Calendar, today is Septuagesima Sunday, the beginning of a sort of shadow of Lent before the real Lent. Here are Cardinal Newman's Lenten-Related Sermons, beginning with Septuagesima Sunday and including three for the occasion.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sun. 01/23/05 03:28:37 PM
Categorized as Religious & Speeches and Suchlike.

Sixth Day of Christian Unity Octave 2005

Oremus.

See Octave of Prayer for Christian Unity 2005 / January 18 through January 25, inclusive. / "Christ, the one Foundation of the Church" (1 Cor 3:1-23).

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sun. 01/23/05 07:50:22 AM
Categorized as Religious.

Three by Frost II

Poems by Robert Lee Frost.

The Onset

Always the same, when on a fated night
At last the gathered snow lets down as white
As may be in dark woods, and with a song
It shall not make again all winter long
Of hissing on the yet uncovered ground,
I almost stumble looking up and round,
As one who overtaken by the end
Gives up his errand, and lets death descend
Upon him where he is, with nothing done
To evil, no important triumph won,
More than if life had never been begun.

Yet all the precedent is on my side:
I know that winter death has never tried
The earth but it has failed: the snow may heap
In long storms an undrifted four feet deep
As measured against maple, birch, and oak,
It cannot check the peeper's silver croak;
And I shall see the snow all go down hill
In water of a slender April rill
That flashes tail through last year's withered brake
And dead weeds, like a disappearing snake.
Nothing will be left white but here a birch,
And there a clump of houses with a church.

Looking for a Sunset Bird in Winter

The west was getting out of gold,
The breath of air had died of cold,
When shoeing home across the white,
I thought I saw a bird alight.

In summer when I passed the place
I had to stop and lift my face;
A bird with an angelic gift
Was singing in it sweet and swift.

No bird was singing in it now.
A single leaf was on a bough,
And that was all there was to see
In going twice around the tree.

From my advantage on a hill
I judged that such a crystal chill
Was only adding frost to snow
As gilt to gold that wouldn't show.

A brush had left a crooked stroke
Of what was either cloud or smoke
From north to south across the blue;
A piercing little star was through.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

(all from New Hampshire)

The Poetry of Robert Frost (1975), ed. Edward Connery Lathem, pp. 226, 232f, 224f.

See also Three by Frost I: Poems by Robert Lee Frost.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sun. 01/23/05 07:38:05 AM
Categorized as Literary & Sunday Poetry Series.