After leaving Christ Church Southgate in 1986, Reverend Brian Mountford became Vicar of the University Church in Oxford - the country’s most visited parish church. He retired in 2016 after thirty years of ministry there and is currently Acting Chaplain of Corpus Christi College.
In the first years of his time in Oxford, the doors of the church were closed on Good Friday - left ajar for all but the devout few to squeeze through and attend The Three Hours service, while the cafe in the courtyard outside continued to do a roaring trade. A groundswell of letters and comments from visitors - (particularly from Catholic countries) - saying how surprised they were not to see the church open, led to a change of heart. The gates were flung wide. Passiontide and Easter music was performed by the city’s choirs and orchestras. The Stations of the Cross were walked. Visitors could come and go as they pleased. More people, no less piety.
During the day, Brian invited senior students from local secondary schools to read aloud poems, which he has collated in this anthology, published last week under the title “Friday’s Child.”
Containing 35 poems and concluding with 5 prayers, this anthology is a perfect size for use to aid daily reflections in Lent - but also a wonderful book to enjoy at other times (sometimes I find anthologies can be cumbersome to hold and too dense to engage with). In Friday’s Child, Brian has done the excavating for us and presents well known and not so well known works (to me at least!) including poems not obviously associated with Lent or Passiontide (such as the Corpus Christi Carol, which I can’t read without thinking of the music Britten composed and the version of the carol sung by Jeff Buckley).
Each poem is clearly set out and followed by a commentary written by Brian. This was particularly helpful to gain an insight into some of the more complicated pieces - such as John Donne’s “Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward.” I preferred it when the commentary was printed overleaf rather than on the facing page - because, despite trying to exercise Lenten self-control, I am very naughty (and lazy!) and if I got stuck trying to ponder the meaning of a poem I glanced over to see what Brian thought rather than stretch my mind to think for myself! A page turn somehow made me less inclined to do that!
I tried reading aloud several of the poems (an action we now associate with illiteracy - “silent reading” is a relatively modern innovation in the scheme of things) - imagining the young voices reciting the poems in the church. There are some wonderful quotes from the students at the beginning of the book sharing the power of this experience;
“Reading these poems was always an important part of my year. They opened up discussions about doubt, religious doctrine, and human nature for me. This is how young people want to be treated; we never felt patronized, but our voices were, in every sense, heard.”
The poems certainly do open up discussion and inspire further thought. The anthology is subtitled “Poems of suffering and redemption” and I wondered if it would be valuable to those in a process of meaning-making in grief, when coming to terms with loss?
I found myself thinking of works of art and pieces of music in response to many of the poems and commentaries; Brian’s interpretation of the “tortured victim screaming in pain” in response to Psalm 22 reminded me of Francis Bacon’s series of paintings and sketches of the Crucifixion.
There is much to take away from this little book. Friday’s Child is, as the saying goes, loving and giving.
Links
Friday’s Child is published by Christian Alternative and available from a range of stockists priced £8.99. http://www.christian-alternative.com/books/fridays-child
Benjamin Britten - Corpus Christi Carol
Jeff Buckley - Corpus Christi Carol
How Silent Reading Changed the West : https://quartzy.qz.com/1118580/the-beginning-of-silent-reading-was-also-the-beginning-of-an-interior-life/
Francis Bacon - Crucifixion (1933)
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