Start:Stop - The language of love

The Rosetta Stone (close up)

Listen to an audio recording of this reflection at this link. Hello and welcome to St Stephen Walbrook and our Start:Stop reflection, when we start the day by stopping for ten minutes. Please come and go as your schedule dictates.

Two hundred years ago today, a brilliant French linguist, Jean-François Champollion, announced in Paris a breakthrough in translating the Rosetta Stone. His discovery allowed scholars to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics, transforming the western discipline of Egyptology and turning the Rosetta Stone into an icon of our attempts to understand other languages and cultures - and decoding just about anything.

The 27th September also marks the day the church remembers St Vincent de Paul, a French priest who decoded the purpose of his life and calling when he was summoned to hear the confession of a dying servant. Ten years after he was ordained, Vincent came to understand God’s universal language - of love. 

 

This morning’s bible reading is taken from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians:

 

Bible Reading : 1 Corinthians 13.1-13

 

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

 

 

Reflection

 

Made of black granite, the Rosetta Stone is the only surviving fragment of a much larger tablet. It is inscribed with fourteen lines of hieroglyphic script, 32 lines in Demotic (the everyday language of ancient Egypt) and 53 lines in Ancient Greek. 

 

Discovered in 1799 by French military forces, who recognised its potential importance, it became the property of the British following the defeat of Napoleon and has been displayed in the British Museum since 1802.

 

It was soon apparent that the inscriptions conveyed the same information in three languages - and so provided the opportunity to decipher the mysterious hieroglyphics.

 

Initially it was assumed that the symbols were idiographic - each drawing representing a concept (like sending a text message using only emojiis). But after twenty years of study and working from a trace of the stone (he never saw the original at first hand), a brilliant French linguist called Jean-François Champollion, realised that the hieroglyphics conveyed phonetics as well as concepts. His knowledge of Coptic and other ancient languages helped him to read between the lines of the three scripts which, frustratingly, are not exact translations.

 

Champollion’s discovery, which he announced in Paris on this day two hundred years ago in 1822, meant that hieroglyphics could be read for the first time in thousands of years.

 

The Rosetta Stone - inscribed not with an epic story of creation or the meaning of life, but a fragment of a run of the mill legal contract granting tax exemptions to the priests of the temple - has become an icon of our attempts to understand other languages and cultures.   

 

Today also marks the feast of St Vincent de Paul, who is celebrated for his commitment to serving the poor. His early life however was a quest to escape his own humble roots. Born in 1581 in South West France, he trained for the priesthood which, by his own admittance, he then saw as a way of increasing his family fortunes. Ordained at nineteen he obtained lucrative positions as chaplain to the rich and tutor to their children. He once turned away his Father when he came to visit as he was embarrassed by his paupers rags.

 

But at the age of twenty nine, his life was changed while at the bedside of a dying servant to whom he was administering last rites. Vincent was so humbled by the man’s faith, in spite of his obvious physical poverty, that he saw his own life in a new light. From then on he devoted his time to serving the poor, persuading his rich contacts to help fund orphanages, schools and hospitals and a community of mission priests to serve them. Many charities continue to bear the name "De Paul" today.

 

Ten years after he was ordained, Vincent understood God’s universal language - of love. A language he learned by reading the story of his life alongside the story of his neighbour. Decoding meaning and purpose through a tale not of epic or heroic proportions but from a fragment of the ordinary, everyday matters of life - and death. 

 

In his letter to the Corinthians, St Paul reminds us that in this life we will always be looking through a mirror, dimly. But we have been assured of one truth; that at the heart of the divine mystery, God is love. A love freely given that surrounds us all. A love that defines us - our meaning, our purpose. Our being. 

 

So let us place the fragments of our lives alongside the story of God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit; and together learn the language we were all created to hear, speak and share - the language of love. 

 

 

Meditation

 

A few moments of silence before we pray. 

 

 

Prayers

 

As we pray, the response to “May your word be a lamp to our feet” is “and a light to our path.

 

May your word be a lamp to our feet 

and a light to our path. 

 

Almighty God, help us to hear your language of love. 

Grant us the wisdom to read the story of our lives alongside those of our neighbours; 

revealing the bond you have placed between us; your Son, the living Word.

 

May your word be a lamp to our feet 

and a light to our path. 

 

Eternal God, help us to speak your language of love. 

May it unite all our thoughts, words and actions;

so that we cease clashing like cymbals and deafening gongs 

and sing together your song of peace, justice and mercy.

 

May your word be a lamp to our feet 

and a light to our path. 

 

 

Gracious God, help us to share your language of love;

to give of ourselves and our possessions, allowing our love for you to eclipse our love for worldly things.

Inspire in us the confidence to share the Good News, each in our own way.

 

May your word be a lamp to our feet 

and a light to our path. 

 

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all, evermore.

Amen.

 

 

Thank you for joining us for this Start:Stop reflection, which will be repeated again on the quarter hour. Feel free to stay for as long as you wish. Please do pick up a leaflet with dates of forthcoming services and events, including our Business Harvest Festival on 6th October. I hope you have a wonderful week.