Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. (John 15.13)
Picture yourself in the death camp at Auschwitz. You’re standing in formation with all your fellow prisoners. The Nazis who run the camp offer a harsh disincentive to escape: for every inmate who breaks out of the camp the guards pick out ten other prisoners at random and starve them to death.
As it happens, there has been such an escape, and the prisoners have been called together for the purpose of choosing the ten. The guards finish selecting their victims, and before it even begins to sink in that you are not among those chosen for the starvation bunker you see one of those who were chosen break down, begging to be released because he’s a husband and father. What do you do . . . .?
A Successful Failure? What does that mean? And how can someone who embodies this dubious sounding oxymoron be a great saint?
We’ll find the answer to those questions in the story of today’s saint.
But first, let’s go back to the 14th century. Due to a combination of Roman violence and corruption, mixed with French finagling, the popes left the Eternal City in the first decade of the century. They spent almost seventy years in the city of Avignon, in what is now southern France. There, 400 miles from their episcopal see, the Bishops of Rome, the Pontiffs of the Universal Church, lived like vassals of the French king in increasingly secular splendor.
On top of the spiritual illness plaguing Europe, the continent soon encountered a physical malady as well. This was the bubonic plague, the “Black Death.” In short order it would kill fully one third of all Europeans.
“The Blind Leading the Blind” by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1568
An Age of Failure and Futility
Today’s saint, St. Bridget (or Birgitta) of Sweden, lived in the midst of that distressing century. Bridget was born to a prominent Swedish family in 1303, six years before Pope Clement V abandoned Rome for Avignon. She died in 1373, three years before Pope Gregory XI returned the papacy to its proper home. The failure and futility of the age found echoes in the saint’s life.
By Albrecht Dürer , from Revelations of St. Bridget, 1502
Bridget’s life started happily enough. She was married in her early teens, as was common at the time. The future saint had eight children, one of whom would go on to become St. Catherine of Sweden. She enjoyed a deeply committed and loving relationship with her husband, and at the same time acquired a reputation for personal piety and charity. Her virtuous conduct attracted favorable notice from many people, including learned clerics and even the King of Sweden. When Bridget was in her early forties, however, her life changed abruptly when her beloved husband died. In her changed circumstances she devoted herself completely to the practice of religion and Christian virtues. Also, as the Catholic Encyclopedia [link] puts it:
The visions which she believed herself to have had from her early childhood now became more frequent and definite. She believed that Christ Himself appeared to her, and she wrote down the revelations she then received, which were in great repute during the Middle Ages. They were translated into Latin by Matthias Magister and Peter Prior.
Laying the Foundations
Influenced by these visions, she laid the foundations for a new religious order, the Brigittines. Bridget set out for Rome. First of all, she was seeking Papal approval for her order (which was finally granted twenty years later, in 1370). Her other purpose to urge the Pope to return to Rome from Avignon (a task later taken up by St. Catherine of Siena).
Having been first a mother of a large family and then a consecrated religious woman who founded an order of nuns, both in extremely trying times, St. Bridget of Sweden is truly a versatile saint. She is a patroness of mothers, families and those in religious communities. She is also an exemplar of charity, piety, and determination for all of us.
The Common Thread
One of the most interesting things about St. Bridget, the common thread that connects all of her other experiences, is summed up in this passage from the article about her [link] at Catholic Online:
Although she had longed to become a nun, she never even saw the monastery in Vadstena. In fact, nothing she set out to do was ever realized. She had never had the pope return to Rome permanently, she never managed to make peace between France and England, she never saw any nun in the habit that Christ had shown her, and she never returned to Sweden but died, [a] worn out old lady far from home in July 1373. She can be called the Patroness of Failures.
The article goes on to call her a “successful failure”, citing her canonization in 1391.
“The LORD sees not as man sees; man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7)
St. Bridget from altarpiece in Salem Church, Södermanland, Sweden (restored digitally)
The World’s Eyes and God’s Eyes
St. Bridget of Sweden might well have looked like a failure at the end of her life . . . in the eyes of the World. The eyes of the World, however, are not God’s eyes:
“the LORD sees not as man sees; man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.”(1 Samuel 16:7)
St. Paul underscores this same truth when he tells the Corinthians that “the wisdom of this world is folly with God.” (1 Corinthians 3:19) St. Bridget is in fact an excellent example of the quote attributed to St. Theresa of Calcutta: “God hasn’t called me to be successful, he has called me to be faithful”. Whether or not Mother Theresa actually said it, it’s a marvelous statement of what it is to be a Saint. Not only that, it’s also a perfect description of why we honor St. Bridget of Sweden today.
As it happens, her efforts did in fact bear fruit, even though she didn’t live to see it. The pope did return to Rome, and the order she founded continues to this day. But that’s not why she’s a saint. St. Bridget’s success, and our “success” as Christians, consists in fidelity to Christ and in nothing else.
Featured image top of page: “Christ and St. Brigida” from Santa Maria Della Catena, Palermo
St. Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday, believe it or not, are fruit of the same tree. Granted, that’s not apparent to everybody. The last time the two feasts shared the same space on the calendar a priest well known on theh internet posted the following: “This year nothing says happy Valentine’s Day like taking your date to get your ashes in church and reminding each other that one day you are both going to die.”
Romantic, no? Fr. was making a knowing nod to the fact that some people don’t see the convergence. And there does, on the surface, appear to be a conflict between bright pink hearts on the one hand, and ashes against a deep purple backdrop on the other. In my own diocese the bishop has already pre-emptively announced that he will not be granting any dispensations from the mortifications of Ash Wednesday in deference to the yearly love fest.
“Remember, Man . . .”
But is there a conflict, really? The coincidence of these two days should not be a problem for us if we hold to the Faith As Handed Down To Us. The “Valentine’s Day” promoted by retailers and other secular sources, after all, started out as the Feast of St. Valentine, who was a 3rd century Christian martyr. Not only do both observances spring from the same Christian tradition, they actually complement each other in a way that is particularly relevant to our current situation.
“Remember that you are dust . . .”
Let’s start with Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of the great penitential season of Lent. Its name comes, naturally, from the imposition of ashes on the forehead, along with the admonition “remember, man, that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return.”
The Fall
This reminder of our dusty origin is taken from Genesis 3:19, at which point the Lord is expelling Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. This after our first parents have eaten, at Satan’ behest, from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. In our Ash Wednesday observances we have a concrete reminder that, through original sin and its effects, The Fall is still an operative reality in our lives.
The Fall destroyed the close relationship between humanity and God, which we see when Adam and Eve hide from their Creator in the Garden. It likewise creates division in the one-flesh union between the two of them. Consequently, they now feel the need to hide their bodies from each other with clothes, since each now feels the greedy power of lust as a consequence of original sin, and perceives it in the other.
Carnal Desire
Concupiscenceis the theological term for the attraction to sin that is one of the consequences of Original Sin. Lust is by no means its only manifestation, but it has always been one of its most prominent features, and one which heavily overshadows our age. In fact, lust lies at the heart of virtually every major point on which the secular world, and the culture of dissent within the Church that is secularism’s close ally, takes issue with traditional Catholic moral teaching. Lust permeates our popular culture.
It is not surprising, then, that as the Feast of St. Valentine has been gradually transformed into the bacchanalia known as Valentine’s Day (or sometimes simply “V” Day) it has become, more or less, a straightforward celebration of carnal desire.
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her . . . (Eph 5:25-26)
Carnality, however, was not the program of the real St. Valentine (as I detail in a previous post, “St. Valentine, Patron of Agape”). The historic Valentine was put to death by the Romans, according to some accounts, for consecrating Christian marriages. Now, the Romans married as much as anyone else, there was no crime in presiding over marriages per se. The crime was in the consecrating of Christian marriages. St. Valentine was a champion of marriage as raised to a sacrament by Jesus Christ. He willingly sacrificed his own life for this understanding of marriage.
The Convergence
It is here that we begin to see the convergence between the supposedly divergent observations of Ash Wednesday and St. Valentine’s Day. We see how they can be the fruit of the same tree. On Ash Wednesday we are called to repent, to turn aside from concupiscence in all its forms and surrender ourselves to Christ. The Christian marriage for which St. Valentine gave his life likewise calls us to turn aside from selfish lust, and, in imitation of Jesus, sacrifice ourselves for our spouse. As St. Paul says:
. . . walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. (Eph 5:2-3)
Later he adds:
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her . . . (Eph 5:25-26)
Christian love consists in sacrificing oneself for the good of others, and a Christian expresses sexual love precisely by sacrificing oneself for one’s wife or husband within the sacramental covenant of marriage. Most often this also includes sacrificing one’s own wants, desires, and comfort for the good of the children that result from the union.
Sanctify Each Other
Let’s return for a moment to that first human marriage in the Garden of Eden. We saw how concupiscence is an impediment to love: love between the spouses, and love between the spouses and God. Turning away from sin (i.e., repenting) is the only thing that makes true love possible. If we want true love, we must indeed “Repent and believe the Gospel”.
Love and Repentance, fruit of the same tree. This Ash Wednesday my date, as the internet priest put it, will be my lovely bride. That is, my sweetheart of more years than I care to enumerate (along with at least one of our fair offspring). We’re going to church and getting our ashes . . . that we might sanctify each other.
Featured image top of page: Ash Wednesday, by Julian Falat, 1877
The Christmas conversion of St.Thérèsemay surprise us. Certainly, in the lives of the Saints we can find some amazing stories of conversion. The Risen Lord literally knocking his persecutor Saul to ground, for instance, and blinding him. Of course, it was all in order to raise him up as St. Paul. Then there’s the rich and spoiled son of an Italian cloth merchant who needed a year in a dungeon as a POW followed by a near fatal illness before he cast off self-indulgence to become St. Francis of Assisi. The vain (vaingloriohttps://spesdomino.org/2023/12/24/the-christmas-conversion-of-st-therese/#musicus, in fact) Spanish nobleman who had his leg nearly shot off with a cannonball, and then went through months of excruciating recovery, before he could begin to see God in All Things as St. Ignatius of Loyola.
How startlingly different, and yet how strikingly the same, is the conversion of the little French girl ThérèseMartin, now St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus . . .
Fickle Fame is a confounding thing. It’s often the way that a well-regarded artist falls out of fashion. Despite the worthiness of his or her work, the artist is forgotten by subsequent generations. Even truly great artists can meet this fate: The 16th century poet John Donne was largely unknown until another poet, T.S. Eliot, rediscovered him in the 20th century. Almost nobody remembered Johann Sebastian Bach for a century until composer Felix Mendelssohn revived his music in the 1820’s.
Not every forgotten artist, sadly, has an Eliot or a Mendelssohn come to his rescue – although sometimes redemption comes from an unexpected direction . . .
[click HERE to continue reading this post and to hear Salieri’s “Gloria” at Spes in Domino]
Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. (John 15.13)
Picture yourself in the death camp at Auschwitz. You’re standing in formation with all your fellow prisoners. The Nazis who run the camp offer a harsh disincentive to escape: for every inmate who breaks out of the camp the guards pick out ten other prisoners at random and starve them to death.
As it happens, there has been such an escape, and the prisoners have been called together for the purpose of choosing the ten. The guards finish selecting their victims, and before it even begins to sink in that you are not among those chosen for the starvation bunker you see one of those who were chosen break down, begging to be released because he’s a husband and father. What do you do . . . .?
The Church Militant means our Church, here and now.
There’s a battle raging, and we’re all part of it, like it or not. The growing intensity of the Culture War that’s engulfing our society is just a surface manifestation. The real war has been underway since Satan was cast out of Heaven. In my recent post on St. Ignatius Loyola we looked at the idea of being a “Soldier for Christ”.
This is not simply an analogy. In fact, we could argue that the wars we fight in this world are the images of the great eternal combat, the true war, between the army of God and the forces of the Devil . . .
Dixit Dominus: This is not your grandfather’s Puccini . . . . this is your great, great, great grandfather’s Puccini.
The title “Dixit Dominus” comes from the first two words in the Latin text of Psalm 110 (or Psalm 109, depending on how you count). The first verse is:
Dixit Dominus Domino meo: Sede a dextris meis, donec ponam inimicos tuos scabellum pedum tuorum.
The Lord says to my lord: “Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool.”
Georg Handel wrote the most famous musical setting for Psalm 110. I was intrigued, however, when I came across a musical rendition attributed to Gaicomo Puccini.
Not That Puccini
At first I thought that the composer was the operatic composer of the late 19th and early 20th century. That Puccini wrote some magnificent music, such as the opera La Boheme, and what some people consider the most beautiful of arias, “O Mio Babbino Caro” from his comic operetta Gianni Schicchi (here). The opera composer, however, was not what one would consider a pious person, and I wasn’t aware that he had composed any Sacred Music
His great, great-grandfather of the same name, however, is another matter altogether. The first in five generations of composers, Giacomo Puccini Senior achieved great fame in his time for his religious compositions. Below is a link to a performance of his setting for David’s Psalm, performed by Kantorei Saarlouis and Ensemble UnaVolta, with Joachim Fontaine wielding the conductor’s baton. It is not only beautiful music but is radiant with the love of God.
Featured image: King David Stained Glass Cathedral Church Bayeux Norman, photograph by William Perry
Latin and English Text
Psalmus David.
Dixit Dominus Domino meo: Sede a dextris meis,
donec ponam inimicos tuos scabellum pedum tuorum.
2 Virgam virtutis tuae emittet Dominus ex Sion:
dominare in medio inimicorum tuorum.
3 Tecum principium in die virtutis tuae in splendoribus sanctorum:
ex utero, ante luciferum, genui te.
4 Juravit Dominus, et non poenitebit eum:
Tu es sacerdos in aeternum secundum ordinem Melchisedech.
5 Dominus a dextris tuis; confregit in die irae suae reges.
6 Judicabit in nationibus, implebit ruinas;
conquassabit capita in terra multorum.
7 De torrente in via bibet; propterea exaltabit caput.
2 The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your foes! 3 Your people will offer themselves freely on the day you lead your host upon the holy mountains. From the womb of the morning like dew your youth will come to you. 4 The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, “You are a priest for ever after the order of Melchiz′edek.”
5 The Lord is at your right hand; he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath. 6 He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses; he will shatter chiefs over the wide earth. 7 He will drink from the brook by the way; therefore he will lift up his head.
Who wants to talk about the World, the Flesh, and the Devil? But, hey, It’s summertime! What better to enliven the indolent days of summer? Sorry to be a Gloomy Gus, but this is a topic that has been on my mind recently.
But please, stick with me, and I’ll try not to lay it on too heavy. And before I’m done, I’ll even alleviate the summer heat with a touch of fall.
Implacable Foes
Anyway, the World, the Flesh, and the Devil. This traditional formulation gives us a vivid picture of the challenge that faces us fallen mortals. Father John Zuhlsdorf (aka Fr. Z) provides an excellent explanation in an article in The Catholic Herald:
None of us, the living, are exempt from the temptations that arise from these implacable enemies of the soul. By this prayer we cast ourselves upon the mercy of God because of our weakness in the face of adversity.
By “world”, we intend indifference and opposition to God’s design, embracing empty, passing values.
By “flesh”, we understand the obvious tendencies to gluttony and sexual immorality, but also all our corrupt inclinations, disordered passions which blind us, make us stupid, and lay us open to greater sins.
By “the Devil”, we identify a real, personal enemy, a fallen angel, Father of Lies, who with his fellow demons of hell labours in relentless malice to twist us away from salvation.
The Divider
In brief, our attachment to the World and the Flesh leaves us vulnerable to the designs of the Devil. That’s why Christian spirituality has always urged detachment from worldly and fleshly things. The Devil is the divider, after all: διάβολοςin Greek, literally, “he who drives apart.” Our attachment to the World and the Flesh makes his job all too easy.
These days, he’s not earning his salary if he’s not zeroing in on the ubiquitous smartphone. I’m not talking about the impact of smartphone addiction on mental and physical health, although the impact is significant. I cite below an article published in Catholic World Report back in 2014. The evidence has continued to grow since then (see here and here). But that’s not what’s concerning me here. My concern, as explained, is the World, the Flesh, and the Devil.
Know the Temptation
Before I continue, let me assure you: I’m not coming from a place of judgment. I know firsthand the temptations of that little pocket-sized devil. I swear my attention span is only half what it was twenty years ago. At the same time, God gives us all the grace to know the truth, if we can see past the gadget in our hand.
And sometimes we can see the truth more easily in the people and events we encounter. I wrote the reflection below nine years ago, when I still had three quarters of my attention span. I called it “Prisoners of Our Device”:
Two Kinds of People
I’d like to start with a little jaunt we made last weekend, a late-summer (nearly fall) visit to the beach. The high temperatures for the day didn’t get above the mid 60’s, so we wore jackets and kept our shoes on, and just walked and enjoyed the views (no selfies of my feet in the surf this time).
Most other beach-goers were dressed for the weather as we were, but a few defiant souls were there in swimsuits, either stretched out on the beach or even, in the case of the most intrepid, wading a little into the water. One of my sons remarked that there were two factions at the beach that day: those who were in denial and those who were not.
A Most Incongruous Image
Among the deniers there was one young girl dressed in a swimsuit, maybe twelve years old, who was venturing into the surf . . . holding a smart phone in her hand. It was a most incongruous image. Twenty minutes later I saw her again, a little further down the beach, still clutching her little electronic gadget.
I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. I’ve seen the videos of people walking into walls, fountains, etc. in public places with their eyes glued to little screens. I’ve seen with my own eyes my fellow motorists going down the highway at 70 miles per hour with their eyes down and their thumbs bouncing off their devices . . and I’ve heard about the often fatal accidents caused by such people.
Casualties of the Age
I couldn’t help but think of that poor techno-crazed girl when I read this article [here] in Catholic World Report about “Casualties of the Device Age”. The author, Thomas Doran, explains that, while the little gadgets have many useful aspects, the widespread addiction to them contributes “to a decline in the ability to reason, contemplation, and self-discipline.”
Having taught high school students for many years, I can testify to the truth of Doran’s observations. I would also add an even more profound consequence. Enslavement to these little electronic tyrants draws us away from the Lord. They try to fill the void in our heart that only God can fill (as do all addictions).
I once posted a meditation in which I discussed the vastness of the sea as an image of God’s infinite love. How very sad that the girl at the beach couldn’t leave behind the instrument of her spiritual servitude, even for the infinite embrace of the ocean. What a sobering image of our modern predicament.
Featured image top of page: Temptation of Christ, by Vasily Surikov, 1872.
Merry Christmas, on this the 4th day of Christmas! The Holy Season is well upon us, and today we see it in all its complexity: we’re still singing carols and chiming bells, while at the same time recoiling from the horror of King Herod’s mass infanticide at Bethlehem, as commemorated in today’s Feast of the Holy Innocents.
Today’s feast reminds us not only of enormities committed against innocent life in our own day, but also that the baby lying in the wooden manger has escaped Herod’s wrath only so that he might die thirty years later on the wooden beams of the cross.
Holy Innocents and St. Anthony of Lerins
St. Anthony of Lerins
The Feast of the Holy Innocents is, of course, the chief liturgical observance in the Church today. There are any number of fine reflections on the witness of these tiny martyrs. See here and here, for example. Here also is my post from last year: Holy Innocents and the Saving Power of Christmas Carols.
This year I’m taking a different approach. As I observed in my recent posts on St. Servulus, St. Nicasius, and St. Anastasia, lesser observances are often overwhelmed during great celebrations such as Christmas and Easter. There are, in fact other saints commemorated today, whose memory can be completely buried under the combined weight of the Feast of the Holy Innocents and the ongoing celebration of the Nativity of Our Lord. One of these is St. Anthony of Lerins (also known as St. Anthony the Hermit). As we shall see, there are some interesting ways in which this saint’s story complements that of the tiny martyrs of Bethlehem.
The Attraction of Sanctity
As it happens, St. Anthony would probably be just as happy to be ignored, if his life here on earth is any indication. He born in the year 468 AD at Valeria in the region that the Romans had called Lower Pannonia, but which at this time was controlled by the Huns.
Fortunately, Christian life continued despite the hegemony of the pagan Huns. Anthony enjoyed the blessing of growing up among holy men. He lived for a time with St. Severinus of Noricum after his father died in Anthony’s ninth year. When St. Severinus himself died a few years later, Anthony moved to the household of his uncle Constantius, who was the bishop of Lorsch in what is now Bavaria. When he reached adulthood he became a hermit in the area of Lake Como in northern Italy.
As is often the case with holy hermits, his sanctity attracted a large number of followers. Seeking to recapture a little of the solitude for which he embraced the eremitical life, Anthony moved on yet again. Eventually, he settled in Lerins in France, where he spent his final two years on earth . . . and where the would-be recluse became famous (yet again!) throughout the district for sanctity and miracle-working.
In the story of St. Anthony of Lerins we see a couple of themes that connect him to today’s commemoration of the Holy Innocents, and to the Child in the manger in whose honor we are celebrating this entire liturgical season. St. Paul tells us in his Second Letter to the Corinthians:
[The Lord] said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. (2 Corinthians 12:9)
Thoughout Salvation History
Attila the Hun, by Eugène Delacroix, 1843-1847
We see God’s propensity to reveal his power in weakness throughout salvation history. The preeminent example is when the infinite Second Person of the Trinity, the Eternal Word, manifests himself in this world as a tiny baby lying in a feeding trough in a stable. We also see it in the helplessness of the Holy Innocents slaughtered at Bethlehem.
This propensity appears yet again in the life of a simple man who wanted nothing more than to live a life of holiness with his Lord. Isn’t it interesting that on this day when we commemorate the sacrifice of those children, and the sanctity of St. Anthony, the powers that loomed so large in their lifetimes are only dim memories. The power of King Herod, and of the Huns under whose rule Anthony was born, has long since crumbled, and their names have become little more than bywords for cruelty and violence.
It’s not that the power of the Herods, Huns, and other worldly tyrants has had no lasting effect. It’s just that their “power” doesn’t accomplish what they expect. St. Paul again provides us with the key when he says: “We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)
What God Wills
We see this idea applied in the non-scriptural passage in today’s Office of Readings, a homily on the slaughter of the Holy Innocents by St. Quodvultdeus (his name means “What God wills” in Latin). Addressing King Herod our homilist says:
Yet your throne is threatened by the source of grace – so small, yet so great – who is lying in the manger. He is using you, all unaware of it, to work out his own purposes freeing souls from captivity to the devil. He has taken up the sons of the enemy into the ranks of God’s adopted children.
God makes all things work for the good of those who love him, including the evil machinations of wicked men like Herod. How much more so, then, the good things in the life of a holy man like St. Anthony of Lerins. God gives us his gifts not so much for our own sake, but so that we might use them in the service of others, to help free their souls, as the homilist above puts it, from captivity to the devil. St. Anthony was seeking a quiet life of prayer and contemplation, but God gave him the grace to desire such a life, and the power to perform miracles, so that he might sanctify the people among whom he was living. Let us all pray for the grace to embrace likewise God’s gifts to us, and to use them for Quod Deus Vult: What God Wills.
Featured Image top of page: The Massacre of the Innocents, by Sano di Pietro, c. 1470
An interesting note: at one time, the story of these poor murdered children itself inspired a large number of songs. The best known today (the only one, it appears, that is still regularly performed) is the “Coventry Carol” (lyrics below), dating from the 16th century. In the clip below Collegium Vocale Gent performs the song, with Peter Dijkstra conducting. The artwork in the video is Sano di Pietro’s 1470 painting “Massacre of the Innocents.”
Coventry Carol
1. Lullay, Thou little tiny Child, By, by, lully, lullay. Lullay, Thou little tiny Child. By, by, lully, lullay.
2. O sisters, too, how may we do, For to preserve this day; This poor Youngling for whom we sing, By, by, lully, lullay.
3. Herod the King, in his raging, Charged he hath this day; His men of might, in his own sight, All children young, to slay.
4. Then woe is me, poor Child, for Thee, And ever mourn and say; For Thy parting, nor say nor sing, By, by, lully, lullay. Lully, lulla, thou little tiny child, By by, lully lullay.
