Tibi dixit cor meum, quæsívi vultum tuum, vultum tuum Dómine requíram: ne avértas fáciam tuam a me.

Esto mihi in Deum protectórem, et in locum refúgii, ut salvum me fácias: quóniam firmaméntum meum, et refúgium meum es tu: et propter nomen tuum dux mihi eris, et enútries me.

This Sunday was bizarrely called the Sunday of the "Transfiguration", despite that not being the actual feast of the Transfiguration. It's because my church All Saints Ainslie is hewing to the Revised Common Lectionary. I entitled this post Quinquagesima Sunday because that's what is listed in the Scottish Book of Common Prayer (and I am a Scottish Episcopalian). I joined the Ainslie choir for the first time in 2026. We performed Ouseley's From the Rising of the Sun:

From the rising of the sun

To the going down of the same,

My Name shall be great among the Gentiles,

And in ev'ry place incense shall be offer'd up unto my Name:

For My Name shall be great among the heathen,

Thus saith the Lord!

I also received some CD recordings from John Kitchen at Old St. Paul's while I was in Edinburgh, that I took the time to listen to recently. Calum Robertson, who plays the organ at Old St. Paul's, wrote a beautiful anthem from this moving poem by Irene Zimmerman:

PoemLiturgy [loc-0037]

• Irene Zimmerman

All the way to Elizabeth

and in the months afterward

she wove him, pondering,

“This is my body, my blood!”

Beneath the watching eyes

of donkey, ox, and sheep

she rocked him, crooning,

“This is my body, my blood!”

In the moonless desert flight

and the Egypt-days of his growing,

she nourished him, singing,

“This is my body, my blood!”

Under the blood-smeared cross

she rocked his mangled bones,

remembering him, moaning,

“This is my body, my blood!”

When darkness, stones, and tomb

bloomed to Easter morning,

she ran to him, shouting,

“This is my body, my blood!”

And no one thought to tell her:

“Woman, it is not fitting

for you to say those words.

You don’t resemble him.”

The poem, at least to my reading, seems to clearly advocate for women's ordination, despite the author's communion opposing the same.