MINISTER’S MUSINGS
Sent via email 02/06/25 for Sunday February 9, 2025
The Rev. Dr. Janet Adair Hansen
Interim minister, Charlemont Federated Church
This week’s focus: LOVE
Valentine’s Day in the United States celebrates romantic love, but Christian churches celebrate God’s love every Sunday… actually, each day of the year. The Latin hymn “Ubi Caritas,” attributed to Paulinus of Aquileia (796), has an 8th c. melody associated with it. The traditional antiphon that is sung is: Ubi cáritas et amor, Deus ibi est. Where there is charity and love, God is there. Click the link at the bottom of this note to watch a video of the adult choir singing “Ubi Caritas” at Notre Dame Cathedral Duruflé – Ubi Caritas – Maîtrise Notre-Dame de Paris.
Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy wrote a short story in 1885 about Martin the Cobbler. The title in English is “Where Love Is, God Is” – a reference to the Catholic hymn “Ubi Caritas.” The hard-working cobbler endures the grief of losing his wife, and later his only child, driving him to despair. A traveling missionary inspires Martin to live his life for God. Martin begins to read the Bible and engage in prayer. One night Martin thinks God tells him that he will visit the next day.
So, all day long Martin considers the people passing by on the street, wondering when God will show up. While waiting for God, Martin observes old man Stepnitch shoveling snow, and invites him inside for a warm drink, refilling his cup with hot tea more than once. Later, a poor mother with a baby, clad only in summer clothes, is seen outside, and Martin invites them in, offering an old cloak for warmth, giving the young widow cabbage soup and bread to eat and sending her out with some money. Finally, Martin sees a young boy trying to steal an apple from an old woman. After saving the boy from being beaten and turned over to the police, he makes the boy apologize and promise not to steal again, and gives the lad the apple, telling Granny he will pay for it himself. When the old apple-seller objects that the boy won’t learn and must be punished, Martin reminds her of God’s forgiveness. When the old woman starts to struggle to put her pack back on, the boy offers to carry it for her, since he’s going that way.
At day’s end, as Martin laments that God had not visited him as promised, suddenly his three guests (the Trinity) show up as images, then disappear. The Bible that Martin has opened, intending to begin reading where he had left off, instead opens at Matthew 25, with the top showing the verse:
‘I was a hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in.’ And at the bottom of the page the verse: ‘Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brethren even these least, ye did it unto me.’ Martin realized then that when he was helping these three strangers, he was helping God. The Christian message that God is love is not just an abstract philosophical idea, but an incarnational manifestation.
The Taizé community uses a version of “Ubi Caritas” as a chant that was written by Jacque Berthier in 1978. The full Taizé version uses the refrain from “Ubi Caritas” and then verses based on I Corinthians 13, but the refrain is what is most popularly sung. There are several video versions featuring Berthier’s melody on YouTube. A young man named Andrew Baldacchino put the recorded music with images of flowers unfolding at: Taize’ Song – Ubi Caritas
LINKS: Taize’ Song – Ubi Caritas
online link to youtube:
https://youtu.be/qJDH186eGZg?si=bGvSIGSF2-Aa0U5D
alt location:
https://youtu.be/z9zvDBPkgOk?si=rtk–dQMBiLho0A5
this minister’s musing post will stay up through our upcoming weekend of snow and ice.