Birthday Ballade jesus and god

Today is the 140th birthday of the Catholic writer Hilaire Belloc. Amongst many fine works, his Cautionary Tales for Children are gleefully gruesome. He was also (briefly) a Liberal MP. When asked by a heckler at a public meeting whether he was a 'Papist', Belloc replied, withdrawing his rosary from his pocket: "Sir, so far as possible I hear Mass each day and I go to my knees and tell these beads each night. If that offends you, then I pray God may spare me the indignity of representing you in Parliament". He won the election.

One of Belloc's most affecting pieces is the Ballade of Illegal Ornaments, written following the sort of liturgical contretemps with which students of the Catholic movement in the Church of England are very familiar. Here it is, illustrated with a picture of a Female Figure with a Child, from St Mary and St Giles.

"...the controversy was ended by His Lordship, who wrote to the Incumbent ordering him to remove from the Church all Illegal Ornaments at once, and especially a Female Figure with a Child"

I

When that the Eternal deigned to look
on us poor folk to make us free
he chose a Maiden, whom He took
from Nazareth in Galilee;
since when the Islands of the Sea,
the Field, the City, and the Wild
proclaim aloud triumphantly
A Female Figure with a Child.

II

These Mysteries profoundly shook
the Reverend Doctor Leigh, D.D.,
who therefore stuck into a Nook
(or Niche) of his Incumbency
an Image filled with majesty
to represent the Undefiled,
the Universal Mother— She—
A Female Figure with a Child.

III

His Bishop, having read a book
which proved as plain as plain could be
that all the Mutts had been mistook
who talked about a Trinity
Wrote off at once to Doctor Leigh
in manner very far from mild,
and said: “Remove them instantly!
A Female Figure with a Child!”

Envoi

Prince Jesus, in mine Agony,
permit me, broken and defiled,
through blurred and glazing eyes to see
A Female Figure with a Child.