“For the Beauty…”
For some incomprehensible reason, I woke the other morning with “For the Beauty of the Earth…” running through my mind. No matter what I did, what I was thinking about, what I was watching or doing, it was constantly in the background. For those of you who don’t know it, the lyrics are from a poem by Folliott Pierpont, an Anglican teacher and hymn writer. He is said to have written it one spring day in 1864 while walking through his hometown of Bath, England. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why it was running through my mind. Then it dawned on me. I was watching some of the events a few days earlier commemorating the anniversary of D-Day.
A Little Story
Many years ago, when I was still a young boy, I met a Catholic priest with only two fingers on his right hand and two on his left. I thought it was a bit odd, but he was a very kindly man and didn’t mind a young boy looking at and running his five fingers over his pinky and ring fingers. I remember when someone one in the room asked him how he lost the fingers of both hands. He smiled and said, “By the grace of God.” Then went on to tell the following story.
“I was a young priest, barely out of seminary when they rounded us up. I and my entire class ended up behind bars. We were faithful to the church, and we didn’t deny who we were or what the church meant to us. We spent the first few weeks, then months in a cell block in the small town of Dachau, Germany in relative peace and quiet. We were allowed, at first, to say Mass and carry on with our days. But soon, there was a crackdown. We were treated more and more like animals. Then one day, the came.
“There were hundreds upon hundreds of men. Some were gypsies, others were Jews, and others were said to be friendly with other men. They all looked the same to me. It became the job of the priests to care for and feed the hundreds of people being forced into the camp. We were overwhelmed, and as time went on, the treatment got worse and worse.”
The priest became quiet at the memory and them looked down and said, “Over the next two or three years, I lose track, I lost about three quarters of my brothers. We lost the privilege of saying Mass early on, but we did find a few sympathetic guards that would smuggle in a small bit of wine and a few hosts from the local priest. It was my privilege to say Mass one evening in the middle of the night. We were packed tightly to keep warm in the middle of winter. Suddenly the door burst open and one of the soldiers pulled me out into the yard. He screamed all kinds of fowl things at me, and proceeded to cut off my thumbs, forefingers and middle fingers of both hands. He yelled, ‘There! Now you are a gelding! You are a priest with no way to say Mass!’ and left me bleeding in the snow.’ You see, when you become a priest, those three fingers are consecrated to do the mass.”
“I went into shock and ran a high fever for the next 3 weeks. A much older priest took care of me and nursed me the entire time. While he was working on my hands, he would hum, ‘For the Beauty of the Earth’ day in and day out. For the Beauty of the Earth would be ringing through my mind, day and night. As I got better, I would hum and then sing it quietly with him, verse by verse” The priest began to gently sing, ‘for the beauty of the earth, for the beauty of the skies, for the love from which our birth over and around us lies, Christ our God to thee we raise, this our sacrifice of praise’ When he stopped, he got quiet again. He took a deep breath and said, “My friend, that good and holy man was shot the last day before we were freed. There was nothing I could do. There were five men, picked at random. They were pulled out of our lineup, a pistol was put to their heads, and they fell–dead.
“After we were freed and nursed back to physical health, I went before the pope. He gave me the ability to say Mass again,” He lifted his two hands and four fingers and waved them. “…with these. The two fingers I have left. Now, when I do Mass on the day we were released, April 29th and June 6th, D Day, I have to sing ‘For the Beauty of the Earth.’ It’s a part of me, just like my priesthood.”
The priest died many years ago, but every once and again, he and his story will run across my mind. And honesty, what better way to commemorate someone, than by a hymn of praise, singing about the beauty God has given us.
The original text for ‘For the Beauty of the Earth’ For the beauty of the earth for the beaty of the skies for the love which from our birth over and around us lies Refrain: Christ our God, to thee we raise this our sacrifice of praise. For the beauty of each hour of the day and of the night, hill and vale, and tree and flower, sun and moon, and stars of light, Refrain: Christ our God, to thee we raise this our sacrifice of praise. For the joy of ear and eye, for the heart and brain's delight, for the mystic harmony linking sense to sound and sight, Refrain: Christ our God, to thee we raise this our sacrifice of praise. For the joy of human love, brother, sister, parent, child, friends on earth, and friends above, for all gentle thoughts and mild, Refrain: Christ our God, to thee we raise this our sacrifice of praise. For each perfect gift of thine to our race so freely given, graces human and divine, flowers of earth and buds of heaven, Refrain: Christ our God, to thee we raise this our sacrifice of praise. For thy Bride that evermore lifteth holy hands above, offering up on every shore this pure sacrifice of love, Refrain: Christ our God, to thee we raise this our sacrifice of praise. For the martyrs' crown of light, for thy prophets' eagle eye, for thy bold confessors' might, for the lips of infancy, Refrain: Christ our God, to thee we raise this our sacrifice of praise. For thy virgins' robes of snow, for thy maiden Mother mild, for thyself, with hearts aglow, Jesus, Victim undefiled, Refrain: Christ our God, to thee we raise this our sacrifice of praise.
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