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Tag Archives: Purgatory

Visio Monachi de Eynsham c 1196 CE (revised) or The Vision of Edmund, the monk of Eynsham.

23 Tuesday May 2017

Posted by Candia in Architecture, Community, History, Literature, Poetry, Religion, Writing

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Abbot, Adam of Eynsham, Archbishop of Canterbury, Baldwin, Benedictine Rule, Bishop of Salisbury, Blessed Souls, chain of being, Charismatic Renewal, Compline, corporal punishment, Easter, Edmund of Eynsham, election, Geoffrey of Eynsham, Good Friday, hallucinatory drug, Holy week, Joscelin, Lent, Matins, nepotism, Osney, Oxfordshire, Paradise, Purgatory, quinsy, Rapture, Saladin, sanctification, Sanctus, St Lawrence, St Nicholas, Sub-Abbot, vanitas

Vision of Edmund of Eynsham

 

https://i0.wp.com/amoureuxdulangage.m.a.f.unblog.fr/files/2014/08/eynsham-abbey.jpg

 

 

Adam – now there’s a fine symbolic name

for a Sub-Abbot, but it is not he

of whom we wish to write.  No, the fame

belongs entirely to his brother: Edmund.  He

is the one whose ‘deathbed’ revelation

showed him Paradise and Purgatory.

Taken by the hand of St Nicholas,

he saw the penalties of Vanitas.

 

 

We are in twelfth century Oxfordshire,

but the application is for us too,

though believers in Rapture are fewer.

Nowadays it would be put down to ‘flu,

a fever, or hallucinatory drug.

Out-of-body experiences – who

would credit them with the spiritual?

Movements like Charismatic Renewal?

 

 

Imbibing only some tepid water,

for fifteen months, Edmund lay, very weak;

his quinsy made him hotter and hotter.

As Easter approached, he commenced to speak

and, with the help of a supporting stick,

he wanted to celebrate Holy Week

in the monastery chapel.  Brothers

claimed he remained longer than the others.

 

 

From midnight until noon on the next day,

he confessed all his sins and lamented.

The following night, he began to pray

and lay on the ground, as if demented.

Adam had cold water splashed over him.

He thought Edmund had simply invented

this behaviour to gain some attention –

thus he wanted to defuse the tension.

 

 

How Edmund arrived there, without some aid,

was a point to be considered (but post-

Good Friday.)  Yes, though fresh blood was displayed

on the cross, the monks felt the Holy Ghost

was not behind Edmund’s troubling conduct.

Maybe he wanted discipline, to boast,

boost spiritual pride.  He’d asked for penance,

but was too weak for simple observance.

 

 

Through Good Friday evening, the next day,

water dribbled from his lips, till sunset.

They thought he was returning to the clay,

for he made no response and didn’t fret

when pricked.  They blew a horn in his ear,

but he did not stir – at least, not yet –

till Compline, when his eyes opened.  He sighed

and ‘Sancta Maria‘ many times cried.

 

 

He had begged for corporal punishment

and he kept on sobbing into his hands,

while compelling everyone to repent.

One of his more unusual demands

was to have a silver cross brought to him.

No one to this day really understands

why he was agitated; in this state:

raving like some kind of inebriate.

 

 

On Saturday evening, he ate some bread.

Miraculously, he went, unaided,

to Matins, where he bowed his tonsured head

and the cross and relics venerated.

The Prior and Sub-Prior heard him confess,

till no omission had been evaded

and he received the Sacrament as well,

to the ring of the credence Sanctus bell.

 

 

He then shared his dream, which began in Lent:

how a man had stood beside him, who said

that the prayers of a Godstow postulant

should join with his and be intermingled.

Then, roused to consciousness, he kissed the cross,

penitent for time he had spent in bed.

Entering the chapel of St Lawrence

and All Martyrs, he bowed in obesiance.

 

 

He begged Adam for further punishment

and bathed his eyes in blood and swallowed it.

He was birched further and did not give vent

to spleen; nor did he ask for a remit.

Adam denied the Benedictine Rule

condoned this practice.  He felt its ambit

was for daylight hours, but, apparently,

St Nicholas had amended the decree.

 

 

Edmund saw souls flogged and bound together,

but they still had a hope of salvation.

You could have knocked him down with a feather

when he saw, in the throes of purgation,

(previous Abbot) Geoffrey of Eynsham,

negligent in his organisation,

though he’d been in charge for forty four years,

now past nepotism induced his tears.

 

 

The Bishop of Salisbury – Joscelin –

committed sexual immorality

and, as for the dire dealings of Baldwin,

he had tinkered with criminality:

unwise Archbishop of Canterbury.

(Most preferred Saladin’s mentality.)

Much given to Chapter disputation,

Baldwin funded Crusades through taxation.

 

 

In the next place to which Edmund was led,

he smelled a vile pond and climbed a steep hill:

souls were burned on one side and they perished

with cold conversely.  A rotating grill

principle moved them from one location

to the other, like ants from an anthill.

To see a goldsmith from Osney- a drunk-

being purged here did not surprise the monk.

 

 

The third realm was a place of snakes, devils –

reserved for the homosexual.

A lawyer was suffering for evils

and monks too were punished by gradual

degrees.  Unchaste churchmen who had blasphemed

(so nothing much there far from the usual)

by dispensing holy things with foul hand,

epitomising the wrongs in England.

 

Those who had been successful in the world

endured more than those of a low degree.

Regions of Paradise were then unfurled

to Nicholas, Edmund: a panoply

of Blessed Souls, who approached a huge gate

set in a wall of crystal – so shiny

that, blinded, he scarcely saw the entrance

of those receiving their inheritance.

 

Edmund then saw Jesus Christ on a throne,

but, at this point, his guide made him return

and yet he sensed that there were those who’d flown

to higher realms and who with joy would burn.

They exuded Light Inaccessible,

but he was not yet ready to discern

the joys of one who finished his course –

his sanctification was yet perforce.

 

This vision showed him a chain of being,

linking angels and the perfected souls,

descending from God, who is all-seeing,

to those who’ve just embraced heavenly goals.

Necessary purging of perception

allots individuals specific roles.

Adam wrote this down for our perfection:

Verify your calling and election.

 

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Ice Bucket Challenge

27 Wednesday Aug 2014

Posted by Candia in Celebrities, Education, Family, Humour, Music, News, Politics, Religion, Romance, Social Comment, Suttonford, Writing

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barmkin, Better Together, Cunning Little Vixen, First Minister, Flower o' Scotland, Flower O'Scotland, Ice Bucket Challenge, Kelvingrove, mote and beam, Oh Scotland, Pele Tower, Purgatory, Sassenach, Scotland, Scottish Play, Snodland, snowploughing, sporran, Trident, Wee Eck, Wyvern Mote

Murgatroyd and Diana settled down in the barmkin to watch The Debate.

Murgatroyd sensed that there were many diasporan Scots- was that the

same etymological root as ‘sporran‘?- who felt somewhat aggrieved that a

Sassenach such as himself could vote on their country’s future, so he

wanted to be fully informed and astute in his response.  He had tried to

follow some of the arguments on his tablet, but found that he kept

re-playing The First Minister’s Ice Bucket Challenge instead.  He liked it

when Wee Eck said, Dae it again!  No doubt that would be his cry if the

result in September didn’t please him.

Mrs Connolly came in with a tray of salmon sandwiches.  Murgatroyd

felt ashamed that he had ever suspected her good self, or her son, of

theft.  Forced bonhomie led him to ask her how she intended to vote.

Oh, Scotland!  Scotland! she quoted.

Again, Murgatroyd was impressed by the standard of the natives’

education.

..nation miserable

with an untitled tyrant,

when shall you see your wholesome days again?

He thought that this might be from that Flower O’ Scotland song. He

hummed a few bars to show solidarity.

No, Mr Syylk!  It is your own National Bard.  The Scottish Play.

She went on:

Alas, poor country!

Almost afraid to know itself.  It cannot be called our mother, but our grave;

where nothing is, but who knows nothing..

I didn’t think Alistair did too badly, Murgatroyd remarked, trying to be

impartial and failing.

If that’s the best they can do, Mr Syylk, I intend to emigrate, like past

millions.

Fare thee well!

These evils thou repeatest on thyself

have banished me from Scotland.

Yet my poor country

shall have more vices than it had before,

more suffer and more sundry ways

by him that shall succeed.

Surely not, Mrs Connolly.  Murgatroyd was at a loss to reply to such

moving rhetoric.  Maybe she should have been representing the

‘Better Together‘ campaign at Kelvingrove.

Diana just thanked her and took two generous-sized sandwiches

from the tray. Mad!  All of them.

But, it was only a few weeks since Diana would have thought a barmkin

was some kind of Scottish oatcake.  It was amazing how she had been able

to see Murgatroyd more clearly, the scales having dropped from her

over-prejudicial eyes.  What was all that about motes and beams?  Maybe

her stay in The Tibetan Centre had helped her to move on.

They were going to have a trial reconciliation. (Sonia had said that she

had seen it coming.)  She always said that.

Anyway, it seemed fortuitous that Dru had accompanied Great-Aunt

Augusta back to Snodland Nursing Home for the Debased Gentry.  That

meant Nigel was able to give Sonia a lift home in the hired van.  Dru had

decided to leave her harp at the Pele Tower, so there was room for

Sonia’s luggage.  In fact there was plenty of room for a dismantled Trident,

if Alex and Co had wanted to send it down south.

Nigel’s concentration was being hampered by Sonia’s inquisition on his

relationship with Dru.  How could anyone be more intrusive than his own

mother?

Diana and Gus were already back at school, fielding disgruntled parents

and snowploughing their enquiries, to grit the path for the incoming

Headmaster.  The term stretched before them like a path through

Purgatory.

Gus was annoyed as he had been sent a postcard from Wyvern Mote,

from Maxwell Boothroyd-Smythe, commenting on the wonderful concert

and praising Dru’s musicianship.  Snod knew, with that unerring classroom

intuition developed over decades, that the missive meant that Dru had

taken him there.  He had seen them, tete-a-tete, during the interval, no

doubt arranging to meet up after Dru had dropped Aunt Augusta back at

the care home.  Musicianship?!  Hah!  Cunning Little Vixen!

Gus did not approve of her having led Nigel on.  His own past

experiences returned to haunt him.  He had seen the look in

Nigel’s eyes as he sang some of the more romantic ballads. Poor

fellow!  His vocal timbre was developing, but his charisma was,

like the proverbial gas, at a peep.

Furthermore, there was an issue which now loomed larger than the

outcome of a referendum: if Dru were to strike up a liaison with

Maxwell Boothroyd-Smythe and it should become permanent, then-

Heavens forfend!!-he might end up step-grandfather to that bolshie

Juniper and her odious younger sibling, the biggest bete-noire of St

Birinus’ Middle.

He would like to empty a bucket of something else over that

particular parental head.

 

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Revelation

06 Thursday Feb 2014

Posted by Candia in Education, Humour, Literature, Poetry, Psychology, Romance, Social Comment, Summer 2012, Suttonford, Writing

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Tags

Ancient Mariner, Bourbon biscuit, Purgatory, seamed stockings, St Birinus, St Vitus

Harp.png

Virginia, PA to the Acting Head of St Birinus Middle School, was curious.

A woman had just gone into Snod’s study and she wanted to know the

reason. She could have sworn that it was that Welsh woman who had

played the harp in the end of term concert.  When Virginia went in with

tea and biscuits, silence descended until she had shown herself out

again.  Still, she had taken a closer look and it was that woman from St

Vitus’ School for the Academically-Gifted Girl after all and she was wearing a

lovely gold necklace with a harp charm , so she must be Welsh.

She had just sat down at her computer when Nigel Milford-Haven, Junior

Master, knocked on her door.

Excuse me, but is Mr Snodbury free at the moment? he asked, his face, as

usual, pale with stress.

Regrettably not. Virginia loved blocking ordinary staff’s access to the highest

authority.  He is in consultation with that Welsh teacher from the girls’ school-

the one who played the harp in the concert.

Welsh?  Nigel expressed his confusion.  She’s not Welsh.

Virginia wanted to interrogate him as to how a minion such as himself

could be privy to information about the ethnicity of his betters, but she

restrained herself and restricted her reply to: Well, why else would she be

wearing a harp round her neck? It would be like the Ancient Mariner being in

denial about his particular cervical-was that the right word?- decoration being

a proclamation that he was not the world’s biggest lover of all things

ornithological.

Nigel was hyper-aware that his form class would be destroying the room, so

he nervously answered quickly, before shooting off back to Purgatory: No, she

is Mr Snodbury’s daughter.

What?  Are you certain?  I didn’t know he was married!  Virginia was seriously

discomfited.  She had thought that she knew everything.  He doesn’t wear a

ring.

Nigel flushed, partly with pleasure, now that he knew his anonymous present

of jewellery had been accepted.  Well, please could I send John Boothroyd-

Smythe to stand outside your office?  He is being unusually, or, to be more

truthful- usually-disruptive.

Virginia nodded, not taking in the information.  She was shell-shocked.  She

would never have sought to ingratiate herself with a married man, seamed

stockings or not.  Hers, I mean.

Mr Snodbury, married!

She knocked and went into the study to clear the cups and tray. Yes, he

was wearing a ring.  Why had she not noticed this before?  She stole a

sidelong glance.

They both had the same jowly profile and looked annoyed at her interruption.

As she used her elbow to exit the room, since neither Gus, nor Drusilla

offered to open the door, so deep were they in conversation, she collided

with a boy that she recognised all too well.

Not you again! she shouted.  Don’t you understand in that infantile brain of

yours that we are all heartily sick and tired of your puerile and selfish

behaviour? Get back to your class and apologise to your teacher and if I ever

see you here again, I will personally not be responsible for what I do to you!

The semi-permanent smirk was wiped off John’s face and he fled with his tail

between his legs.  No one had ever spoken to him like that before and he

immediately got the message.

Yes, Ms Fisher-Giles, he whispered, awestruck, and ran, practically wetting

himself.

Virginia’s seamed stockinged legs almost gave way under her and she

collapsed into her chair.  Before she knew it she had eaten three

Bourbon biscuits.

Married, she muttered.  And I never knew.

Cup of tea and bourbon biscuit.jpg

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My name is Candia. Its initial consonant alliterates with “cow” and there are connotations with the adjective “candid.” I started writing this blog in the summer of 2012 and focused on satire at the start.

Interspersed was ironic news comment, reviews and poetry.

Over the years I have won some international poetry competitions and have published in reputable small presses, as well as reviewing and reading alongside well- established poets. I wrote under my own name then, but Candia has taken me over as an online persona. Having brought out a serious anthology last year called 'Its Own Place' which features poetry of an epiphanal nature, I was able to take part in an Arts and Spirituality series of lectures in Winchester in 2016.

Lately I have been experimenting with boussekusekeika, sestinas, rhyme royale, villanelles and other forms. I am exploring Japanese themes at the moment, my interest having been re-ignited by the recent re-evaluations of Hokusai.

Thank you to all my committed followers whose loyalty has encouraged me to keep writing. It has been exciting to meet some of you in the flesh- in venues as far flung as Melbourne and Sydney!

Copyright Notice

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012-2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Candia Dixon Stuart and candiacomesclean.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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