Reverent Wren.🕊

Last Sunday a wren dropped by our church just on time for Holy Mass. Perfect timing, no congregation total freedom, he made the most of it. We could hear him flutter about and then to our utter surprise, during the Offertory he touched down beside Holy Alter, transfixed gazing in reverence. Wren knew in his little heart that he was in a Sacred sacrosanct space in that moment.

After Holy Mass, I wished I would see him once more, when suddenly he flew by Holy Alter again, lingering just long enough to allow me photograph him, then he was gone. His time with us had ended, he had places to be, things to do.

We are learning many things in these strange times, reverence is returning in glorious surprising ways. With the frills pared back, real beauty, luminous and compelling is lifting our hearts above the dictatorship of noise. We know we are not performing any more, we are participating just like diminutive wren. 

Cardinal Sarah, in his wonderful book ‘The Power of Silence’ tells us that ‘Noise is a deceptive, addictive and false tranquilliser. The tragedy of our world is never better summed up than in the fury of senseless noise that stubbornly hates silence’.

The beauty of nature testifies to the existence of God, little wren wasn’t booted and suited for an occasion, he knew it wasn’t about him, in the process, his simplicity and reverence opened the eyes of our hearts a little more. 

Beauty is God’s Masterpiece, entreating us to pause, take note, be enriched.

‘The sparrow herself finds a home and the swallow a nest for her brood; she lays her young by your alters, Lord of Hosts, my King and my God’. (Psalm 83:3)