Holy Thursday

Holy Thursday: ‘Twas on a Holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean
BY WILLIAM BLAKE

Twas on a Holy Thursday their innocent faces clean,
The children walking two & two in red & blue & green.
Grey-headed beadles walk’d before with wands as white as snow,
Till into the high dome of Paul’s they like Thames waters flow.

O what a multitude they seem’d these flowers of London town.
Seated in companies they sit with radiance all their own.
The hum of multitudes was there but multitudes of lambs.
Thousands of little boys & girls raising their innocent hands.

Now like a mighty wind they raise to heaven the voice of song.
Or like harmonious thunderings the seats of Heaven among.
Beneath them sit the aged men wise guardians of the poor.
Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door.

If you do not see Christ in the refugee child at the border, you shall not find him in the chalice. – St. John Chrysostom, paraphrased