of thee three things I pray:
to see thee more clearly,
love thee more dearly,
follow thee more nearly, day by day.
Who would have thought that the composer of the hit song from "Godspell" would preach crusade? Yet he did. Richard, bishop of Chichester in the mid-13th century, was a scholar, ascetic, preacher, and pastor to his people. He worried about the poor - and the far off land of Outremer. That's the name of his time for the Crusader territories in the Middle East, which had been conquered at the end of the 11th and beginning of the 12th century of our era. Western Christendom, knights, soldiers, women and children, priests and laity, had in a mass movement gone east to reclaim the Holy Land. At least that's how they saw it.*
This mass movement was less inexplicable than the one Leo Tolstoy wrote about in War and Peace: the irrational invasion of Russia by the troops of Napoleon, and the return of the remnant of those forces to western Europe. In the case of the Crusades, that mass movement ostensibly under the sign of the Cross, from Germany, France, England, the Low Countries, Italy, and Spain, indeed from all western Europe, across the Mediterranean by sea and by land, and ostensibly for the relief of the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Byzantine Emperor, combined in its motives both high and low.
A pious adventure. A business opportunity. A culmination of true devotion. All mixed.
And all lost. It could be said. The kingdoms of Outremer, from Antioch and Edessa in the North, through Tripoli to Jerusalem, would only last a short period of centuries, or even decades. But their effect was indelible, and in some ways immeasurable.
The unfortunate use of the term 'crusade' in our day reawakens old rhetoric and sad partings. And yet those armies and those civilians created some things that last. Some things that stayed put - old ruins, certainly, but also customs and memories. And the juxtaposition of differing cultures and religions meant that the west of Europe was in new ways opened, to custom, practice and even cuisine, which its people had not known.
Among the many motives high and low, of Crusaders and those who preached Crusade, those like Richard of Chichester may have been the most laudable (as well as they are easily deplored). What is for us, many of us, in modern times, a world unlike ours, yet (as Hugh Trevor-Roper said) our common humanity is there, even in this, well, distant mirror (Barbara Tuchman). So unlike ourselves they seem an alien race, and yet so familiar in their pride and folly, the people of the Middle Ages express common human desires, not least of which is to serve God as best they know how.
We thank you, Lord God, for all the benefits you have given us in your Son Jesus Christ, our most merciful Redeemer, Friend, and Brother, and for all the pains and insults he has borne for us; and we pray that, following the example of your saintly bishop Richard of Chichester, we may see Christ more clearly, love him more dearly, and follow him more nearly; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Richard, Bishop of Chichester (c.
1197-Apr. 2 or 3, 1253). Bishop and clerical reformer. He studied at
Oxford, Paris, and Bologna. Richard became university chancellor at
Oxford around 1235. He was later appointed chancellor by the Archbishop
of Canterbury, Edmund of Abingdon. Richard also served as chancellor of
Canterbury under Boniface of Savoy. Richard was ordained priest in 1243,
after study at the Dominican house at Orléans. He was elected Bishop of
Chichester in 1244, even though King Henry III favored another
candidate. Pope Innocent IV consecrated Richard at Lyons in 1245. Henry
III excluded Richard from the temporalities of the See of Chichester.
During this time, Richard traveled through his diocese on foot. Henry
eventually acknowledged Richard in 1246 under a papal threat of
excommunication. Richard was known for his humility and ascetic life. He
was concerned for the poor. He sought to reform clerical discipline and
standards. Richard was a patron of the Dominicans, and he supported the
crusades. He contracted an illness and died while campaigning for a new
crusade. Richard's life is commemorated on Apr. 3 in the calendar of
the church year. The collect for this observance in Lesser Feasts and
Fasts reflects a well-known prayer attributed to Richard, asking that
"we may see Christ more clearly, love him more dearly, and follow him
more nearly." This prayer also provides the text for "Day by day," Hymn
654 in The Hymnal 1982.
[https://episcopalchurch.org/library/glossary/richard-bishop-chichester]
Day by day, dear Lord,
of thee three things I pray:
to see thee more clearly,
love thee more dearly,
follow thee more nearly, day by day.
https://hymnary.org/hymn/EH1982/654
*"the bizarre centuries-long episode in which Western Christianity willfully ignored its Master's principles of love and forgiveness." Diarmaid MacCulloch, dust-jacket blurb for Christopher Tyerman. God’s War: A New History of the Crusades. Harvard University Press, Belknap Press. 2006.
Godspell. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070121/
