Samadhi by Narayan Vaman Tilak

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Samadhi

Ah Love, I sink in the timeless sleep,
Sink in the timeless sleep!
One image stands before my eyes,
And thrills my bosom’s deep.
One Vision bathes in radiant light
My spirit’s palace halls;
All stir of hand, all throb of brain,
Quivers and sinks and falls.
My soul fares forth; no fetters now
Chain me to this world’s shore.
Sleep! I would sleep! In pity spare!
Let no man wake me more.

by Marathi poet Narayan Vaman Tilak (1861-1919)
translated by Rev. J.C. Winslow
Published in the Indian Christian Student Vol.5 No.3 (1919-20)

Maharashtra Sunset image by Sunder Iyer [CC-BY-SA-2.0] via Wikimedia Commons (cropped)

Theotokos icon painted by St Luke

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Today is the feast day of St Luke in the Western churches. At the small Syrian Orthodox Church of St Mark in the Armenian quarter of Jerusalem is this icon of Mary, said to have be painted by St Luke himself. If you visit, ask sister Justina to sing the Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic – her native language and our Lord’s – a direct link, down the centuries.

The Collect from the Book of Common Prayer:

Almighty God, who calledst Luke, the Physician, whose praise is in the Gospel, to be an Evangelist, the Physician of the Soul: May it please thee that, by the wholesome medicines of the doctrine delivered by him, all the diseases of our souls may be healed; through the merits of thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.