IMAGES FOR HOLY WEEK 4

Wednesday of Holy Week

Photograph of Westminster Bridge 

Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! The very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

William Wordsworth: Sonnet 14

Wordsworth’s poem “Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802” was read on the Today programme a few days ago as we looked towards the celebration of 250 years since the poet’s birth which takes place this week. The reader mused on the fact that the bridge and the river are now quieter than they have been for a very long time, allowing those who have cause to cross the Thames to experience something of Wordsworth’s sense of awe and beauty. 

Wordsworth refers to the theatres and temples lying silent and bare. We all crave for our places of entertainment and public worship to be restored to us.

It was this bridge that our Prime Minister was driven across on Sunday from his self isolation in the flat above no 11 Downing Street to the NHS hospital of St Thomas which had its origins in an Augustinian Infirmary established during the 12th Century. After the dissolution of the Augustinian order the hospital was re-established by Royal Charter to care for the sick poor.

My daughter treats cancer patients at Guy’s and St Thomas’s, so everyday she crosses Westminster Bridge on her bike, in her car or on a bus. As she says she has “quite a commute” to work! Cancer doesn’t wait for Coronavirus so she and her colleagues continue to fight on as best they can, with the discomforts and inconvenience of PPE, and with reduced staff, space, drugs and facilities. I pray for their safety and that treatment outcomes for their patients won’t be too adversely affected by current circumstances. 

I’m hoping that the media and security personnel encamped around the hospital during the Prime Minister’s stay and crossing the bridge back and forth to Westminster, don’t create situations which make it more difficult or dangerous for other patients and staff, who need to get in and out of the hospitals for a multitude of reasons. 

I’ve never been a fan of Boris Johnson but the country does feel more fragile and rudderless without our Prime Minister. I wish him and all the patients of Guys, St Thomas’s and the adult patients using re-purposed children’s wards in the Evelina, wether there because of coronavirus or cancer or whatever reason, a successful and speedy recovery. I also remember in my prayers those parents of children whose anticipated treatment at the Evelina has had to be postponed because of the current situation, this includes a little girl very dear to me. 

As we draw nearer to the agony of Good Friday, I am thinking of all the families across the globe who have lost loved ones to this tiny virus which is wreaking so much havoc in our world.