Remembering the Ember
A Poet at the Threshold of the Oxford Movement
Remembering the Ember:
A Poet at the Threshold of the Oxford Movement
It begins at the altar.
Not in theory, not in argument, but in the hush that falls when the sanctuary lights are dimmed and the first notes of the Kyrie rise like a prayer breathed into being. There is a kind of stillness that belongs only to liturgy — not the silence of absence, but of presence. It is the stillness that waits as the celebrant lifts the chalice. It is the stillness that gathers like dew when the people kneel. And it is in that sacred space — between word and mystery, body and bread — that I have often found myself listening for God.
Not to solve anything, but to be with something. With beauty. With longing. With the holy.
That stillness shaped the writing of At the Still Point: In Conversation with Saint Julian. Not as a project, but as an act of devotion. The poems were born from time spent in the presence of the Eucharist, in the presence of Julian’s witness — and in the presence of a Church that still dares to speak of mysteries we cannot explain but still somehow know.
As I wrote, I began to sense another presence behind the presence — a lineage, a thread, a fire carefully kept. It was not long before I recognized the imprint of the Oxford Movement. Not in its historical particulars, but in its spiritual posture. A posture of reverence. Of return. Of remembering that worship is not performance but participation in the divine.
The Oxford Movement began in 1833, at a time when the Church of England was under pressure to conform to the machinery of state and the momentum of modernity. But Keble, Newman, Pusey, and others heard a different call. They did not want innovation; they wanted recollection. They sought to recover what had been lost — the sacramental imagination, the rhythm of prayer, the dignity of vestments and rites, and the Real Presence of Christ at the altar (Chapman, 2012; Nockles, 1994).
They were not trying to go backward. They were trying to go deeper.
That same longing lives in many hearts today. In a world numbed by distraction, many people are turning not away from ritual, but toward it. Not to escape meaning, but to seek it more fully. They are lighting candles in cathedrals they cannot explain. They are drawn to liturgy, not for its aesthetic alone, but for its capacity to hold what is too mysterious for words.
This is, I believe, the beginning of a new Oxford Movement — not confined to Oxford, or even to Anglicans, but rising wherever people are hungry for the sacred. Hungry for sacrament. For rhythm. For a church that teaches not just with doctrines, but with beauty. A church where the heart and the body and the soul can kneel together.
My contribution is poetic, yes — but I see it as a kind of liturgical offering. The poems in At the Still Point are shaped by Eucharist. By incense. By genuflection. By the sound of plainsong echoing down a long nave. But they are also shaped by the ache of the world — by the griefs we carry, the questions we cannot resolve, the hope that flickers even in darkness.
Julian knew that hope. Her words — “All shall be well” — were not spoken from comfort, but from contemplation. From deep prayer in the face of pain (Julian of Norwich, 1901/2011). She, too, stood at the altar of mystery. And like the Tractarians, she understood that to say “all shall be well” is not to deny suffering, but to insist that even suffering is not beyond the reach of grace.
And so I returned again to the Eucharist — not only to receive, but to reflect. In the Fourth Disclosure, the chalice becomes not only a sign of salvation, but a sign of God’s willingness to be present — not in judgment, but in love:
We take into ourselves what we are becoming:
Christ, who lives in us and through us,
dwelling with tenderness and truth,
as we become His body in the world.This is the blood He delights to give—
not in wrath, but in welcome;
not in punishment but in presence;
not to condemn but to commune.So we drink—we partake
in this Sacrament of Faith
and become more like the One
who did not hesitate
to become like us, fully human.
That is the invitation now. Not to rebuild the Church as it was, but to remember the Church as it is meant to be. A place where ritual restores the soul. Where mystery is not a threat but a promise. Where beauty is not ornamental but essential.
And so I kneel — in my writing, in my faith, in my body — to offer what I can: not answers, but presence. Not formulas, but poems. Not certainties, but the still point in the turning world where Christ is present, and Julian is listening, and the ancient liturgy still hums with the heartbeat of God.
There is a new movement rising — not with manifestos, but with candles. With chalices lifted in trembling hands. With poems spoken as prayers. With poets, priests, and people who know that when the world grows loud, the Church must grow holy. And holiness begins, always, at the altar, and within us when the mystery of faith and creation touches us.
—Ron Starbuck, Publisher
Saint Julian Press, Inc.
Houston, Texas
These are links to various poems & reflections from the collection posted on Substack.
The First Disclosure: The Passion Revealed
The Second Disclosure: The Wonder of Love
The Fourth Disclosure: Our Cup of Salvation
The Sixth Disclosure: Heaven Remembers
At the Still Point: On Love, Longing, and the Mercy That Holds Us
Remembering the Ember
Press Release on the Saint Julian Press website.
Saint Julian Press. (2025). Remembering the Ember: A Poet at the Threshold of the Oxford Movement. © 2025 Saint Julian Press. Poetry & essay publication.
References
Chapman, M. (2012). Anglicanism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.
Julian of Norwich. (2011). Revelations of Divine Love (G. Warrack, Trans.). Dover Publications. (Original work published 1901)
Nockles, P. B. (1994). The Oxford Movement in Context: Anglican High Churchmanship, 1760–1857. Cambridge University Press.
Starbuck, R. (2025). At the Still Point: In Conversation with Saint Julian. Saint Julian Press.
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