The Only Call the Midwife Character Bold Enough to "Improve" a Robert Louis Stevenson Poem, er, Prayer
One of the long-running show's most beloved characters finally ties the knot with a little help from the denizens of Nonnatus House.
I follow my nose when it comes to covering pop culture: I write about what I consume, and I just so happen to be consuming the latest season of Call the Midwife… again.
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Actress Judy Parfitt’s legendary Call the Midwife character, Sister Monica Joan, is both the oldest in age and youngest at heart of all the residents of Nonnatus house. She has stolen scenes for all of the show’s dozen seasons. Though both her mind and her body frequently display the signs of old age and a life well lived, Sister Monica Joan also routinely taps into what is most important in life and teaches the younger members of the house what it means to live well. Parfitt has said, “Sister Monica Joan is terribly naughty—and that’s why they cast me.”
Recently, another of the show’s beloved characters experienced one of the highest heights for television actors in a long-running series: the coveted Wedding Episode. Trixie Franklin, elegantly and movingly played by Helen George, finally tied the knot with handsome, compassionate widower Matthew Aylward (Olly Rix) in the Season 12 finale. Though Trixie is always immaculately dressed, refined yet approachable, and knows how to throw a wonderful party, her wedding, through no fault of her own, did not quite go to plan.
One element of the wedding was unplanned in the best way, however. And it has everything to do with poetry, love, and fellowship.
Sister Monica Joan’s Reading
Sister Monica Joan was scheduled to perform a reading during the ceremony but had been feeling too ill to participate and lamenting the initial selection of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, but was rightly told that the order of service had already been printed. Never one to take no for an answer, Sister Monica Joan arrives late to the chapel and then tells the congregants that a change is afoot.
“The order of service leads you to anticipate a passage from Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians,” she says. “That is not what you’re about to hear. I shall now read ‘A Wedding Prayer” by Robert Louis Stevenson with an addendum by myself.” You can almost see Trixie steeling herself, even if it is with love.
Sister Monica Joan then reads the following poem:
Lord, behold our family here assembled We thank you for the place in which we dwell For the love that unites us For the peace accorded us this day For the hope with which we expect the morrow For the health, the work, the food And the bright skies that make our lives delightful And for our friends in all parts of the earth
She continues (of course she does), though these subsequent lines are of her own—or rather, the show’s—invention:
And for those we love And may look upon no longer For those whose path will not be ours For those we teach And from whom we learn And for those who hold us in their hearts And call us home.
“Amen,” she says, solemnizing the poetry that has now delighted all in attendance.
Why do this? What does it mean? Is R. L. Stevenson rolling in his grave?
Stevenson’s “A Wedding Prayer” Is More Prayer Than Poem
As it turns out, the text Sister Monica Joan reads and adds to isn’t a poem at all.
What she calls “A Wedding Prayer” is also referred to as a “Thanksgiving Poem,” “We Thank Thee,” or any number of other titles in online venues. The internet loves to divorce things from their context, and poetry travels especially well (or, depending on how you look at it, poorly) in this fashion because of its brevity. But no such poem occurs in Stevenson’s body of verse.
You know R. L. Stevenson: author of Treasure Island, the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and other classic texts. Derided as a kind of scribbler of children’s stories and lower-tier writing in his time, Stevenson’s work is best enjoyed today by adults, not by the children his detractors shelved him with for decades (though his A Children’s Garden of Verses graces my daughter’s bookshelf and the bookshelves of countless other young ones).
The text read out in Call the Midwife actually comes from Stevenson’s Prayers Written At Vailima, a collection of prayers he wrote late in life that was published in 1904, some ten years after his death. Interestingly, this prayer is listed as one in support of “Success,” not for a wedding or a ceremony of gratitude, though a marriage is certainly an endeavor that many hope will be “successful.” The full prayer also contains a great deal more religious sentiment and is longer:
FOR SUCCESS
Lord, behold our family here assembled. We thank Thee for this place in which we dwell; for the love that unites us; for the peace accorded us this day; for the hope with which we expect the morrow; for the health, the work, the food, and the bright skies, that make our lives delightful; for our friends in all parts of the earth, and our friendly helpers in this foreign isle. Let peace abound in our small company. Purge out of every heart the lurking grudge. Give us grace and strength to forbear and to persevere. Offenders, give us the grace to accept and to forgive offenders. Forgetful ourselves, help us to bear cheerfully the forgetfulness of others. Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind. Spare to us our friends, soften to us our enemies. Bless us, if it may be, in all our innocent endeavours. If it may not, give us the strength to encounter that which is to come, that we be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temperate in wrath, and in all changes of fortune, and, down to the gates of death, loyal and loving one to another. As the clay to the potter, as the windmill to the wind, as children of their sire, we beseech of Thee this help and mercy for Christ’s sake.
—R. L. Stevenson
Stevenson rejected Christianity in formative years and declared himself an atheist, but this rejection did not take permanently. In his late 20s, Stevenson wrote to his father and said, “Christianity is among other things, a very wise, noble and strange doctrine of life... You see, I speak of it as a doctrine of life, and as a wisdom for this world... I have a good heart, and believe in myself and my fellow-men and the God who made us all.” He later penned prayers from his home in Vailima, Samoa, where he had settled with his family some years earlier, though he did not return to churchgoing.
Is this prayer a poem? What a fun question, and one with several answers. The prayer is not lineated, but neither is prose poetry. And in terms of its ability to move readers and listeners emotionally, if the ceremony guests at Trixie’s wedding are any indication, this prayer succeeds in that dimension as well. But in terms of authorial intent, no: Stevenson himself termed these “Prayers.” However, as a prolific literary writer and poet, one can perceive the sense of language that Stevenson developed through his large body of work, his affinity for assonance, alliteration, and rhythm.
Stevenson on Screen
It seems that what Sister Monica Joan is responding to in Stevenson’s prayer/poem is its inability to encompass the range of relationships that human beings have and can have with one another. Though the full Stevenson prayer does refer to “friendly helpers” and “offenders,” Sister Monica Joan is also keen to mention “those we love / And may look upon no longer” as a gesture of kindness that also acknowledges the unusual circumstances of the couple’s meeting in a sidelong, even secret way.
Longtime viewers will remember that Matthew Aylward is a widower: Trixie herself was part of Matthew’s late wife Fiona’s nursing care team after she gave birth to the couple’s son and died from an aggressive form of leukemia soon after.
Sister Monica Joan’s “improved” version of the Stevenson prayer brings a touch of the secular to the ceremony, as it is not a biblical text. But most importantly, it acknowledges the many forms that love takes and reiterates the importance of people, humans here on earth with us and those who have departed it, as the best subjects of our gratitude.
