On Monday, 14 September, Christians will celebrate Holy Cross Day: a day on which the instrument of Christ’s death is contemplated as the sign of God’s victory, mercy and life.

The hymn accompanying this reflection was written in late August, after I visited Moone High Cross in County Kildare on the anniversary of my baptism.

That coincidence gave the visit a particular resonance. Baptism draws us into the death and Resurrection of Christ; the high cross gives that same mystery monumental form. Water and stone, baptism and cross, personal memory and the long life of the Church met within one Kildare landscape.

Believed to date from the eighth century, Moone High Cross is one of Ireland’s tallest and best-preserved high crosses. Its granite surfaces carry biblical scenes from both the Old and New Testaments: Daniel among the lions, Abraham and Isaac, Adam and Eve, the loaves and fishes, the Flight into Egypt, the three children in the fiery furnace, the Crucifixion and the Twelve Apostles.

These are not simply decorations surrounding the cross. Together, they proclaim something about the God revealed through it.

Scripture held in stone

The figures at Moone are direct and stylised. Bodies become strong geometric forms. Lions, birds and other creatures inhabit the stone alongside apostles, saints and biblical characters. The stories are reduced to their essential gestures so that they can be recognised and remembered.

Daniel is held through the night.

Isaac is spared.

The children stand within the fire.

The hungry are fed.

The Holy Family is carried through danger.

Christ is crucified.

The Apostles are sent.

The cross gathers all these stories into itself. It becomes more than the setting for one moment on Calvary. It stands within the long biblical testimony of a God who enters danger, suffering, exile, hunger and death—and does not abandon those who are found there.

That movement became the foundation of the hymn:

O God, whose peace in shadowed dens
Held Daniel through the night,
Keep us within Kildare’s soft fields
Where lions fear Your light.

The prayer is not that there will be no shadowed dens. Daniel’s story offers no such easy promise. Its hope is that God remains present within the darkness.

The Bible in Kildare

While the hymn follows the biblical scenes carved at Moone, it places them within the landscape surrounding the cross.

The River Liffey bends through the story of Eden. A salmon leaps beside the loaves and fishes. Hawthorn, ash and rowan grow around ancient stones. Curlews cry above reeds, while larks rise over fields receiving the light of Resurrection.

This is not an attempt to relocate the biblical events literally to County Kildare. It is an acknowledgement that Scripture is always encountered somewhere.

We do not read the Bible from nowhere. We hear it beside particular rivers and beneath particular skies. Its words meet the landscapes we know, the journeys we make and the fears we carry.

The Flight into Egypt therefore passes through a Kildare dusk:

Through Kildare’s dusk the Holy ones
Once fled from sword and fear;
Now Brigid’s flame along the road
Proclaims Your shelter near.

The Holy Family’s flight is not made picturesque by placing it among pilgrim lanes and flowering hawthorn. They remain a family escaping violence and depending upon the possibility of sanctuary.

But the familiar landscape asks a necessary question: if they travelled along our roads, would they find shelter here?

The cross within the landscape

Holy Cross Day can sometimes be treated as a celebration of an object. Yet Christians do not worship wood or stone, nor do we glorify suffering for its own sake.

We honour the cross because of the One who was crucified upon it—and because human violence did not have the final word.

At Moone, the Crucifixion is surrounded by stories of deliverance. That does not make the cross less terrible. It reveals what God does within terror: remaining present, bearing suffering and opening a way beyond it.

In the hymn, darkness falls across the Kildare hills, but dawn is already approaching:

On Kildare’s hills the shadows fall
Where Christ bore grief and pain;
Yet ogham-etched in furrowed earth
His rising breaks the chain.

The movement from shadow into light is not a denial of grief. Resurrection does not pretend that Crucifixion never happened. The wounds belong to the story, but they no longer determine its ending.

Around the cross, life begins again. Flowers grow among the stones. Larks rise from the fields. Light reaches the old cloister walls.

Remembering baptism

To visit the cross on the anniversary of my baptism was also to remember that baptism is not confined to the day on which it happened.

The water dries. The congregation goes home. Dates pass into memory. Yet the life begun in baptism continues: a repeated turning towards Christ, a repeated passage through death into life, a repeated discovery that we are held by a grace older and stronger than ourselves.

The great cross at Moone has endured in granite. Baptism leaves no comparable mark upon the body, yet it makes an equally profound claim upon a life.

I am Christ’s.

I have been drawn into his death and Resurrection.

I belong within this story of deliverance.

Standing before scenes of danger, mercy, exile, nourishment, fire, death and apostolic calling, I found the meaning of baptism told again in stone.

A story that continues

The final panel represented in the hymn is that of the Twelve Apostles. They remind us that the Gospel carved upon the cross cannot remain confined to stone.

As Twelve once walked the Galilee,
We tread Kildare’s own ground;
In lark-song, bog-light, pilgrim stone
Your living Word is found.

The Apostles move outwards, and we are invited to walk after them.

The living Word is found not only in distant holy places, but in the ground beneath our feet: beside wells and oaks, along ordinary lanes, in communities offering shelter, and wherever bread is blessed and shared.

Moone High Cross has stood through centuries of prayer, upheaval, neglect, discovery and restoration. Its carved figures continue to tell their stories because each generation must learn again what it means to trust, to offer sanctuary, to share what we possess and to recognise God’s presence within the fire.

As Holy Cross Day approaches, the ancient stone directs our attention beyond itself.

It points towards Christ: crucified, risen and present still.

And it calls those who have passed through the waters of baptism to carry that story into the landscape through which we walk.

O God, whose peace in shadowed dens

1. Daniel among the lions

O God, whose peace in shadowed dens
Held Daniel through the night,
Keep us within Kildare’s soft fields
Where lions fear Your light;
Where ancient stones in silence stand
And winds through hawthorn weave,
Your guarding presence fills the land—
We trust, and do not grieve.

2. Abraham and Isaac

On Kildare’s ridges, testing comes,
Yet mercy crowns each rise;
A white stag stirs the hazel brake
Beneath the open skies;
Your covenant in whispered air
Still steadies trembling hearts,
And on the ridge Your promise fair
Its quiet strength imparts.

3. Adam and Eve

By Liffey’s bend where Eden’s breath
Still lingers in the dew,
The ash and rowan mark our fall
Yet You make all things new;
The curlew’s cry across the reeds
Recalls our ancient loss,
But grace grows wild in meadow seeds
Around the Kildare cross.

4. Loaves and fishes

Along the plains where Conleth walked
Your feast is spread again;
The salmon leaps in silver arcs
That bless the field and glen;
The rushes lean to hear Your voice,
The waters gleam with praise,
And hearts within Your light rejoice
Through all our wandering days.

5. Flight into Egypt

Through Kildare’s dusk the Holy ones
Once fled from sword and fear;
Now Brigid’s flame along the road
Proclaims Your shelter near;
The hawthorn glows at eventide,
A sign of guiding love,
And every pilgrim lane we stride
Leads onward to Your dove.

6. Three children in the furnace

When furnace winds around us roar
Like storms on Kildare stone,
Your presence glows like holy fire—
A gold, unburning throne;
The plains turn silver in the night,
The sky grows deep and blue,
And in the flame Your mercies meet
The hearts You carry through.

7. Crucifixion

On Kildare’s hills the shadows fall
Where Christ bore grief and pain;
Yet ogham‑etched in furrowed earth
His rising breaks the chain;
The dawn on quiet cloister walls
Speaks hope the saints once knew,
And in the fields where lark‑song calls
His life comes shining through.

8. Twelve Apostles

As Twelve once walked the Galilee,
We tread Kildare’s own ground;
In lark‑song, bog‑light, pilgrim stone
Your living Word is found;
The saints of fire and well and oak
Still guide us by Your grace,
And through each lane and meadow‑stroke
We walk within Your face.

Hymn information 

First line: O God whose peace in shadowed dens
Text: Michael McFarland Campbell
Metre: DCM
Tune: Third Mode Melody, Resignation,
Theme: Moone High Cross
Scripture: Daniel 6:16-23; Genesis 22:1-18; Genesis 3:1-24; Revelation 21:5; John 6:1-14; Matthew 2:13-15; Daniel 3:19-27; Luke 23:33-49; Luke 24:1-7; Mark 3:13-19; Luke 9:1-6
NDH-0340

© Michael McFarland Campbell. 2026. 
Permission granted for local church or parish use with attribution. Not for commercial reproduction.

Performance & Liturgical Note

For Holy Cross Day & Major Feasts

While written as a continuous 8-stanza reflection on the panels of Moone High Cross, the hymn’s structure (Double Common Meter) allows it to serve as a musical and narrative spine throughout the Eucharist.

For parish use, the hymn may be divided into two distinct parts using two complementary tunes to mirror the journey from ancient memory into living mission:

Part I: Stanzas 1–4 (Gathering, Processional, or Gospel Hymn)

 Suggested Tune: Third Mode Melody (Thomas Tallis)

 Thematic Arc: Grounded in the Old Testament precedents of deliverance—Daniel, Abraham, Eden, and the provision in the wilderness.

 Musical Focus: Tallis’s ancient, modal gravitas reflects the monumental weight of 8th-century granite. It establishes a sense of quiet awe, endurance, and shadowed history.

Part II: Stanzas 5–8 (Offertory, Post-Communion, or Recessional)

 Suggested Tune: Resignation (or Kingsfold)

 Thematic Arc: Crosses into human vulnerability, the fire of trial, the Resurrection, and the apostolic sending into the local landscape.

 Musical Focus: Shifting to a lyrical, folk-like melody as the narrative moves through the Crucifixion into the light of Resurrection brings a sudden, warm sense of release. The monumental stone gives way to meadow-strokes, lark-song, and mission, sending the congregation out to “tread Kildare’s own ground.”

Note: If sung as a single continuous hymn, either tune may be used throughout.

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Historical information: Office of Public Works — Moone High Cross and Discover Ireland — Moone High Cross.