I just sent this poem by Margaret Smith to one of my godchildren who is expecting her first child in January:
Advent
Shepherds, donkeys, comets, kings . . .
This year I ponder private things:
How Mary, innocent and poor,
Felt carrying a baby prince
Inside, until she bore
Him whimpering. I wonder, since
This Christmas I am filled
With my firstborn to carry . . .
And when the wind is stilled
At night I think of Mary.~Margaret D. Smith
We all live in a “little town”, and we all have to do ordinary things–yet that is exactly where the Christ Child wants to be born. Today’s poem for Sunday is all about that:
Housekeeper
This is my little town,
My Bethlehem,
And here, if anywhere,
My Christ Child
Will be born.I must begin
To go about my day–
Sweep out the inn,
Get fresh hay for the manger
And be sure
To leave my heart ajar
In case there may be travelers
From afar.~Elizabeth Rooney
And as Cardinal Schonborn says in his commentary on today’s Gospel: “Doing the simple things is not always simple, but it is certainly the best way to prepare for Christmas.”
The poem for today may not strike you immediately as a poem for Advent, but as you read it, I think you’ll see why I chose it. It’s a poem I just came across by one of my favorite writers, Anthony Esolen, who just this past week posted it to Touchstone’s blog. Here’s the link, and I do hope that you savor and relish it as much as I did upon reading it. Let’s never go back to Egypt . . .
This Sunday’s poem is one by Jessica Powers, written in 1948:
Advent
I live my Advent in the womb of Mary.
And on one night when a great star swings free
from its high mooring and walks down the sky
to be the dot above the Christus i,
I shall be born of her by blessed grace.
I wait in Mary-darkness, faith’s walled place,
with hope’s expectance of nativity.
I knew for long she carried me and fed me,
guarded and loved me, though I could not see.
But only now, with inward jubilee,
I come upon earth’s most amazing knowledge:
someone is hidden in this dark with me.
~Jessica Powers, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, p. 81.
Today is the Feast of Christ the King. “The King of love my shepherd is . . . ”
The poem for this Sunday speaks of a personal response to this King of ours:
King’s Council
From the four zones of my universe
They come, the rulers of my dioceses:
Fine-featured dreams and hawk-nosed fears,
Shabby compromises with scrawny necks.
Ageing hopes pull back their rounded shoulders.
Love comes in borrowed crimson, having spent
Her robes on the unbeautiful. And, last
That patriarch, old faith, comes shuffling in.
Here is the council of me, God. Look! see,
Them all cast down their mitres at Your feet!
~Mother Mary Francis, P.C.C. (Summon Spirit’s Cry, p. 125)
The poem I chose for this Sunday could more accurately be termed “poetic prose.” It’s a piece by Catherine Doherty, and I’m not sure of its source. Her perspective on God’s work in our souls during dark times gives great food for thought. It is obvious, at least to me, that the place at which she arrives is absolutely a work of grace–but one which God can do for each of us. It is one of the great paradoxes of the spiritual life, one which Luci Shaw addressed in her poem, “Of Consolation” which starts: “It is down/makes/up seem/taller . . .”
I prayed to God for songs and laughter. He gave me tears instead. I prayed for life in valleys green, full of harvest rich. He led me through deserts arid and heights where snow alone could feel at home.
I prayed for sun, lots of dancing, and sparkling rivers to sail upon. He gave me night, quite dark, starless, and thirst to guide me through its waste.
But now I know that I was foolish, for I have more than I prayed for.
I have the Son for bridegroom. The music of his voice is a valley green, and river sparkling on which I sail. My soul is dancing, dancing with endless joy in the dark night he shares with me.
An unknown Puritan many years before had written something similar in a poem entitled, “The Valley of Vision”, which includes this line: “Let me learn by paradox/that the way down/is the way up . . .” The poem ends:
Lord, in the daytime stars can
be seen from deepest wells,
and the deeper the wells
the brighter thy stars shine;
Let me find thy light in my darkness,
thy life in my death,
thy joy in my sorrow,
thy grace in my sin,
thy riches in my poverty,
thy glory in my valley.
May you find His light in your darkness. . .
A Sunday-poem by Bishop R. Heber for this Feast of All Saints:
We praise thee, Lord, for all the martyred throng,
those who by fire and sword or suffering long
Laid down their lives, but would not yield to wrong:
Alleluia!
For those who fought to keep the faith secure,
For all those whose hearts were selfless, strong and pure,
For those whose courage taught us to endure:
Alleluia!
For fiery spirits, held and God-controlled,
For gentle natures by his power made bold,
For all whose gracious lives God’s love retold:
Alleluia!
Thanks be to thee, O Lord, for saints unknown,
Who by obedience to thy word have shown
That thou didst call and mark them for thine own.
Alleluia!
To keep God’s door—
I am not fit.
I would not ask more
Than this–
To stand or sit
Upon the threshold of God’s House
Out of the reach of sin,
To open wide His door
To those who come,
To welcome Home
His children and His poor:
To wait and watch
The gladness on the face of those
That are within:
Sometimes to catch
A glimpse or trace of those
That are within
That all I failed to be,
And all I failed to do,
Has not sufficed
To bar them from the Tree
Of Life, the Paradise of God,
The Face of Christ.
John W. Taylor
If It Were Not So
I thought I heard my Savior say to me,
My love will never weary, child, of thee.
Then in me, whispering doubtfully and low,
How can that be?
He answered me,
But if it were not so
I would have told thee.
I thought I heard my Savior say to me,
My strength encamps on weakness–so on thee.
And when a wind of fear did through me blow,
How can that be?
He answered me,
But if it were not so
I would have told thee.
O most fine Gold
That naught in me can dim,
Eternal Love
that hath her home in Him
Whom seeing not I love,
I worship Thee.
~Amy Carmichael
“[Humility] is to have a place to hide/when all is hurricane outside.” (Jessica Powers)
This Sunday’s poem is by Jessica Powers:
Humility
Humility is to be still
under the weathers of God’s will.
It is to have no hurt surprise
when morning’s ruddy promise dies,
when wind and drought destroy, or sweet
spring rains apostatize in sleet,
or when the mind and month remark
a superfluity of dark.
It is to have no troubled care
for human weathers anywhere.
And yet it is to take the good
with the warm hands of gratitude.
Humility is to have place
deep in the secret of God’s face
where one can know, past all surmise,
that God’s great will alone is wise,
where one is loved, where one can trust
a strength not circumscribed by dust.
It is to have a place to hide
when all is hurricane outside.
Jessica Powers (1947; 1984)
Witnesses to Hope 