Category: Sunday poems

We praise thee, Lord, for saints unknown

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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!

The Doorkeeper

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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.

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       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

“[Humility] is to have a place to hide/when all is hurricane outside.” (Jessica Powers)

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Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

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)

Open

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

This is a powerful Easter poem by Luci Shaw.  I know it’s not the Easter season, but I think it’s at times like these–as we’re moving into the physically darker seasons of fall and winter, and sometimes simultaneously darker emotional seasons for some of us–that we need to remember that we are always an Easter people.      

                  Open
             John 20:19, 26

Doubt padlocked one door and
Memory put her back to the other.
Still the damp draught seeped in, though
Fear chinked all the cracks and
Blindness boarded up the window.
In the darkness that was left
Defeat crouched, shivering,
In his cold corner.

Then Jesus came
(all the doors being shut)
and stood among them.

                              Luci Shaw

The Appearance of Christ at the Cenacle
The Appearance of Christ at the Cenacle (James Tissot)

Loving Love and Beauty seeing

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A beautiful poem on beauty by one of our sisters, Sr. Stacy Whitfield:

                       Beauty

I love your wild extravagance,
          mountain flower and autumn leaves
Endowed with lovely lavishness,
          making much of what none sees.

Yet surely you would not adorn
          with greater glory grassy hills
Than sons and daughters made for joy
           and destined for more beauty still.

Oh give me hope to lift my soul
           to beauties that yet lie unseen,
That wait beyond the shimm’ring veil,
           awaiting Dawn’s eternity.

The wondrous views of heaven’s scope
           from which earth’s grand reflection springs,
The beauty that is fairer still
           than all your earthly artistry.

Oh give me faith and love to long
           to see all beauty’s heavenly source,
From which all loveliness is flowing,
           river-like upon its course.

The fullness of all beauty there
          on which to gaze to soul’s delight,
A heart all pure, a form all fair,
          the fountainhead of love, of light.

I shall abide in blissful rest,
          loving Love and Beauty seeing,
Taking in your loveliness
          with opened eyes, with transformed being.

                                          ©Sr. Stacy Whitfield (revised February 3, 1991)

Reluctant prophet

Luci Shaw’s poem, “Reluctant Prophet.”

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Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

Continuing in my share-a-poem-with-you-on-Sunday tradition, here’s another one by Luci Shaw:

Reluctant Prophet

Both were dwellers
in deep places
(one in the dark
bowels of ships
and great fish
and wounded pride.
The other–
in the silvery belly
of the seas).

Both heard God saying
“Go!”
but the whale
did as he was told.