I will still praise you
A Sunday poem from Ann Porter.
A Song of Fear and Fire
If when I die
Instead of going off to Purgatory
As I hope to do
I have become a tiny flake of ash
Still glowing with the spark
Of life you gave me
And if I’m tossed
Into a fearful nothingness
Beyond the stars
There to go whirling
Whirling round
Until m fire goes out
Until my fire goes out
I will still praise you.
When you are empty
I haven’t posted a Sunday poem in awhile because I was ill in December and ended up in the hospital followed by surgery. Here we go again with a poem by Meister Eckhart.
When you are empty
When you are empty,
feeling bereft,
or not feeling much at all,
hesitate before trying
to fix your situation,
because this happens
to be just what
you are: a vessel
awaiting the fill
of heavenly
fullness beyond any
this-worldly feeling.
Josef Pieper on why our incompleteness means hope
A great read.
Marco Ritzki | Shutterstock
Fr. Michael Rennier – published on 02/16/25
Acknowledging that we haven’t yet reached our destination can be frustrating but should also be a source of hope in our lives.
Back in the halcyon days of my childhood, each summer our family would pile into our baby-blue minivan and drive to Florida. During the entirety of the 12-hour drive, my brothers and I would go wild, arguing over who got to sit in which seat, quibbling over who was invading the sovereign territorial space already claimed by a brother, and begging our parents for gas station snacks.
This was in the days before laptops and DVD players, so our only entertainment was the books we brought, travel versions of board games, and whatever music we could listen to before the batteries in the Walkman died. The trip felt like an eternity.
I’m sure my parents felt the dilation of time into infinity at least as acutely as we did. One year, my dad got so desperate that he picked us up out of our beds and piled us into the car at 3 a.m. so we would sleep through the first half of the drive and leave him alone. He may have been starting his vacation sleep deprived but at least we weren’t driving him crazy.
“Are we there yet?”
You can read the rest here.
Facing hopelessness
“Hope and hopelessness are themes that Tolkien returns to again and again throughout The Lord of the Rings.”
In the Presence of Mine Enemies
All is Well
Beautiful rendering. Nothing like the voices of children.
Thanks to Emily Gibson for introducing me to this song.
While All the Earth in Darkness Sleeps
“This hymn was commissioned by the Benedict XVI Institute under the patronage of James Hudon. Part of the text was set to music by the composer Frank La Rocca. The sources of the hymn are fourfold: the main verses borrow from Christina Rossetti’s stanza in the classic “In the Bleak Midwinter” and draw on the nativity narratives of Matthew and Luke’s Gospels; the poem as a whole is shaped according to the Eastern Orthodox Akathist Hymn tradition, particularly its practice of offering seven praises after a chanted prose reading; and, finally, the third chorus of praises draws on the Western litany tradition and paraphrases the Litany of the Blessed Virgin.“
You can read this beautiful hymn here.
Blessed Christmas
May you each experience the tender love of the Father for you today.
Someone is hidden in this dark with me
This Sunday’s poem is one by Jessica Powers, written in 1948, an apt poem for today, usually the Feast of the Immaculate Conception but this year coinciding with the second Sunday of Advent.
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.
Witnesses to Hope 