Caveat Ecclesia

Caveat Ecclesia

Consider before you brandish your sword:
Judgment begins in the house of the Lord.

It's tempting to be discouraged by the revelations of abusing priests. It seems like it will never end; first the US, now Europe. What's next?

Well, what's next is a Bride without spot or wrinkle, holy and without blemish, but the process is not painless. Jesus is cleaning house, overturning the money changers' tables, setting wolves upon the hireling shepherds. Yes, it's upsetting but it's so necessary to the final purity of the Church. It's best to present ourselves humbly "to see if there is any wicked way" in us.

So be of good courage, Christian Soldier. The judgment begins with the Church but it doesn't end there.

Let There Be Brokenness

A Milkweed

Anonymous as cherubs
Over the crib of God,
White seeds are floating
Out of my burst pod.
What power had I
Before I learned to yield?
Shatter me, great wind:
I shall possess the field.
From "Two Voices in a Meadow"by Richard Wilbur¹

Richard Wilbur combines simplicity with fluency to produce some of the most profound poetry in the English language. This voice (the other one is a stone) reminds us of the power of yielding our will to the greater will. Wilbur doesn't capitalize great wind, but I can't help reading it that way: Shatter me, Great Wind. It is in the choir with Donne's Batter my heart, three-person'd God. The choir master is: My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness. 2 Cor 12:9.

Let us pray for the strength to be weak. Shatter me, Great Wind.

Here's Donne's great Holy Sonnet XIV:

Batter my heart, three-person'd God ; for you
As yet but knock ; breathe, shine, and seek to mend ;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy ;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me. ²

1 Wilbur, Richard, Collected Poems 1943-2004, New York, Harcourt, Inc. 2004, 257
2 Donne, John. Poems of John Donne. vol I. E. K. Chambers, ed.London: Lawrence & Bullen, 1896. 165.

Invective Against Trees

You prodigal trees!

Raucous in spring,

Drinking so deep,

Amassing such green,

Spending it all,

On one winter’s sleep!

Lavacrum Interrumpum

Careless me on the garden path
Surprised a robin in her bath.
Her indignation made me laugh.

I never meant to cause offense
Or have a laugh at her expense
And so I haven't gone back since.

It's an Old Joke...

...so I just hadda render it in verse.

Be Careful What You Pray For

A Dominican friar of holy repute
and his Franciscan brother fell into dispute
over which congregation was better.
They argued about it in city and field,
and as neither persuaded, and neither would yield,
they decided to write God a letter.

So they set forth their cases in scholarly prose
on the same sheet of parchment, and then they arose
and carried their plea to the altar.
“Heavenly Father, we know You are near.
Tonight, while we’re sleeping, please answer us here
on this sheet that we place by the Psalter.”

Next morning, they hastened to chapel, and there
in a light that made the motes spangle in air,
in a handsome round script, the answer lay.
“Remember the Gospel. It’s far more divine
to take last place than first. Boys, you’re both doing fine.”
It was signed, God Almighty, S.J.

Copyright © 2005

Original Sin

Before there was a beating heart
or bone was knit to bone,
I heard I Am
the voice of God
and thought it was my own.

Copyright 2010