Category Archives: Devotional

The gallows stand where we should be; The warrant for our death is signed, Persia’s, unchangeable, declare The date and nature of our death. The gallows stand before us. The gallows stand where we should be; And yet another hangs instead – Death reversed, mourning turned To holiday, the victim now victor. The punishment standsContinue reading “Not the Gallows (Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost)”

Winged messengers, the heralds of peace; Heaven’s town criers, God’s emissaries; Proclaimers of the covenant; Reality above our sight; Fighting battles, building walls; A choir singing; knees bent, bowed; A song exalted; banner bright; Winged messengers, God’s emissaries; Reality above our sight; Reality beyond our sight.

Vincent set sail rich in mind, Schooled in the sciences, Brimming with faith; What trials he met, what pirates took from him Was replenished with stores Of faith refined as gold; What masters bought him – a chemist bent On finding life’s elixir stone; A desert farmer fled from faith – Saw in him theContinue reading “Gold Refined (For Vincent de Paul)”

If, on finding that we pulled Too hard in one direction, we Shift the tension to the other, We may find ourselves too far The other way, pushed by reaction And not by the force of truth. If we find the past has held Countless errors built on error, We may run the other wayContinue reading “Via Media (For Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester)”

Once it was said that he had about him The humble smell of forest firs; And once amidst those firs he built A church which now stands large and great, Rooted and established in The truth of love, the three-in-one. And with the fall and rise of many Empires and their architects, It remains. ThoughContinue reading “The Troitzka Abbey (For Sergius of Moscow)”

My happiness lies at Wisdom’s feet; She covers me with what she weaves; She plants her trees where they will flourish And in her garden I flourish too. My happiness is hidden from The way of fools who will uproot The joy and peace of those who sit Within their fading, foolish throne. My happinessContinue reading “Beatus (Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost)”

He found me sitting at my booth, My counterfeit, faux-Roman throne, Where I hoarded wealth and guilt And bought my people’s shame. He found me sitting at my booth And said to me, “Rise; follow me”, Without equivocation, no Question in his voice. They saw him at the table with me And with other sinnersContinue reading “Found (For St Matthew, Apostle and Martyr)”

Let this be said of the one who died, The bishop whose body they found afloat On a palm fibre mat and a palm branch in hand; Let this be said: that he lived as he died, Life given up, at the mercy of waves, Sailing where God’s current-love took him. Let this be said:Continue reading “Palm Branches (For John Coleridge Patteson, Bishop of Melanesia)”

Great expectations brought him here But disappointment welcomed him, And when the wealth across the seas Did not extend into his hand He put them to good work, to build A chapel made of thatch. And slowly, from his backyard’s soil, That church of thatch soon stood tall, Though humble, and opened its doors ToContinue reading “The Thatch Chapel (For John Ramsden Wollaston)”

Listen: there was once a king sitting on his throne. Around Him stood great and wonderfully beautiful columns ornamented with ivory, bearing the banners of the king with great honor. Then it pleased the king to raise a small feather from the ground, and he commanded it to fly. The feather flew, not because ofContinue reading “The Feather (For Hildegard of Bingen)”