Category Archives: Devotional

A name encased in mystery; A hero fading from the light; A life with no-one taking notes; A set of tales with hazy truths; A legacy that supercedes The details of names, concrete dates; A light within translucent source; A see that caught some northern souls; A truth that spread beyond the wall; A kindledContinue reading “The Flame (For Ninian of Galloway)”

She cries – Out in the street she cries, Wandering the streets in search Of any who will hear. To those rudderless ships she cries, To horses without bits to guide them, To foolish ones led by their tongues, She cries. Come to me, she cries, with food Enough for every clamouring soul; Come toContinue reading “She Cries in the Street (Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost)”

If we met one day, resting beneath some eucalypt, taking noonday shelter, breaking bread and sharing peace, would we, I wonder, look each other in the eye and see kinship’s glint, the marks of grace, the familiar signs of those bought with the same price? We may have fought; you clashed, I know, with onesContinue reading “Many and One (For John Oliver Feetham, Bishop and Bush Brother)”

This my only boast – two arms like a tree held out with widest love whose depth and breadth I cannot fathom, can but rest in- side.

When the ones who had fled emerged from their caves, the fire died down, the Emperor’s rod no longer raised, from some they received mercy, from others the shame of the lapsed, all the judgment accorded to those who denied the name of the Lord for fear of the sword. Cyprian stood as one ofContinue reading “The Apostate’s Mercy (For Cyprian of Carthage, Bishop and Martyr)”

Few people seem aware of the many hungry souls there are, who are longing for some sympathetic soul to speak to them about spiritual things. Sanctified common sense is what is needed, tact to deal wisely with all comers… (Mother Esther) Fallen, bones broken, she came to warmer climes; Melbourne’s burgeoning streets beckoned her, LanesContinue reading “Sisters in the Laneways (For Mother Esther, Founder of the Community of the Holy Name)”

The mute man with the tangled tongue and Stoppered ears knows now the truth That frees his tongue, says, Ephphatha! And opens that which has been blocked. The daughter freed from demons knows too That dogs may eat the crumbs beneath the Table of the king’s own children, And her mother knows as well theContinue reading “The Reversal (Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost)”

No-one could know – this baby just like any other, no defining features, halo, anything to set it out from Eve or Adam, all their sins already branded into its tiny DNA, and nothing here to say that this flesh will bear the Word Made Flesh. How very ordi- nary this child chosen among millionsContinue reading “Ordinary (For the Birth of Mary)”

Her husband’s name hangs over Sydney’s harbour, A governor in the early days, But hers drops somewhere from our memories: To some, an artist, a painter of note; To others the mother of social reforms Who lifted the lowly while herself on the couch, Always, it seems, with a child on the way. To othersContinue reading “The Governor’s Wife (For Eliza Darling)”

The pastor should always be a leader in action, that by his living he may point out the way of life to those who are put under him, and that the flock, which follows the voice and manners of the shepherd, may learn how to walk rather through example than through words…For that voice moreContinue reading “The Shepherd Doctor (For Gregory of Rome)”