Category Archives: Poetry

Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve: Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worthyContinue reading “A Little Lower Than the Angels (Nineteenth Sunday After Pentecost)”

He found this treasure in a field; He found the pearl beyond all price; He found a vast, wide treasure store. He ran to tell his friends. He found the map that showed the way, A map enclosed behind locked doors. He broke the lock and stole the map; He took it over borders far.Continue reading “The Gift (For William Tyndale, Bible Translator and Martyr)”

Make me an instrument of peace: May I be finely tuned for Thee; In frailty, may I sound sweet, The song poured from the broken reed. Make me a channel of Your peace: May streams of love flow through like blood. May Your pure sea flush out all me That does not flow from outContinue reading “Franciscan Prayer (For Francis of Assisi)”

Often I would find myself entering those crypts, deep dug in the earth, with their walls on either side lined with the bodies of the dead, where everything was so dark that almost it seemed as though the Psalmist’s words were fulfilled, Let them go down quick into Hell. Here and there the light, notContinue reading “Gone the Black Night (For Jerome, Priest and Biblical Scholar)”

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)”