Category Archives: The Swelling Year

Collating my poems so far, I have realised that there were a few days in the calendar which I missed. I am now going back to write the missing poems, and will post them, a little out of order, as I write them. This poem was written for the second Sunday of Easter. Ears, HandsContinue reading “Ears, Hands and Eyes”

You want me to tell you why God is to be loved and how much. I answer, the reason for loving God is God Himself; and the measure of love due to Him is immeasurable love. (Bernard of Clairvaux, On Loving God) The honey-tongued doctor With his gentlest words And his stern rod of powerContinue reading “De Amore Dei (For Bernard of Clairvaux)”

It starts with a child on his knees: Lord, I am so small; this task Is vast beyond my comprehension. How can I know now what to do? This is how it starts – the tremor and The sense of awe, the knowledge that The universe is bigger than All of our strength and prideContinue reading “Fear and Wisdom (Twelfth Sunday After Pentecost)”

My soul will magnify the Lord, Though my body humbles Him – Eternity contained within a womb; Grand kingdoms thrown to the ground And humble plots of land raised up; The hungry filled, the complacent hungry; The pure made from earthly soil; The humble one called blessed. All this is reversed when Eternity enters myContinue reading “Magnificat (For Mary, Mother of Jesus)”

I. It is hard for those who have never known persecution, And who have never known a Christian, To believe these tales of Christian persecution. (T.S. Eliot, Choruses from “The Rock”) When we saw the trains go by, We did not ask who rode in them. When we saw the churches close, We must confessContinue reading “Faces in the Colosseum (For the Martyrs of the 20th Century)”

Lord take from thy Servants sad carefulness, and all distrust and give us onely such a proportion of temporal things, as may enable us with comfort to do our duty. (Jeremy Taylor, The Golden Grove) If, he suggested, we thought of each day as being a day of business, we would rise with the firstContinue reading “Punctuation and Breath (For Jeremy Taylor)”

I. Absalom, my son! he cries. Absalom, my son, my son! Would that I had died, not you, O Absalom, my son my son Absalom! My son II. Deal gently with the boy, he said, The father with the son that raged And took his wives and took his bed And wanted now to takeContinue reading “Bread in the Springtime Part Three (Eleventh Sunday After Pentecost)”

Thy best has done its best, thy worst its worst: Thy best its best, please God, thy best its best. (Christina Rossetti, “Cardinal Newman”) When near to death, perhaps he saw the veil Lift off from Moses’ face, reveal the shine Which glimmered there, the presence of the Light – The kindly light of truthContinue reading “The Best We All Can Do (For John Henry Newman)”

How many hearts have burned, though dead, to hear the truth that they have died amidst their riches, and felt sparks of life fly into their dead hearts when they put to flames their deeds of wealth? How many nobles have thrown down the gauntlet of their wealth and died the death of all theirContinue reading “Garden of the Poor Clares (For Clare of Assisi)”

And then they came to judgment. And he was inquired again of the treasures, and Laurence demanded dilation of three days, and Valerianus granted him on pledge of Hippolitus. And St. Laurence in these three days gathered together poor people, blind and lame, and presented them tofore Decius, in the palace of Salustine, and said:Continue reading “The Fire and the Treasure: A Rondeau for Laurence of Rome”