Tradition says he lost his skin,
Being flayed alive and then
Beheaded; so the paintings show
Him with a large knife and his own
Skin, draped sometimes as a shroud,
Sometimes like a robe of glory.

And there is only one story
Which the Scriptures tell of him;
He carries there another name –
Nathanael, the true Israelite
Who questioned and still trusted, so
In him there was found nothing false.

The other stories that we hear
May hold some skerrick of the truth,
While others may be hollow myths;
We cannot know, nor is there need.
His name evades us, as does he;
We only know whom he believed.

If he withstood the shedding of
His skin; if all his earthly robes
Were taken from him; it just says
With flesh and blood what we can know
To still be true within his soul,
And thus know all that we need:

That, finding from mean Nazareth
The Son of God, he gave up all
He had – his days, his nights, his years,
His name, his flesh, his very skin –
To serve the one who gave His life,
So that Bartholomew might live.

I missed this one too back on 6 July. It was a difficult one to write, being about two martyrs of the British Counter Reformation – two men about whom good can be said but who, in the end, sadly missed the point.

Only This (For John Fisher and Thomas More)

When all is revealed,
Then maybe this will
Be quite different to how
You and I see it.

When all is revealed,
All our good deeds may be
Revealed to be hollow
And eaten inside;

And the flames we endured
And the virtues that sent us
To the stake may be found,
In the end, insufficient.

When all is revealed,
Let it be only this –
No virtue, devotion,
Faithfulness to

The crown or the seal
Of the Vatican’s rule –
That speaks for our case
And gives our defence;

Let it be only this:
That Christ stood in our stead;
Only Christ, only faith.
Only this will prove true.

Here is another poem belonging earlier in the calendar. This one was written for the third Sunday of Easter.

Like Him

We saw Him; He sat
With us and ate
A piece of bread.

We heard His voice and
Knew it; He
Showed His hands and

Feet to say:
Do ghosts have hands
And feet like these?

Humbled once
To take our flesh, he
Wore it now like royal robes.

He rose to Heaven
Dressed like us, not
Despising this flesh.

And brothers, what we
Will be like
Has not yet been made known;

But this we know –
That when He is
Revealed we will,

The broken, sullied,
Doubting ones, be
Somehow made

like Him.

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, Hands and Eyes

What ears have heard,
What eyes have seen,
What hands have touched,
What souls can know,

No mind can comprehend;

What words now spoken
Sound in ears,
What hearts are pierced
(As sides were pierced),
What hands have felt
Not touching sides:

My Lord, my God,
We bow.

What eyes have seen but not believed,
What blessed ones believe without
The gift of sight,
What God discloses
Now is known:

A new command I give to you.

What blessings flow like oil on
Our beards; what homes
We dwell in now.
What lives, what sights,
What hope, what hands,
What good-news-feet,

What trust our hands
What light our hearts
Have seen and hold;
What sight, what life,

What sight.

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 power
And his harshest decrees

Takes off now his face,
Flings it to the winds,
Not delighting in any
Of the gifts that he bears

But casting his gaze
To the wondrous delight
Of the God who twice made him
And carried his debt.

Listen now; listen – in the
Claire Vallée he’s singing,
And off in the distance
This truth is resounding:

That Jesus, more beautiful
Than all the world, is
The succour of all of our
Waning hearts’ wanting,

And this now is what
We are called to do:
To love God for His sake
And ourselves for Him too.

So Bernard’s voice drops off
And leaves only this:
That love in all of its
Degrees is found here

In the wide open arms
And the free-flowing wounds
Of the beautiful Lord
Who demands our love.

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 pride combined.

With this it starts: admitting that
We don’t know half as much as we
Think we do nor as we should,
And yet we know how little we

Are beside the fount of truth
And wisdom that resides with You,
And how small our hands are in
The hands that lift us tall.

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 my womb.

In my heart, I have pondered these
Things, vast beyond all belief.

Let them slowly unfold,
microscopically within me:

My soul will magnify the Lord.

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 confess we didn’t miss them.
When we saw the smoke stacks on
The horizon we asked no questions.
When Maximillian Kolbe died,
We swear we were not anywhere near him.

II.
It is hard for those who live near a Bank
To doubt the security of their money.
(T.S. Eliot, Choruses from “The Rock”)

For how, from our seats at the front of the bus
Can we see the commotion behind us?
And how, when our walls are padded within
Can we hear the dull screaming without us?
And how, when our land is rising in pride
Can we stop to lift up the lowly?
And how, when we block our noses to death
Can we bear to endure its stench?

And how, when in Memphis, a shot pierced the sky
And down went MLK, down to the ground,
Could we see that sharp mirror
And the voice that spoke through it,
Saying, I am your hate?
Saying, I am your mind?

III.
It is hard for those who live near a Police Station
To believe in the triumph of violence.
(T.S. Eliot, Choruses from “The Rock”)

And nice men and women went down to vote
And put their nice votes in the nice ballot box,
And churches closed up their shuttered windows;
And a Franciscan Priest opened up his church house
To the children of Zion in the cold.

And Prisoner #16670
Gave up his life for the man with the wife
And the children, who cried out their names; and the Priest
Lay down and died in his stead.

IV.
Do you think that the Faith has conquered the World
And that lions no longer need keepers?
(T.S. Eliot, Choruses from “The Rock”)

But all this is past for now we all know
Better than then, for now we can see
With eyes open wide. Now we know better.

Now our arms stay open to receive
All in their thrall. Now we can see.
(But the lions still purr in their cages.)

V.
Do you need to be told that whatever has been, can still be?
(T.S. Eliot, Choruses from “The Rock”)

When the righteous of Gentiles died in the camps,
Were you there? Were you there? Did you see them?

When the Doctor who dreamed took a shot to the cheek
Did you still hear his wide dream resounding?

When the good book was burned,
When the churches were razed,
When God’s people hid underground,

Did you see, did you see
Your face in the glass?
Did you see past the vast
Colosseum?