It is early morning on Christmas eve, and for me as I am sure, for many, there is still so much to do. Let us not forget the reason for all our activity.
Merry Christmas to you all. Thank you for your support over this past year. May the New Year that awaits us be another of divine unfolding as we walk together, as faithful companions.
Dear Pope Francis preached at the Easter Vigil on Galilee. Curiously, I dabbled in writing a poem a few years ago on the same theme.
PS: I’m not a confident poet, so any helpful comments are appreciated! Happy Easter!
Sea of Galilee (Source: Encyclopedia Britannica)
Going Back to Galilee (2012)
Going back to Galilee,
to where it all began.
My heart was alive, inflamed with love,
It was there I met a man…
His eyes were hazel, amber-like
And his face had lines of life
He had a past with shadow self
But a lightness of hope in time
I met him there, along the way
Unbothered in my stride
I sought him not nor noticed much
Until he was by my side.
A gospel of love he longed to preach
A heart-space of truth and light
The setting sun and the morning moon
With his words, now coincide.
Miracles did happen and
His stories gave me to peace
They challenged me, I was alive
And freely I followed with feet.
These feet, sometimes patted
Sometimes shuffled, sometimes stride
But follow all the same I did
With wings I could not hide.
Where is this man now of whom I write?
This vision of inner peace
This beauty, this beloved companion of mine
Is he only in Galilee?
Not true, not so, it cannot be!
Galilee was only the start
So many places we’ve travelled since
In spirit, in word and in heart.
Here’s a poem I came across, thanks to a tweet from our connections at Catholic Religious Australia (@Cath_Religious). It is by Nigerian writer and poet, Ben Okri. To me, it is hope-filled and vivacious in its embrace of change, conversion and transformation.
Will you be at the harvest,
Among the gatherers of new fruits?
Then you must begin today to remake
Your mental and spiritual world,
And join the warriors and celebrants
Of freedom, realizers of great dreams.
You can’t remake the world
Without remaking yourself.
Each new era begins within.
It is an inward event,
With unsuspected possibilities
For inner liberation.
We could use it to turn on
Our inward lights.
We could use it to use even the dark
And negative things positively.
We could use the new era
To clean our eyes,
To see the world differently,
To see ourselves more clearly.
Only free people can make a free world.
Infect the world with your light.
Help fulfill the golden prophecies.
Press forward the human genius.
Our future is greater than our past. | Ben Okri
Rabindranath Tagore won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, and the following is one example of his work from a collection called The Heart of God.
A humble yet courageous expression, the entire text reads:
This Is My Prayer
Give me the supreme courage of love, this is my prayer – the courage to speak, to do, to suffer at Your will, to leave all things or be left alone. Strengthen me on errands of danger, honor me with pain, and help me climb to that difficult mood that sacrifices daily to You.
Give me the supreme confidence of love, this is my prayer – the confidence that belongs to life in death, to victory in defeat, to the power hidden in the frailest beauty, to that dignity in pain which accepts hurt but disdains to return it.
by Anthony de Mello SJ
The events of history were controlled
for my coming to this world
no less than for the coming of the Savior.
The time had to be ripe,
the place just right,
the circumstances ready,
before I could be born.
God chose the parents of his Son
and endowed them with the personality they needed
for the child that would be born.
I speak to God about the man and woman that he chose to be my parents
until I see that they had to be
the kind of human beings they were
if I was to become
what God meant me to be.
The Christ child comes, like every other child,
to give the world a message.
What message have I come to give?
I seek guidance from the Lord to express it
in a word
or image.
Christ comes into this world
to walk a certain path,
fulfil a certain destiny.
He consciously fulfilled what had be “written” for him.
As I look back I see in wonder what was “written”
and thus far been fulfilled
In my own life,
And for each part of that script,
However small,
I say, “Thanks”
To make it holy with my gratitude.
I look with expectation
and surrender
at all that is to come
and, like Christ,
I say, “Yes. Let it be done.”
Finally I recall the song the angels sang
when Christ was born.
They sang of the peace and joy
that give God glory.
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As we travel more closely toward the Feast of Christmas, may we continue to be mindful of all that we have been given in terms of graces, insight and memory. May we continue to strive to walk with God and follow Him, and to do so especially with those who need our help.
Thank you for your support and encouragement, input and contribution. We would like to wish you a happy holy and Merry Christmas, filled with the peace of Christ and the joy of salvation.
Image credit: ‘A Rainbow Appears’, Wellness360studio.com
A yellow sunbeam beckoned me
before day turned to night;
the air was clear and magic,
the sky was bright.
To westward, sheets of golden silk
shimmered and glowed,
luminous clouds hung in the sky,
rippled and flowed.
I turned around, an urge to seek
the eastern sky,
and there, clear arched above the road –
a rainbow high.
Both ends were anchored in the earth,
a perfect bow,
a blessing from the sky above
and earth below.
The colours radiated clear,
distinct, yet one.
A double arc crept into view;
the work was done.
Such scenes have happened here
since time began:
an arc with seven rungs –
part of the plan
to lift our minds to cosmic truth
and draw us home
to love’s embrace, the ancient goal –
no more to roam.
A cosmic child, summoned to tell
all time and space,
Earth speaks of star-dust images –
Creator’s face.
– Sr Mary O’Shannessy FCJ
In Everyday Splendour (Melbourne: Poetica Christi Press, 2011), 104.
Keeping Company 