Prayer

Prayer, the Church’s banquet, Angels’ age,
God’s breath in man returning to his birth,
The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet sounding heav’n and earth;
Engine against th’ Almighty, sinners’ tower,
Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
The six-days’ world transposing in an hour,
A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;
Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,
Exalted Manna, gladness of the best,
Heaven in ordinary, man well dressed,
The milky way, the bird of Paradise,
Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul’s blood,
The land of spices; something understood.

– George Herbert, “Prayer (I).” Originally published, 1633. From The English Poems of George Herbert, ed. C. A. Patrides (Dent, Rowman & Littlefield, 1975), 70-71.

Come, Holy Spirit

A Deep Sadness

A Grotesque Geometry of Love

In her book, 'The Geometry of Love,' Margaret Visser takes one church, Sant'Agnese fuori le Mura (i.e. St. Agnes outside the Wall) in Rome, and tells us what it means.

In reviewing it, Joe Woodward of The Calgary Herald (Saturday October 28, 2000) said: "Visser was prompted to write a book on the meanings of church adornments by a visit to a tiny Spanish church. A local guide was showing a Japanese tourist the building, commenting on its various features.

Meanwhile, the foreigner was staring aghast – 'as well he might' – at a horrific, life-size carving, painted in brilliant reds and blacks, of a bleeding, tortured man, nailed to two pieces of wood. Yet, when he wordlessly gestured toward this grotesque artwork, the guide simply smiled and mentioned the date it was carved."

Bless Me

Bless me, O my Christ,
Be Thou my shield protecting me,
Aid my steps in the pitiful swamp,
Lead Thou me to the life eternal;
Aid my steps in the pitiful swamp,
Lead Thou me to the life eternal.

- Peighid Ni Cormaig, in 'The Carmina Gadelica'