TWO  WOMEN 

Poem for Today - Sunday July 20, 2014

IN  MIND

There's in my mind a woman

of innocence, unadorned but

fair-featured and smelling of
apples or grass. She wears

a utopian smock or shift, her hair
is light brown and smooth, and she

is kind and very clean without
ostentation--

but she has
no imagination

And there's a
turbulent moon-ridden girl

or old woman, or both,
dressed in opals and rags, feathers

and torn taffeta,
who knows strange songs

but she is not kind.

© Denise Levertov

MARRIAGE 

WITH  A  SMILE  

Poem for Today - July 19, 2014

SCAFFOLDING

Masons, when they start upon a building,

Are careful to test out the scaffolding;

Make sure that planks won’t slip at busy points,

Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.

And yet all this comes down when the job’s done

Showing off walls of sure and solid stone.

So if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be

Old bridges breaking between you and me

Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall,

Confident that we have built our wall.

© Seamus Heaney

WHAT  WILL  YOU  SAY  AND  SEE 

ABOUT YOUR LIFE 

AT  THE  MOMENT  OF  YOUR  DEATH?

Poem for Today - July 18, 2014

ON THE DEATH OF THE BELOVED

Though we need to weep your loss,

You dwell in that safe place in our hearts,

 Where no storm or night or pain can reach you.

Your love was like the dawn

Brightening over our lives,

Awakening beneath the dark

A further adventure of colour.

The sound of your voice

Found for us

A new music

That brightened everything.

Whatever you enfolded in your gaze

Quickened in the joy of its being,

You placed smiles like flowers

On the altar of the heart.

Your mind always sparkled

With wonder at things.

Though your days here were brief,

Your spirit was alive, awake, complete.

We look towards each other no longer

From the old distance of our names;

Now you dwell inside the rhythm of breath,

As close to us as we are to ourselves.

© John O’Donohue

page 184 in Benedictus,

A Book of Blessings,

Bantam Press, 2007

NIGHT  PRAYER 

Poem for Today - July 17, 2014

THE INNER HISTORY 

OF A DAY

No one knew the name of this day;
Born quietly from deepest night,
It hid its face in light,
Demanded nothing for itself,
Opened out to offer each of us
A field of brightness that traveled ahead,
Providing in time, ground to hold our footsteps
And the light of thought to show the way.

The mind of the day draws no attention;
It dwells within the silence with elegance
To create a space for all our words,
Drawing us to listen inward and outwards.

We seldom notice how each day is a holy place
Where the eucharist of the ordinary happens,
Transforming our broken fragments
Into an eternal continuity that keeps us.

Somewhere in us a dignity presides
That is more gracious than the smallness
That fuels us with fear and force,
A dignity that trusts the form a day takes.

So at the end of this day, we give thanks
For being betrothed to the unknown
And for the secret work
Through which the mind of the day
And wisdom of the soul become one.

© John O’Donohue,

Page 175 in Benedictus

A Book of Blessings,

Bantam Press

CONFLICT 

RESOLUTION 

Poem for Today - July 16, 2014

FOR LOVE

IN A TIME OF CONFLICT

When the gentleness between you hardens

And you fall out of your belonging with each other,
May the depths you have reached hold you still.

When no true word can be said, or heard,
And you mirror each other in the script of hurt,
When even the silence has become raw and torn,
May you hear again an echo of your first music.

When the weave of affection starts to unravel
And anger begins to sear the ground between you,
Before this weather of grief invites
The black seed of bitterness to find root,
May your souls come to kiss.

Now is the time for one of you to be gracious,
To allow a kindness beyond thought and hurt,
Reach out with sure hands
To take the chalice of your love,
And carry it carefully through this echoless waste
Until this winter pilgrimage leads you
Towards the gateway to spring.

© John O’Donohue

Page 50 in Benedictus,

A Book of Blessings,

Bantam Press

THE  FORENSICS 

OF  FOOTPRINTS 

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “The Forensics of Footprints.”

Today is the feast of St. Bonaventure [c.1217-1274] – a Franciscan and a theologian – a doctor of the church.

Every year when I come to his feast day – July 15 - I celebrate that I grabbed and got one of his big messages – a footprint - vestigium in Latin -  realizing there is so much I don’t get.

No problem. I’m just happy that something of his has rubbed off on me.

So I get his message about footprints.

FOOTPRINTS

We all know the story of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe – published in April of 1719. We all remember  the moment he spotted footprints on the sand of the beach – where he was all alone.

He was no longer alone. Uh oh! What now? What’s next? Read the book.

We’ve all had the experience in our life of spotting footprints in the sand or in the snow. There was someone going down or up this path or beach before me.

I am not alone.

BONAVENTURE ON FOOTPRINTS

We don’t know much about Bonaventure’s personality – but we know a lot about his thought – he wrote a lot - as well as the external facts of his life.

He was a great thinker and theologian – and I think he would have written a lot more if he had more time. Who knows what else he would have come up with – if he was not moved into executive tasks in both his order the Franciscans – as well as Church business – being consulted by Rome as well as being made the cardinal-bishop of Albano.

So I like one of his most basic messages: footprints. They mean someone with feet was here.

Well, Bonaventure argues for God – by saying God’s footprints are everywhere.

The stuff around us tells us there was a stuff maker – God the Creator.

I’ve had said out loud to dozens of people asking me about God – that if there is a chair, there is a chair maker. What the chair maker’s personality is like – now that’s another story – but we know there is a chair maker.

We got to the Moon. Our human footprints are now on it. Human footprints on the moon tells us there was someone there.

It also tells us that there are humans with minds who figured out the mathematics and the mechanics of getting there.

It also tells us that there was a moon maker – as well as the vast universe we live in? Our God is a creator, a universe maker – and after we  die, hopefully, we’ll know God and how God is.

The title of my homily is, “The Forensics of Footprints.”

FORENSICS

Forensics – basically - means arguing – trying to prove things in the public forum.

And that’s what Bonaventure did – as teacher and priest and bishop and then cardinal of our church.

He would say: check out the footprints. He was an optimist – someone said more than Thomas Aquinas – who also often made deductions from what is.

Bonaventure also tells us that the human mind – tells us so much more than the footprints. Bonaventure tells us to use science.

Science, learning, getting the facts for the forensics – helps us in arguing for God.

TODAY’S READINGS

Today’s first reading and gospel, tells us there are cities – and in those cities there are kings and subjects – and by thinking about each other – how we are as people – pluses and minuses – creations and destructions – good and evil - we can learn even more about God and each other.

That’s step 2 by Bonaventure – moving from creation to creative persons on the earth. 

Step 3 – following these steps – these footprints – we can get even closer to the third step – moving to this God of ours – to God as Trinity – another big message of Bonaventure.

We all know about the poem “Footprints” about there is a God – who carries us – but that is the faith step.

Our last Pope, Benedict wrote his second dissertation on Bonaventure – and Revelation in Bonaventure - and came up with one of his big messages of hope from him.  Bonaventure said we can learn a lot from everyone – even those we’re not walking with – so some wish Pope Benedict did a little more of that – but I leave those footprints and that kind of figuring and dialogue to others.

CONCLUSION

The title of my homily was, “The Forensics of Footprints.”

Bonaventure tells us to see the footprints all around us.

He said read the book of creation – read the minds of others – and you’ll arrive by foot at God – and others will learn from our footprints. Amen

IRISH  BLESSING 

Poem for Today - July 15, 2014

BEANNACHT

On the day when
The weight deadens
On your shoulders
And you stumble,
May the clay dance
To balance you.

And when your eyes
Freeze behind
The grey window
And the ghost of loss
Gets into you,
May a flock of colours,
Indigo, red, green
And azure blue,
Come to awaken in you
A meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
In the currach of thought
And a stain of ocean
Blackens beneath you,
May there come across the waters
A path of yellow moonlight
To bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you,
An invisible cloak
To mind your life.

© John O’Donohue