Anamchara

HOLY WEEK JOURNEY

TO THE GOOD THIEF

You did not see Him on the mount

    of the Transfiguration

Nor the night He walked the sea;

You never saw corpses color

    when bier and grave

Felt the force of His cry.

You did not hear the parables

    shaped like a Parthenon of

     language,

Nor His tone in talking of his Father,

Neither did you hear the secrets of the upper room,

Nor the prayer before Kidron and betrayal.

O master of courtesy and manners,

    who enlightened for you

Your part in the savage charade?

'Lord, when you come to your kingdom,

    remember me,'--

    The kingdom conquered through dying.

O thief who stole paradise from the nails of a stake,

    Marshal of heaven's nobility,

Pray that we before the hour of our death

    have the gift

    To see Him and know Him.

                 Saunders Lewis (trans. by Joseph P. Clancy in Twentieth Century Welsh Poems, Gomer Press, 1982.)

Holy Week is upon us and this year, Luke's Gospel graces our ears with the Christ who comes to set us free from the tyranny of evil.  Okay, that sounds excessively poetic so let's call that Gospel what it really is--The Star War's Gospel.  You know what I mean.  A battle of light against darkness, good against evil.  For that is what Luke's Gospel holds for us.   C.S. Lewis coined the term that best explains humanity's situation on earth before the coming of Christ.  He called it "enemy-occupied territory".  Jesus comes to do battle with Satan, the real enemy.  And it is a cosmic, knock-down, world wide wrestling federation battle.

Did you ever notice that in Luke's Gospel there are no terrible people?  Even Pilate is made to look pretty good compared with the other Gospels--the same can be said of the Jewish leadership and the Romans in general.  Even the people who call for his crucifixion get forgiven by Jesus.  Why?  Because our sinfulness hearkens back to Satan and the power of evil, and that is who Christ defeats on the Cross.  He has such compassion for humanity that he can even forgive the Good Thief.  I love the Welsh poem I reprinted above.  In our own weakness and sin, may we be be comforted by the fact that someone even worse was given Paradise the day Christ died, all because he looked upon the Lord and asked to be remembered.  May Christ remember each one of us this week as we walk with him to Calvary and beyond.   (The picture above is of the crucifix at St. Mary Church, Durand, Illinois where I am pastor.  Carved in 1926, it has recently been restored).

THE COMING OF SPRING

TRADITIONAL PRAYER FOR SPRING

O, King of the Tree of Life

The blossoms on the branches are your people

The singing birds are your angels

The whispering breeze is your Spirit

O, King of the Tree of Life

May the blossoms bring forth the sweetest fruit

May the birds sing out the highest praise

May your Spirit cover all with gentle breath.

The budding world reminds us in the middle of Lent that the Cross of Christ is the Tree of Life.  May the coming of spring warm your heart and give your soul hope as the Light returns and the earth brings forth life as a song of praise to the Creator. 

                  (pictured:  roses blooming in Lough Inagh Valley, Connemara)

A BLESSED AND HOLY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!

                                                                        

I BELONG HERE

I am part of the land

Sundered for over a century,

yet in my blood beats the

heart of my fathers.

But more than that,

I sense the Presence of the Christ here.

Old as the druids, older still

Than they and time.

The hills speak of Patrick;

I see him here,

Alone with a mission,

The voice of God in his heart.

Patrick of the fire,

Patrick of the doves,

Patrick of the mountain,

Patrick of the rivers and moors,

Patrick of the forests

Patrick of the land,

Hear my voice;

Answer my prayer.

Let me take the Gospel

to my land and my people,

Unafraid and not discouraged.

May Christ’s voice be heard

in my heart again.

For this age is ending;

The darkness is gathering.

You lit a fire not to be quenched.

Send its spark into me,

so that I may be the hands, the feet,

the voice, the face of Christ,

as you were.

Jesus, Lord of Patrick and the saints,

I rest here in this holy place.

The sun sets;

The night draws on;

Encircle me with your protection;

Be my armor of grace,

My shield of love,

My sword of power.

I am part of the land,

The holy land of Ireland.

May I hear its song forever.

The wind whispers

along the pass at Mamean.

Hear its peace.

I am part of the land.

I belong here.

                                    erb

                                    At Mamean, Connemara, Ireland, June 16, 1999

I wrote this little poem on a summer's eve as I sat by the open altar at the holiest shrine in Connemara in the middle of the Maam Turk Pass.  St. Patrick was said to have visited here and a holy well is dedicated to him.  A chapel, an open altar and stations of the Cross make up this site.  It is not modern.  It's been a place of pilgrimage for well over a millenia and a half.  I scribbled myself a note:  "A wonderfully mysterious mountain, Binn Ramger is across the valley before me and the beautiful, peaceful little lake nestled there at the foot of the mountain reflects the shadows of a dying day.  The sun is setting; I hear a sheep bleating down by the lake.  Like the sheep that eke out a living at the foot of Mt. Sinai, so these wander the hills of this holy place that resonates with the power of Christ, the Good Shepherd." 

The statue of St. Patrick that stands in this valley shows a young Patrick while he was still a shepherd/slave of one of the minor kings of Ireland.  He had been captured by pirates when he was sixteen and it was in valleys such as these that he first heard the voice of God speaking to him.  An amazing thing really.  He heard the same voice as did the druids, but only he figured out who was really speaking.  And when he grew up and confronted those druids; rather than kill him, they listened to him and believed.  He could hear and see like they could not.  But he must have been able to speak clearly as well , since the conversion of Ireland was an unbloody one.  A curious thing about Patrick:  he used the same power as the druids did.  Many think he just converted the land simply by great homilies or sermons, but actually, he showed the druids and the people that the power he wielded was greater than their's.   For the druids, a nature magic was what they practiced, but Patrick simply let the power of God work through him.  In essence, he proved to his people that magic was inferior to faith--doesn't sound like a big revelation to us, but think about it for a moment.  Magic seeks to give humanity control over everything; faith seeks to let God work through us.  Magic is about pride; faith about humility.  In a world where we seek to master even the basic secrets of life itself, Patrick has a great message for us.  The Shepherd of the Hills learned to do great deeds and wield great power, but always he knew it was Christ working through him.  That's why he's a saint and remembered, and those who opposed him are as vanished as the autumn grass in the Pass of Mamean.