Artist’s rendition of the Descent of the Holy Spirit – found in Sopra Minerva,a church in Rome
Today, on the Feast of Pentecost which signals the end of the Easter Season, I offer a poem offered among the Easter resources from Education for Justice. It was written by Richard Rolle in the14th Century. I appreciate Scott Cairns information that allowed me to correct the source material.
God’s Love
O Holy Spirit, Who breathes
where You will, breathe into me
and draw me to Yourself.
Invest the nature You have shaped,
with gifts so flowing with honey that,
from intense joy in Your sweetness
this clay might turn from lesser things,
that it may accept (as You give them)
spiritual gifts, and through pleasing
jubilation, it may melt, entirely,
in holy love, reaching finally out
to touch the Uncreated Light.
Source: Love’s Immensity: Mystics on the Endless Life, by Scott
Cairns. Brewster, MA:Paraclete Press, 2007. p. 105
This is not an original poem written by me. It is published in my collection of translations and adaptations from the writings of Christian mystics. This is not the first time that folks have failed to do their homework in attributing these and other of those poems; I’m hoping, however, that it might be the last. The text from which I constructed the poem was written in the 14th Century by Richard Rolle. My adaptation also employs lineation which the above text does not resemble. Just saying.
Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so that each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry.
– Richard P. Feynman
There will be something, anguish or elation, that is peculiar to this day alone. I rise from sleep and say: Hail to the morning! Come down to me, my beautiful unknown.
The meaning of awe is to realize that life takes place under wide horizons, horizons that range beyond the span of an individual life or even the life of a nation, a generation, or an era.
To pray is to take notice of the wonder, to regain a sense of the mystery that animates all beings, the divine margin in all attainments. Prayer is our humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living. It is all we can offer in return for the mystery by which we live.
OPreach 