This week, I was asked to read a poem in chapel, and this sent my on a search for poetry that was particular to Holy Week. Words that could express the poignant sorrow, darkness, mystery and celebration of the events of Christ's life, death and resurrection. Language that could touch somehow on this holy mystery that claims a God-man who was and is and is to come.
In this search, I found myself rediscovering the poetry of Thomas Merton. If you are unfamiliar with his work, you should definitely consider reading more about him. He was a life-time learner, monk, writer, and seeker of beauty. Deeply Christian, but always seeking for more of God's presence in all places, he was also profoundly interested in inter-religious and cross-cultural understanding.
Here are a few of his poems for reflection this holy weekend. Enjoy.
The Vine
When the wind and winter turn our Vineyard
into a bitter Calvary
What hands come out and crucify us
Like the innocent vine?
How long will starlight weep as sharp as thorns
In the night of our desolate life?
How long will moonlight fear to free the naked prisoner?
Or is there no deliverer?
A mob of winds, on Holy Thursday, come like murderers
And batter the walls of our locked and terrified souls
Our doors are down, and our defense is done.
Good Friday's rains, in Roman order,
March with sharpest lances up our vineyard hill.
More dreadful than St. Peter's cry
When he was being swallowed by the sea
Cries out our anguish, "O we are abandoned!"
When in our lives we see the ruined vine
Cut open by cruel spring,
ploughed by the furious season.
As if we had forgotten how the whips of winter
And the cross of April,
Would all be lost in one bright Miracle.
For look! The vine on Calvary is bright with branches!
See how the leaves laugh in the light,
And how the whole hill smiles with flowers,
And know how our numbered veins must run
With life, like the sweet vine, when it is full of sun.
My prayer is that we all find space to cry out to God in our anguish and sorrow, like the weeping starlight, and to know the hope of the Resurrected Christ, the living vine who felt our deepest anguish and sorrow, and who lives on to bring us life. Perhaps, even if only for a week, a day, or just a moment, we would all be lost in that one bright miracle.
In Silence
Be still.
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try
to speak your
name.
Listen
to the living walls.
Who are you?
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try
to speak your
name.
Listen
to the living walls.
Who are you?
Whose
silence are you?
Who (be quiet)
are you (as these stones
are quiet). Do not
think of what you are
still less of
what you may one day be.
Rather
be what you are (but who?)
be the unthinkable one
you do not know.
O be still, while
you are still alive,
and all things live around you
speaking (I do not hear)
to your own being,
speaking by the unknown
that is in you and in themselves.
“I will try, like them
to be my own silence:
and this is difficult. The whole
world is secretly on fire. The stones
burn, even the stones they burn me.
How can a man be still or
listen to all things burning?
How can he dare to sit with them
when all their silence is on fire?”
I love this poem because it calls us to be present, to be still, and to be what we are. Each of us are full of Christ in this very moment. So, rather than look towards a future of what we might become, I want to be what I am. To hear and see the whole world that is secretly on fire with God's presence. In this holy week, I want to be still, and hear the voice of the Most Holy in the sound of silence.
silence are you?
Who (be quiet)
are you (as these stones
are quiet). Do not
think of what you are
still less of
what you may one day be.
Rather
be what you are (but who?)
be the unthinkable one
you do not know.
O be still, while
you are still alive,
and all things live around you
speaking (I do not hear)
to your own being,
speaking by the unknown
that is in you and in themselves.
“I will try, like them
to be my own silence:
and this is difficult. The whole
world is secretly on fire. The stones
burn, even the stones they burn me.
How can a man be still or
listen to all things burning?
How can he dare to sit with them
when all their silence is on fire?”
I love this poem because it calls us to be present, to be still, and to be what we are. Each of us are full of Christ in this very moment. So, rather than look towards a future of what we might become, I want to be what I am. To hear and see the whole world that is secretly on fire with God's presence. In this holy week, I want to be still, and hear the voice of the Most Holy in the sound of silence.
