IMAGES, REFLECTIONS -2

 These poems are arranged in the order of their writing, from 2011 to 2021.  Some have appeared on this blog before.

STORMY CROSSING 

“Are you not of more value than a hundred sparrows?”

And, “seek first the kingdom of God; all else you shall receive.”

The first I understood, the second asked for thought, but

now it was time to make the crossing.

Calm sea, clear sky, he would get some rest,

the Master, eyes tired, face drawn – soon asleep

in the stern while we set minds, hands, backs

to rowing our boat.  Then it came

out of nowhere, the Enemy’s black breath

straining sails, bending the mast, raising the waters

menacing over us.  Our first thought was the boat;

then Peter said to me, “How can he sleep?”

cried to him, “Master, we drown; do you not care?”

The weary eyelids lifted, his gaze sad but mild;

rising, he raised a hand, “Peace, be still,” he said,

not loud, not commanding, yet instantly obeyed.

The sea unruffled, the air so balmy;

not sea and sky alone were calm –

my mind paused, my heart too.  None spoke.

Turning to us, he said: “Men of little faith,

why did you doubt?” and fell asleep again.

“Are you not of more value than a hundred sparrows?”

Our minds, frail minds, had turned

to thoughts of shelter, food, a bed, we forgot

to ponder his words about his kingdom.

© 2022 by Ruth Heredia

PIÈTÀ or THE VIRGIN’S LAMENT 

Give me my son, Joseph,

lay him on my knees.

O child, my life, heart of my heart,

was it for this you suckled my breast,

grew in my womb, smiled at me

like a star in the manger?

Not stars crown your head;

on your feet red flowers bloom, 

on hands – hands that blessed,

that healed, that unsealed

the tomb, set free the dead to live again.

Return, o my life, haste back to me,

the sword has pierced me through,

I live but to see your promise kept

when you have slept awhile in yon tomb

as once you lay in my womb,

drawing your life from me.

Cold – cold and stark –

ah, say to me: “weep not, behold,

your son lives.”

Come, John, take me home –

nay, do not weep, it shall not be long,

the vigil we keep till he returns –

but, ah, the pain, the pain to me.

© 2022 by Ruth Heredia

CHRISTOS ANESTI!

Χριστός Ανέστη: αληθώς ανέστη ο Κύριος

Christ is risen: Truly risen is the Lord

(Byzantine Paschal greeting and response)

 

Who will roll the stone away?

Even as the women mourning brought

Ointments for his body, he whom they sought

Came forth radiant as break of day,

Jesus the Messiah, God’s only Son,

Was risen and gone from their sight;

Leaving his tomb filled with light,

Striking with fear the guards, every one.

As fully God, Jesus Christ rose,

Raising himself as fully Man;

Does this to the faltering reason pose

Baffling thought the mind may not scan?

Yet on this rock does our faith rooted stand;

Empty tomb below, and the cross above.

In humble faith, radiant hope, we understand

All the power of God’s life-giving love.

Note on CHRISTOS ANESTI!

Have you ever wondered at the choice of words in more than one epistle of St. Paul when he refers to the Resurrection and to its centrality in our Faith?  He does not explain the difference between the two Persons that are one in Jesus, Messiah and Second Person of the indivisible Trinity.  John Donne’s Sermon XXIII, preached at St. Paul’s, Easter 1630, to some extent speaks of this duality: “rose from the dead” and “was raised from the dead”*.  The Incarnation turns up constantly in the subtext of what Jesus speaks, a mind-boggling thought which can never be comprehended by any creature, only by the Creator.  That is why humility, obedience and love are the necessary conditions for Faith to be rooted, live, and grow – as perfectly exemplified in the Annunciation dialogue, which I think is best depicted in Domenico Veneziano’s painting, drawing a poem from me some years ago.

*“Gregory Nyssen suspects, that for the infirmity of the then hearers, the apostles thought it scarce safe to express it often in that phrase, he rose, or he raised himself, and therefore, for the most part, return to the suscitatus est, that he was raised, lest weak hearers might be scandalized with that, that a dead man had raised himself of his own power. And therefore the angel in this place enlarges the comfort to these devout women, in a full measure, when he opens himself in that word surrexit, he is risen, risen of himself. ... There is our comfort collected from, this surrexit, he is risen, ... that this his rising declares him to be the Son of God, who therefore can, and will, and to be that Jesus, an actual Redeemer, and therefore hath already raised us. ... even then, when he lay dead, he was God still; then, when he was no man, he was God still; nay, then when he was no man, he was God, and man, in this true sense, that though the body and soul were divorced from one another, and that during that divorce, he were no man, (for it is the union of body and soul that makes a man) yet the Godhead was not divided from either of these constitutive parts of man, body or soul. ... Even the angel calls Christ Lord; and his Lord; for, the Lord, (and the angel calls him so) is Lord of all, of men, and angels. When God brings his Son into the world, (says the apostle) he says, let all the angels of God worship him. And when God carries his Son out of the world, by the way of the cross, they have just cause to worship him too, for, By the blood of his cross are all things reconciled to God, both things in earth, and things in heaven, men and angels. Therefore did an angel minister to Christ before he was, in the annunciation to his blessed mother, that he should be; and an angel to his imaginary father Joseph, before he was born; and a choir of angels to the shepherds at his birth; an angel after his temptation, and in his agony, and bloody-sweat, more angels; angels at his last step, at his ascension, and here, at his resurrection angels minister unto him. The angels of heaven acknowledged Christ to be their Lord.”

© 2022 by Ruth Heredia

ASSUMPTA EST VIRGO MARIA 

“Come,” he said, holding out his hands,

workman’s hands, wounds glowing;

“come to me.”  His love met hers aspiring,

lodestone to her heart, body, soul,

drawing her to his home, now hers for ever:

Mary in Jesus’ arms as he had been in hers.

Sancta Dei Genitrix, ora pro nobis.

© 2022 by Ruth Heredia

THE GUARDIAN 

I waited upon her answer to Gabriel’s words from God,

heard it and knew her now for my sacred charge.

Modest maid, humble, receptive to the Lord,

her journeys asked a courage few others could show.

Guarding her I marvelled not at the Maker’s faith,

for to such a lady all angels must bow.

*

Fraught was the journey, as she bent in the saddle,

her husband, face drawn, watched now her, now the road

as it wound and climbed to his forefather’s town.

Amid the chatter of many going to Bethlehem,

we three and the unborn spoke no word at all.

That they would find shelter was allowed me to know,

mine to keep watch at the Holy Child’s birth.

For the Evil One watched too, awaiting his chance;

he knew but half her burden yet would destroy the whole.

*

Journey after journey, many homes the lady knew,

that I guarded her, never; she trusted without question

her Son and his Father, until the Spirit came.

Her own spirit knew then the Blessed Mystery.

On her last journey, no guardian was required:

to her Son she went, raised by both their loves,

as all we angels watched in perfect gladness.

*The ‘conceit’ or poetic idea behind this imagining of the Archangel Michael (Mikha-el) is set out thus:

Two spirits God created brightest, best:

one’s choice was pride, flaunting ambition,

quietly the other waited to serve.

One sought to know that which only God can.

“Why may not I?” scarce thought, a cry returned -

“Who is like God?” – a clarion call

that would be the quiet one’s name.

So was he charged such spirits to expel,

mortal children of the Father to protect. 

© 2022 by Ruth Heredia

EPIPHANY 

We sought knowledge, and found Wisdom –

why to us, we three?  This knowledge is not granted -

but we were grateful.  Taking gifts we journeyed,

going far – where knowledge failed us – to do homage.

Wisdom led us with her radiance:

we found her in a little child

seated on his mother’s knee.

In later times, we heard, they named the mother

Seat of Wisdom, but to us she seemed

a lighted lamp in Wisdom’s house.

*

Gold we had brought, with frankincense, myrrh;

in her we found the very House of Gold.

Her husband, tools laid by, stood beside her, devotion

like fragrant incense rose from both.

Deep in their watchful eyes the pain,

the shadow of death.  We bowed, to honour lives

at the service of Wisdom.

*

Strange it was, all of it, beginning with the star,

a star unknown that beckoned – so it seemed.

Where to and why we asked, then remembered

a present stir through all the world, desire

for a king – the bringer of peace –

cornerstone which makes all peoples one.

“Seek him among the Jews,” our study told us,

as the star moved westward.

Following, we found our sought-for king

in a carpenter’s home.

Said I not it was strange?  And changed our lives,

our minds; we learned wisdom.

Note on EPIPHANY

The Magi, whatever their number, were almost surely followers of Zarathustra, from Persia, and there is no certainty about what ‘star’ they were following.  From the time of Cyrus the Great, there had been reason for Persians to respect what the best of Israelites believed and practised; and their ‘wise men’ were learned in the use of substances and methods to relieve or cure illness or injury – for which cause they might be called ‘magician’, besides being searchers of the sky, readers and writers of ‘lore’, and so on, which would further impress simple folk.

 In the time of Octavius Caesar, known as Augustus, Rome had already begun to ‘conquer the world’, and Virgil wrote, unusually, in the midst of verses celebrating a simple bucolic life, these odd lines:

Ultima Cumaei venit iam carminis aetas;

magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo.

iam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna,

iam nova progenies caelo demittitur alto.

tu modo nascenti puero, quo ferrea primum

desinet ac toto surget gens aurea mundo,

"Now is come the last age of the Cumaean prophecy:

The great cycle of periods is born anew.

Now returns the Maid, returns the reign of Saturn:

Now from high heaven a new generation comes down.

Yet do thou at that boy's birth,

In whom the iron race shall begin to cease,

And the golden to arise over all the world,

(Eclogue IV)

 On these subjects, Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives by Joseph Ratzinger Pope Benedict XVI is of much interest.

© 2022 by Ruth Heredia

JUDAS 

Gentle hands of Jesus

Washed those dust-roughened feet:

The coin-coarsened heart was too hard.

Thirty silver pieces

Bought Judas only a halter

Costlier than jar of pure nard.

© 2022 by Ruth Heredia

DIVINE MERCY

For W.G. 

He had risen indeed; I saw him,

yet knew him not: He was changed.

I fell at His feet, ashamed, but

“Rise, Peter,” He said, “go

with your brothers to Galilee.

I go before you.  Follow.”

So we went.  And did not see Him.

 

Soul in torment, “I’m going fishing,”

I said; some came with me –

faithful John among them.

We caught nothing.  Again.

Memory pierced me when the man

on the shore spoke,

and the net was filled to breaking.

“It is the Lord,” said John.  He drew me

covering my nakedness before Him.

Unable to meet His eyes, I turned

to help draw the net ashore.

“Fishers of men,”

seared my soul.  That fire –

another charcoal fire.

He gave us bread again, some fish;

called us His “children”.

My heart was breaking; the Rock

had failed Him.  Broke

at His words, my name:

“Simon bar Jonah,

do you love me?”

Three times He asked,

to my answer responded,

“Feed my sheep;” looked

into my soul, “Follow me,”

He said; washed me clean,

as once I had asked, impetuous.

I was not so after,

though freed, restored, entrusted.

 

I followed Him to a cross;

His words I recalled;

“head down,” I pleaded, “I am not worthy

to die as He did,

my beloved Master.”

© 2022 by Ruth Heredia

EMMAUS 

We walked with him and did not know it,

lost amid shards of our dream.

He spoke, building a home for us

from Moses to John who baptised.

A house for God and Man he raised,

himself its sure foundation; but

we knew him not.  Only our need

for his words, his presence.

Breaking bread with us, he was gone,

yet not so.  In his Word, his Bread,

we have him still; if we know it.

© 2022 by Ruth Heredia

THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST

(after Tintoretto)

“painting with a lighted torch ... upon a canvas

which is the night” ~ Stephen Spender

“I baptise you with water,” said John,

“but after me comes a greater one,

who will baptise you with fire,

release you from your sins’ mire.

The Lamb of God – whom I shall know

when he comes.  As I decrease, he must grow.”

Bewildered by his words, yet they came,

grey ghosts, lives broken by sin and shame,

never marking one who walked beside

them humbly till the Baptist cried:

“Come you to me? It is for me to be

by you baptised.”  Said Jesus, “It is right that we

do this, all righteousness to fulfill.”

 

From the river he rose, baptised by the Law’s will.

On which the heavens opened to send down Love,

the Spirit of God, descending like a dove,

as the Father spoke his Son to commend:

“With him I am well pleased,” so to send

Messiah on his painful road to save

each grey ghost from an eternal grave.

 

Inspired Tintoretto shows

John’s Christophany;

on his canvas it glows

for those whose eyes see

Christ’s Good News, in image his story –

unto death obedient, to rise in glory. 

Note on THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST:

 John the Baptist’s  theophany came from the meeting of the unborn cousins, when he recognised in Jesus “the Lord” – the word in Hebrew used instead of the not to be spoken “I AM”.

 By the river Jordan they meet, now grown men; John at the moment that fulfils his election by God to be herald of the Christ, Jesus beginning his mission as that Anointed One.  His Good News not yet announced, his reply when John demurs, “I come to fulfil the Law”, is to be linked in the Christian’s mind with the descent into the river, that symbol of death and the shadowland where the dead awaited resurrection, while Jesus’ emerging from the waters symbolizes resurrection – his own in particular, glorified by the voice of the Father and the descent of the Spirit.

 The Evangel, a call to new life both now and forever, is symbolized by this first step, baptism, in which Jesus identified himself with sinners although he was sinless.  The Baptism of Jesus is the conclusion of episode one in God’s revelation of himself.  It had begun quietly, requiring a silent attentiveness.  Thus revelation to Mary came at the Annunciation, and to Joseph in a dream reassuring him about her pregnancy.  This culminating revelation of the triune God is louder, but was it heard and seen by anyone other than John?  The Gospel accounts all make it clear that no one else was witness other than the Messiah and his herald.  No one in Tintoretto’s painting reacts to the voice or the vision.

© 2022 by Ruth Heredia

 

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