Merry Christmas to All!

NATIVITY

Immensity, cloister’d in thy dear womb,

Now leaves His well-beloved imprisonment.

There he hath made himself to his intent

Weak enough, now into our world to come.

But O!  for thee, for Him, hath th’ inn no room?

Yet lay Him in this stall, and from th’ orient,

Stars, and wise men will travel to prevent

The effects of Herod’s jealous general doom.

See’st thou, my soul, with thy faith’s eye, how He

Which fills all place, yet none holds Him, doth lie?

Was not His pity towards thee wondrous high,

That would have need to be pitied by thee?

Kiss Him, and with Him into Egypt go,

With His kind mother, who partakes thy woe.

Happy Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe!

Song to Our Mother

(Tonantzin Icuic)

At the foot of the hill

Where the roses bloomed

I contemplate the Virgin

Who captured my heart.

–

Mother mine of Guadalupe

Mother mine, all love,

We beg thee to give us

Thy benediction and peace.

–

No other nation on earth

Has been so blessed by God

For that the Indians of Mexico

Carry thee in their hearts.

–

Guadalupe, Guadalupe,

The name that brings us joy,

May it be ever on our lips

With great devotion.

–

Mayest thou be praised in heaven

Sweet Virgin Mother of God

And on earth beloved

From end to end of our land.

–

On Tepeyac she appeared

Like a divine Star

She is there to be our light

To protect and guide us.

–

Glory to the Immortal Princess

Who freed us from great evil

And to make us happy

She crushed the serpent.

–

Guadalupe, Guadalupe,

The name that brings us solace

–

It’s the name of my mother,

Of my mother and of God’s.

In Celebration of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception

Vigil of the Immaculate Conception

by Maurice Francis Egan

A sword of silver cuts the fields asunder—
A silver sword to-night, a lake in June—
And plains of snow reflect, the maples under,
The silver arrows of a wintry moon.

The trees are white with moonlight and with ice-pearls;
The trees are white, like ghosts we see in dreams;
The air is still: there are no moaning wind-whirls;
And one sees silence in the quivering beams.

December night, December night, how warming
Is all thy coldness to the Christian soul:
Thy very peace at each true heart is storming
In potent waves of love that surging roll.

December night, December night, how glowing
Thy frozen rains upon our warm hearts lie:
Our God upon this vigil is bestowing
A thousand graces from the silver sky.

O moon, O symbol of our Lady’s whiteness;
O snow, O symbol of our Lady’s heart;
O night, chaste night, bejewelled with argent brightness,
How sweet, how bright, how loving, kind thou art.

O miracle: to-morrow and to-morrow,
In tender reverence shall no praise abate;
For from all seasons shall we new jewels borrow
To deck the Mother born Immaculate.

Good Friday

Carrion Comfort

BY Gerard Manley Hopkins

Not, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;

Not untwist — slack they may be — these last strands of man

In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;

Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.

But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me

Thy wring-world right foot rock?lay a lionlimb against me? scan

With darksome devouring eyes my bruisèd bones? and fan,

O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee?

–

   Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear.

Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod,

Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, chéer.

Cheer whom though? the hero whose heaven-handling flung me, foot tród

Me? or me that fought him? O which one? is it each one? That night, that year

Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

NATIVITY

Immensity, cloister’d in thy dear womb,

Now leaves His well-beloved imprisonment.

There he hath made himself to his intent

Weak enough, now into our world to come.

But O!  for thee, for Him, hath th’ inn no room?

Yet lay Him in this stall, and from th’ orient,

Stars, and wise men will travel to prevent

The effects of Herod’s jealous general doom.

See’st thou, my soul, with thy faith’s eye, how He

Which fills all place, yet none holds Him, doth lie?

Was not His pity towards thee wondrous high,

That would have need to be pitied by thee?

Kiss Him, and with Him into Egypt go,

With His kind mother, who partakes thy woe.

Remembering St. Juan Diego

Juan Diego

by Anne B. Quinn

An Indian’s brown cheek curved to a dusky rose,
Once long ago upon Tepeyac’s barren hill
When winter roses bloomed
And roses were mere roses in the glowing laughter
of the lady’s smile.
‘My little son. I love you.’ So all Tepeyac’s holy hill
Now sang an Indian lullaby of roses and wild birds.

The Feast of the Immaculate Conception

Vigil of the Immaculate Conception

by Maurice Francis Egan

A sword of silver cuts the fields asunder—
A silver sword to-night, a lake in June—
And plains of snow reflect, the maples under,
The silver arrows of a wintry moon.

The trees are white with moonlight and with ice-pearls;
The trees are white, like ghosts we see in dreams;
The air is still: there are no moaning wind-whirls;
And one sees silence in the quivering beams.

December night, December night, how warming
Is all thy coldness to the Christian soul:
Thy very peace at each true heart is storming
In potent waves of love that surging roll.

December night, December night, how glowing
Thy frozen rains upon our warm hearts lie:
Our God upon this vigil is bestowing
A thousand graces from the silver sky.

O moon, O symbol of our Lady’s whiteness;
O snow, O symbol of our Lady’s heart;
O night, chaste night, bejewelled with argent brightness,
How sweet, how bright, how loving, kind thou art.

O miracle: to-morrow and to-morrow,
In tender reverence shall no praise abate;
For from all seasons shall we new jewels borrow
To deck the Mother born Immaculate.

The Singing Girl by Joyce Kilmer

The Singing Girl

by Joyce Kilmer

(For the Rev. Edward F. Garesche, S. J.)

There was a little maiden
In blue and silver drest,
She sang to God in Heaven
And God within her breast.
–
It flooded me with pleasure,
It pierced me like a sword,
When this young maiden sang: “My soul
Doth magnify the Lord.”
–
The stars sing all together
And hear the angels sing,
But they said they had never heard
So beautiful a thing.
–
Saint Mary and Saint Joseph,
And Saint Elizabeth,
Pray for us poets now
And at the hour of death.

A Ballad of Trees and the Master by Sidney Lanier

A Ballad of Trees and the Master

by Sidney Lanier

Into the woods my Master went,
Clean forspent, forspent.
Into the woods my Master came,
Forspent with love and shame.
But the olives they were not blind to Him,
The little gray leaves were kind to Him:
The thorn-tree had a mind to Him
When into the woods He came.
–
Out of the woods my Master went,
And He was well content.
Out of the woods my Master came,
Content with death and shame.
When Death and Shame would woo Him last,
From under the trees they drew Him last:
‘Twas on a tree they slew Him – last
When out of the woods He came.

Feast of the Annunciation

ANNUNCIATION

Salvation to all that will is nigh;

That All, which always is all everywhere,

Which cannot sin, and yet all sins must bear,

Which cannot die, yet cannot choose but die,

Lo! faithful Virgin, yields Himself to lie

In prison, in thy womb; and though He there

Can take no sin, nor thou give, yet He’ll wear,

Taken from thence, flesh, which death’s force may try.

Ere by the spheres time was created thou

Wast in His mind, who is thy Son, and Brother;

Whom thou conceivest, conceived; yea, thou art now

Thy Maker’s maker, and thy Father’s mother,

Thou hast light in dark, and shutt’st in little room

Immensity, cloister’d in thy dear womb.