Some time ago I featured the Natalie Merchant song “Wonder” in our occasional “Best Ignatian Songs” feature. Here is another. It’s a setting of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem “Spring and Fall: To a Young Child.” The song is in the middle of a concert Merchant gave at a TED conference. Go to the 16 minute, [...]
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Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004), a Polish Catholic, wrote some of the greatest religious poetry of our time. This poem, called “Late Ripeness,” is one of my favorites. Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year, I felt a door opening in me and I entered the clarity of early morning. One after another [...]
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Daniel Berrigan, SJ, celebrated his 90th birthday yesterday. We older folk remember him as a charismatic anti-war activist in the 60s and 70s. He was a powerful advocate for non-violence and social justice for many years. He is also a poet of some renown. Here is one of his lyrics. Miracles Were I God almighty, [...]
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Every day I see or hear something that more or less kills me with delight, that leaves me like a needle in the haystack of light. It was what I was born for – to look, to listen, to lose myself inside this soft world – to instruct myself over and over in joy, and [...]
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From the poem of that name by John Donne: Could I behold those hands, which span the poles And tune all spheres at once, pierced with those holes? Could I behold that endless height, which is Zenith to us and our antipodes, Humbled below us ? or that blood, which is The seat of all [...]
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A poem for Good Friday The Musician A memory of Kreisler once: At some recital in this same city, The seats all taken, I found myself pushed On to the stage with a few others, So near that I could see the toil Of his face muscles, a pulse like a moth Fluttering under the [...]
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It’s been cold here in the Midwest for weeks. Rainy and cloudy too most days. My friend Tom McGrath sent me a poem earlier this week that gives hope. It’s a good Lenten poem as well. April 5, 1974 by Richard Wilbur The air was soft, the ground still cold. In the dull pasture where [...]
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I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day. What hours, O what black hours we have spent This night! what sights you, heart, saw, ways you went! And more must, in yet longer light’s delay. With witness I speak this. But where I say Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament [...]
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A friend sent me this very thought-provoking poem. Father Damien of Molokai A century ago Hawaiian blood froze at the very name “Molokai.” Lepers waded through this surf to await death. —FROM THE DAMIEN MUSEUM, HONOLULU As a boy, I heard “leopard colony” and dreamed of joining him for a glimpse of the big cats [...]
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A friend sent me this poem by W.H. Auden. The human Jesus is an extraordinary mystery, and a deep comfort. Mary Oh shut your bright eyes that mine must endanger With their watchfulness: protected by its shade Escape from my care: what can you discover From my tender look but how to be afraid? Love [...]
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