Sunday, April 20, 2014

This Joyful Eastertide, Away With Sin and Sorrow.


The Holy Tridium - Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, are probably my favourite part of the Liturgical Year.  The ceremonies proper to this time, are particularly beautiful - an astonishingly glorious mixture of keening grief over the death of the beautiful, strong young hero, and soaring exultation at His victory over death and sin. The antiphons are sheer poetry, the music cuts to the very heart. The great mystery of the Cross becomes beautiful and terrible; both human, and of God.  

I mentioned my intention of including more poetry on this blog, and I had several ideas germinating when I said that. I set to work, full of the flame of poetic inspiration. I am out of practice, hwever, and for a while, and I struggled mightily to get the poem down in the shape I saw in the back of my mind. I nearly gave up and considered posting an old composition, but when I woke up this morning, the whole thing suddenly fell into place, and I was able to finish it. 

                     His bitter foes got Him at last
                    Whose Life they long had sought
                         They wove for Him a net of lies
                          Bought His Blood at a traitor's price
                    Caught Him, and cursed Him, and bound Him fast.

                    They've had their will of Him at last,
                    And all His doom so dreadly wrought - 
                         An outlaw's death upon the Rood,
                         Robed all in His own red Blood,
                    Bound to a Tree and nailed fast.

                         Are all good things, then come to naught,
                        When Goodness is so cheaply bought?
                        And Nature racks herself for grief,
                       The best amongst us, a holy thief - 
                       Is lost, now, all for which we fought?

                  But King He was unto the last,
                  And Love Himself, Who was loved not.
                       Now all their weavings are unwound
                       For Life has lain Its own life down
                  Defeated Death, and bound him fast.

                  All lost? - No! Victory here at last - 
                  The fallen World is newly wrought. 
                       The Dragon's reign is at an end
                       God has made Him one with Men
                  Called him Comrade, and held him fast.

And, with that, I wish you all most joyous and blessed Easter! May the Risen King keep you close, and send you every grace and happiness. 

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Something... Emerges.....


I am somewhat disconcerted by the frequent lapses into silence which this blog keeps taking. My intention at the first of the year was to be more faithful in updating it - not, mind, because I am under some misapprehension that my readers await with bated breath for the words of wisdom which pour from my fingers, but because I meant to be more disciplined about my writing this year. Obviously. despite good intentions, I am failing miserably. I have let St. Patrick's Day and St. Joseph's Day go past without comment. The 25th of March sneaked past without me remarking it was the day tin which Frodo threw the Ring into Mount Doom, and Sauron was defeated. I have failed to mention the wee green things growing outside my door, more than a month before their time, nor have I waxed gleeful about the late snow storm that almost resigned me to the end of a severely disappointing winter.

I could make excuses. Indeed, for a change, I have quite decent reasons not to be writing.... but I'm not going to use them. I am simply going to say that several long-standing issues that have been weighing on me are finally sorting themselves out - thanks be to God and all His little helpers - and I am far healthier and happier than I have in quite some time. The result is that I am feeling remarkably vigourous; various hobbies that I have neglected have become intensely fascinating; I am exceedingly interested things these days. Unfortunately, blogs - the reading of them, the commenting upon them, and the tending to them - are not amongst the things that are absorbing my attention.

However, though I have not written a word here in darn near a month, I have been considering ye old blog with a discerning sort of an eye. Way back in the day, when I first started here, I had actual plans for the thing. I wanted, for example, to write regular book reviews. I wanted to force myself to write some of those essays, short stories and poems that tend to rattle around the back of my mind until they get old and stale, and no one is interested in them any more.  Therefore, my new resolution - in addition to posting with something approaching regularity - is go back to the original intention for this blog, and to write things for it, not merely pass the time with it.

There, now that I have that out there for all the world to see, I feel better. It remains to be seen whether I am faithful to this resolution or not. My past history with bloggy-resolutions does not bode well for it, but we shall see. At the very least,  I shall look for funny piping pictures to post, so that things don't get too quiet around here.