MARY, OUR MOTHER

PENTECOST SUNDAY

The Dove of Pentecost

Yes, I have always come to the crucifix to pray,
But I never knew Jesus Christ and His love until today,
I sought by the feeble ray of the dim light of my mind;
But now it is dark, I learn by touch as they do who are blind.
I feel the pulse of infinite love beat feebly like my own,
And the heart of God confined in space to a little cage of bone.

I have often pondered this but have never understood
How hands which heal are stark and still,
nailed to a piece of wood.
The love that makes, the love that mends,
my own weak Faith could guess,
But not the love that wills to bear man's
utter hopelessness,
The love in the womb, the love in the Host,
the love in the burial bands,
The power and the gentleness of the love
nailed fast by feet and hands.

I knew the common soil enclosed the
Rood's strong root;
That therefore Christ remained with us,
its Seed and Flower and Fruit.
But I did not know the last extreme
of the mystery of love:
That when man is rent, on his fluttered breath
of death descends the Dove.
The Dove descends and the seed is sown
on the sigh of the last drawn breath.
And life smiles back through the hard grey dust
of the frozen face of death.

[From 'The Reed of God' by Caryll Houselander]
(Public Domain)
Ave Maria Press