Art & Faith

The Lawgiver

2010-09-04T23:17:00.002-04:00

Crucifixion

2010-03-09T20:07:00.000-05:00

A choir of angels glorified the hour,

The vault of heaven was dissolved in fire.

“Father, why hast Thou forsaken me?

Mother, I beg you, do not weep for me . . .”

by Ana Akmatova

For the Baptist

2010-03-01T00:05:00.001-05:00

"The last and greatest herald of Heaven's King,
Girt with rough skins, hies to the deserts wild,
Among that savage brood the woods forth bring,
Which he than man more hamless found and mild:..."

William Drummond of Hawthornden

Unknown Letter

2010-02-22T00:05:00.000-05:00

"But Jesus bent over

and wrote with his finger

on the earth

and again bent over

and wrote on the earth...."

Tadeusz Rozewics

The Donkey

2010-02-15T00:05:00.000-05:00

When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born;

With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil's walking parody
On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.

G.K. Chesterton

Salome

2010-02-08T00:05:00.002-05:00

"...And then, Salome! Still a child (a child!)
She drinks the potion, horrible, defiled,
That summons up dark vengeance and the sword...."

Mikola Zerov

Adoro Te

2010-02-01T00:05:00.001-05:00

Godhead here in hiding, whom I do adore,
Masked by these bare shadows, shape and nothing more,
See, Lord, at Thy service low lies here a heart
Lost, all lost in wonder at the God thou art.

Seeing, touching, tasting are in thee deceived:

How says trusty hearing? that shall be believed;

What God's Son has told me, take for truth I do;

Truth Himself speaks truly or there's nothing true.

On the cross Thy godhead made no sign to men,

Here Thy very manhood steals from human ken:

Both are my confession, both are my belief,

And I pray the prayer of the dying thief.

I am not like Thomas, wounds I cannot see,

But can plainly call thee Lord and God as he;

Let me to a deeper faith daily nearer move,

Daily make me harder hope and dearer love.

O thou our reminder of Christ crucified,

Living Bread, the life of us for whom he died,

Lend this life to me then: feed and feast my mind,

There be thou the sweetness man was meant to find.

Bring the tender tale true of the Pelican;

Bathe me, Jesu Lord, in what Thy bosom ran

Blood whereof a single drop has power to win

All the world forgiveness of its world of sin.

Jesu, whom I look at shrouded here below,

I beseech thee send me what I thirst for so,

Some day to gaze on thee face to face in light

And be blest for ever with Thy glory's sight. Amen.

Thomas Aquinas

(trans. Gerard Manley Hopkins)

Like the Samaritan Woman

2010-01-25T00:05:00.001-05:00

"Lord, won't you come and quietly speak
as if asking me for one cup of water first
like you did the Samaritan woman who came
to draw water out Jacob's Well?
You know that since I'm a sinner
I lack courage----"

Hae-In Lee

Mysterious Wealth

2010-01-18T00:05:00.001-05:00

"Feeling today like the Prodigal Son
just arrived back in his father's arms,
I observe the world and all it contains..."

Ku Sang

In My Father's House

2010-01-11T00:05:00.001-05:00

"Friday mornings, while challah rises,
I walk to shul to practice desert prayers...."

Dewitt Clinton

Miracle

2010-01-04T00:05:00.001-05:00

"It all happened on the water
Jesus' walking
the fishermen watching
from their boats...."

Susan Griffen

Salvator Mundi: Via Crucis

2010-01-01T20:53:00.001-05:00

"Maybe He looked indeed
much as Rembrandt envisioned Him
in those small heads that seem in fact
portraits of more than a model...."

Denise Levertov

Proverbs 31

2009-12-27T16:34:00.000-05:00

"...She looks for wool and flax
And works with her hands in delight..."

Revelation 6:7-8

2009-12-27T16:17:00.000-05:00

When the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, "Come!" I looked and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.

Mark 8:24

2009-12-27T15:26:00.000-05:00

He spit in his eyes, put his hands on him and asked him, "Do you see anything?" He looked up and said, "I see men, as trees, walking."

Genesis 3:17, 18

2009-12-27T15:20:00.000-05:00

"Cursed be the ground because of you! In toil shall you eat its yield all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to you, as you eat of the plants of the field."

Deuteronomy 26:5

2009-12-27T15:12:00.000-05:00

"You shall make this response before the Lord:
A wandering Aramean was my ancestor."

The Second Coming

2009-12-24T14:52:00.000-05:00

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity. Surely so
revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

William Butler Yeats

Ascension

2009-12-19T16:24:00.003-05:00

"Stretching Himself as if again,
through downpress of dust
upward, soil giving way
to thread of white, that reaches
for daylight, to open as green
leaf that it is . . . "

Denise Levertov

Via Negativa

2009-12-19T16:20:00.002-05:00

"Why no! I never thought other than
That God is that great absence
In our lives, the empty silence
Within..."

R. S. Thomas

On Belief of the Physical Resurrection of Jesus

2009-12-19T16:18:00.003-05:00

"It is for all
‘literalists of the imagination,’
poets or not,
that miracle is possible,
possible and essential...."

Denise Levertov

Hast Thou No Scar?

2009-12-19T16:15:00.003-05:00

"Hast thou no scar?
No hidden scar on hand and foot, or side, or hand?..."

Amy Carmichael

John 1:14

2009-12-19T16:12:00.003-05:00

"This page will be no less a riddle
than those of My holy books
or those others repeated by ignorant mouths
believing them the handiwork of a man,
not the Spirit’s dark mirrors...."

Jorge Luis Borges

Facing It

2009-12-19T16:09:00.003-05:00

"Who could declare your death, standing
obedient as Stylites, empty as death's head
moving gently as the world's
majestic sun into light?..."

Daniel Berrigan

Arc of the Lilly

2009-12-19T16:06:00.000-05:00

"The movements of the Madonna-
moment of maternity,
passion of the Pieta
are the same stance...."

Loretta Watts

Judas

2009-12-19T16:04:00.002-05:00

"Always I lay upon the brink of love,
Impotent, waiting till the waters stirred,
And no one healed my weakness with a word..."

Vassar Miller

The Twelve

2009-12-19T16:01:00.002-05:00

"There by some wrinkled stones round a leafless tree
With beards askew, their eyes dull and wild
Twelve ragged men, the council of charity
Wandering the face of the earth a fatherless child..."

Allen Tate

Luke XXIII

2009-12-19T15:58:00.002-05:00

"Gentile or Jew or simply a man
Whose face has been lost in time,
We shall not save the silent
Letters of his name from oblivion..."

Jorge Luis Borges

His Savior's Words Going to the Cross

2009-12-19T15:55:00.002-05:00

"Have, have ye no regard, all ye
Who pass this way, to pity me,
Who am a man of misery!..."

Robert Herrick

Good Friday

2009-12-19T15:52:00.002-05:00

"Am I a stone and not a sheep
That I can stand, O Christ, beneath thy Cross,
To number drop by drop thy blood’s slow loss,
And yet not weep?..."

Christina Georgina Rossetti

Finally, One Arrives

2009-12-19T15:50:00.002-05:00

"Finally, one arrives at the place
Of the skull because there is nowhere
Else to go. And there before the face
Of bone one pauses to despair...."

Andrew Landsdown

The Rule

2009-12-19T15:34:00.003-05:00

"The oil for extreme unction must be blessed
On Maundy Thursday, so the rule has ruled,
And by the bishop of the diocese..."

Richard Wilbur

The Question

2009-12-19T15:31:00.003-05:00

"I saw the Son of God go by
Crowned with the crown of Thorn.
‘Was It not finished, Lord?’ I said,
‘And all the anguish borne?’..."

Rachel Annand Taylor

Calvary

2009-12-19T15:28:00.004-05:00

"Friendless and faint, with martyred steps and slow,
Faint for the flesh, but for the spirit free,
Stung by the mob that came to see the show,
The Master toiled along to Calvary..."

Edward Arlington Robinson

African Easter Good Frday

2009-12-19T15:20:00.005-05:00

"I am not your God
If you have not denied me once, twice,
If I have not heard you complaining,
Or doubting my existence..."

Abioseh Nico

The Arrest

2009-12-19T15:17:00.001-05:00

The Trial

2009-12-19T15:16:00.003-05:00

Pontius Pilate

2009-12-19T15:07:00.004-05:00

"The crowd assembled. I listened to its power
measuring his weakness. As I watched
from the pavement we were each alone..."

Neil Azevedo

In All Ages

2009-12-19T15:01:00.002-05:00

"In all ages, always, everywhere,
and everywhere
It repeats itself, that cruel dream—
The inexplicable kiss of Judas..."

Yuliya Drunina

Often Have I Tried to Follow You

2009-12-19T14:57:00.003-05:00

"Often have I tried to follow you, my life
Along familiar paths your mercy shows
But always, but always your several foes
Have seized me by the sheet, my strength borne off..."

Jean De La Ceppède

Pilate's Headquarters

2009-12-19T14:54:00.003-05:00

"Meanwhile the priests, who want to prove to Rome
How deeply they are religious one and all
For fear of taint before the Paschal lamb
Is eaten, stay outside the judgment hall...."

Jean De La Ceppède

Found of Them That Sought Him Not

2009-12-19T14:37:00.007-05:00

"I will arise and to my Father go;
This very hour the journey is begun."

John Charles Earle

Why Wonder That He Doffed His Garments

2009-12-19T14:35:00.003-05:00

"Why wonder that he doffed his garments willingly,
Who had unclothed himself of heavenly majesty?"

Jacobus Revius

The Last Supper

2009-12-19T14:29:00.003-05:00

"They are assembled, astounded, bewildered,
round him who, like a sage centered at last,
withdraws from those to whom he once belonged
and flows beyond them as some foreigner...."

Rainer Maria Rilke

A Calvary Path

2009-12-19T14:25:00.003-05:00

"Where the stone steps
falter and come to an end
but the hillside rises
yet more steeply..."

Denise Levertov

The Convert

2009-12-19T14:22:00.003-05:00

"After one moment when I bowed my head
And the whole world turned over and came upright..."

G. K. Chesterton

Lazarus

2009-12-19T14:17:00.003-05:00

"He sat up slowly,
and around his left side
all his long life's muscles ached..."

Agnes Nemes Nagy

Jesus with the Daughter of Jairus

2009-12-19T14:13:00.004-05:00

"Child—child! Your narrow cheeks are white
which once a mother’s love caressed
and the red of youth once blessed...."

Ernst Ludwig Schellenberg

In the Wilderness

2009-12-19T14:05:00.002-05:00

"I sit alone on the rocks trying to prepare
a man to teach what the laws of life are...."

James Simmons

Mother of Consolation

2009-12-19T13:59:00.002-05:00

"What you look hard at looks back hard at you.
As in this icon, where the child with the deer-
brown eyes gazes at something just beyond
your view...."

Paul Mariani

Shadow of the Father

2009-12-19T13:51:00.003-05:00

"How shall I approach you, Joseph, you, the shadow
of the father? The stories vary. But who
were you really?..."

Paul Mariani

A Eucharistic Hymn to the Virgin Mary

2009-12-19T13:46:00.002-05:00

"Mother of my Jesus,
Mother of God so great,
tell me of him,
of God so small and sweet...."

Advent Saturday With Catrina

2009-12-19T13:34:00.003-05:00

"Hanging on beside you as the crosstown bus
lurches its laden way between the wintered hills
of Central Park, my sidelong glance snags
on a prospect never caught before...."

J. Barrie Shepherd

Advent Visitation

2009-12-19T13:30:00.002-05:00

"Even from the cabin window I sense the wind's
contagion begin to infect the rags of leaves..."

Lucy Shaw

Incarnation

2009-12-19T13:24:00.003-05:00

"Now that the time had come
when it would be good
to ransom the bride
of that law
which Moses had given her...."

St. John of the Cross

Hope

2009-12-19T13:13:00.001-05:00

"Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul..."

Emily Dickinson

A Curse on Herod

2009-12-19T13:08:00.004-05:00

"May you live forever. In that eternity
may birdcries from the playground ring in your ear
incessantly...."

Amy Witting

The Centurian

2009-12-19T13:02:00.002-05:00

"I've slaughtered babies all day long,
near Bethlehem. But why?..."

William Baer

We Know the Scene

2009-12-19T11:38:00.001-05:00

"We know the scene: the room, variously furnished,
almost always a lectern, a book, always
the tall lily...."

Denise Levertov

The Three Kings

2009-12-18T15:40:00.004-05:00

"Where do we go from here?
We left our country,
Bore gifts,
Followed a star..."

Muriel Spark

Journey of the Magi

2009-12-18T15:34:00.005-05:00

“A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey..."

T.S. Eliot

A Song For Simeon

2009-12-18T15:32:00.003-05:00

"Lord, the Roman hyacinths are blooming in bowls and
The winter sun creeps by the snow hills..."

T. S. Eliot

25.XII.1993

2009-12-18T15:29:00.003-05:00

"For a miracle, take one shepherd’s sheepskin,
throw
In a pinch of now, a grain of long ago..."

Joseph Brodsky

John 1:14

2009-12-18T15:26:00.001-05:00

"The oriental histories tell a tale
Of a bored king in ancient times who..."

Jorge Luis Borges

To The Infant Martyrs

2009-12-18T15:19:00.003-05:00

"Go smiling souls, your new built cages break,
In heaven you’ll learn to sing ere here to speak..."

Richard Crenshaw

Herod's Suspicions

2009-12-18T15:12:00.003-05:00

"Why art thou troubled, Herod? What vain fear
Thy blood-revolving breast to rage doth move?..."

Richard Crenshaw

The Magi

2009-12-18T15:08:00.001-05:00

"Now as at all times I can see in the mind’s eye,
In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale
unsatisfied ones..."

William Butler Yeats

Magnificat

2009-12-18T15:02:00.001-05:00

"Her soul opened, but slowly,
a late bloom of thunder stirring
at the edge of a rainstorm..."

Carol Muske

Could I Know?

2009-12-18T14:58:00.003-05:00

"Could I know that they were so important?
Just the two..."

Amos Russell Wells

(The Innkeeper in the Nativity story)

Born of Mary

2009-12-18T12:07:00.003-05:00

"Enough for him whom angels
Fall down before,..."

Christina Georgina Rossetti