March 29, 2021 Good afternoon, (This week I will offer prayers/poems for our journey to the cross.)
Mary Oliver is slowly becoming a favourite poet of mine. She died in 2019, I bought a big book of her poems after she had passed away.
The Jesuits have a long tradition of using their imaginations with Scripture. With this poem , I see it in that tradition. You can think of the pallbearers for the son of the widow of Nain, or the stretcher bearers for the man who could not walk, or the camel custodians of the Wise Men from the East, or the siblings of Jesus of Nazareth, or the moneylenders whose tables were overturned, or the soldiers who beat Jesus, and finally the table servers for the Last Supper. Enjoy the poem about a donkey. The Poet thinks about the donkey
On the outskirts of Jerusalem the donkey waited. Not especially brave, or filled with understanding, he stood and waited.How horses, turned out into the meadow, leap with delight! How doves, released from their cages, clatter away, splashed with sunlight.But the donkey, tied to a tree as usual, waited. Then he let himself be led away. Then he let the stranger mount.Never had he seen such crowds! And I wonder if he at all imagined what was to happen. Still, he was what he had always been: small, dark, obedient.I hope, finally, he felt brave. I hope, finally, he loved the man who rode so lightly upon him, as he lifted one dusty hoof and stepped, as he had to, forward. MARY OLIVER ( 1935-2019 )
Fred
Soaring like Vultures lifted up by unseen Hands Trust, silent enters my fears Monica Pieper Landoni 2021
