Collect

Collect for the Fourth Sunday after Trinity

O God, the protector of all that trust in thee, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: increase and multiply upon us thy mercy; that, thou being our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we finally lose not the things eternal; grant this, O heavenly Father, for the sake of Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

Saturday, May 19, 2018

Whitsunday Eve

Whitsunday Eve: spirits, awake;
The hells beneath their masters shake;
For unmade Love-in-Light descends
On those their Maker called his friends,
To laurel them with stranger fire
Than priest or Levite could ensire.
From Babylon by riven tongue
Across the earth all men were flung
By the one Word, to curb their pride:
Now Zion meets a changing tide,
A living water-wave of speech,
Of strangers singing, each to each,
In words that only angels knew
Until these minds, uplifted, flew
On silver Dove-wings. Lips of gold
(As Hebrew prophets darkly told,
Before they knew or heard the laud
Goyim would offer to their God)
Proclaim the holy, trinal Breath,
He who woke Lazarus from death
At the Word of the Father: now
He makes the whole creation bow,
Entering in a lovelier light
Than yet had graced man's ghostly sight.
The rushing fire-wind-water sound
Makes all the infant Church resound;
Who once on Sinai fell with fear
Rains down in power and glory here --
Our Lord the Spirit, sacrament
Of God's own being. Heaven is rent
With cries of pure seraphic joy
That hell has no power to destroy;
For lo, the Church receives her birth
And call, to be upon the earth
Her Savior's Body, he her soul,
That his life may suffuse the whole
Creation by her agency;
For this was his great mystery,
His being we should share by grace
For that he shared our fleshly race;
His Spirit this great secret plumbs
And triumphs that his kingdom comes.

3 comments:

  1. Absolutely wonderful. Have you published any poetry?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you. And yes: my second book, published a little over a year ago now, was a volume of poetry, "Wells of Night." https://www.amazon.com/Wells-Night-collection-Gabriel-Blanchard/dp/1943383294/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1526929087&sr=8-8&keywords=wells+of+night

      Delete
  2. Lovely! Though Our Lady or Sister the Spirit would be more accurate as Jesus who spoke Aramaic or Hebrew always called Her Ruach and She. Which was tragically and anti Semitically hidden by failed translation as Greek neuter Pneuma then Latin masculine Spiritus rather than the feminine Psyche and Anima or Energeia in both languages.

    ReplyDelete