Hold Fast

O God, who made the mountains firm,
the earth not to be moved,
when we are shaken by the storm,
oh, shelter us in you.

The mountains bow to winds above;
the hills wear down at last.
Help us to hold fast to the love
that always holds us fast.

The seas that held beneath your feet
or stood as walls of waves,
are rising up now, swift and steep,
to carry us away.

Upon their peaks or in their depths
or swallowed by the whale:
Wherever we shall find ourselves,
your love will find us there.

What mother could forsake her child
or father could forget?
But if they did, our hopes, our lives,
would be in your hands yet.

Though we may walk through fire and flood,
through want and pain and fear,
oh, let us hold fast to your love
and find you ever near!

Mount Everest, Earth’s highest mountain By I, Luca Galuzzi, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1810976

Lamb of God

When Christ came as high priest
of the good things that have come to be,
passing through the greater and more perfect tabernacle
not made by hands, that is, not belonging to this creation,
he entered once for all into the sanctuary,
not with the blood of goats and calves
but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.
—Hebrews 9:11-15

God, who made in the beginning
light and dark, and earth set spinning,
in the center set a tree.
Not for punishment of sinning
was the fruit of it forbidden,
but to wait a greater feast.

Foolish, though, in our impatience,
we reached out to take and taste it:
We were cast out into dust,
from abundance to abasement,
ground that drank the blood of Abel.
Good and evil broke on us.

We could not reclaim the garden,
but there came with us a promise:
Outcast we would not remain.
So we filled the earth with altars,
seeking mervcy with our offerings,
healing for our sin and Cain's.

Lambs and goats: Their blood was useless,
though by gallons we bestrewed it,
soaked again the bloodstained ground.
Life poured out for life's renewing:
Something more than us must do it.
Mercy must itself pour down.

So he came, the Word incarnate,
God-with-us in breath and heartbeat,
bread of heaven as our feast.
Earth he walked becomes an altar;
he himself for us he offers.
Christ becomes our great high priest.

Now he enters, once forever
into that eternal temple,
mercy running o'er the brim.
Not with blood of bulls of heifers
but his own, for our redemption.
Healed at last, we enter in. Amen. Alleluia.

Behold! The Lamb of God, by Henry Ossawa Tanner. This painting dates to Tanner’s student era in Paris, and appears to be a student copy of Anguish by Schenk. – https://www.artnet.com/artists/henry-ossawa-tanner/4, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=132791876

Visitation

The fountain where salvation springs
that death could not destroy:
From you, the flood shall topple kings
and mighty ones despoil.
The poor shall taste the feast he brings:
the grain, the wine, the oil,
but in your heart yet keep these things
and pour them out in joy.

Because of you, then, blest are we
on whom those waters spilled:
Christ Jesus shall the hungry feed
and empty he shall fill.
Now blest are those who have not seen
but who believe him still,
and blest are you who have believed
the Word would be fulfilled.

For now the desert runs with streams
transforming us within,
and we can rest in Christ our peace,
his pastures cool and dim.
So pray for us, that we might see
God-with-us, bone and skin,
and pray, O Mother—let it be!—
that we shall be like him!

Manuscript Illumination with the Visitation in an Initial D, from a Choir Book. Art forgery attributed to “the Spanish Forger” – https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/467415, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=59007587

Confirmation

Descend, O Spirit: Touch our minds;
create our thoughts anew
always to seek the just and right,
true goodness to pursue.
As you are blowing where you will,
so let us wander, too,
and seek out every space you fill
and ever follow you.

Descend, O Spirit: Touch our hearts;
be rooted in our souls
to heal each weary, wounded part
and make the broken whole.
And as you played upon the waves,
let us play in the world
creating messages of grace
that show your love unfurled.

Descend, O Spirit: Touch our hands
and put your strength in us
to labor for our Savior's plans,
the kingdom of his love.
And as you speak in many tongues
that every land has heard,
so let us join your endless song
in action and in word.

Detail from a fresco at the Karlskirche in Vienna By Johann Michael Rottmayr – selfmade by User:Manfreeed, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9396330

Cries

When justice streams from heaven, will it burn
or drown the world as in a second flood?
Will we have time to run for cover first?
The mountains melt like wax before the Lord,

whose truth shall spring up from the tired ground,
obliterating what we thought was safe.
Was it on rock or sand we built the house?
He comes, he comes, the reckoner of days.

For he has heard the wailing of the poor—
Weep then, you rich, at your impending doom.
He comes to give us each our sure reward,
and how can earth not quake when heaven stoops?

Yet all these things will pass and silence fall,
and every knee shall bend before his might,
but ere he judges, God will stoop still more
to mourn the passing of each blameless light.

Unshroud the dead; let him see every face,
and tremble, heaven, as he sees who died.
Roll back the stones, disturbing every grave,
and let him see their hands, their feet, their sides.

O angels, turn your faces; do not look.
O six-winged seraphs, hide your flaming eyes.
Earth would dissolve in fire if it could,
not to be there when its creator cries.

By Józef Chełmoński – http://www.pinakoteka.zascianek.pl, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=292402

Trinity

Unfathomed depths we cannot sound
where deep calls out to deep,
within you only am I found
if you are found in me.

As if my little could contain
the one who holds the world—
and yet, O welcome one, remain.
You promised it of old.

Then if I search my shallowness,
you meet me in my heart,
and if I venture to your depths
I find myself, O God.

My being: Savior, take and clasp,
and I would take you so,
not as a treasure I can grasp
or something I could know,

but as you are, a mystery
known only to yourself.
Known, knowing, knower: trinity
by which I know myself.

Then dwell in me, O triune one,
and I will dwell in you.
A pas de deux, the kingdom come,
as you make all things new.

Renaissance painting by Jerónimo Cosida depicting Jesus as a triple deity Inner text: The Father is God; the Son is God; the Holy Spirit is God By Creator:Jerónimo Cosida – Own work, photograph by Revolware, 2008, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4174824

Leviathan

You made Leviathan to play with,
delighting in the crushing depths,
and in his mass you placed your Spirit,
to fountain up with every breath.

The birds that fly beyond the sunrise
can never migrate from your sight.
Before the hatchling's feeble first tries
you plot the movements of its flight.

And if a sparrow falls from heaven
you mark the place where it goes down,
for you who numbered every feather
were with it in the air and ground.

Then when I turn and flee you headlong
you wait for me at journey's end.
Should I refuse your call and sending
you are beside me as I stand.

So Jonah found you in the gullet
and in the bowels of the whale.
You came up with him, wrack and vomit,
in the bright sunlight on the shale.

Praise God who made the whales and fishes,
who made the sparrows and the hawks.
Praise God who made me as he wishes,
my fins and feathers, starts and balks.

The Pistrix, the Sea Monster that swallows Jonah By Sergioizzo – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57892841

Enemies

For Pentecost:

From the thistles east of Eden
where our sorrow soaked the ground,
where the stones cried out in grieving
Cain had struck his brother down,
we were always locked in combat,
always at each other's throats
'til a falling flame changed all that,
'til it touched us and we spoke.

From the rising heights of Babel
to the walls fo Jericho
we have lived each day a battle,
turned our swords against a foe.
'Til a rushing wind from elsewhere
whispered in our hearts a word,
'til it turned our swords to plowshares,
'til it touched us and we heard.

We are enemies and others;
we are Parthians and Medes;
we are killers of our brothers,
but the truth will make us free
when it fills us with one Spirit,
sings one song in every tongue,
when it speaks, when we can hear it,
then the Word will make us one.

Tower of Babel by M. C. Escher. Woodcut, 1928. By M. C. Escher – https://arthive.com/escher/works/200099~Tower_of_Babel, PD-US, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8162683

Harvest

They came to Capernaum and, once inside the house,
he began to ask them,
“What were you arguing about on the way?”
But they remained silent.
For they had been discussing among themselves on the way
who was the greatest.
Then he sat down, called the Twelve, and said to them,
“If anyone wishes to be first,
he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.”
Taking a child, he placed it in their midst,
and putting his arms around it, he said to them,
“Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me;
and whoever receives me,
receives not me but the One who sent me.”
—Mark 9:30-37

Those who receive the seed receive the harvest,
and with the sowing enter in the feast.
Those who receive the Son receive the Father;
Christ gives to them the Spirit of his peace.

Who plants the acorn will receive the forest
and all the birds that nestle in its shade.
Within the seed there lives the morning chorus,
and with it all the music ever made.

Then if you would receive the risen savior,
receive the child he sends you, in his name,
and as a child receives a parent's caring,
you have no need but in his arms to stay.

For all the world's great love is in your loving,
and each beloved bears the face of God.
Your every good work brings the kingdom coming,
each seed a harvest hidden in the sod.

Acorn By Alias 0591 from the Netherlands – Acorn, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74284721

Tongues

For Pentecost:

As a body is one though it has many parts,
and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body,
so also Christ.
For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body,
whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons,
and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.
—1 Corinthians 12:12-13

There is no language in the world
where it cannot be said,
no speech in which it can't be heard:
the hope beyond our death.
In every tongue we find the words,
in everyone the breath.
In all of them, Christ came to serve
and share the broken bread.

There is no barrier in him
to Parthian or Mede;
no man or woman's light is dimmed;
in him, all slaves are freed.
The body might deny its limbs,
but he has washed those feet
and poured himself out for our sins
who bids us sit and eat.

As one we come before him now
with all our grace and fault,
as one bring every gift and doubt
in answer to his call.
Our shepherd will not cast us out
when he is all in all,
who sends the Spirit in its hour
as tongues of fire fall.

The Pentecost depicted in a 14th-century Missal By Unknown author – National Library of Wales, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44768060