Prophets

Malachi

 Send him, oh Lord; send us your promised one
 though he should burn us like the fuller's lye;
 we need his fire to melt and purify
 and turn the father's heart back to his son,
 to bend the son's heart to his father's love
 and priestly hearts to pleasing sacrifice.
 Refine this world with flames of paradise;
 rebuild the Eden from which once you drove
 our disobedient forebears to the waste.
 Renew the barren ground that was their doom;
 send him whose toil alone can make it bloom,
 whose sweat and tears are feasts of sweetest taste.
           Remake us in his crucible to be
           a people who can look on you and see. 
By Franciszek Żmurko – http://www.wgb.org, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4404690
Illustration of the coming of God’s Messenger in [Malachi] 3:1
 Amos

 For three crimes, Lord, and then for four,
 you strike no evil down.
 How then for evils more and more,
 a flood where faith has drowned?
 What recompense have you in store
 for those who fix the pound
 to cheat the weak and buy the poor?
 Look over their accounts!
  
 You see them, Lord, as well as hear
 the sins that heav'nward cry!
 You bid me speak these words of fear;  
 call them to rectify.
 They turn from me back to their cheer
 and raise their glasses high
 to toast the profits of a year
 they think escaped your eye.
 
 What will you do, oh Lord, and when?
 When will you make things right?
 Send justice down to walk with men,
 though it turn noon to night!
 Or kill the firstborn once again
 and armies put to flight.
 Bring justice, Lord, as you did then
 to all within your sight! 

Solomon & Candace

 Solomon

 The mighty trees of Lebanon,
 the gold of Tarshish and Ophir,
 the gifts of Candace: all have gone
 to build your house of glory here.
 I stare, and feel my heart as stone,
 grown stiff and frozen now in fear.
 
 Shall God, who makes the sky his throne
 come down in wood and stone to dwell?
 How could this hovel be his home,
 or feeble tongue his coming tell?
 Unless in mercy--that alone!--
 he comes that awe and fear to quell.
  
 My father spoke of endless lines,
 of sons and kings in days to come.
 Then this poor gift do not despise,
 but keep your promise to your son:
 if we your ordinances prize,
 to rule until all days are done.
  
 And if it please you, Lord and God
 who need no home in any space,
 come down to all beneath your rod
 and make your dwelling in this place.
 These jewels I count as poorest sod
 could I but once look on your face. 
By A. Davey from Where I Live Now: Pacific Northwest – The Queen of ShebaUploaded by Elitre, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21918820
17th-century AD painting of the Queen of Sheba from a church in Lalibela, Ethiopia and now in the National Museum of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa
 Candace

 I heard the wonders far away
 and hastened here to see
 all wisdom's riches on display
 and bring some back with me.
       Say, say:
      what shall it be?
      Bright day
      and light for me?
 Or will the brilliance fade away
 beneath near scrutiny?
  
 No, no, for all I heard held good,
 and all was wonderful:
 a feast of light as well as food
 I cannot chronicle.
      Now should
      my heart be full:
      I stood
      in wisdom's hall!
 But home again I sit and brood
 and feel a further pull.
 
  There is another, greater king
 (this king's own word is proof),
 and I must to him homage bring
 and bid him show me sooth.
      I'll cling
      to wisdom's fruit
      and sing
      beneath his foot
 and set the whole world echoing
 with endless ringing truth. 

David & Bathsheba

David
 
 My son: the folk proclaimed him king,
 with loud hosannas made their cry
 and all their oaths they did him bring--
 and who knows more than you or I
 how little worthy are such things
 that change as fast as blink an eye?
 Hung on a tree and struggling,
 pierced through the side, did my son die.
 
 O Lord, my God, how great your name,
 the might by which you make it known.
 The nations cower in their shame
 that dared to move against your own.
 No matter, Lord, how deep my pain,
 I kneel before the things you've shown
 and hold what prophecies proclaim:
 My son will sit upon my throne.
  
 I have more sons, but none to me
 as beautiful as Absalom.
 I have more wives and sons-to-be;
 I have all things excepting balm
 to soothe a wound that none can see.
 Accept then, Lord, this wailing psalm:
 With my son dying on a tree,
 how can his endless kingdom come? 
By Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov – http://img0.liveinternet.ru/images/attach/c/0/35/965/35965292_Ivanov_Virsaviya_akva_GTG.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9087545
Bathsheba

 The silent house, the still heat of the day,
 the rooftop safety, free from prying eyes:
 All these were false, but then I had no way
 to know the sure from mere safe-seeming lies.
  
 I learned it soon: the secret passages,
 the servants' downcast eyes, the hidden rooms
 softened with scented smoke and tapestries
 where flesh awhile forgets it's meant for tombs,
 
 the whispered messages and subterfuge,
 the funeral and the wedding, feast on feast,
 the child, the interest waning, kohl and rouge
 to see that he would keep one vow, at least,
  
 and set our son securely on this throne.
 To know, at last, a truth that will not fade
 (as beauty and his love left me alone):
 It is enough, the gift for which I prayed. 

Zechariah & Elizabeth

Yesterday, we had John the Baptist in the Gospel again. As he waited for the Savior, so his parents had waited for him. Here they are:

 Zechariah 

 I write these words because I have no speech;
 I have no speech because I spoke my scorn.
 And so the Lord requites us, each for each:
 a sin with loss, a long night with new morn.
  
 I would have been a fool to take his word,
 so now I am ten thousand times a fool
 to doubt a messenger sent by the Lord,
 although the hope he held out then seemed cruel.
  
 I am an old, old man, as Abraham
 was old when Sarah laughed at promises
 that she should bear a son.  It seemed a sham
 to mock a husband for his weaknesses.
 
 As God will not be mocked, so mocks he not,
 and I in deadly earnest keep my peace
 because I told his angel he'd forgot
 the covenants that promised us increase:
 
 a righteous man with arrows for his bow,
 an olive flourishing inside the home.
 What had my great sin been, I longed to know.
 But now a hope as sweet as honeycomb
 
 o'erflows its savor through my life and limbs.
 The Lord did not forget, though he delayed.
 A child is coming, and I wait for him;
 the long night wavers, and I wait for day. 

After this time his wife Elizabeth conceived, and she went into seclusion for five months, saying, “So has the Lord done for me at a time when he has seen fit to take away my disgrace before others.”

Luke 1: 24-25
 Not all my days of sacrifice,
 my nights of whispered prayer,
 my tears and curses--none suffice
 to make me fit to bear.
 Yet God at last has bent his eyes
 on me in my despair
 and given me this paradise
 beyond any compare.
 
 For all the days of all my years,
 I've walked the world about
 upheld by faith beyond all fears,
 borne down within by doubt.
 As sons and daughters blessed my peers,
 they cast me further out,
 'til waters rose and drowned in tears
 my barren years of drought.
 
 And now a green shoot grows in me
 where all had desert been.
 A saving ark rides on the sea
 and bears a life within.
 Though I have walked at large and free,
 my heart was chained herein,
 so I withdraw to wait and see
 what God shall make begin. 
By Clarence Eugene Woodman; The Catholic Publication Society – This file has been extracted from another file: Manualofprayersf00cath.djvu, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=53598163

Moses & Miriam

Two more figures from the Old Testament, looking beyond their own lifetimes to promises we’re all waiting for.

Moses

  It is enough, oh Lord, enough to look,
  enough to scale a height and see a dream,
  enough for that young shepherd that you took,
  that angry prince, not to be what he'd been.
  Enough to see the sea stand up and part
  and make dry land where fish had held their sway,
  or, in the desert, streams from dry stone start,
  and wand'ring fires that made the night as day.
            You have shown me so much, I need no more
            to leave this life behind and be content,
            yet there is one thing I still want to see,
            one promise, Lord, that you have left in store:
            the face I've glimpsed within the meeting tent,
            the land where he will reign eternally. 
By Sailko – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49066369
Yahweh (God) shows Moses the Promised Land (Frans Pourbus the Elder, c. 1565–80)
 Miriam

 There is another sea to cross,
 another song to sing
 beyond the desert years of loss
 and all the griefs they bring,
 one wave where we must still be tossed,
 while to hope's spar we cling.
 Alleluia!
 
 One Egypt lost, another gained:
 One sea keeps them apart.
 One Pharaoh drowned, another reigned
 over us from the start.
 One freedom won, ourselves we chained
 with shackles in our heart.
 Alleluia!
  
 One final pasch shall set us free,
 one river yet of blood
 shall usher in a jubilee
 when cresting in its flood.
 Among its flotsam and debris
 will bloom a single bud.
 Alleluia!
  
 And from that stem, a tide of green
 the desert shall transform.
 From these floodwaters, dry and clean
 we rise again, reborn,
 and take in hand the tambourine
 and harp, and drum, and horn.
 Alleluia! 
By Tarnovo literary and art school – Scan: Atanas Boschkov, Julian Tomanov (Aufnahmen): Die bulgarische Malerei : von den Anfängen bis zum 19. Jahrhundert, Recklinghausen : Bongers, 1969, ISBN 3-7647-2060-3, S.159, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3326622

The Matriarchs

The ancestresses of Jesus don’t get much notice in the Jesse Trees I’ve seen. But you can’t have Isaac without Sarah, or Jacob without Rebecca. You cannot have salvation history without women. So here are some of them, waiting for the Lord. Some from the Old Testament:

  All: Our children, lost or sent away
to soothe a human wrath,
are waiting. Where? We cannot say,
but we would take that path
to where it meets the farthest day.
Our lives of aftermath:
let them rewind, oh Lord, we pray
with all the strength we have.

Sarah: Let me find Isaac, hands unbound,
and Hagar left alone.
The sleepless nights in her I found--
but you made me atone:
my only child with tinder crowned,
laid on the altar stone,
altered by time on holy ground--
God, give me back my own!

Rebecca: My darling Jacob set away;
my Esau left as lord,
and all the while I had to pay
for my part in the fraud.
I pulled the strings and had my way
and lost what I had sought:
my loves. And now I seek the day
we are together brought.

Leah: By husband hated, by sons loved,
I reveled in the pain
my sister steeped in, yet I grieved
with every son I gained.
I was by father's sin betrothed;
my husband's rage, my shame.
My sons for my sake killers proved:
Oh, God, remove our blame!

Rachel: The shepherd of the spotted flock
I wed in my delight,
but maculate I found in shock
the actors in our plight.
My sister, husband, and--my God--
myself: all, in my sight,
by grief and sin both marred and marked.
Oh, please, Lord, set us right!

All: Our children burdened by our sin,
our lineage disgraced:
At nightfall, weeping entered in,
and tears still stain our face.
How long, oh Lord? Look down again;
raise up what we've abased.
Give joy for all our days of pain;
for all our faults, give grace.

And here are some from the New Testament: Mary and Martha After Sending For Jesus

  Mary: Martha, he'll come.
Martha: He must have heard by now,
unless the message went astray. It could.
We could send more; let's do that anyhow,
and know, at least, that we did all we should.
But still--
Mary: He'll come. You'll see.
Martha: I said, I know.
But if he doesn't, what will we do then?
If Lazarus--if he--if he should go--
But no. He won't. Jesus will come by then.
He will. Won't he?
Mary: He'll come.
Martha: I know. I know!
But why isn't our friend already here?
We sent that message to him days ago!
We've prayed and prayed, and he seems not to hear.
Where is he?
Mary: When his time has come, he'll come.
And we will greet him, even from the tomb.
By Солнцев Ф. – http://www.thg.ru/education/drevnosti_rossijskogo_gosudarstva/drevnosti_rossijskogo_gosudarstva_screenshots_5_1.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30408178

Mary

In the readings for today’s feast of the Immaculate Conception, we hear Mary assenting to God’s will, reversing Eve and Adam‘s first disobedience. The Incarnation turns a lot of things on their heads.

  I heard them singing David's songs
when I was just a little girl,
not knowing he was king,
but hearing something sweet and strong
among the trumpets all a-skirl
that made me want to sing.

I later learned of David's reign
and of the kingdom we have lost
beneath the Romans' rule.
I know we want a king again
(and some would say, at any cost)
and Israel's renewal.

But when the angel said I'd bear
a son to rule in David's place,
I didn't think of kings,
but heard instead the trumpets' blare
that set my joyous heart to race
and stirred the angel's wings.

With every day I swell and round
and wonder what new life shall start
and feel the time grow long.
I do not dream of thrones and crowns,
when I in silence hear my heart,
but hope for harps and songs.
By ErwinMeier – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=81717981
Fragment eines Einhornaltars im Domschatz des Erfurter Doms St. Marien

John the Baptist

John the Baptist appeared, preaching in the desert of Judea

and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”

It was of him that the prophet Isaiah had spoken when he said:

A voice of one crying out in the desert,

Prepare the way of the Lord,

make straight his paths.

John wore clothing made of camel’s hair

and had a leather belt around his waist.

His food was locusts and wild honey.

At that time Jerusalem, all Judea,

and the whole region around the Jordan

were going out to him

and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River

as they acknowledged their sins.

Matthew 3: 1-12
By Mathias Grünewald – The Yorck Project (2002) 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN: 3936122202., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=152341
 My days are fairly simple, Lord:
I wake and rise and scratch for food,
then stand and wait on Jordan's shore
until the come, my darling brood,
and one by one they brave the ford
(not bank to bank, but death to truth)
and over every face I pore
in search of him who comes from you.

Not one of them will meet my eyes.
You know, I think they think I'm mad,
or else they simply must despise
a mountebank in camel clad.
I don't care that they can't disguise
their deep discomfort with the odd;
I grab each one and seek my prize:
the glory of the Lamb of God.

I don't know how I'll know him, though,
unless somehow I feel again
that surge in me, as years ago
I leaped when Mother said, "Amen."
So when I see him, let me know:
this time I'll shout it to all men
(and women, too), "Get up and go!
The way is straight!" and run to him.

Isaac, On His Pyre

  The wood I carried crosswise on my back;
my father bore the fire and bore the knife,
but, "God will give the sacrifice we lack,"
he says, and binds my hands to take my life.
Oh, God, what will you give? I ask the sky,
the trees, the mountain, and the dancing flame.
A son, a son, as one they all reply,
but none of them is whispering my name.
What son, oh Lord? and roaring fills my ears--
not roaring, no, but bleating misery.
The knife hangs still, and I see (blurred by tears)
a ram's majestic horns caught in the tree.
I do not understand what I saw then,
but still I pray to see it once again.
By Caravaggio – scan, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15219747

Abraham

  My children like a night of stars
are rising as I set.
I am an old man, knit of scars;
they are untested yet,
but he who made both light and dark
made, too, their length and breadth.
He will not douse the catching spark
in silence and in death.

No matter how the long night falls
or what new storms may rise,
what sins may hold my sons in thrall,
what nations them despise,
they shall yet shine, both great and small,
shall yet hang in the skies.
Though cloud and dust obscure them all,
still shall they draw my eyes.

And after nightfall comes the dawn,
comes up the burning day
to shine where only night was known
and drive the shade away.
Then all the stars that ever shone
will shine within his rays.
And I will rise with them as one.
Rise swiftly, son, I pray!
By Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld – Der Literarische Satanist, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5469755

As I wrote these poems, imagining figures form long before Christ’s time longing for the Messiah, so many times I found those characters on the brink of their own deaths. We’re waiting, after all, for the coming of one whose appearance will mark the end of all things. We are waiting for our own deaths–and for what will come afterwards, whether by a second or by an aeon. We are waiting for something so far beyond ourselves–and yet so like ourselves–that death seems a prerequisite for such an unimaginable journey. So remember, thou art dust. And something wonderful is coming out of, and for, that dust.