#creatureliness

[akacatholicism]

“Lord, dost thou wash my feet?”

2nd Point. St. Peter, surprised at the humility of his master, is seized with a holy fear. Considering his own nothingness, and the majesty of the Son of God, he exclaims - “Lord, dost thou wash my feet?” Thou who art God, and I who am nothing - thou who art the Holy of Holies, and I who am a sinner. What should a Christian say when he comes forth from the laver of penance where the Son of God effaces the stains of our souls in these three precious streams. Can he refuse him the tears of gratitude in return as long as he lives? 

- Jacques Nouet, Meditations on the life and passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ: for every day of the year: Septuagesima Tuesday.

[ukdamo]

The Monks of St. John’s File in for Prayer

Kilian McDonnell

In we shuffle, hooded amplitudes, scapulared brooms, a stray earring, skin-heads and flowing locks, blind in one eye, hooked-nosed, handsome as a prince (and knows it), a five-thumbed organist, an acolyte who sings in quarter tones, one slightly swollen keeper of the bees, the carpenter minus a finger here and there, our pre-senile writing deathless verse, a stranded sailor, a Cassian scholar, the artist suffering the visually illiterate and indignities unnamed, two determined liturgists. In a word, eager purity and weary virtue. Last of all, the Lord Abbot, early old (shepherding the saints is like herding cats). These chariots and steeds of Israel make a black progress into church. A rumble of monks bows low and offers praise to the High God of Gods who is faithful forever.

[ukdamo]

Breath

Philip Levine

Who hears the humming of rocks at great height, the long steady drone of granite holding together, the strumming of obsidian to itself? I go among the stones stooping and pecking like a sparrow, imagining the glacier’s final push resounding still. In a freezing mountain stream, my hand opens scratched and raw and flutters strangely, more like an animal or wild blossom in wind than any part of me. Great fields of stone stretching away under a slate sky, their single flower the flower of my right hand. Last night the fire died into itself black stick by stick and the dark came out of my eyes flooding everything. I slept alone and dreamed of you in an old house back home among your country people, among the dead, not any living one besides yourself. I woke scared by the gasping of a wild one, scared by my own breath, and slowly calmed remembering your weight beside me all these years, and here and there an eye of stone gleamed with the warm light of an absent star. Today in this high clear room of the world, I squat to the life of rocks jewelled in the stream or whispering like shards. What fears are still held locked in the veins till the last fire, and who will calm us then under a gold sky that will be all of earth? Two miles below on the burning summer plains, you go about your life one more day. I give you almond blossoms for your hair, your hair that will be white, I give the world my worn-out breath on an old tune, I give it all I have and take it back again.

[ukdamo]

Written on Top of Ben Nevis

John Keats

Read me a lesson, Muse, and speak it loud Upon the top of Nevis, blind in mist! I look into the chasms, and a shroud Vapurous doth hide them - just so much I wist Mankind do know of hell; I look o'erhead, And there is sullen mist, - even so much Mankind can tell of heaven; mist is spread Before the earth, beneath me, - even such, Even so vague is man's sight of himself! Here are the craggy stones beneath my feet, - Thus much I know that, a poor witless elf, I tread on them, - that all my eye doth meet Is mist and crag, not only on this height, But in the world of thought and mental might!

[ukdamo]

Horus

James Daniel Gabriel

There is a shadow crouching just behind me In a well conditioned soldiers stance There is a conflict deep within me Feeding on the pound of flesh I paid to just repent

I get inspired and I understand these are not just lyrics I get on my high horse and want to annihilate all their little temples And altars Precious lambs And altars Traitors, concubines, leeches, daughters don’t play inside the path of your own bandwagons

There is a white dot at the centre of my vision It’s a well conditioned warriors response To a conflict started way before me Thirsty for the tears of flesh I shaved away for tithes

I first prayed and underwent the impositions of being a poet I jumped on my machine gun post and watched the natives go to mass And their altars Precious sheep All those altars Preachers, masons, widows, slaughtered Don’t tempt the Gods when you serve the propaganda

First comes the cut Then the scab Then the itch Then the scar Then the itch Then the understanding You have to die a thousand deaths- before you see your energy never dies.

Its up to you Its Heaven Now the itch Its all come down to you In purgatorial never mind It itches Now the understanding You have to take your time to die enough since you were never mortal..

[realityhop]

ahh the creature we call a human