Sunday 29 July 2012

Poem: Soteriologised and Soteriologising. Fr. Edward OP




Venus in Crescent  Moon

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: edward ...
To: Donald ....
Sent: Saturday, 28 July 2012, 14:48
Subject: Some more lines
Dear Father Donald, Here are some more lines. Perhaps you could give a copy t o Heather.
 Blessings from
fr Edward O.P.
Soteriologised and Soteriologising
The generalised scope of human life
is glorious and unwavering.
It is resumed in a dynamic godlikeness
in which the model's the human life
of the Incarnated Word,
providing the deifying substance throughout,
ending with an ascension into glory.
So with the bodies of Enoch [v. Gn 5,24, Sirach 44,16, Jude 1,14-15] and Elias,
whose lives like those of Jesus and Mary
ended with their Ascensions.
Of Enoch, little is known, except his justice.
Elias is given a sainted status,
especially by the Carmelites.
Called to view the passage of God at Horeb
he confronted him , after the passage
of storm, earthquake and fire.
So was his full scope of spiritualisation
made present in his being,
a rising theme starting at Carmel,
sharpened at Horeb, where,
from a cave he became aware of God
in the whispering of a gentle breeze.
The life of Elias bridged the gap
between heaven and earth;
Moses  was a designated leader and legislator.
When at Tabor they appeared in converse with the Son
who was Word and son of Mary,
Elias had been assumed
in what seemed a fiery chariot,
but Moses not.
Here Christ was the great disposer
soteriologised and soteriologising in himself.
Mary's Assumption is spread out
in scale and quality by these precedents.
No narrow experience her's but comprehending
all humanity.
How could she be Queen of Heaven without a body
which assures a true transcendence also in depth,
a body never to be lost but used?
How else  could religion be incarnational
not only in its ultimate ending
but in its beginnings as foundational,
as stepwise with great leaps?
Elias's  rise was through great labours
but Mary's easeful rise was from those initial steps
of Immaculate Conceiving and Assumption.
He still displays signs of his origin
in his complaints that he was alone,
the final faithful prophet.
Mary would not complain
of her aloneness:
she would share it at her Visitation;
share it at her wordless Cross vigil;
no comment offered but lasting through
rhe last breath-drawing
of her Son:
his consummation for mankind.
Michelangelo's pietà
with its virginal calmness:
deepest love lasting through physical death;
virginal, god-like compassion which we,
forgetful of the context, expect of her,
as we count on her sustaining prayer
at the death-hour of us each!
The Assumption of Mary passes
from completion to completion,
penetrative and comprehensive,
takes us already to the passing limits
in the death of her Son.
The maximum divine achieving
in the triumph of the
mothering of Zion's daughter,
vigorously penetrative of all human hearts;
our foyer-hearth
empowered by her Son
who is the eternal God !
Stykkishólmur
Iceland
27 July 2012