That Mary reigns from Heaven intimately linked with the Earth. Fr. Edward OP's Marian Lines

----- Forwarded Message -----

From: Fr. Edward

The Lady Cloister - Nunraw Abbey ...

To: Donald ....

Sent: Sunday, 5 May 2013, 1:10
Subject: Some more Marian Lines

Dear Father Donald,

You might have some interest in these lines, which I managed to write straight into the computer in a day filled with computer problems, though I think I avoided the devil who can expand   trivialities into a cause for what they call "computer rage". It is actually a shortened version of something much longer which I could not drive to a conclusion. Perhaps a copy for H...?

Blessings in Domino,

fr Edward O.P.

Dear Fr. Edward,

Thank you.

It is the Month of May for Mary.  

Foot on serpent
(Genesis 3:15).  

The title of your inspiring poem sets some wheels spinning for reflection.

The lines of “That Mary reigns from Heaven intimately linked with the Earth” are impelling me to read between the lines and find the impressions you describe as ‘her visits in all their modalities’.

So far in my life, I was not tempted to compose poetry but, after your lines, Mary thoughts in the cloister came to mind. I am the door-keeper. First in the morning I switch on the light on the Lady-Cloister. 

At the shrine, in passing I touch the foot of Mary upon the serpent, to be reminded of her care of all souls. 

Of late, I change the view and move higher, and touch hand to hand of Mary – and that becomes a live open-sesame contemplative moment.

It must be the makings of a poem. At least, the pictures may serve the purpose! (Photos)

 ...touch hand to hand
of Mary

At Nunraw 1946, the statue of the Blessed Virgin of Mary, Our Lady Immaculate was given by the abbey of Roscrea. It became the Salve Regina  statue in the wood hut first Chapel of the community in the foundation. After the construction of the abbey, one of the cloisters designated the Lady Cloister.

In Dno.

Donald

That Mary reigns from Heaven intimately linked with the Earth

Our Lord shares with his Mother a special access to the Earth.

John, as the disciple of praedilection wrote up at the end of his gospel

an account of those appearances in Galilee.

Despite the wounds on his feet and side, no doubt protected by a clean scab,

his familiarity with them was complete, and

over the series of scenes by the lakeside

a heavenly reality has descended

protectively,

and for the future

hopefully.

From the moment when Jesus as stranger raised his voice

in instruction of where to fish, the apostles were at ease.

Relations were re-established in a heavenly mode.

But where he existed humanly invisible

before and after the encounters

one could only assert that he moved to and fro'

between there beyond and here below.

The reality was undeniable, the heavenly haven sure but not then reached;

only after the intervention of death.

Mary, his mother most dear, passed into the same mode after her death

as a quasi "Dormition".

So the allegorised Apocalypse encounter

would have encountered Mary as assumed into heavenlyness,

though allegorising the pastness:

the Son being more the Body Mystical

in closest union with the real Body reigning in heaven.

Like an angel sent across the border between time and space

and their transcendental, God-contained causes.

She spoke the languages, even the dialects of her contacts:

indigenous Mexican to Juanito, French Basque patois to Bernadette,

even Saxon to the Hwiccian swine-pastor, Eoves, at Evesham.

The clothes sought to be familiar yet with higher dignity.

So she passed that same border to be welcomed,

any initial fear being swiftly despatched.

As an Angel and more (their Queen!),

her visits in all their modalaties have an extended significance

overflowing with purest hope:

she brings heaven with her, and its presence arouses the purest of desires.

No negativity in the presence of terrestriality

for one reigning in celestiality.

Where Christmas is celebrated in Australasian mid-summer,

or in the coldest blizzards of Artica and Antarctica

and their high-mountain equivalents - Kilimanjaro in Kenya!

Bringing the consolation of fraternity and sorority

to those Canadian oblates of hers, "Oblates of Mary Immaculate",

with a punishing winter rigour reaching out to an ice-melt probably precedented.

She is not more touched in her essentialies than those who enjoy

a homeland Christmas feast meant for a passing cooling.

John was given a vision of the heavenly reality of Jerusalem

descendiong on the earth.

A structure diamond-walled, with pearl-gated entrances

opened with permanence, with its non-seasonal unchangingness,

moonless and sunless,

but lit - Oh marvel! - by the Glory of God and the Torchlight of the Lamb,

with no night, with medicinal trees meant as a cure-help to the pagans.

There were signs of human presence, but celestialized into beings of praise.

No descriptions in detail because they had been transformed

into sublime participations of God.

Mary is not located there, but appears as begetting the Church,

menaced by a dragon seeking to drown her Son with his water-filled belly.

She was transferred to a desert place before the end.

Her non-presence coincides with the inhabitants of those hardly filled streets.

They are by choice all given over to self-emptying praise:

filled completely with God and his over-shining Lamb.

Mary remains the watcher over the earth where she reigns;

waiting for her sendings.

Fr. Edward OP
Stykkishólmur