On St. Patrick's Day

Because of the work being done updating our website there has been precious little attention given to our weblog recently. And just to prepare those who may visit here on this Google Blogger site we will be moving our blogging to our new web site once it is up and running sometime around the end of March. This site will remain available as long a Google allows but new postings will appear on our new website.


Having been raised in a fundamentalist Baptist tradition we were taught that Catholicism was the Devil's haunt and was filled with myths and lies all meant to deceive and mislead. So, I always believed that St. Patrick was a mythical character until I read the historical accounts of his life when I was an adult. Since that time, and having subsequently been received into the Catholic Church, I have found the spirituality evidenced by St. Patrick and those who followed him to be an inspiration. The lyricism of the Breastplate of St. Patrick has often stirred me to greater devotion and conviction to follow Christ and his Church.

Today at breakfast with friends one of the assembled had brought a book of poems by Seamus Heaney and graced us with a reading of his "St. Kevin and the Blackbird". It was my first encounter with this poem. While Heaney would likely have had some sympathy with my Baptist mentors in his opinion of the Catholic Church, he surely seems to have captured something of the spirit of St. Patrick, as well as St. Francis in this poem. But most of all for me it is grounded from first line to last in an act of Christian prayer and, as all good poetry (and prayer) must, leads the reader into life. I encourage any who may read this to follow the link to the poem where it can be read (with the copyright holder's approval) and where you may listen to Heaney read it as well.

Blessings.

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Read the Bible until it takes root in you. The only alternative to prayer is madness

From the Archives: Part 22 of The Self and its Sources

Martin Buber: prayer and sacrifice.

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 177

Gathering and scattering continued..."but all those who knew him, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things..."

Simone Weil - attentiveness & prayer

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 75

Every time a gift is given or received the Holy Spirit is there…

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 73

Jesus’ Prayer is an intimate address to an-other…

From the Archives: Poetry of Truth Part 72

Trinitarian monotheism...and Luke's abbreviated version of the Lord's Prayer.