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Articles 26
Prayer for the Farmers
Tonight I add a fourth chapter to prayer.I pray first for the ministries of priestswho serve me at our sacramental feastsand showed a way back from my black despair....
Lama Sabachthani
Laid in a humble binof barley, not feed corn,tonight a Child is bornto save us all from sin. Herod will hunt for them,the parents taking flightcloaked in the dead...
Fire Up a Candle
Fire up a candle for the Advent wreath.The birth is a week away.Let the deer browse peacefully on their heath,our rifles locked away. Last remnant in our Liturgy of...
Ode to King David
Goliath Picture a twelve-year-oldwith round rocks for his slingfacing the fearsome, boldGoliath. In a ringtwo armies stand apart.The boy with his brave heart can kill from thirty yardswolves on...
Burns in Glory
The Oxford Edition of the Works of Robert Burns, Volume I: Commonplace Books, Tour Journals, and Miscellaneous Proseedited by nigel n. leask oxford, 512 pages, $200 Robert Burns, “Rabbie”...
January 25, 2017, an Ode
My Students Two hundred kids bussed to the March for Life. Worried husband and wifewonder are they securely chaperoned? Their mental muscles tonedby Scripture, Confirmation, the...
Retreat
My life is one perpetual retreat.Wall off the world for books to be adored,Testaments Old and New, Word of the Lordwhose great librarian is the Paraclete. Yesterday was the...
Open the Way
Open the Way for God? Take to the road,Calvary Hill. It is no easy path.Give up your greed, your tendency to wrath,go to confession, and lay down your load....
Sixty-Two
Not fit enough to wander the wild woods or separate my wouldn’ts from my shoulds, what can I say? Not spry enough to scamper on a deck or fend...
Late Planting Il.
Two hundred miles I sojourned yesterday to see one tractor and its drill seeding the Fargo clay. For me that’s always April’s greatest...
Almost a Franciscan
A long walk up the mountain from Assisi— my boot heel severed from my right foot Redwing, I smacked it back, using some broken pavement. I’d walked my little...
Three Prayers
I rarely pray to Christ. His sacrifice was so perfect, it’s far beyond my ken. I’m one of those who have denied Him thrice but take His bread and...
Divine Mercy Sunday
The parish doorbell rings. When I descend the stair nobody is there, only a bag that sings mournfully by the door, holding some baby shoes and little Polo crews...
The Enlistee
This wrestler isn’t ready yet for college, instead he’s shaved his head for the Marines. It isn’t that he has no taste for knowledge but hungers to divine what...
A Gift
The boy comes to the back door of the parish, bearing he says, “A gift.” A crib, its mattress, and a baby bearish quilt. “I hear you people stand...