Timothy Murphy

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. I pray next for the sick, for I am one,an aging man with badly injured shoulderwho hopped so nimbly once boulder to boulder,though . . . . Continue Reading »

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 of night,the town of Bethlehem merely a memory.Egypt must be their home.But long the reach of Rome,and soon wrung from a tree the cry of . . . . Continue Reading »

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 Greek, let all sing Kyrie, Christe eléison. Let all who seek salvation, let the stray sinner come to the church whose Lord is . . . . Continue Reading »

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 a pasture’s banks,but now the lamb he guardsis Israel.  The ranksof Philistines at warcut . . . . Continue Reading »

The Oxford Edition of the Works of Robert Burns, Volume I: Commonplace Books, Tour Journals, and Miscellaneous Proseedited by nigel n. leaskoxford, 512 pages, $200 Robert Burns, “Rabbie” to those who love him, sired thirty-six children with eighteen mistresses before dying of exhaustion at age . . . . Continue Reading »

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 Sacraments        and King . . . . Continue Reading »

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 Feast of Christ’s baptism:“This is my Son with whom I am well pleased,”saith the Lord, and once when I was seizedwith . . . . Continue Reading »

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. Turn your attention from your sad sack selfto those around you, suffering and in need.Let no day pass without a kindred deed,take down the King . . . . Continue Reading »

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 a tall sloop from a leeward wreck, I steer my way. No longer lean or lithe enough to climb a groaning glacier out in Mountain Time, here I shall stay. So: . . . . Continue Reading »

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 thrill         which this year came in May. Snowmelt soaked into soil.  None ran . . . . Continue Reading »