St. Francis of the Elements: a meditation for his feast.

St. Francis of the Elements:

Brother Air:

Francis, 

you were a feather born upon the breath of God; dancing with the unseen and manifesting the invisible in your skyborn steps inviting all to see again the Divine dance into which they are blessed born...

Francis,

you were an Autumnal leaf gilded by grace's sunshine and shower; now unafraid to let go of anything that would keep you from the freedom of flight and happy to journey to the dissolution of all in offering... 

Francis, 

you were a snowflake; unique and Heaven sent, you kissed the earth lightly and woke us to her own beauty and wisdom long lost in our lies...

Francis, 

you were a lightening strike; shattering a clear sky and bringing the Divine storm that renews and creates, bringing beginning and drawing a new Spring from stuffy stalled hearts...

Brother Fire:

Francis,

you were a spark; struck by Grace from the Flint of heart's hardness, yearning for the dry straw of sin to be kindled in kindness consuming...

Francis,

you were a hearth on a Winter's night; leeching the indifference from our cold ecclesial bones, welcoming all to sit in storied circle and be one in warmth...

Francis, 

you were a forest fire; consuming all in the conflagration of your consecrated love, incandescent within the light of Grace flaming through your burning bones...

Sister Water:

Francis,

you were the dew of dawn; appearing to announce a new morning of magic when beasts and birds become brothers and sisters and our tongues are loosed at last in Eden's song...

Francis, 

you were a sweet spring; burbling with joy that knows no end, offering to all a deep draught of the Divine the only answer to soul's thirst...

Francis,

you were a mountain stream; singing your silver song upon a pilgrim path, refreshing worn feet and charming the divine dance from stony hearts...

Francis,

you were an ocean's drop; borne upon the tide of love you yielded to the pull of prayer and lost yourself in the sacred sea of His resurrection gaze and became yourself in unbecoming all you were not...

Sister Mother Earth:

Francis,

you were a grain of dust upon the road; herald and holy, you dwelt in truth's humility, barefoot upon the brown earth fading at distance into the truth of her embrace...

Francis,

you were a stone; becoming stillness you yielded yourself and were chisel formed into a foundation, while still a friar free to rest upon the rock of faith...

Francis,

you were a healing herb; condensing in yourself the medicine of first divine in-breathing when all that is, is named as good, for reminding us of redemption's remedy you gave root and leaf and flower and fruit for all...

Francis,

you were bird and beast; all found their friend in you and revealed their inner teaching of praise at your prayer; wondering to hear in you the voice long lost from creature's canticle sung by all that is, as you drew even tears from those who by Adam's naming had felt their brother-sisterhood of being lost until your call...

Francis,

you are beyond all elemental being now, plunged sainted and seraphic into Love's fire of origin and union and ending, all in one eternal communion of praise, where God is all in all and all are one. Pouring out upon those who are brave enough to follow your bloody footprints upon the Gospeled path an ever flowing fountain of peace and joy and brother beckoning us ever onward, ever upward from earth's embrace, to sing with wind and fire and water our way into the Divine Dance of Being! 

Meditation for St. John's Eve

Meditation for St. John's Eve:

Now, as Vespers sings itself to dusk’s silent sitting.
The beacons begin to burn.
Men watching for the moment
of Moon’s waning
in twilight midsummer sky
of a Sun too lazy to truly set,
to kindle flame for the Forerunner;
John.
He whose element is fire.
Both lamps now hanging in cloth of such deep blue
that the world seems enfolded in the mantle of one
who midwifed his birth,
even as she joined her magnificat
to old Elizabeth’s pangs and doubting Zechariah’s silence
beneath the shining stars of desert sky.

Now, as Matins touches midnight of Monks long vigiling
the herbs are gathered.
Women seeking the helpers and the healers
in wood, and dell, and garden bed
where, blessed by dew and moonlight
and the long warmth of Sun’s summer
the Yarrow and the Bracken,
the Fennel and the Rue,
the Rosemary and the Foxglove and
always the Elder and
the great yellow flower of the Forerunner
willingly give up their essence on the night
that marks the first whisper
of the Word’s healing breath,
breathed through the one who is His herald Voice;
John.
Dried, and hung, and laid upon the Lady Altar
to become more than they are
they will bestow divine healing.
Twice gifted and graced by
Summer’s picking
and Autumn’s
Assumption blessing, they
reveal the medicine present always beneath.

Now, as Lauds’ psalms sun skywards
the pots and pans and ancient drums are beaten.
The children sing the old songs and rhymes
long lost to meaning,
as young men and women harelike
leap heedless across the
dying flames together.
Recalling he who leapt with joy,
filled with fire, even in womb’s waters
so near was the One who first kindled flame
and rendered the rivers holy and made the wells
vessels of new birth.

Now, as Mass bell tolls dawn’s daily resurrection
monks and men, and women, and children all
hear the summons of the Sanctifier and His herald
loud upon morning’s breeze
as embers die down, and herbs are hung up.
Beneath the vaulted stone they gather
to join their voices to praise that vastness veiled
in simple bread and wine,
and hear again the word first spoken by
the herald,
the lamp,
the flame,
the leaper,
the prophet,
the angel,
the voice,
the Baptist
whose birth they have
blessed anew
cry across the ages
“Behold the Lamb of God!”

I wrote this last year to illuminate so many of the customs we have lost that wove the wisdom of the wild and the faith together so beautifully. On St. John's Eve, (The Vigil of the Feast of the Birth of St. John the Baptist), the last official day of the solstice bonfires were set burning to commemorate the fire of the Baptist's faith and the facing into the waning of natural light after the longest day. Couples leaping across the fire was an old betrothal custom. This was also the traditional night for gathering the herbs that would be used as medicine for the year to come. Gathered tonight and dried until Assumption Day they would then be blessed in the Monasteries at the first Mass at Our Lady's Altar... The songs and noise making around the boundaries of the hills and the fields was to frighten away evil and stagnancy so as to refresh the fields and prepare for the Harvest... Our faith was and is both holy and holistic and we must return to such deep knowing again... May the Baptist pray for us!

Reunion of the Mother and Son: Easter Dawn

It is often asked where the risen Christ was when the women, and later the apostles, got to the garden... Mystics and Mothers (who are often the same thing) have always known the answer.
After all, where would any son go first who had put his mother through so much?
The following lines express this hidden and unknown joy of Mary perfectly...
May it be your meditation this Easter morning.

 Reunion:

The stone rolled off,

And no one saw it.

Her heart was jubilant

And full of ecstasy.

She knew that a sea of joy

Would flow out of the sea of sorrow;

Although it would

Recede to sorrow again

She could remember

Being born in the midst of

God the Father,

And being created

Before creation.

Did She truly watch

Light come out of darkness?

Did she see shores

Come into being?

It seemed you could play

See-saw on a wave!!

She never moved.

Quietly and closed in a room,

She sat behind a door

That no one dared to open,

And looked upon the streets

Of her beloved Jerusalem,

Watching the crowds

Hurrying hither and yon;

Watching, and not seeing at all;

For the sea of sorrow

Was receding

Into the desert

Where seas go;

And she was playing

See-saw on a wave

Made by God.

She knew the Pieta was Piety.

The sorrow in her face

Was sorrow of the past.

Upon it lingered still

The shadow of the cross

And Him upon it;

But when her hands

Had touched His face,

Which the disciples thought was

Dead,

She felt the warmth

Pulsating through it.

How could God die?

He touched death

For an instant –

Abolished it forever,

And it became

An angel of surpassing beauty;

For whom men of faith

Would wait with bated breath;

Death hasn’t icy fingers at all

They are warm –

The fingers of the angel of love.

The ice, the cold, the decay

That is for men of earth to see;

For their eyes are not conditioned

To the resplendent state of the

Soul.

She knew

He was not dead forever;

Not one bone would decay.

He slept, quietly, obediently,

In the tomb;

For He was obedient

Even after death.

But when they rolled

The stone before the tomb

He was free to roam;

To come, to go

To be

Where all those years

He could not be

Or could show Himself.

Out of the tomb

To hell,

To bring joyous news;

Then, like a man

Would visit

In a pilgrimage of love,

The places that made His heart

Beat faster

As a man.

When She had held His cold-warm

Body

She trembled

With the joy of it –

Knowing He would come

To visit Her first

The Magdalene would be the next

To see Him.

So She sat alone

With the door closed –

They thought to grieve

But no! To wait.

Who was there to see

Or hear what passed?

Who was there to know

The glory

Of music born in that room?

The Music of His voice and Hers

Mingling as voices

Never did before.

“Tonight is the night

Of my first unknown joy.”

“It is just as well

That men count them as seven;

For how else could they count

My joys or sorrows?

There are not enough stars

In heaven

To add them up –

Seven will do nicely.”

“Come

Share in one of my unknown joys.”

“He came to Me

In my chamber,

My Son!

My Lover!

And overflowing rapture

Condensed in utter ecstasy

Filled Me again.

“It was as if

I had conceived anew,

For all my being

Felt His coming.

The room pulsated

With the beat

Of angels’ wings

But even the seraph’s eyes

Were sealed.

Not even they

Could look then

Upon the Mother and the Son

And so they chanted

Alleluias.

“Did you know that I,

The first stigmatic,

Had the wounds?

It happened simply,

Perhaps He was two or three,

Perhaps, I am not sure.

It is hard

for one who encompasses

eternity

to think in time.

One day He was playing

At My feet,

And suddenly

Like a little swallow

He kissed each foot.

The wounds began to throb.

“At seven or eight

He kissed each palm,

Lingeringly.

And I knew

The feel of nails.

“He came once

In early spring,

On a shiny sunny day.

His hands were full of flowers.

He sat on a small stool

And wove a crown for Me.

I knew the weight

Of thorns

Upon my head.

“In May, in your land,

Children repeat His gesture.

It brings back the memory

Of thorns, sweet, deep, sharp.

“He was a suckling at My breast.

One night,

Somehow, His face fell

From My nipples;

And His warm mouth touched my side.

Was it a kiss?

Was it a lance?

From that blest night

The pain was there

Never to go.

“So you must know

My unknown joy,

The rendezvous We hels –

My Son and I –

The night they thought

They had sealed His tomb

So tight.

Where do you think

He went?

He went to the place

He loves most in Palestine –

The room of His Mother.

“Wonders will never cease!!

The room was aflame;

For where My Son is,

There is My spouse,

The Crimson Dove

Who holds Me tight.

The angels’ wings

Made melody of strings

As they chanted their

Alleluias

In a circle of bliss,

And He sat at My feet

And I looked into His eyes –

Above to below.

“The Crimson Dove

Brought the flame of love;

And the Father was there

Unseen, jubilant, joyous,

Taking delight in His Son.

And as He did,

The Crimson Dove grew,

And a flame covered the earth.

Alleluia

Alleluia

Alleluia.

“The stone was still tight

On the tomb of My child

Who was with Me.

“I give you the Paschal gift.

Put out your hands

And take it to your heart

This is the night of joy!

Alleluia!

I am an

Alleluia

In the flesh

Tonight.”

(Lines from Catherine deHueck Doherty's epic poem: "Our Lady's Unknown Mysteries.)

The Inner Mysteries of the Feast of the Visitation: A contemplative breathing...

The Inner Mysteries of the Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary to her cousin Elizabeth...

A Contemplative Breathing...

There are so many mysteries to be meditated upon in this most beautiful of feasts where the Divine Mysteries are revealed in the most earthly and earthy of moments and places. Two women, blood cousins, elder and younger meet across the generations in the wilderness of the hill country and in the common holding of the mysterious gift of new life, and so much is gifted to us in their meeting…

For the Visitation is the feast of Mary as the Apostle of love as Charity;

Charity: the love that goes out, that actively seeks the other who is in need and feels the need of the other as its own need. In its ministering to the other in love becomes love even more so in itself… Mary, full of grace, full of the life of God, has only just heard her own call and yet responds immediately to the impulse to care for another… She leaves immediately and with great haste we are told, for love as charity brooks no delay. She will give the first three months of her own flowering to tending the garden of her cousin Elizabeth and helping her prepare for the birth of John… She thinks not of herself or even of the enormity of the miracle that has just been accomplished in her. In the need of her cousin for support she hears the call of God just as surely as she heard it in the words of the Archangel.

May Mary call us from our own self absorption to the Charity that generates life.

For the Visitation is the feast of the call to Spiritual Midwifery:

Mary as midwife to her Cousin… What a beautiful picture… The Archangel tells her that her cousin is six months into her journey towards birth and the scripture tells us that Mary stayed with Elizabeth for three months. Could we possibly believe that Mary left Elizabeth alone for the birth of John? Of course not…for in her midwifery of Eilzabeth she is midwifing the mystery of the birth of the Old Testament Covenant into its new life its fulfilment in the one, John, who holds in himself both the lineages of the prophets and the priesthood, and who on Jordan’s banks will lay them down in homage before the Lamb from whom they first came on Sinai’s height to Moses.

May Mary midwife the birth in us of our own calling to birth Christ in our own life and in each moment.

For the Visitation is the feast of the mysteries of Woman…

In Mary coming to Elizabeth to care for her and serve her, God in Mary is coming to one who represents all of the mysteries of womanhood… Elizabeth had traversed all of the stages of life, she had been a girl, a young woman, a single young woman who held royal and priestly lineages in her descent and yet lived the life of a poor woman in a land oppressed by foreign occupation where it was dangerous to be a woman alone, where it was simply dangerous to be a woman at all… She had been shamed and excluded by her own people and even by other women for not fitting in, for not becoming what she was supposed to be. She had been labelled as barren, seen as cursed and as even carrying the possibility of cursing others. In Zechariah she knew the pain of loving someone but not being able to give them what they truly want… All of this pain she knew. Yet she never doubted the love of God for her or that His love would eventually bloom in her in a surprising way… Zechariah, the man and the priest doubts the Angel’s word and is struck dumb… Elizabeth, the woman, believes and bears the word of prophecy recognising in Mary the One who is blessed among women and then asks astonished “Who am I that the Mother of my Lord would come to visit me?” Who are you Elizabeth? You are Woman and God will always want to be with you and your heart that believes past man’s un-believing and He comes to you in His Mother, clothing Himself in Woman as His vestment, to reveal to you His love for you so that you may remember for ever His nearness to you in your very womanhood in every generation.

May Mary draw near to all Women and open their eyes to their intimate place in the Divine Mysteries.

For the Visitation is the feast of the mysteries of Motherhood:

In the holy encounter of Mary and Elizabeth we are reminded that all of the life that flows through the veins of humanity begins in the womb of women as they co-operate with God in the creation of life… so important is this lesson that the Divine Word Himself decrees He will incarnate only through a Mother’s yes. There is no apostle, no prophet, no saint, and we can even say in awe, no Christ, who did not come from Woman. Mary journeys through the wilderness of the high country, the hill country, the place of fear and wildness and in her Divine Motherhood she tames it. And mother Earth, long sundered from Man, finds that God walks in her garden again in Mary as mother. In her silent journeying there and back again she allows the silence of motherhood, the silent and intimate communion of Mother and child to prepare the way of the Word. She is with the Wild and the Wild receives its new Eve who carries the new Adam in awe and reverence and enfolds her contemplation in the silence of sunrises, sunsets, moonlight and star light as she travels. For everything that we will receive from Christ as a Man He received from Mary and everything that we receive from Christ as God we receive through Mary… For her mother’s yes will be just as present in the temple, in Cana, on the roads of Palestine, and on Golgotha’s height as it is in this silent journey… 

May Mary call us to reverence and respect for the mysteries of the Mother…

For the Visitation is the first feast of the Holy Eucharist:

Does this astonish you that this feast would hold in itself the echo of the greatest of God’s gifts to humanity? Mary is the first tabernacle of the Lord and she bears Christ within her in the most holy of communions as she travels. Elizabeth then becomes the first Eucharistic adorer as her wise faith beholds the inner mystery beyond the veils of sense and in her adoration receives the gift of not just her own hallowing but the hallowing of the new life that joyously jumps within her. So too when we dwell in communion with the Bread of Life is the new life of His grace quickened in us and the word of prophecy born, as contemplation begets the call to action and from silence psalm erupts in magnifying praise. And from praise we fall back into silence in the  heart-knowing know that every moment of Holy Communion begins from Mary's yes to the Divine Mystery of Love.

May Mary call us to the mystery that lies behind the veils of sense and into ever deeper communion with the One who is our Eucharistic Lord.