CHRISTMAS CAROL

CHRISTMAS CAROL

Mary sang like falling snow

and loved like violins

at the wedding of love and sorrow

in Bethlehem.

Angels crashed bewildered skies

and stars blazed into hymns,

but Mary looked in Jesus' eyes

in Bethlehem.

The night got down upon its knees,

the moon with wonder dimmed

when Mary laid her Jesus down

in Bethlehem.

Back in the bright and noisy inn,

the keeper's head was grim

for Mary's face burned in his heart

in Bethlehem.

And all love has a wound in it,

but joy with tears can limn

since the wedding of love and sorrow

in Bethlehem.

Mother M Francis PCC

Friar. December 1957

Used with permission

From 'A Silence full of bells'

CAUSE OF OUR JOY

CAUSE OF OUR JOY

(Concerning Seven other Sorrows)

They said: "He has a devil!" Jesus - whom you

had known announceD by angel, had heard sung

by sky-flung host of angels on that night

in Bethlehem, and would hear told by angels:

"Risen! He is risen. Not here, He!"

                                                                          It was the crushed grape of your heart 

                                                  first ran our wine of joy.

Or when familiar brow of hill grew furrowed

to knolls of anguish that men should lay claim

on nature's loyal innocence to cast Him

over and down, lest sound of truth be heard

by townsmen of Him, traitorous cousinry,

                                                                          It was the crushed grape of your heart 

                                                  first ran our wine of joy.

Counted over and over in your loving

were twelve, a dozen in solicitude

of you for them; food, sandals, lodging rest.

before the Supper was not intuition

already, Mother, yours? One shall betray Him.

                                                                          It was the crushed grape of your heart 

                                                  first ran our wine of joy.

What sword of sorrow pierced your listening love,

to hear Him cry: "I thirst" who once had nursed Him

with substance of yourself? What now to give

save substance of your willing of your Cross-stand

improvident but for love's partnering.

                                                                          It was the crushed grape of your heart 

                                                  first ran our wine of joy.

"Let Him come down! He cannot save himself!"

How cruel drumbeats on your memory,

O Mother of many liftings to your breast

a Child too small to save himself from falling,

grown now to cross's hoisting past your arms.

                                                                          It was the crushed grape of your heart 

                                                  first ran our wine of joy.

That was the whole world's weeping face laid in your

Pieta'-ed lap when Peter's face went down

into your lap of mercy and you were

first made Queen of Confessors to first pope

needing your healing hand on memory.

                                                                          It was the crushed grape of your heart 

                                                  first ran our wine of joy.

We search our joy and find its price too high.

Wine without treading down's the drink we seek,

and all in vain unless you teach us, Mother:

                                                                          It was the crushed grape of your heart 

                                first ran our wine of joy.

Mother M Francis PCC

Summon Spirit's Cry. San Fancisco:Ignatius Press.

(c) 1996. Mother M Francis PCC. All rights reserved. 

Used with permission

From 'A Silence full of bells'

CAUSE OF OUR JOY

CAUSE OF OUR JOY

When thou mad'st God a flesh to wear

and gave Him two small eyes to see

earth-craft He did some aeons back,

thou madest laughter, too, Marie.

Our mirth grew strong within thy womb

along with that small Saviour sweet,

and all our songs were born that night

a little God lay at thy feet.

Sorrow we had full-plenteous

without thee, and we found the way

of lonely pain with never need

for thy dear hand to beck or stay;

But singing and laughter only came

when thou agreedst to queen the earth

and heavens too, with mothering

alike our Saviour and our mirth.

Cause of our music and our glee,

Lady, our joy glows all from thee!

Mother of all felicity

that ever wast or shall e'er be.

Mother M Frances PCC

Cord. January 1956

Used with permission

From 'A Silence full of bells'

ANNUNCIATION

ANNUNCIATION

Swifter than jet-cleaved air is ribboned, love flies

by flawless automatics of the heart

back to this hour, girl, and angel, curving

wings of its own against her lifted face.

Here is the home of ours and of ages

toward which time groped, and flowing eternities.

Ever will love return and close this hour,

warm on its starkest cry and brightest song.

Haven and hangar built by God for hostel

on the macadam bleakness of whatever

threatens or comes, love praises best this hour

with petals of silence strewn along its lintel.

Mother M Francis PCC

Spirit. 1962-63

Used with permission

From 'A Silence full of bells'

THE ANGELUS

THE ANGELUS*

The angel of the Lord declared unto Mary

that the Creator of heaven and earth

uncontainable in creation

bethought to enfold Himself now in a lily-flower,

the angel of the Lord avowed unto Mary

that God had fallen enraptured

on seeing immaculateness

and desired to encase Himself in it.

And she conceived by the Holy Ghost

the Inconceivable.

She composed by the Holy Ghost

Love's unutterable rhapsody.

Mary wove on the ghostly loom

the seamless robe of salvation.

And behold! The handmaid of the Lord

being handmaid, cannot retrench her pledge*

though her dream of being serving maid

to the elect beyond all others

is thrown into unspeakable juxtaposition.

The handmaid of the Lord

must wait on His will

even if it declares her blessed to all generations.

So it was done unto Mary by the Word

Gabriel caught from the lips of God.

By the Word generated in the bosom of the Father,

proceeding into very life and love,

it was done unto the handmaid of the Lord.

And the Word was made flesh in that moment

from which all other moments take their place

as being before or after,

the Word was made son of a virgin,

Flesh of her lily-flesh,

God was a quick pulsing under the maiden's heart.

And he dwelt among us in that initial moment,

the beginning of redemption in a city of Galilee.

There would be shouting throngs

at redemption's culmination,

protesting, sorrowing men at its ascendant sequel,

tongues of fire and rushing wind

at its paracletic achievement.

But now was redemption's beginning, silent, serene,

Secret of archangel and a girl.

Mother M Francis PCC

Marian Library Collection. Used with permission

____________________________

*The angel of the Lord (declared unto Mary)

*Luke 1:38

From 'A Silence full of bells'

ADVENT SUMMONS

ADVENT SUMMONS

Come forth from the holy place,

sweet Child,

come from the quiet dark

where virginal heartbeats

tick your moments.

Come away from the red music

of Mary's veins,

come out from the Tower of David

sweet Child,

from your House of Gold.

Leave your lily-cloister,

leave your holy mansion,

quit your covenant ark.

O Child, be born!

Be born, sweet Child,

in our unholy hearts.

Come to our trembling,

helpless Child.

come to our littleness,

little Child,

be born unto us

who have kept the faltering vigil.

Be given, be born,

be ours again.

Come forth from your holy haven,

come away from your perfect shrine,

come to our wind-racked souls

from the flawless tent,

Sweet Child.

Be born, little Child,

into our unholy hearts.

Mother M Francis PCC

Friar. November 1957

Used with permission

From 'A Silence full of bells'

ADVENT SONG

ADVENT* SONG

Lady, what songs are bending

the tall grasses of your mind,

what secret music whispers down your veins,

what wax-leaf ponderings, O Virgin Mary,

waken our little shouts of expectation?

Our thoughts have lumbered down a treeless highway,

have sputtered their heavy loftiness, have wept

their protest. Now we hear the distant birdcall

Oh, dimly! But the woods have heard it well.

The stars are singing in their stupefaction,

the giddy little hills are clapping hands.

But Lady, what songs sway

the supple grasses of your thoughts,

what secret music whispers down your veins?

Glorious things are said about this city

where the small citizen Christ moves in the lanes

of so-brief arteried comfort; but what songs

drift through this templed alabaster town?

We see the windows lighted, Virgin Mary,

City of God, by every hymn we raise

with chipped and broken voices, and our feeble

vision guesses sacred silhouettes.

But when the little Seed fell in the furrow,

the warm and spotless furrow of your heart,

tell us what pure songs stirred your delicate wonder,

what secret music whispered down your veins.

Mother M Francis PCC

Friar. November 1955

Used with permission

____________________________________________________________

*Advent: a period of four weeks which mark both the beginning of the Church's liturgical year and a time of penance in preparation for Christmas.

PRAYER TO OUR BLESSED MOTHER

PRAYER TO OUR BLESSED MOTHER

Many times have I fallen today, Mother dear,

Many graces neglected, since last I knelt here;

Wilt thou not in pity, my own Mother mild,

Ask Jesus to pardon the sins of thy child?

I am going to rest, for the day's work is done, 

Its hours and its moments have passed one by one;

And the God Who will judge them has noted them all,

He has numbered each grace, He has counted each fall.

In His book they are written against the last day,

O Mother, ask Jesus to wash them away;

For one drop of His Blood which for sinners was spilt,

Is sufficient to cleanse the whole world of its guilt.

And if ere the dawn I should draw my last breath,

And the sleep that I take be the long sleep of death,

Be near me, dear Mother, for dear Jesus' sake,

When my soul on Eternity's shore shall awake.

ADVENT PROPHECY

ADVENT PROPHECY

Where tortured atoms writhe beneath the scalpel

of our investigations, I see her coming,

branches of flowering pity in her arms,

healing the day with glances. And the atoms

fall down to kiss her feet, and are made whole.

I hear the clash of prophecies converging

on the faint stir of Life beneath her heart

down our loud boulevards, I see her coming.

lift up your heads! Blow all your factory whistles!

and point the hour on your telechrons!

Not to Ain Karim.* To the laboratories

where astronauts sit trim in new space jackets,

I see her coming, space held in one hand,

her smile forgiving all the bright moon-rockets

their errors, with the moon beneath her feet.

Girl of Isaias' vision, could he see you

carry your Son into our plastic jungles

and cure our tuneless music with your singing?

Hour Isaias never dreamed is striking;

under the neon lights, I see her coming!

Lift up your heads! You tall TV antennae,

lean down and prostrate for her coming! Jet planes,

hum the glad antiphons of our redemption.

Once over hills, now through the chromium maze,

the young girl light with Child shall come and save us.

Mother M Francis PCC

Spirit. 1962-1963

Used with permission

____________________________________

*Traditionally the home town of Mary's cousin Elizabeth.

From 'A Silence full of bells'

ANNUNCIATION

ANNUNCIATION

O gentle maid, O lovely-hearted woman,

sprung from the seed of patriarchs and kings,

conceived immaculate,* divinely destined Virgin!

O mystic rose, the overshadowing Wings

Above thy listening soul stood on that day

when God leaned down to touch His earth with grace,

and planted in thy womb, its tendrils curled,

the living Vine of love; thy radiant face

was rapture-thrilled. The careless world went on

nor knew the miracle was wrought. Thy word,

"Behold the handmaid of the Lord! His will

be done," a breathless heaven, adoring, heard;

and knelt unto its tabernacled God

made flesh beneath thy pure heart's virgin-shrine

forever blessed and reverenced art thou:

Love's covenant and pledge, Love's seal and sign.

Sister M Faith OP

Anthonian. April 1957

_____________________________________

*Reference to the Catholic teaching that the Blessed Virgin was free from the stain of original sin from the moment of her conception

From 'A Silence full of bells'

YE WHO MOURN BE COMFORTED

YE WHO MOURN BE COMFORTED

As eyes that love grow tender after tears,

so sorrow gives the hand a gentle touch;

then, Mother of all Sorrows, still the fears

that hold the world in unrelenting clutch.

Sustain the weak, and calm unquiet hearts

and minds as restless as the shifting sand.

more potent far than all the finer arts,

is vibrant language of the heart and hand.

O give them courage now to dig the field

and gather fruits of labour, trusting God.

Beyond all thought will be the harvest yield;

for lifeless wheat will blossom at His nod,

as limpid water crimsoned into wine,

to show the power of the Living Vine.

Sister M Eulalia

Commonweal. March 1934

From 'A Silence full of bells'

MARY OF THE DESERT

MARY OF THE DESERT

You are the one oasis

from which sprang forth

that Stream

which fructifies all life.

You are the calm oasis

where our nomadic souls

find rest

and are lulled again to sleep

by whispering of His will.

You are the fruitful oasis

in our desert of sparsity

for to you we raise

our tired hands of sorrow

to beg for the Fruit of your womb.

Sister M Ethna OSF

Cord. November 1966

From 'A Silence full of bells'

DEATH OF OUR LADY

DEATH OF OUR LADY

Mary has fallen 

gentle seed to earth

that a new plant of life glorious

might rise triumphant.

Seven times has she planted in sorrow*

and watched it blossom joy.

Oh - we have known her beauty

because her seed has fallen.

Each sorrow held her

within a canyon of silence

but God entered her valley

to sing His fiat of glory.

Sister M Ethna OSF

Cord. August 1961

__________________________

*Reference to the Blessed Virgin's seven sorrows: [1] the prophecy of Simeon, [2] flight into Egypt, [3] the loss of Jesus, [4] the meeting with Christ on His way to Gethsemane, [5] standing at the foot of the cross while Jesus died, [6] taking down Christ's body from the cross and [7] the burial of Jesus.

From 'A Silence full of bells'