I have learnt to manage on whatever I have.
I know how to be poor and I know how to be rich.
Possessions are only a temporary salve.
Like us they all end up in a ditch.

But we don’t want to be poor.
Perhaps not rich but we want to have enough.
Our fear of poverty is a running sore.
We have no intention of sleeping rough.

Fate will be kind.
And fate will be unkind.
But we can develop a peaceful mind.
With the help of the one who is never blind.

I am listening to Latin plainchant from the Abbey.
Calming, mysterium fidei, creating in one’s mind a spiritual abbey.

Second Lockdown

I rejoiced when I heard them say, let us go to God’s house.
And now our feet are standing within your gates.
The churches are empty save maybe for a lonely mouse.
No place then to meet our mates.

The churches were so cleansed.
The people so socially distant.
Yet the people are evicted.
I don’t think they knew what it meant.

We can still go to God’s house.
It is now in our mind.
Only disturbed by our thoughts, not the tiniest mouse.
Is it really all such a grind.

I will not be disturbed by anyone’s fidgeting.
But of course the mind will wander and I shall keep forgetting.

The Passing of a Soul

Rejoice with me.
I have found the sheep that was lost.
These beautiful leaves will all fall from the tree.
All life has in death its cost.

Cherish life yet accept death.
We can accept the law of double effect.
It can be as mistaken to artificially extend life as it is wrong to cause death.
Morphine to kill pain may allow us to die in peace even if a speedier death is the effect.

Everything we see, our whole world is dying.
Even the sun in its seeming permanence is dying.
Some things even in a day are passing.
Almost as soon as we arrive we are leaving.

But I trust palliative care will ease my passing.
And departing will lead to entering.

St Charles Borromeo

It is God for his own loving purpose.
Who puts both the will and action into you.
We all in life are given on eternity one purchase.
We all have a chance to take our place in the only worthwhile queue.

A man born to riches and power.
A cardinal at twenty one.
He chose to climb to the top of the spiritual not material tower.
He left no stone of religious reform undone.

And to his see.
Came English refugees from persecution.
They sought refuge under his loving lea.
Their fate at home bloody execution.

His example shows we can stand aside from worldly ambition.
To make a final and heartfelt rendition.

The first said I have bought land, please accept my apologies.
Another said I have bought oxen, please accept my apologies.
Perhaps we should place less hope in technologies.
And more hope in theologies.

We are late for the feast.
We should have gone.
We would not let it rise, the yeast.
Now we are alone.

The poor, the crippled.
The lame.
Will be there happily pickled.
Our chance has gone after it came.

But in this game we are always allowed to try again.
It never will be entirely broken, hope’s chain.

Their going looked like a disaster.
Their leaving us like annihilation.
We should not see death as our master.
This earth is not the only nation.

Covid has ended our services.
We asked the PM to think again.
His answer to assuage our nervousness.
In four weeks we could like a candle again.

I walked disconsolate to the Cathedral.
To find it socially distanced full and the doors shut.
Inside there were too many people.
It was a blow to my gut.

Well anyway our government will allow us to pray.
Let’s hope we can go to mass again before we go grey.

And then I heard how many were sealed.
A hundred and forty four thousand out of all the tribes of Israel.
How is this number revealed.
Is this truth visible or spiritual.

I prefer not to take this literally.
Is it just a convenient mathematical number.
Faith should be taken lyrically.
We all will be woken from death’s slumber.

Happy the pure in heart.
They shall see God.
I prefer to believe, we all have aright to play our part.
All of us have a right in his presence to be awed.

We all have the right to seek his face.
We all have the right to grace.