The crowd made it impossible to find a way.
Of getting him in ; they lowered him down .
How often do we ourselves help find a way .
How often do we let someone down.

Who is this man talking blasphemy.
Who can forgive sins but God alone.
How often do we just faith in our own alchemy.
How often do we ourselves set the wrong tone.

Which is easier to say your sins are forgiven.
Or to say get up and walk.
How often do we ask to be striven.
How often do we just do the talk.

We are happy to stand around and criticise.
Too slow to accept the evidence of our eyes.

……..

Others do lifting
We just stand aside waiting
For him to be helped

………

See Luke 5:17-26

Rorate Caeli desuper.
Et nubes pluant iustam.
Drop down ye heavens from above for ever.
And let the skies pour down righteousness like the lamb.

Be not wroth, very sore O Lord.
Neither remember iniquity for ever.
Take us , we pray, on board.
Fear’s gripping bonds may we sever.

We are as an unclean thing.
And we all do fade as a leaf .
But thou hold us in an eternity ring.
You provide us with lasting relief.

Comfort ye my people my salvation.
Until I come to you in final reunion.

……..

Iniquity ends
In your all loving embrace
Now and for ever

……..

See The Advent Prose for today’s mass

 
People of Zion, you will live in Jerusalem.
And weep no more , he will be gracious.
We will be forged into the strongest aluminium.
Now at last can our faith be truly audacious.

On every high mountain , on every high hill.
There will be streams and watercourses.
We follow his star through life’s grinding mill.
His love removes all lingering losses

He who is your teacher will hide no more.
You will see your teacher with your own eyes.
He will come into our inmost crying core.
He will wipe away all our weary sighs.

He will send rain for the seed you sow.
Following him we need never feel low.

……..

Often we are low
We look to him to raise us
He calls from the depths

………

See Isaiah 30: 19-21, 23-26

The deaf that day will hear the words of a book.
After shadow and darkness the blind will see.
All we have to do is to try and look.
In Isaiah we can always find the key.

The lowly will rejoice in the Lord even more.
For tyrants shall be no more and scoffers vanish.
His poetry strikes deep inside my very core.
He seems to answer every questioning wish.

Those who gossip to incriminate others.
Those who try at the gate to trip the arbitrator.
Isaiah helps us to cut the wrong tethers.
We seem to realise now what truly we are for.

How could such glorious poetry ever have been written.
Generation after generation is truly smitten .

…….

Isaiah’s writing
Will live down all the ages
A beacon of hope

……..

See Isaiah 29: 17-24

 
He has brought low those who lived in the citadel.
He brings it down, brings it down to the ground.
He brings us out of our mind’s brooding  cell.
Focussing us as we search around and around.

Mass was intimate in the crypt chapel.
The priest facing traditionally to the altar.
A timeless picture as he made his rappel.
All in Latin , his head deep in his psalter.

I felt a profound , intense spirituality.
This seemed truth , moved profoundly.
I seemed to have found a new vitality.
Peace can be found in emotion not mentally.

A service need not be a jumble of  mere words.
It can be a feeling , beautiful like soaring birds.

……..

Emotion soars
Not always with spoken words.
But in ritual

………

See Isaiah 26: 1-6

Look with goodness to the Lord.
Seek him with sincerity of heart .
Steer peacefully towards the last ford.
Follow the holy way in the chart.

Reading in the Chapel of Queens college.
Standing alone , the organ playing.
I took heart, I knew I could manage.
It seemed to encompass all, this saying.

You don’t have to have certainty.
You just need to ask with sincerity.
I do not know what lies beyond eternity.
I’m not sure you even need clarity.

I know not where this spiritual road will lead.
But I do know that somehow it lays a true seed.

……..

The road just leads on
I cannot see the future
But I’m sure it’s good