As a branch cannot bear fruit all by itself.
Neither can you unless you remain in me.
We are deluded if we place all our trust in the self.
Ultimately, with death, we all have to pay our fee.

I am picking my broad beans today.
They are nurtured by their branches.
Did I water too much, too little who can say.
But they lie in my vegetable patch in neat tranches.

They taste delicious and fresh.
But they have no life on their own.
They were only saved from the rabbits by that mesh.
Nor are they worried that nothing do they own.

If only we realised we can do nothing on our own.
We would be much happier realising everything we have is but a loan.

Haiku

We can do nothing
All that we have is a loan
Let’s just be content

[Note: First two lines are from John 15:1-8]

On my bed at night I sought him.
Whom my heart loves.
I would search for her to the world’s outermost rim.
Even to the sea’s deepest darkest coves.

Once I took her to Capri.
To the dark blue Lagoon.
Here we swam in the warm sea.
And sought relief from the sun’s swoon.

Mary bathed his feet with tears.
He did not reject her love.
In our own life love is is not always free from cares.
But it’s true peace is as gentle as the dove.

In the Grotta Azzurra all is reflected light.
Sometimes truth too comes from something out of sight.

Haiku

Truth is not in sight
It comes in reflection
But it is still true

[Note: First two lines from The Song of Songs 3:1-4]

Why did we not die in the land of Egypt.
When we sat down to pans of meat.
In our own lives we know the script.
We never miss a moment to bleat.

Moses got the people out of Egypt’s prison.
He could not get Egypt out of the people’s mind.
We crave the inadequacy we had before this season.
The past is rich, poor the present, we are blind.

We wander aimlessly.
Around our own Mont Sinai.
Complaining crossly.
Open to every pleasing lie.

One day the tablets will come down.
Perhaps we should get them down.

Haiku

Will the tablets come
Perhaps we should go get them
Rather than just wait

[Note: First two lines from Exodus 16:1-5, 9-15]

Who is my mother.
Who are my brothers.
Do we feel we are in a family smother.
Are we in thrall to others.

It is enough to try to do his will.
We do not have to succeed.
We seek to look over a high sill.
Anxious to find out where it will all lead.

People wonder what will become of me.
I am not sure even that me is truly I.
I can not know who the I is although I can hear and see.
I am in the middle, this storm has an eye.

So are our family our true brothers.
Or are they the true believers.

Haiku

Who are my brothers
Is it my own family
Or those who agree

(Note: First two lines from Matthew 12:46-50)

I will sing to the Lord.
Glorious his triumph.*
They escaped Pharaoh’s sword.
They showed their defiance.

When I read this psalm
I think of the Easter vigil.
The lights dimmed in calm.
And of the fates turned fickle.

We stand in expectant awe.
Of what will happen in this story.
Will the Israelites escape to achieve so much more.
And so much transcendent glory.

We too will pass through the desert.
And find our own glory after so much hurt.

Haiku

We pass through desert
But after all this we win
An immortal crown

*Note: First two lines from Exodus 15:1-6

You must come away to some lonely place.
All by yourselves and rest for a while.
So often we feel we cannot keep up with the pace.
Our faces rigid with a strained smile.

Today I swam alone in a lonely place.
Far from any buzzing road or footpath.
I swam slowly and floated quietly in no race.
My only companion a dragonfly, free from all wrath.

Later I sat in the shade of a weeping willow.
And watched the shadows play on the greened water.
The wet grass and damp towel my only pillow.
Here was cool serenity, along the distant road it was hotter.

Deep in the dark cool water’s embrace.
You needn’t worry about losing face.

Haiku

learn to pray alone
Far from all distractions
As he did himself

Show the light of your truth to those who go astray.
So that they may return to the right path.
We pray that our fears we can keep at bay.
That we will not be ensnared by guilt or wrath.

Today I woke feeling dizzy, the world turning.
It was as if I had just landed from a rocky boat.
We assume our ordered world will just keep happening.
But the only constant is change, we are not surrounded by a moat.

The right path is not a straight motorway.
It twists and turns and is shrouded in mist.
We wonder all the time if we can or we may.
We ask, should we accept or should we resist.

Forget the dizziness, just stand and walk.
It is only up to us, forget the others’ talk.

Haiku

Just stand up and walk
Forget the mind’s dizziness
It is up to us

If you understood I want mercy not sacrifice.
You would not have condemned the blameless.
We scurry about like scared mice.
Where we should be calm, we are restless.

I wish I could just accept people as they are.
That I didn’t curse distractions and chatting.
I don’t need to flee to the privacy of my car.
I should live with mobile phones ringing.

Yesterday I was near young people in a crowded restaurant.
Looking at Mary I thought she was the most beautiful person there.
This may be only subjective not objective but it is a constant.
If you live life with the eyes of love you can live without a care.

It is not what we eat or do which is important.
But who we are that matters, the rest is cant.

Haiku

It is who we are
That is important to us
Not what others want

I am who I am.
I am has sent me to you.
Our faith may not amount to a gram.
We may be many or few.

I often think of this equivocal statement.
Is God just what is.
Is our lack of understanding something to lament.
Neither mine nor yours or hers or his.

Faith is not something we can rationalise.
It just is what it is to us, high or low.
Do we merely fantasise.
We will never know.

I wonder if this yoke really is easy and the burden light.
But I must try to keep this truth in sight.

Haiku

Is the yoke easy
Is his burden really light
It is up to us

In justice I shall behold thy face.
I shall be filled with the vision of your glory.
How, despite every search can we find grace.
Where will it end, our story.

I was waiting for what I deemed was a vital phone call.
So I sat right at the back of the Cathedral for mass.
Of course I couldn’t hear anything apart from the traffic’s mall.
Why do we think the world comes first, it’s so crass.

I pray I can be like a small child.
Maybe fidgeting but present.
Those worries deeply away filed.
Past and future neither borrowed or lent.

Too late I walked to the front.
Other distractions now blunt.

Haiku

Be like the children
Not worrying about past
Or even future

Seek the lord all you who are poor.
And your hearts will revive.
It’s strange how we always want more and more.
Yet we feel we have less and less however hard we strive.

Insight comes unexpected in strange ways despite our sighing.
I was sitting quietly in the empty Cathedral and someone sat on the same front row.
Lots of plastic bag rustling and fidgeting.
I moved to the Blessed Sacrament chapel in a quiet back row.

The chapel had been closed for a year.
Here was true joy in front of the sacrament.
Banished now all care.
And silent contentment.

Perhaps we shouldn’t worry about distractions, whatever they say.
They all have their part to play.

Haiku

All distractions
Have their part in life to play
We can ignore them

Sonnet

Anyone who finds his life will lose it.
Anyone who prefers son or daughter is not worthy of me.
Their daughter caused the little flower to be lit.
They knew that ones own life is not necessarily the key.

Imagine having nine children and giving them all to God’s city.
Here were two people living a life in deepest obscurity.
Indeed their daughter Therese exemplified humility.
The deepest shaded life can give luminosity.

And think of another saint today who died in agony.
He could have just remained a quiet Franciscan but died a martyr.
All these saints in their own way give testimony.
Would we ever our ambition with faith barter.

Meanwhile I plod my weary safe conformist way.
Is theirs the true way, who can say.

Haiku

We who just conform
Must yes to others defer
Who always commit

Sonnet

I was no prophet.
I was a shepherd.
Need everything be for profit.
Can we detach ourselves from the herd.

Do we just throw our rock into a pool of oil.
Do our words get lost in an echo chamber.
Will we be left with nothing when we return to the soil.
Will we not then even ourselves remember.

We should learn from the sea’s magnificence.
It does nor have any highs or lows.
For all woes it has complete indifference.
It is freed from life’s coils.

We should be content with our lot.
Even if it is not a lot.

Haiku

Content with our lot
That is all we can hope for
But it is enough

Sonnet

For everything that is now covered will be uncovered.
And everything now hidden will be made clear.
I pray that all these things really will be discovered.
For me these certainties are all too rare.

And then just looking out of a church window.
Everything seems clear true and factual.
I have my highs in belief then I descend into a low.
Faith is like the tide, but isn’t that natural.

I think we worry too much about what we are told.
Yesterday I just floated calmly in the North Sea.
My concern only with wind and tide and cold.
We should concentrate on just what we can see.

In the end everything will be clearly revealed.
Whatever we may think, already our fate is sealed.

Haiku

All will be revealed
We have to be patient
We are not ready

Sonnet

Fret not thyself.
And verily shalt thou be fed.
A minute after I read this I was fretting myself.
Our worries by others can never be read.

Outside a high plane passed quietly.
At thirty six thousand feet oblivious to us below.
A black bird sang softly, serenely.
All concerns were now laid low.

If only we could focus on this moment.
In this quiet country church.
If we want we can banish all torment.
We don’t need even to search.

I went back out into the open.
And the worries were duly set in motion.

Haiku

Why do we fret so
We stay not in this moment
What matters is here

Sonnet

Provide yourselves with no gold or silver.
Not even with a few coppers for your purses.
A thought bobbed to the surface as on a river.
As I read these words they remain as half remembered verses.

They all seem so utterly true.
What if I had carried them out in a different life.
What if I had followed not the many but the few.
What if I had embraced poverty’s strife.

I have been blest.
I have had home, wife, and family.
I salute those who deny themselves all rest.
They deserve to live happily.

It rests though a niggle in the mind, this call.
Could I ever have given up all.

Haiku

This persistent call
To give up all for his sake
Some will answer it

Sonnet

When you finish your meal.
Give thanks in this manner.
This ancient text seems real.
It is the Didache, faith’s ancient banner.

I found it in the Office of Readings today.
The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles.
Written as early as 80 AD they say.
A very first liturgy, these are no mere fossils.

They speak with a new freshness.
Of a Mass said with true simplicity.
Here is a certain crispness.
The way of life and of death in felicity.

Then some apostles were still alive.
It is good these simple words survive.

Haiku

If it is early
It is often genuine
Before all disputes

St Maria Goretti

Sonnet

Fill your faithful with holy joy.
You bestow eternal gladness.
There is greater strength in an alloy.
Our different metals can give us happiness.

I went to a family baptism on Sunday.
What joy there is in purity and innocence.
If only we could be more like children every day.
Living for this moment with no fearful sense.

St Maria Goretti kept her soul.
She was only twelve years.
And her murderer repented all in gaol.
For the rest of his life he shed tears.

We of this world will never be like her.
We will just get by shedding an occasional tear.

Haiku

Is our soul put first
Or do we just accept fate
We are just not saints

Sonnet

He had a dream, a ladder was there.
With its top reaching heaven and angels going up and down.
It seems so difficult to climb, we shed a tear.
We feel in our own inadequacy, we are ready to drown.

Angels can, if they want, fly.
We have to climb wearisome step by step.
How will we ever get to the top we sigh.
And won’t we fall with one just misstep.

We just hold the ground we stand on.
We can neither walk nor run.
But our hearts can climb to a new dawn.
We are just blinded by our material sun.

I am still only on the first rung.
With fear my heart is wrung.

Haiku

The ladder is there
We must have courage to climb
Is it really hard

Sonnet

To stop me getting too proud.
I was given a thorn in the flesh.
I know sometimes I speak too loud.
I feel myself caught in pride’s mesh.

At Mass the Covid marshal was bossy.
I felt like biting my wrist.
Why do we all have to be such a sissy.
Why can’t we stay in spiritual mist.

If you control people’s lives.
You only create hypocrites.
That is the only sin that survives.
Now we can’t even be moralists.

The only rule, don’t break the rules of the state.
I must be calm and try not be too irate.

Haiku

Control people’s lives
We all become hypocrites
Cry freedom for all

St Thomas the Apostle

Sonnet

You believe because you can see me.
Happy are those who have not seen and yet believe.
Often it is not what you are told but what you can see.
It is not what you have heard but what you receive.

I was sitting alone in the church putting truth through the mill.
I looked through the window, a cowed mooed, a cock crowed.
In the deep silence the air suddenly felt heavy and still.
I felt a presence. I did not need to rationalise or be persuaded.

Faith is not something that can be proved.
It is a hard to touch feeling.
It comes and goes, transient, nothing is ever solved.
It is less a question of knowing, more a path of seeking.

I left the church revived.
The doubts also revived.

Haiku

Faith cannot be proved
It is surely transient
It has to be felt

Sonnet

It is not the healthy who need the doctor.
But the sick.
I need a good proctor.
Maybe a bit of a kick.

Where has my faith gone.
Why is it so weak.
Where is the new dawn.
Why do I still seek.

That’s why I need his help.
I cannot do it on my own.
I am wading through kelp.
I feel so lone.

Please help me.
So that I may see.

Haiku

Am I then alone
Or can I count on his help
Perhaps then I can

Sonnet

Which is easier to say, get up and walk.
Or your sins are forgiven.
Some like me do little but talk.
Others into martyrdom are driven.

I often rest awhile beside Oliver Plunket’s tomb.
At Downside it is raised up on pillars high.
Here the shadows of an unforgiving past loom.
But here was a man’s conscience that could not lie.

He could have remained quietly a professor at Rome.
But treaded fearlessly the fields and ways of Ireland.
Convicted on false testimony he died far from home.
And the last to have blood cleaned by the gibbet’s sand.

I freely admit I do and would have compromised.
Doing only what was and is authorised.

Haiku

Do we die for faith
Do most of us compromise
That is always thus

Sonnet

The slave girl’s son I will also make into a nation.
For he is your child too.
The promise to Abram remains through all creation.
And it applies to us too.

The second best is just as best.
We all deserve an equal chance.
God didn’t just leave the baby to be laid to rest.
Can we not see this at a glance.

The desert child was wailing.
God heard him calling.
He ended his suffering.
He kept him growing.

When the second best call.
We can stand then just as tall.

Haiku

In our own desert
God hears us calling to him
Then he will respond

Sonnet

When Peter saw this he fell at Jesus’ knees.
And said “Go away from me, Lord, I am a sinful man”.
For his great faith given the sacred keys.
Had not everything been given by this humble man.

We who still run the race.
Let us have such humility.
Pray that we can keep up with the pace.
And despite all achieve some serenity.

We do have the faith of Peter’s preaching.
We lack the power of Paul’s teaching.
We plodders just keep going.
We can only just go on searching.

One day we will arrive at the finish breathless.
And we will be asked where was your faithfulness.

Haiku

We still run the race
We have a long way to go
To find faithfulness