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

Sonnet

Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests.
But the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.
But who is he, how do we resolve these tests.
Did he really rise from the dead.

Is he wholly divine.
Or wholly human.
Or both human and divine.
Or some kind of superhuman.

I like to think he is all of these.
And certainly the saviour of the world.
A single sacrifice to pay all our fees.
To the winds then doubt and fear hurled.

We could like the Councils grapple with this to make sense.
Better just to have faith in what to us makes sense.

Haiku

Only a human
Or he is a power God
Can he not be both

Sonnet

Death was not God’s doing.
He takes no pleasure in extinction of the living.
Are we then the victim of Adam’s fruit picking.
But for him would our life here just keep going.

But what would immortality serve.
It would only work in a world unfalled.
So we exist in extinction’s curve.
Dreading death, fearing being called.

Does lingering life ever serve happiness.
In long years of frailty do we grow.
Love life, accept death’s witness.
Like wheat, die so you can sow.

If only we could accept this leap.
We would not, in trembling, weep.

Haiku

Our extinction
Is that God’s plan for us all
Just after the fall

Sonnet

Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.
Do not judge and you will not be judged.
How often do we stand alone.
Our spirit by criticism crushed.

When we disapprove of someone.
Ask if we have not been there.
We may not even have been such a one.
But maybe in our hearts we were tempted to be there.

Can we not be more like the centurion.
Not even daring to ask him under our roof.
More forgiving less Puritan.
More caring and less aloof.

I say this then I read the newspaper.
Eager like the rest to titter.

Haiku

If we judge others
They have the right to judge us
Better to forgive

Sonnet

Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house.
Thy children like olive plants around thy table.
She’s always right, so let’s not grouse about the spouse.
All life is here as in an inevitable and true fable.

They say that the lord is the strength of the people.
But the family united is the strength of the nation.
Even on a hard path we can see this far away like a steeple.
This is true through every calm and every agitation.

There is a vine growing on the outside of my cottage.
Sometimes, all enveloping, it must needs be cut back.
It may not always be fruitful but it is always there in full wattage.
It is just green and healthy, neither white nor black.

So the psalm is right.
Let’s keep it in sight.

Haiku

Yes the psalm is right
True, The wife is always right
Better obey her

Sonnet

I am not the one you imagine me to be.
There is one coming, I am not fit to undo his sandal.
Knowing our own worthlessness is the key.
And if we know how we can turn the handle.

I often wonder what is this essence, I call me.
The answer seems tantalisingly close.
But I know it is not actually what others see.
Perhaps it needs some common sense dose.

John knew that all is not as it seems.
This, our life passes into something greater.
That is why he sought the desert in his dreams.
His body was not what was important to his maker.

But we, others, do not have such faith to proclaim.
We live consciously in a material world where all is lame.

Haiku

Only in desert
Is all clear to see and hear
Save in our mirage

Sonnet

Any tree that does not produce good fruit is cut down.
You will be able to tell them by their fruit.
We know we reap what we have sown.
But all that we should do does not us suit.

I have brown fingers.
My vegetable patch is pitiful.
It’s only a weed that lingers.
How dare I ever be critical.

We should look up to heaven, its great glories.
And like Abram count the stars.
They could be a thousand times seven.
Recounting a million stories.

Pity about the Tesco’s superstore’s solution.
Ruining the show in this rural spot with light pollution.

Haiku

Look up to the skies
Hid by light pollution
It could be ended

Sonnet

With the increase in lawlessness.
Love in most men will grow cold.
We all feel this certain restlessness.
Routine envelopes us like clinging mould.

The rules of the church are hard.
But they have all been thought through.
Many will fall away, others may be barred.
But with tolerance, they are society’s glue.

What is the best thing a father for his children can do.
It is to love their mother for ever unreservedly.
We may fail in most things but this we should try to do.
I accept for me it had been easy to love my love profoundly.

But if we live virtuously we can claim no credit.
We have just been lucky in life’s credit and debit.

Haiku

If a father loves
A child’s mother with true heart
That is best to do

Sonnet

Let me take the splinter out of your eye.
All the time there is a plank in my own.
It’s so itchy this great plank I sigh.
Why are all these criticisms of others sown.

All day long I judge others.
And I know that I’m judged all day long.
Of course I know that judgement smothers.
Like a weary bell, dong, dong.

And then I fail to measure out.
Then complain of the amount given me.
Good deeds die in this selfish drought.
Of course I know all this is the key.

So I am useless at living this Gospel reading.
One day in another life I might have a go at succeeding.

Haiku

There is a great plank
It sits there in all our eyes
Where is the splinter

Sonnet

Then it began to blow a gale.
And the waves were breaking into the boat.
Sometimes we feel that we will not live to tell the tale.
We feel we can, on life’s turbulent sea, barely float.

But is there someone seemingly sleeping nearby.
Do we have faith that he will awaken.
We cannot see him anywhere in the sky.
But he will come if our hope is not shaken.

In my boat I only go out in a calm.
The wind barely ruffles my fears or sails.
The sky a gentle blue is mere balm.
Nothing in engine or rigging ever fails.

The truth is I only trust in myself, I do not have sufficient faith.
I don’t really believe he is there, my belief is a summer wraith.

Haiku

The storm hit the boat
The whole crew were terrified
They had not trusted

Sonnet

Think of the flowers growing in the fields.
They never have to work or spin.
Yet they have as much worth as goldfields.
They are without worry or sin.

Of course we should think of today.
Because tomorrow will look after itself.
All this stuff of today and flowers how easy to say.
But these fine sentiments sit on a dusty shelf.

Yet today I lay in a shallow calm North Sea.
Staring alone at scudding cloud and fitful sun.
I had no thought save for what I could feel and see.
There was nowhere and no need to hide or to run.

This is how it should be I am told.
But I got out, oh the water was so cold.

Haiku

Live just for today
Tomorrow cares for itself
The sea is just cold