Poem: A Year of Jubilee
You grew up like a sapling
With fishermen and shepherds
And the God-haunted mountains
Of your small holy country
You looked the same
As all your people
So for a time
You went unnoticed
You who were later killed
Most cruelly
One Sabbath morning
You stood up in the temple
Young village rabbi
From the provinces
And you unrolled the scroll
And read aloud from it
The Word welled up to us
Out of Isaiah's book
As fresh as the clear streams
That well up in the mountains
"The spirit of the Lord
Has come upon me
He has anointed me
To bring glad tidings
To the poor
To heal the brokenhearted
To give the blind their sight
To free the captives
Release the prisoners and proclaim
A year of jubilee"
We recognized the voice
This was the Promised One
This was the Shepherd
Our hearts were burning.
We listened when you told us
About our heavenly Father
Who wishes us
To cherish one another
To be forgiving, generous
As he is himself
And festive, carefree
As the meadow-flowers
Light as the swallows
He wishes us
To be like children
You also told us
Our Father
Bless us most of all
When we are poor
So even when our bodies
Have grown old
And our heads are filled with confusion
He will not love us
Any the less for that.
------------------- Anne Porter (1911-2011), American Roman Catholic poet, from Living Things: Collected Poems, 2006
Proverb:
“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes[a] with groanings too deep for words.
------------------- Romans 8:26
Painting: Jesus in the Temple, James B. Janknegt, 2009
Prayer: Lamp, Confessor, Companion, Healer
Jesus, you are our lamp in our waking:
let us be filled with your light.
Jesus, you are our confessor for our sins:
let us bend the knee of our hearts in penitence and repentance.
Jesus, you are our companion in our day's journey:
let us be guided by your Spirit.
Jesus, you are our healer for our wounds and sorrows:
let us open our spirits to your touch.
Your gospel of Love, Lord, is the root of our humanity.
Your fellowship, Lord, reminds us that we are all One.
Your mercy, Lord, is the ground of our hope.
Your grace, Lord, reminds us that eternal life begins now.
Help us to claim our heritage as your children:
renew us, that we recover our wonder and compassion.
May our prayers rise like incense to your throne,
O Holy One:
draw under your sheltering arm those for whom we pray.
Amen.
---------------- Leslie Barnes Scoopmire
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