Today I'm cheating. The Father I want to honour today is the spiritual father - our priests, and what better poem than this (Irish, I think) prayer/poem?
The Beautiful Hands of a Priest.
We need them in life's early morning,
We need them again at its close;
We feel their warm clasp of true friendship,
We seek them while tasting life's woes.
When we come to this world we are sinful,
The greatest as well as the least.
And the hands that make us pure as angels
Are the beautiful hands of a priest.
At the altar each day we behold them,
And the hands of a king on his throne
Are not equal to them in their greatness
Their dignity stands alone.
For there in the stillness of morning
Ere the sun has emerged from the east,
There God rests between the pure fingers
Of the beautiful hands of a priest.
When we are tempted and wander
To pathways of shame and sin
'Tis the hand of a priest that will absolve us.
Not once but again and again.
And when we are taking life's partner
Other hands may prepare us a feast
But the hands that will bless and unite us,
Are the beautiful hands of a priest.
God bless them and keep them all holy,
For the Host which their fingers caress,
What can a poor sinner do better
But to praise Thee who chose thee to bless
When the death dews on our eyes are falling,
May our courage and strength be increased
To see, raised above us in blessing
The beautiful hands of a priest.
- - - - -
Next Mondays Topic: Bubbles.
Blogger putter stadig tilfældige kommentarer i spamfængsel. Jeg lover at slippe dem ud hurtigst muligt.
Blogger is still randomly putting comments in spam-jail. I promise to free them as fast as possible.
Not cheating - but sharing the love of poetry and well spun words which is what this meme is about.
SvarSletThank you, yes I forgot that you could also share a poem, as we almost always create our own.
SletThat's a precious poem, i am glad you shared it.
SvarSletThank you.
Slet"When we come to this world we are sinful"
SvarSletI have never believed that, how is it possible for tiny new babies to be sinful?
The poem is lovely.
I have always understood it like this: The individual babies, who have done nothing wrong as yet, are of course not sinful (Also the burial mass for a dead baby is festive, celebrating a new saint - tough, but meaningful and beautiful). But because we are human beings, the heirs of Adam and Eve, we have the innate propensity to choose evil, and this is what is washed off, liberating us from the mark the devil put upon humanity in the beginning.
SletWow this is hard in English, I hope you grasp what I mean.
This is such a beautiful poem!
SvarSletThank you.
SletThis is beautiful, Charlotte! I can't help but think of those righteous men who sacrifice so much to care for their flocks!
SvarSletAnd I LOVE the idea of 'hands'. So telling of a person!
The hands, yes something about the sacred hands of a priest is quite extraordinary.
Slet