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Author Topic: Today marks Fr. Leonard Feeneys birthday (Feb. 15, 1897)  (Read 664 times)

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Offline OldMerry

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Today marks Fr. Leonard Feeneys birthday (Feb. 15, 1897)
« on: February 15, 2015, 05:29:36 PM »
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  • Here's a poem he wrote while still a Jesuit.  It seems not only a personal one to God having an offering of self in it, but also that God took him up on that offering.

    A Priest's Offertory

     Had I a whiter host to give
     In snowier garments wouldst Thou live.
     Thine were a chalice rich and old
     Had I a better thing than gold.
     Thy wine-press would know the sweet
     Warm treading of an angel's feet.
     Thy wheatfields were grown afar
     In the soft meadowland of – star!
     If priceless linen could I buy
     Upon such linen wouldst Thou lie;
     Something more virginal than bees
     Would spin Thee purer lights than these.
     I'd going, borrowing, take a hymn
     From the white, born-singing Seraphim.
     I'd plunder beauty in the night,
     Star-stripping yonder worlds of light,
     I'd color-strip each wondrous, rare
     High-blooming, low-blooming, radiant there
     Refolded flower, firm and fair
     In a green-valleyed everywhere.
     (Christ's Mother! Attend this feast.
     Gift-load to-day His giftless priest.)


     Midnight one night was still,
     Heaven was whitening a hill;
     Dark floundered in the wave of morn,
     Infinite Infancy was born.
     Eternal Power sank below,
     A frail white miracle of snow.
     Eternal Wonder left the skies
     And dwindled into two soft eyes,
     Child limbs that could not reach,
     Child lips that knew no speech
     Spoken, - save the murmurings heard
     From breathing beast, wind and bird.
     The unbeginning God began
     To live the long slow hours of man.
     His Mother, bending her fair head,
     Straw-gathering-she laid His bed.
     A whirling star-world came and halted
     Above a blown-roofed, low, thatch-vaulted
     Cave – Ah! Are we not agreed?
     'Twas piteous royalty indeed!
     And yet beyond an Infant's sleep
     Found He a hiddenness more deep.
     Finds it each morning when I stand,
     He, in the curved holding of my hand.
     Starlight is light but ill,
     Star-shadow – darker still;
     The lone firefly that wields
     His fine blue lantern in the fields
     Is far more luminous than Thou
     Who hideth Thine endless splendor – how!


     The rose more glory has to rate her
     Lovelier than the Rose-Creator.
     The violet is mantled finer
     Than the world's own Flower-Designer,
     Hill-Builder and Meadow-Weaver,
     Earth-Waker, Cloud-Conceiver.
     The blind beggar, kneeling while I pass
     Through the sweet words old, told in the Mass,
     Sunnier visions light his dreams
     Than Thine, dark-locked – in death, it seems.
     Covered indeed – and covered how!
     Veil-shielded lest perchance I know
     Not when the long day is sped:
     Ah! Is this Jesus or is it bread?
     I, Christ, who brought Thee down,
     Must label Thee, to know mine own,
     Must light a swinging lamp on high,
     Lest all men, turning, pass Thee by.
     Thou knowest my voice upon the wine;
     Faith knoweth Thee – but no eyes of mine.


     Wings fell, swords fell, scabbards fell
     Into the yawning throat of Hell;
     An Angel host – O Heaven's loss! –
    Would not adore Thee on the Cross.
     Yet on the Cross when Thou wert lain
     Could they not see what love was slain?
     Observed they not Thy Godly mien,
     How Thou didst welcome death, serene?
     How deeper, broader Hell would be
     If Lucifer were asked to see
     And worship as we worship Thee.

     (Ah, when I speak the words that bring
     Such helplessness on Heaven's King
     Well, little Mass-bell, mightest thou ring.)


     Rise manhood, in me rise!
     Desire, aspire to sacrifice.
     See how His warm blood stains the cup,
     Now with Himself lift thyself up.
     His paten is a burst of gold,
     How much of offering will it hold?
     Will it hold youth, - its bloom and glow?
     (These wilt Thou garner anyhow.)
     Will He take friend and loved one still?
     (The weed-strewn graveyard cries – "He will.")
     By Thee made, fashioned, let live,
     What may I free, untrammeled give?
     I give Thee a poor man bearing his load
     Along the poor man's bleak highroad;
     Now scorned – now pointed at with glee;
     "Yon fool wears Christ's mean livery!"


     I give Thee an angel? – somewhat less,
     Yet wishing an angel's stainlessness,
     Hoping Thy sunny love may yield
     A lily in a trampled field.
     I give Thee unchallenged, full control,
     Of what is empire in my soul.
     I lead Thee up the palace stair
     Of mine own heart – enthrone Thee there!
     If but a king forsooth may sing
     And be content to be a king;
     Unto Thee now, my vows renewed,
     I stamp and seal my servitude.
     I here proclaim Thy courts are fair;
     Charmeth and pleaseth me the air.
     I love the whole-souled, full-rolled ring
     Of war and front-line soldiering,
     Of men who bled – and when they fell –
    Did judge the tribes of Israel.
     Strip me of buckler, sword and lance,
     But Captain – let us both advance!
     Keep my poor eyes firm-fixed upon
     The altar where God slays His Son.
     O Father, Son and Holy Ghost,
     I would I had a whiter host!

     - Leonard Feeney, S.J.