Best Ecclesiastical Poems

the wealth of norman England is poised to grow
  towns enlarge, markets exchange, a fresh fertilising sprinkled culture
  kingdoms extend with numbers reducing
  old and new empires jostle, reshaping across continents and islands
  what of England's exploited common people ?
 ...

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NO PART OF THE WORLD (Part 1)


Have you read Jesus words at John 17:16?

Referring to his disciples he said
"They are no part of THE WORLD, just as I am no part of THE WORLD"

What could he have meant by this expression no part of THE...

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Rasputin, known as the Russian mad monk,
Was wandering through the abbey quite drunk,
He was caught somewhat unawares
By a descending flight of stairs,
His long cloak causing an ecclesiastical slump....

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Ech day me cometh tydinges thre
"Each Day Three Tidings Come to Me"
(anonymous Middle English poem, circa the 13th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Each day I’m plagued by three doles,
These gargantuan weights on my soul:
First, that I must exit this fen.
Second, that I cannot...

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Here, this day, on this inglorious
Field
Thy vain struggles will count no
Valour.
All hope now abandoned,
Imminent defeat unconcealed;
Erstwhile countenance display 
Such waxen, languid pallor.
Surround by your dwindling 
Forces
Ye will but sadly find...
That the stout keep of your 
Valiant fortress is all but breached,
Once strong foundations failing -
Wherest...

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The Bad Priest
In Lyons (I think it was Easter, 1438),
I was a priest and somehow can recall
the dim church, the heavy clouds of frankincense
and the knights and the peasants lined up for communion.
I chanted the magic words
and did the magic gestures but
instead of the wine...

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The Church is one, holy, Catholic and apostolic
Find these words from the Creed, Professed at Sunday mass
4 marks indicate the essential features of the Church
Each mark viewed as a reality and a challenge

Church is one
Bond of love between Eternal Father and Eternal Son 
Unites as...

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I gulp a flame of desire
At the sight of your ecclesiastical attire
Being proxy for a pacifier
That elicits a comfort for my quagmire

Your smile, your smile 
A sun in a darkened profile
A moon that illuminates the eventide. 
Oh lily of the while
You let your movement twist...

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“Saint Joan Of Arc The Maid of Orléans””
“Jehanne la Pucelle”

Joan of Arc a pious peasant farmer's daughter
In her times alone, she spent it in adoration
~
Ten year old Joan runs in joyful play
Through the field of red poppies
Taking a shortcut through the forest
Anxious to get to...

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The Maid of New Orleans


A teenage cow girl who couldn’t write
Was told by God to front the fight
the hundred Year War against the French
And cut her hair in trendy wedge
Six centuries later it became the rage

She donned male clothes to further enrage
Raising a flag along...

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Enterprising Henry IV declares suzerainty over state
Xenophobic princes seek the royal prerogative to abate
Cautious king uses diplomacy, threats his minions to subjugate
Old rivals in Saxony Henry's consolidation with tyranny equate
Morose princes in the hinterland seek to avoid a similar fate
Manic King Henry sends his forces...

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things are happening do you believe 
is it near the end of the world
blood running yet flowing warm
down the streets hope seems hopeless
what's the use am I denying...

the sign of the times

what's why you crying are you in a bind
stop denying everything's fine

sign of the...

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archetypically,
I sow my hysterical libido,
in the Jungian brain garden,
and reap only ecclesiastical weeds,
and subconscious rashes...

breaking apart, engorged, 
mad egoist, freudian slip'd,
spilling repressed aloes,
into her ashen columbarium...

penitent, penniless,
scrabbled up the storied mount,
silently trapp'd, interlocuted,
cast back to a southern field...

adiposed, juniper kiss'd,
scarlet nin, flagrante delict(oh),
wagging tongued, freely...

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ST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL AND THE TRAMP

Thousands, perhaps millions of wily, desperate tramps have always been,
But this one far away across the seas was an unusual scene,
Lying on a slab of stone,
He had no existing home,
Thin, dirty and hungry, present in a place so pristine!

There are...

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Priesthood as Victimhood

Like a child; childhood
dying for its favourite toy
so it is with priesthood
dying to attain joy

irrespective of how hard
to see own flowing blood
as long as it brings sanctity
from the Most Holy Trinity

a call of real diligence
to follow the High Priest 
Jesus par excellence
in the...

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