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A Poem For Easter Sunday

Suddenly

R.S. Thomas

As I had always known
he would come, unannounced,
remarkable merely for the absence
of clamour. So truth must appear
to the thinker; so, at a stage
of the experiment, the answer
must quietly emerge. I looked
at him, not with the eye
only, but with the whole
of my being, overflowing with
him as a chalice would
with the sea. Yet was he
no more there than before,
his area occupied
by the unhaloed presences.
You could put your hand
in him without consciousness
of his wounds. The gamblers
at the foot of the unnoticed
cross went on with
their dicing; yet the invisible
garment for which they played
was no longer at stake, but worn
by him in this risen existence.

Your Correspondent, Go deimhin, tá sé éirithe!

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Where I Proof Read Vatican II Documents

I realise that the documents of Vatican II are solid theological gold, refined by the finest master craftsmen the Catholic Church could track down and that fifty years on those apparently stuffy documents continue to be awe-inspiringly brilliant…

But I think I have found at least single tiny flaw in one of them. So give me a medal or a bishopric or a yacht bigger than Monaco. I’m not asking for anything excessive, like say, I don’t know, shared Communion.

In Lumen Gentium paragraph 26 we read:

In any community of the altar, under the sacred ministry of the bishop, there is exhibited a symbol of that charity and “unity of the mystical Body, without which there can be no salvation.” In these communities, though frequently small and poor, or living in the Diaspora, Christ is present, and in virtue of His presence there is brought together one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.

Did you see where the divines made their mistake?

They meant to write: “In these communities, though frequently huge and wealthy…” but a typo introduced the far less sensible “small and poor” instead.

As much as we try, churches seem to genuinely struggle with the priority of poverty.

Your Correspondent, Is moderately rich and can rent almost anything