Lectionary readings (Click the links to see the readings): Ezekiel 37.21-28 | Psalm 74.12-17 | John 11.45-57

CALLED

Space Walking

You, the bridge builder,
will you lay me down
a causeway between us
over the gulf I have come
to? What depths such as
the soul's, with yourself
always on the far
side? I have seen
my prayers fall one by one
into that chasm, and faith
was a plank too narrow
for me to tread. Walking
time's sea I have faltered
like Peter, unable
to believe you had arms
to sustain me. And now
the old stories are
done. There is no saviour
walking the waves. Matter
has become the physicist's
myth. Vertigo
is but the mind reeling
momentarily before its own
space. There is only
your voice now summoning
within interstices
of the machine not the flesh
but the spirit to launch
itself forth over the verbal deeps.

—R. S. Thomas. Residues.
Highgreen: Bloodaxe, 2002.

At the End

Few possessions: a chair,
a table, a bed
to say my prayers by,
and, gathered from the shore,
the bone-like, crossed sticks
proving that nature
acknowledges the Crucifixion.
All night I am at
a window not too small
to be frame to the stars
that are no further off
than the city lights
I have rejected. By day
the passers-by, who are not
pilgrims, stare through the rain's
bars, seeing me as prisoner
of the one view, I who
have been made free
by the tide's pendulum truth
that the heart that is low now
will be at the full tomorrow.

—R. S. Thomas. No truce with the Furies.
Highgreen: Bloodaxe, 1995.

"Walking time's sea I have faltered like Peter, unable to believe you had arms to sustain me."

Prayer

Grant, O Lord, that in your wounds we may find our safety, in your stripes our cure, in your pain our peace, in your cross our victory, in your resurrection our triumph, and a crown of righteousness in your eternal kingdom.

W.A. Mozart. Great Mass in C minor (K.427).
Bavarian Radio Choir and Orchestra, conducted by Leonard Bernstein.

Sanctus.