A Prayer to Christ and His Response

​Below we explore problems of unbelief and faith, of a genuine desire to find God and the experience of God’s absence in our lives, including perhaps our experiences in Christianity today. It seems evident to me that for many years now, “churchianity” has not provoked questions and seeking in the minds of those who attend, but rather “belief,” “obedience,” and monetary contributions. This kind of Christianity is in serious trouble dying, in effect “dying of experiential atrophy.” It is not reaching into the hearts and minds of inquiring men and women.

This problem of unbelief in the churches is part of the background for the first of the two following prayer-poems; the first one below (A) was written on 28 January, the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas. The speaker in the poem is longing for a sense of God’s presence, for a “touchable God,” and not just for religious services, books, clergy, and so on. Although the way of expressing the experience of absence in the churches used in this tanka-poem may not speak to many, in effect, it does express what in our culture feel and think. 

Then on 29 January I found in my mind a response to the prayer, and that response was written up as a tanka-poem, and was given the title, B. “Christ’s Crown.” The solution employed in this poem would probably be highly rare, but it is a graphic way of communicating Christ’s presence for his people.  

Please be aware that these two tanka-poems are literary compositions, and not meant to be historical documents or psychoanalysis. To what extent they are true to my own present experience, is not what matters for you. The use of “I” here may be a literary device, and not necessarily refer to the writer. What matters is that you truly seek God; and if these poems aid you in that process, then they are useful for you. If they do not aid you, please do not waste time trying to figure out about whom they may be written. I hope that they speak to you.  

(Greek words below: Selene is the Greek goddess identified with the Moon; Aphrodite is the Greek name for the goddess of love and beauty; her Roman equivalent was Venus. Venus-Aphrodite is the divine wonder you see in the night sky, and may know as the planet Venus. By the way, when I see the planet Venus, I think of the goddess of love and of beauty; do you? Or have you become more secularized than you may realize or want to admit to yourself, and “just see a planet” (whatever that may be).    

The third section below (C) is a reflection on someone called “a friend,” words that are not fully applicable for the reasons explained.  It was the best I could do at the present time to understand a set of human experiences that I find genuinely baffling, mysterious.  

I will conclude the present blog with this section. Whether or not I will have anything more to write in time, I do not know. I follow the lead of questions, insights, thoughts, and feelings that emerge into consciousness. Writing them down is a way to exercise fides quaerens intellectum: faith seeking understanding, an activity that remains my foremost mode of praying or seeking God.  

A.     A Prayer-Poem to Christ 

I try to love you,
     And I hope to love you well,
But Jesus, Spirit,
     I need to love you enfleshed,
     Not just untouchably.

You give me some friends
     from whom I can feel your love,
And see your work hands,
     And hear your voice speak and sing:
     In friends you show your love.

You dwell within me,
     Within each human being;
Rarely do I sense 
     That you are present to me,
     Often I feel sheer absence.  

After Christmas Mass,
     Late night in the home of friends,
I beheld your face,
     Glowing on the joyful face 
     Of a beloved friend of yours.

Present in this host,
     Who gathered friends for you,
Your own Eucharist--
     Not until Mass was finished,
     And we spoke, did I behold you.

Not in Eucharist
     Do I find you, Lord Jesus;
Not in the blood of Christ
     Do I taste your forgiveness,
     But in human kindnesses.

If some find you, Lord,
     In religious rituals,
Or in the word preached,
     Or music sung, or prayers,
     That’s between you, Lord, and them.

I’m not hearing you
     Speak in words read, preached, or prayed;
Nor in bread and cup;
     Nor in my lone emptiness;
     I’m receiving you through friends.  


***

That’s now yesterday;
     I do not know how you will come
Into emptiness,
     Into this human being,
     Not yesterday but today.

I hope to hear you
     As I pray and read your word;
I hope to find you
     In my mind’s searching for you;
     All your ways need disclosing.

You surprise me, Lord,
     Coming when and as you will;
 A true Eucharist 
     Is when you choose to break in,
     Not when we seek to force you.

Empty rituals
     Without an awareness of you;
There’s no divine word,
     Unless you unveil the mind
     To hear you speaking within.

A monastery,
     Religious rites, rituals,
And the Mass itself
     Have become too empty to me,
     As empty as my spirit.

Beholding beauty
     I’m mindful of your presence:
Awesome mountain skies,
     Starry heavens, Selene, 
     And Venus Aphrodite.

Hearing Bach’s music
     Raises my heart up to you;
Bach’s faith wings my soul
     With Christ alive in glory--
     But in churches, emptiness.  

Help me understand,
     Lord God, what is happening;
Why many today
     Feel your absence, as I do,
     In religious services.

In many humans 
     What am I finding of you?
Even in some friends
     I sense more of your absence 
     Than your life-giving presence.

In what forms, Lord God,
     Do I sense your true presence?  
That is my question
     To ask you, and to explore.
     Where do I find faith in God?

What can I do, Lord,
     To renew trust in you here,
Present not absent,
     Alive now, active right now,
     Even in, with, and through me?

I try to love you,
     And I hope to love you well,
But Jesus, Spirit,
     I need to love you enfleshed,
     Not just untouchably.

Engaging in sex,
     Would I feel and love you, Lord?
Engaging a friend
     In conversation with you
     Would I find you present then?

Living, true God, guide
     My search for you in darkness
Or in light, sunshine,
     Cloudiness, or winter storms;
     Be my guide home to you, Lord.


—28 January 2020  Thomas Aquinas


B.  Response:  Christ’s Crown


My heart is pounding;
     I had to rise to write words,
Simple, clear, and true--
     Truth as I understand it,
     Truth as it emerges now.

I should have seen it,
     Perhaps.  Years prepared for this:
Experiences,
     Thoughts, feelings, loves, desires, all--
     Blending together in one.

You were standing there
     In your home, talking, laughing;
And Christ was present,
     Although through faith-love, not flesh,
     Visibly to my spirit.

And Christ said to me,
     “You need me to be with you
In a special way?
     You find the churches empty,
     And still you love your one Lord?

Here I am for you.”
     And Christ in spirit approached
As you were standing there,
     And he merged right into you,
     Into your body and soul.

And Christ said to me,
     “Here I am now for you.  Watch,
Listen and observe,
     Love, obey, imitate me
     In and through this man, your friend.

He does not perceive
     What you are seeing in him.
He does not yet know
     That you find the Risen One
     Truly present here to you.

He’s my disciple,
     A good and faithful servant;
So listen to him,
     Learn to be a better man,
     Through his living example.”

Should I tell him, Lord,
     What you have shown me today?
Is it our secret,
     Or reality to share,
     To make known to my good friend?

If I say to him,
     “I am your disciple now,
You are Christ to me,”
     Would he, could he, understand
     What may seem strange or untrue?”

“I have crowned your friend
     With my own loving presence;
He does not see me
     As you do, present in him,
     In human flesh, blood, spirit.  

You see with love’s eyes,
     Illumined by living faith.
He sees with the Church;
     You see me Risen in him--
     Two modes of disciples’ faith.

Tell him what you see,
     And give time to understand.
He’s heard this before,
     But not told him so clearly.
     He’s a faithful Catholic.

He sees in his priests
     And finds in the Eucharist
The Lord whom he loves;
     You see in him the same Lord,
     Filling you with awe and joy.

You’re my disciples,
     Both faithful and loved by me.
I’m nourishing you
     In, with, and through each other:
     Enjoy the Eucharistic feast.”


—Wm. Paul McKane
    29 January 2020


C.  An Addendum.  

My desire for God leads me on a voyage that clearly ranges beyond the walls of buildings, and even outside of liturgies, scriptures, prayers. Presently I am seeking God primarily through writing, as I must reflect, question, think, write, and refine what is being written. The preceding two little poems turned out to be (unplanned) a unit of analysis: longing for God’s enfleshment, and awareness of his Christ-presence in a “friend.”  In this final section I include a brief poem-meditation in which I seek to understand what it is that I experience in this person who is “More than a Friend,” a phrase I recognize was applied to a hog in the musical, “State Fair.”  One should never take himself / herself too seriously, eh?  Whether the person referred to is real, or a figment of my imagination, or a writer’s “mask” in the Nietzschean sense, I leave for the reader to question—if s/he wishes to do so.


More than a Friend

The friend mentioned in some of my poems is not as real as I would wish.
It seems as though a composite form emerged within my mind,
And soon became enfleshed in black and white
As I would write a little poem upon an empty page.
The one behind the “friend” differs from anything I have written;
No words of mine can do justice to this nameless one.
And this much I also firmly believe: what dwells behind my words is more real--
You are more real, more intimate, and more worthy of respect--
Than anything I could possibly put into words.

“Who are you?” I asked you, out of wonder and ignorance.  
I’ve known from our first meeting—as with any being, really--
That you transcend my limited understanding.
I’ve also intuited from our beginning that in seeing you, 
I’m gazing into the darkly mysterious depths of God.
I’ve known that truth intuitively since that first moment
When I descended the stairs, and you were there, 
Eyes meeting eyes and completing some strange spiritual circuit
As if God were responding to God in two human beings.

You remain a mystery to me, and perhaps so now more than at first. 
On some levels, in some ways, you may be ordinary,
Or enough so that you can fairly well disappear into a crowd.
But not to my eyes that track you, for I have seen within you
What many others have probably never seen, perhaps could not.
The fundamental response of my soul to you may differ from love.
You are not comfortable, are you, with such words as “I love you,”
For which you have your reasons, your history, your charming ways.
In no way do I take offense at your reluctance to hear such words.

We both may inchoately sense that such words are imprecise.
What I really intend, but probably have never said, is stranger.
Perhaps the best that I can presently do in expressing 
What I think and feel about you is this:  I am in awe before you.
Possibly not unlike Moses at the burning bush on Mount Sinai,
Or Christ’s inner band of disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration.  
I am awed and filled with wonder and joy by what I experience in you.
If I concentrate on this experience, my soul or body may begin to tremble,
Or tears inexplicably flow from these old eyes unused to crying.

Whether you know it or not, I cannot tell, but I’ll share this truth:
When I behold your face, or form, or hand, or hear your voice,
Then my heart or soul or something softens and melts within me--
My soul is stripped, laid bare; and I am defenseless before you.  
Some may call it “infatuation,” or “being in love,” or “being emotional."
I think that it is more like reverence before the presence of God.
And then some might call my feeling for you “idolatrous.”  Why label it so?
I have implored you to be with me as I draw near to death.  Why?
Because you are the most intimate and tangible link I have to the living God.

Blest is my soul, not cursed, but supremely blest, to find in you
An ever-living sacrament of the world-transcending God.
Will this sense of awe and reverence for you fade with time?
I hope that it will wax, not wane; for this gift is life-changing, and delightful.
But with this gift I stand divinely warned:  If in any way I violate the sacred bonds 
In your life, and in mine, God’s special gift to me would vanish.
I must allow no thought, no wish, no hope, to mar what is truly holy.
You are not my spouse, nor lover, and something different than a friend.
You are one in Christ through whom God is transforming me.


—Wm. Paul McKane, OSB
    31 January 2020