 |
| Our Lady Who Brings Down Walls |
After Luke 4:18-19
God grieves, Mary weeps, our sister
Preaching not with words and argument,
But salty tears that soak
The borderlands between hate and holiness.
Weeping is truth.
Truth is unsettled and unsettling.
Unsettled, I must wonder.
What if the one I most fear is
The very one I most need--
The brother whose broken heart is my wholeness,
The sister whose anger may burn away
Every excess in my life, and even in my people?
What if the massive gray walls
I build like altars to distrust and weakness,
The fortressed roads I travel dreaming of protection,
Keep me only from my soul's desire,
Keep me only from the one homecoming that matters?
O source.
O giver.
O homemaker.
A story says that Jesus came home to Nazareth
 |
| St. Francis' Church, Bethlehem |
With jubilee visions in his eyes, in his hands:
A world in which captives were captive no more,
And all the world's oppressed were free,
And peoples everywhere returned to the land.
What a day that will be when the one highway
We all choose, we all walk, we all cherish as our own
Is a road home, a road of signposts
Like jubilee and justice, like peace and plenty,
A road of songs, new rhythms, ancient melodies.
What a day that will be when our gardens
Are never again profaned by barbed wire,
But are instead holy lands because
Our children come to pick sweet fruits there,
With abudance their inheritance and grace,
Chanting joyfully in their many languages:
Salaam, Shalom, Salaam, Shalom, peace!
26 May 2025
Bethlehem
DGJ
