A Poem about Pope Francis

Hello All. If the Olympics gave medals for blogging the least number of times each year, I'd probably win the gold. Why? Because I took several weeks off in December and early January. Now, it’s Thursday again and I find myself unable to find the three hours I generally spend crafting the memoir story that serves as my posting. This week’s been hectic with the illness of a friend who needed help and with my own problems with Meniere’s. So I also haven’t been able to read any of your blogs.

         I’m hoping that next week life will permit me to get back to a routine that includes reading/commenting on blogs and writing a story for this blog. For now, I simply want to share two things.

1)         As you know, Time magazine chose Pope Francis as their person of the year. Below is a poem about the pope. A friend of mine, whom I’ve known for sixty years, wrote it. The two of us attended college together and we both entered Mount Saint Scholastica Monastery. I left; she stayed and I’m so thankful that she’s been able to pursue her love of writing there.

Pope Francis

He looked out at our world

and saw that it was good,

not wicked or lurking in alleys,

waiting to pounce on prey,

but wounded and scarred from battlefields

of controversy, dissention, and mistrust.

He calls for the Church to be

a “field hospital” doing triage

to stop the hemorrhaging, to bandage

the broken, to comfort the mournful,

not condemning or alienating.

Open-armed and open-hearted

Francis embraces those teetering

on the brink of poverty, trampled

by war and greed, lost

in disillusionment and darkness.

Throwing off the ermine and silk

and red shoes, abandoning

the papal palace, he reaches out

to ordinary folk with candor

and common language.

He makes the gospel speak

again to all those hungering

for the simple bread of compassion

and understanding, yearning

for a place to call home.

Barbara Mayer, OSB

October 2013

This is the second poem of Barb’s that I’ve shared with you. The first was one about the return of a number of ex-nuns, myself included, to the Mount in May 2013 to celebrate the monastery’s sesquicentennial. Click here if you’d like to read that poem.

2)         On January 26, I posted for the first time in fourteen weeks on my Sunday writing blog: Word-Crafting: a Writer’s Blog. For that posting, I reviewed Return to Canterbury, written by a fellow blogger. It is a sequel to her first book, The Christmas Village. If you have time, I hope you’ll visit my Sunday blog and read the review. Melissa Goodwin’s novel for 10-to-14-year-olds is so well written that it appeals not only to young readers, but also to those of us who’ve enjoyed a lengthy number of years!

         If all goes well with the weather and the barometer and my friend, whose health is not so good right now, I’ll return next Monday to reading blogs and next Thursday to sharing with you another convent story. Peace.