Theology & Spirituality

The Holy Names

The Holy Names

I overheard a man who burnt
his fingers, blew a tire, tripped
a wire in the undergrowth and called
upon the worst things he could think to say:

Jesus, Mary, Joseph!

The holy ones spoke
to my heart too, their names
leapt up gently as benediction.

How good, I praised, that you are with us,
Holy Family! How good that you become
the curse of many! How good that they are shorting you
the due reverence, making you the objects of their wretchedness!

Alive inside such petty hate,
peaceable, immense, and patient–gratia.

For if you had not rescued us,
we would curse our own footsteps
and pace our narrow round in shuttered misery.

Dull with pain, we’d slosh and spill
and spit our own names on the wall.

 

 

 

Photo credit
Daniel Hyland

Daniel Hyland

Daniel is a Catholic writer and voice artist living in the Shenandoah Valley with his wife and daughter. He believes in the power of beauty in life, nature and art as a tool of evangelism, and seeks to follow Christ through study, work and prayer. His favorite book of the Bible is the Song of Songs because of the stunning intimacy it presents both with regard to the sacrament of marriage and the marital union with God to which every soul is called in Christ. He is the proud owner of a small collection of facial hair, charitably termed a mustache.

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