June 7, 2014 mission poetry Sonnet for Pentecost The excellent poet Malcom Guite speaks Today we feel the wind beneath our wings Today the hidden fountain flows and plays Today the church draws breath at last and sings As every flame becomes a Tongue of praise. This is the feast of fire, air, and water Poured out and breathed and kindled into earth. The earth herself awakens to her maker And is translated out of death to birth. The right words come today in their right order And every word spells freedom and release Today the gospel crosses every border All tongues are loosened by the Prince of Peace Today the lost are found in His translation. Whose mother-tongue is Love, in every nation. from Sounding the Seasons and used in our liturgy for Pentecost. An amazing coincidence is that I just finished watching an amazing program where Stephen Fry was looking at language and covered the master of them all: James Joyce, whom I love; who spent a whole productive morning because he had written a sentence with the words “in the right order” that day. A brilliant thing because the protean beauty of Joyce links with the power of the Spirit at Pentecost and the Rauch of creation. By spr
Leave a Reply Cancel reply Δ This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.