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.