Monday Morning Musing, Holy Week Edition

March 29, 2021

Columbus, Ohio

Holy Week is here; if you work in or for the Church, this week is often the culmination of lots of planning and preparation. It can be both exhausting and life giving. Now a part of my job is to prepare seminarians for this holy work.

Last Thursday I was a guest lecturer in a class I took myself as a first year student. Some of these experiences are still surreal. It was also the Feast of the Annunciation, which is one of my top 5 favorite days in the Church year. I think a lot about Mary during Holy Week. What sorrow pierced her heart, just as she was told by Simeon.

I shared a poem with the class on Thursday that is simply a remarkable work. I hope it will speak to you:

Annunciation

We know the scene: the room, variously furnished,

almost always a lectern, a book; always

the tall lily.

Arrived on solemn grandeur of great wings,

the angelic ambassador, standing or hovering,

whom she acknowledges a guest.

But we are told of meek obedience. No one mentions

courage.

The engendering Spirit

did not enter her without consent.

God waited.

She was free

to accept or to refuse, choice

integral to humanness.

And aren't there annunciations

of one sort or another

in most lives?

Some unwillingly

undertake great destinies,

enact them in sullen pride,

uncomprehending.

More often

those moments

when roads of light and storm

open from darkness in a man or woman,

are turned away from

in dread, in a wave of weakness, in despair

and with relief.

Ordinary lives continue.

God does not smite them.

But the gates close, the pathway vanishes.

She had been a child who played, ate, slept

like any other child - but unlike others,

wept only for pity, laughed

in joy, not triumph.

Compassion and intelligence

fused in her, indivisible.

Called to a destiny more momentous

than any in all of time,

she did not quail, only asked

a simple 'How can this be?'

and gravely, courtesy,

took to heart the angel's reply,

the astounding ministry she was offered:

to bear in her womb

Infinite weight and lightness; to carry

in hidden, finite inwardness,

nine months of Eternity; to contain

in slender vase of being,

the sum of power-

in narrow flesh,

the sum of light.

Then bring to birth,

push out into air, a Man-child

needing, like any other,

milk and love -

but who was God.

This was the moment no one speaks of,

when she could still refuse.

A breath unbreathed,

Spirit,

suspended,

waiting.

She did not cry, 'I cannot. I am not worthy,'

Nor 'I have not the strength.'

She did not submit with gritted teeth,

raging, coerced,

Bravest of all humans,

consent illumined her.

The room filled with its light,

the lily glowed in it,

and the iridescent wings.

Consent,

courage unparalleled,

opened her utterly.

Denise Levertov