O, MACRINA
In Roman times when the church was fledgling,
babies were abandoned along the Appian Way.
While their keening parents kneeled,
soldiers pushed them down drains by the hundreds,
mainly girls and the deformed and weak
until the church saw and responded.
In those days, the church lurched between helping the poor
or erecting church buildings and monuments.
It was not the brothers Gregory and Basil
who swept up these helpless infants.
It was their sister Macrina.
Praise you for your denial of a privileged life.
Praise you for attending famines
to rescue the poor when flesh hung like cobwebs,
for saving those girls and marshaling an army
of church mothers to do the same,
bring them home to raise.
Now we treat immigrants like those road babies,
may we respond to Macrina's example. She knew
that Mary had raised a poor baby who was rejected
because he was not conceived the way he was supposed to be.
VESPER
An angel decided to rescue an angel.
Evil humans capture angels,
neglect them and treat them cruelly—
so we have shelters for rescue.
Floated to a loving home,
a little white cloud of a dog,
named Vesper, as holy as an
evening prayer, a daily
answer for the angels
who found each other.
© Vern Fein
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| Vern Fein |
