Mass

If I trust You, everything else will become, for me, strength, health, and support. Everything will bring me to heaven. If I do not trust You, everything will be my destruction.
Thomas Merton  Thoughts in Solitude

When it begins
music plays and we sing
songs of gathering, greeting.

This, then, is the family complete,
assembled around the table
ready for the thanksgiving feast.

Why can’t we just stay
innocent,
present?

We tell the stories of youth,
laugh at self-folly, glad at last
to tell the truth,

but soon we feel the pain
of separation, of nails
driven deep
beneath our tender skin:

his heart breaks; cancer invades
her beloved body
and we can only stare
at vacant crossings,
bereft, 
alone,

until You speak.

Believing beyond reason,
we feel the bread, deep down,
subsumed
into our very guts, spreading
unreasonable warmth
and comfort
and joy!

We cannot understand such power
but without it
our lives
would cease.