Two finches are here

Golden and Red, now Sparrow.

Eat and Share a meal

Recently, I’ve read two books that have spoken to me on a very spiritual level. The first being In Praise of the Useless Life by Br. Paul Quenon. In that particular book, although I had some issues with theological concerns, Br. Paul spoke about how our society no longer has the capacity for memorization. Our souls no longer have music within them. Of course, naturally, this is because as the second book I’ve read by Cardinal Robert Sarah, The Power of Silence, we’ve let noise drown them out. How can we hope to pray and hear the voice of God in this fast-paced, noisy atmosphere?

Br. Paul speaks about reading, learning, and writing poetry to stir the music of the soul. He says:

“Prayer, mute as the ground, is a seedbed for poetry. Prayer, while at rest out on the ground, catches plenty of seeds. The kind nursery of nature is congenial to prayer and nurtures poetry. They form a symbiosis, like bees and trees, which thrive on one another despite all their differences. It is quite cogent how psalms in choir, how prophecy and gospel, how all great poetry, nurtures prayer; equally cogent are prayer and poetry. They can do without one another, and often do, but not as well. Like kissing cousins, you have to keep them apart sometimes or they will get to scrapping, get in each other’s way, get to too much kissing. (Quenon, Paul. In Praise of the Useless Life (p. 79).

Br. Paul gives Haiku as an easy example to start writing poetry: a form not concerned with a meter or rhyming, but merely syllables. Of course, as I remember from taking a college class on poetry, depending on what part of the country you are from determines how many syllables are in a word! So, I’ve written a few here and there since reading the book and it has certainly helped me to contemplate the mystery of God.

In this particular Haiku, I write about finches eating together in community. In this community, there can be found golden finches, house finches, and somehow a sparrow—who is no finch at all! As I contemplated this particular scene, I found the voice of God in the silence. The story of the covenant of Israel and that of the New Covenant of Christ. Christians, especially, the Gentiles, are the sparrow who God have given the great grace to dine at the great feast in community of His covenant.

Take a moment to reflect on the image of finches with the sparrow described in this haiku. And reflect with it what St. Paul wrote to the Ephesians 1:3-6:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens] 4 as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him. In love 5 he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ, in accord with the favor of his will, 6 for the praise of the glory of his grace that he granted us in the beloved.