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On Liturgy

By Jennifer Polson Peterson Poetry

All at once the stillness breaks
into a great applause of wings, the mounting up
in doxology, the downsweep then
of many heads in prayer.

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The Crypt of the Capuchins

By Cammy Thomas Poetry

I am underground,
on a path through small rooms
lit only by delicate chandeliers
of finger and knuckle bones
wired together, shedding a soft
light on the group of worshippers
who tiptoe through.

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Knock

By Betsy Sholl Poetry

I wouldn’t call gulping a glass of ale and backhanding foam off your upper lip a form of devotion, or the refusal to laugh at an off-color joke a sign of reverence. But I could imagine God, a wounded rat in one hand, a soothing song— I do not say on his lips. No, it’s…

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Nostalgia for the Doughnut Shop

By Gerard Smyth Poetry

These days I write elegies and read the Metaphysicals. And when I turn the radio on prefer to hear a pennywhistle playing “Purple Heather.” In all weathers I wander back to parishes where I feel nostalgia for the doughnut shop and the junkyard where things were given a second chance.   It was there that…

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Camp Meeting

By Marilyn Nelson Poetry

Old Saybrook, Connecticut, April 1827 Wealthy Ann, Ruhama, Othelia, Harriet, Hipsey, and I took the ferry to the big camp meeting in Old Saybrook, where ten famous preachers took turns exhorting us to find Jesus and to serve him by serving each other. The crowd swarmed like ants taking breadcrumbs home. Wealthy Ann said smelling…

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Uncomfortable Things

By Marilyn Nelson Poetry

e.g. Abolition, Prudence Crandall, the Amistad, Nat Turner, Indian Removal, Female Complaints: First Congregational Church, Lyme, Connecticut, ca. 1816 Even the pulpit Bible was consumed in the fire that turned the meeting-house to ash. An architect planned the new meeting-house, a steeple equipped with a lightning-rod, a belfry, and a golden weathervane; Ionic columns supporting…

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Holding Away the Dark

By Pádraig J. Daly Poetry

Fiche bliain ag fás, Fiche bliain ag borradh ’sag at, Fiche bliain ag titim, Fiche bliain cuma tú ann nó as. ___________ —Traidisiúnta, Déisibh Mumhan 1. Dead leaves scrape across the paving of the derelict church. A small crowd is gathered with candles. A priest sits by a white-clothed table. How long more can we…

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Patron Saints

By Gregory Wolfe Essay

I ONCE heard a story about the late Walker Percy that seems to illustrate the plight of so many struggling artists down through the ages. Percy graduated from medical school in the 1940s but soon came down with tuberculosis and had to spend a couple years in a sanatorium. During that time he underwent a profound…

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