What's That He's Wearing?

Several families at Sacred Heart Parish have donated vestments for our pastor's use at Mass in honor of a family member or friend.   They are quite lovely, each in their unique way.  I have written this poem  as a prelude for a future blog that will explain what your priest is wearing and why it is significant to our Catholic faith.    

           Chasuble

Who will care for the monk?
The one gone blind and lame
        stitching eternity
into the pattern of red brocade
worn like armor on the chest.

Who will release his claw--
gnarled flesh & horn nail
from the needle plated in gold?
Who will kiss & open his fingers?

Who will recognize his poverty,
his penitence, his posture?

Who will remember the murmur of:
    O clemens, o pia, o dulcis… Virgo Maria
rising in his throat?  Rising up and out
               to flutter--
flutter against the garden wall.

I will.
I will and he will reward me:
Sew me into the labyrinth of his design
to wander safely there
to live inside the white space,
pure as parchment,
plain as paraffin,
      pristine
as my soul can only hope to be
          after
it is tempered of desire,
soothed of despair
           tamed
 and no longer terrified. 

And what of the monk when he is
finished and his needle
and silk thread forgotten? 

Perhaps he will join me there.

                                       By:  Evelyn Augusto
                                               January 2015