I can't help it! Advent is my favorite season of the church year, and Mary's stories grab me like no other. So here is another of my favorite prayer/poems. This one is by Jan L. Richardson. Enjoy!
Not to one, but to many you have called:
Come
On the dancing wind
Come
From the deepest forest
Come
From the highest places
Come
From the distant lands
Come from the edge of darkness
Come
From the depth of fear
And become
The bearer of God.
Amen
As I research my sermon for the 4th Sunday in Advent (also the winter Solstice, I'd like to note!), I came across this amazing poem about Mary ... who is the focus of this week's Gospel text. Just as Mary's Magnificat forever challenges the status quo, so this poem by Alla Renee Bozarth challenges our perceptions of Mary's relationship to her child.
Maria Sacerdota—
Mary, Protopriest of the New Covenant
Before Jesus
was his mother.
Before supper
in the upper room,
breakfast in the barn.
Before the Passover Feast,
a feeding trough.
And here, the altar
of earth, fair linens
of hay and seed.
Before his cry,
her cry.
Before his sweat
of blood, her bleeding
and tears.
Before his offering, hers.
Before the breaking
of bread and death,
the breaking of her
body in birth.
Before the offering
of the cup,
the offering of her
breast.
Before his blood,
her blood.
And by her body and blood
alone, his body and blood
and whole human being.
The wise ones knelt
to hear the woman's word
in wonder.
Holding up her sacred child,
her God in the form of a babe,
she said: "Receive and let
your hearts be healed
and your lives be filled
with Love, for
this is my body,
this is my blood."
