‘… Still With You.’

From the Armadio degli Argenti of Blessed John of Fiesole, OP (Fra Angelico), c. 1450

‘… I rose up and am still with you.’

Psalm 139: 18

Pending

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12 July 2012

A slipper hangs from tiny toes: Our Lord –
A little child – has seen His cross and spear,
Has sped to her whose heart will know a sword.
She holds Him close. Her gaze is dark and clear.
They hang in golden silence…. Twitterings
Of careless birds bring day. Dawn fades the dark.
The clockwork clicks. The hammer hangs, then rings.
The planet turns, and swings along its arc….
The morning sun glides silent up the sky.
The moments pass beneath its sightless ray.
Some few hang solid like an ambered fly;
The rest, like Polaroids, fade fast away….
The noonday sun hangs high. Three things are all:
The point, the palm, the hammer poised to fall.

Annuntiatio Domini

Cell 3 of the Convent of San Marco by Blessed John of Fiesole, OP (Fra Angelico), 15th Century

Cell 3 of the Convent of San Marco
by Blessed John of Fiesole, OP (Fra Angelico), 15th Century

From the Office of Readings in today’s Liturgy of the Hours, an excerpt from a letter by Pope St Leo the Great:

To pay the debt of our sinful state, a nature that was incapable of suffering was joined to one that could suffer. Thus, in keeping with the healing that we needed, one and the same mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ, was able to die in one nature, and unable to die in the other. [… ]

One and the same person – this must be said over and over again – is truly the Son of God and truly the son of man.

‘… called Emmanuel.’

Armadio_degli_argenti,_annunciation

From the Armadio degli Argenti of Blessed John of Fiesole, OP (Fra Angelico), c. 1450

‘Sign you ask none, but sign the Lord will give you. Maid shall be with child, and shall bear a son, that shall be called Emmanuel.

Isaiah 7:14