Unreserved Reserve

I was listening to a great homily at the seminary a while ago, and the homilist was passionately preaching about St. Paul’s letter that day. His homily focused on St. Paul’s lively sense of the ‘end of time,’ of Christ’s return in glory when He will bring history to a close. In theology, that’s called eschatology, the study of ‘final things.’

He used a phrase in his homily that fired my imagination — ‘St. Paul wants us to live with eschatological reserve, to live soberly and faithfully as if His coming to take us to himself were absolutely imminent; as if his coming to judge the living and dead were to be at any moment.’

After Mass, I wrote this poem to capture that ‘fire’ before it burned out. You’ll note here that, as in past posts, I absolutely love the name for God, ‘Far-Near,’ that I learned ~ten years ago from reading the extraordinary work of a medieval female theologian, Marguerite Porete.

Eschatological Reserve

At present, now, here planted deep

I look round-about for you, O Far-Near,

You who never ever slumber nor sleep

Whom I love even as I trembling, fear;

For your coming, fast! of sudden at night

In faith, once, now, and always yet to be:

I choose to live with you before my sight

O Coming, Crashing, ever-loving Trinity.

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