MEMORIAL OF SAINT MARTHA

Sister Mary Lou Kownacki, a Benedictine nun and colleague/friend of Sister Joan Chittister, coordinates the website Monasteries of the Heart and is a published poet. I have enjoyed very much her two books of poetry: The Blue Heron and Thirty-Seven Other Miracles and Old Monk.

Here is one of her poems from the above first-mentioned work:

He came into my life
as unexpected as
Isaac to Sarah
or John to Elizabeth
except there was no angel
only a police siren
announcing the coming
of abused and damaged
seven-year-old Scooter.
After four years
of raging temper tantrums,
of trip to psychologists, allergists,
social workers,
after four years of crawling after him
behind sofas and under tables
to talk and talk and talk,
to repeat over and over,
“I’ll love you, Scooter.
I’ll love you forever,”
after four years
of hug upon rejected hug,
he came softly into my study
one afternoon
and handed me a homemade valentine
on which he scrawled,
“i like your help
and love for me.”

Is this not a miracle?

Father Bill +