The First Sunday of Lent

Father Peter McCarthy, OCSO, Abbot of Our Lady of Guadalupe Abbey is visiting us for a few days from Oregon.  Today at Mass for the First Sunday of Advent, he used a poem from Denise Levertov to from his homily on the temptations of Christ and our temptations.

On the Mystery of the Incarnation

It's when we face for a moment
the worst our kind can do, and shudder to know
the taint in our own selves, that awe
cracks the mind's shell and enters the heart:
not to a flower, not to a dolphin,
to no innocent form
but to this creature vainly sure
it and no other is god-like, God
(out of compassion for our ugly
failure to evolve) entrusts,
as guest, as brother,
the Word.

Listen to Fr Peter's homily here.