Wednesday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time

 Lectionary: 403

Moses did not know that the skin of his face had become radiant
while he conversed with the LORD.
When Aaron, then, and the other children of Israel saw Moses
and noticed how radiant the skin of his face had become,
they were afraid to come near him.

Leviticus often reminds us, "You shall be holy as the Lord your God is holy." The story of Moses' shining face reminds us that holiness comes with a burden of suspicion and isolation. "They were afraid to come near him." 

Several years ago a friend sent me some poetry by an Iowa poet named James Weigel, Jr. (Google never heard of him.) He died as a young man of Morquio’s Syndrome, a genetic disease in which the nerves and bones progressively deteriorate. Despite his lifelong illness, he had attained a PhD in literature, taught at the University of Iowa, and proven himself as an accomplished poet. And that is all I remember about him. and I would be very grateful to anyone who might tell me more about this poet. 

But the three poems I have of his shine like the gleam on Moses' face. If everyone must tread their own distinct path of holiness -- leadership, poverty, exile, imprisonment, martyrdom, etc. -- many are given the path of suffering. If they bear it gracefully they shine, despite the isolation their pain forces upon them. Only their caregivers know them well, and they might be blind to an aura of holiness. 

With that preamble I offer these three short poems as a study in holiness. The first, especially, reveals the poet's intimate knowledge of Jesus: 

Last Words
“Eli, eli, lama sabacthani!”
That cry pierced the tarred sky,
shook the holy city
crouching on hills and black
as bones within
the abandoned man. Agony
shuddered through him
like voltage. Hanging there,
framed in that arid space,
he grasped what it meant to be God.

from Testaments, XXI

 

Must I harp on anguish?

I’m no masochist or hypochondriac

relishing woes. I have a sense 

of decency. Exploiting ills

is repellent to me. So what am I 

doing spreadeagling out on paper

like a bug?

My virtues seem suburban,

with well-trimmed habits,

not much vice – except in art.

I’m social, given to affection,

enjoy humor, health and friends.

Who is this desert hermit

inhabiting my verse? Prophets

annoy me. I am embarrassed by them.

Yet one gazes from my skull,

and he’s my potence: he bears a plan.

XXVIII
 
Out of my sleeves ten bones protrude --
two Reaper's paws. Fisted,
they gesticulate not to stress words
but point some object, pat
a dog or rake an itch.
Lean prongs like these
will never coax a breast to swell.
They manage barely a fork
and typewriter. A hunt and peck
concern, my fingers forego much else.
Still, these hands work
at a vocation which, by plying
an alternate relax and wrench,
discovers bone-truth.
                             And past
my small self
these knobby spires point
palm to palm, above.