[amen] Hosanna: A new poem on Fr Alexander Men+ where we are.
- From: Seraphim Sigrist <ssigrist@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: Amen@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2007 16:30:39 -0800 (PST)
Friends,
The where we are of the second part of the head
could be quickly stated as at the beginning of the
annual appeal for pledges and support. I will make
a formal post later but please it is not too early to
respond. We need $40,000 for the next year.
But perhaps there is another way of stating it and
I shall after giving a remarkable poem written this last
week by Fr John McGuckin during a visit to Russia
(he was at the same conference as Fr Michael
Plekon whose response to visiting our work we posted
last week. Fr John is a noted theologian and author
and he also met with Andrey and Karina,as they had
before in New York to be sure. but he is also a poet
and I think this poem goes rather deeply into the
matter of Fr Alexander Men and why his memory lives
and is a source of vitality for the Churches...)
So :
Triptych for Father Men
Softly,
as though stepping
through a mist of time
you sent me greetings,
Alexander Vladimirovitch,
long after your death
in this time.
They came by the winding
of long journeys
through many hands.
Three photographs were my inheritance
faded and cracked along the edges ?
they had been handled so much.
They taught me
when your lips lay silent;
black and white
reflecting the times
slightly faded snaps
casually taken
but by those who loved you
which made the difference,
confecting them sacraments.
One showed you in priestly vestments
raising your hands like a prophet
reciting the Cheruvikon at the altar ?
an open and zealous face;
a man among men,
a priest before his God.
The other: you standing in shirtsleeves
with family around you,
smiling out to history;
a beloved among his loved ones,
a father;
the playful irony in your smile
merely hinting at the depths
that shelved away steeply
as a shingled beach gives way underfoot
to fathoms unsuspected and unknown.
The third opened out the inside of your home:
plates of food, a guitar,
your books.
Once more you were setting a table
in the house of love.
These things you left for me as a trace.
Three, like those priestly greetings
in the old, the gracious style.
Three kisses among the Russians:
Hristos Posredi nas:
Christ is in our midst!
And so it was.
You were the medium then:
His smiling sacrament.
Peace upon you priest Alexander.
Peace upon your name.
Peace upon your house.
John A. McGuckin.
.......
I have put the poem and some photos with it at
http://seraphimsigrist.livejournal.com/603745.html
but I do not know that we need take the three photographs
of the poem as literally only this or that of the ones we have
seen...In any case, I think it is itself a new photograph
as it were , worth examining and looking and seeing....
Our center in Moscow will, for one new activity, have a
poetry workshop and program led by poet Alexander Zorin...
though it is hard to write in detail before it begins next
month.
where we are is at the beginning of the annual appeal but
also in the state of looking towards the springtime of the
church which Pope John Paul II spoke of and so did
Brother Roger of Taize, and which when one hears the
words 'springtime of the church' does not one feel
immediately and without further explanation that longing
which they represent? Fr Plekon was kind enough to
say in his which we posted last week that Hosanna as
he experienced it in meeting in Moscow is
"a sign of springtime,"
If we could be that sign, it is with your help and with you also
within the sign... and that is where we are ,at the edge
of winter but also facing towards Spring...
yours in this work then (and note the information following
the signoff)
+Seraphim
Seraphim Joseph Sigrist
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"The Patristic Society"
320 Sourth Broadway P-7
Tarrytown NY 10591
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10591
(all correspondence to me: ssigrist@xxxxxxxxx, or sigrist@xxxxxxxx )
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BANK ACCOUNT DONATION.
+Seraphim
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