by john o' donohue
No man reaches when the moon touches a woman.
Even the moon leaves her when she opens
Deeper into the ripple in her womb
That encircles dark to become flesh and bone.
Someone is coming ashore inside her.
A face deciphers itself from water
And she curves around the gathering wave,
Opening to offer the life it craves.
In a corner stall of pilgrim strangers,
She falls and heaves, holding a tide of tears.
A red wire of pain feeds through every vein
Until night unweaves and the child reaches dawn.
Outside each other now, she sees him first.
Flesh of her flesh, her dreamt son safe on earth.
i offer the names and lives of all in need of your care this christmas, Lord. m, my friend, who struggles with her husband and family to care for their baby who cries in uncertain anguish in pain brought by cerebral palsy. another friend who has willed to love his father who lives daily with cancer. c, who is disappointed in not being able to conceive, her past haunting her newfound hope in you. still, i remember in faith the rest whose lives you delivered from harm with our prayers and brought relief and trust in their own time of dark tidings.
what does it mean for you, God to become Man? what does your own poverty reveal about the anguish we face? Lord, give us grace to see intimately, your place in our pain and suffering. Lord, may your humanity and providence bring deep peace and needed relief to the lives of your people who labour in tears to understand this imperfection, this mystery.
