Savoring Salvation: Eucharistic Poetry
Meditations on two poems by George Herbert
Continuing from the last two entries on musical and visual art as gifts which bring us to the experience of God, verbal art — poetry — is a third means by which we can know God. Maybe even more clearly than the first two media, poetry is something of the mind. In reading poetry, what we are after is usually the idea behind the word, rather than seeing whether it is printed in Arial or Comic Sans. We cannot touch or feel poetry as such — being verbal, it is immaterial. However, in spite of this, poetry is still a deeply evocative art, made present in our senses. It relies on imagery. When we hear “freedom” or “tenderness” or “sugary” or “paperwork,” immediately we experience some kind of sensory or emotional response — these words and others make present for us the realities they signify, in almost a sacramental way.
In the realm of theology, as Henri de Lubac testifies, Jesus Christ (as the Word of God) is sacrament of God the Father, making the reality of God most immanent for us. This Word is mediator and conveyor of God’s presence, much as our words evoke something beyond themselves. The Word of God is spoken by God to us, so that we can come to experience the presence of God with us — Immanuel.
However, God’s speaking of the Word requires a word in response: our own prayer, addressed to God, calling upon God’s name. But of course, our word is wholly unfitting for the purpose we intend — the more words we use, the more we realize our own inability to speak anything worthwhile. I can never say the “perfect prayer.” No words are enough to encompass God’s majesty, nor mercy, nor might.
In fact, it is in our inability to speak where God reaches us with God’s Word, made flesh in the form of bread: the Eucharist. That which sanctifies us most does not pass our lips from within but from without. Having received this Word, as Christ brings us to participation in His Divinity, our own words are indeed brought to participation in this one Word: “Lord, you will open my lips; and my mouth will proclaim your praise” (Ps. 51:17). In prayer, and in poetry, we attempt to express our posture towards God as one of thanksgiving — eucharistia — of humility and of wonder at God’s love. As examples of this action, both of the following poems by George Herbert, “Altar” and “Love (III)”, are profoundly eucharistic, precisely in the way that they both frame our response to God’s love.
“Altar”, George Herbert
In this poem, we recognize that we are to become the altars for Christ, made by God’s own hands for this very purpose. At the sacrifice of the Mass, as we consume Christ’s offering of Himself for us, likewise we offer ourselves for Christ in a mutual embrace of love. This is the whole of the Christian life — to be molded according to the image of Christ, eyes locked in gaze with his own — that our words dissolve into His. However, for this to take place, we must also accept Jesus’s fate as our ours — our lives become offering, given up for God and for others. This is only possible in the grace of the Eucharist, Christ poured out for you and for many. Christ’s Body, the Temple that “sanctif[ies] this ALTAR,” our own sacrifice wrapped up in his.
“Love (III)”, George Herbert
This second poem is, of course, our own deeply personal reaction to God’s love for us. God first reaches out to us in love — the descent of Christ to us — but in seeing this love, we pull away, aghast, all too conscious of our own sinfulness — “Yet my soul drew back / Guilty of dust and sin.” But God does not stop. Rather, God pursues us further, seeing our own grapple with weakness and calling us out of it. Beyond our deepest hope, God invites us to sit at the table — the altar of the Eucharist. We find ourselves too gaunt, too frail, too sinful to gaze upon the Crucified Christ, but God would not have it that way — rather, to God, we are the worthy guest, the one invited to the Supper of the Lamb. In order to accept this offer, we must learn to make peace with our own sinfulness, to allow God to bend down and wash our feet, to adopt us as daughters and sons. God here leaves us speechless, able to offer no other Word than God’s own — Christ present in the Holy Eucharist.
