September 10

Ps 104:16 The trees of the LORD drink their fill,

the cedars he planted on Lebanon;

17 there the birds build their nests;

on the treetop the stork has her home.

18 For the goats the lofty mountains,

for the rabbits the rocks are a refuge.

Pied Beauty (Hopkins)

Glory be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim:
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

Meditation

This setting [before a pool of water] in some way resembles the ancient churches of the early centuries, where there was a baptismal font that one had to pass before entering the church. I am not sure I would want be baptized in the water here..., but the symbol of passing through water to be cleansed of all our sins and failings, and then to enter into the great mystery of the Church is something that still speaks to us today. At the beginning of Mass, we prayed for conversion, our own conversion. I would like to add that we should pray for the conversion of the many people, inside and outside the Church, who do not yet recognize the urgent need to care for our common home. The many natural disasters we see occurring almost daily in our world, in so many places and countries, are also in part a result of the excesses of human beings and our lifestyles. We need to ask whether we ourselves are undergoing that conversion. How much we need it! (Pope Leo XIV)

Musical Selection