A Merry Madeleva Christmas...

A recap of poems from our guide Sister Madeleva, CSC

(As I let readers know early on - baseball hats are my go-to with curly hair…but also intentional to keep this casual, like chatting over coffee or a cocktail)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

This Sunday’s extra post is a little bit of a crash course for new readers, but you’ll definitely get a sense of what hundreds of us have prayed with and found fruitful during Advent preparing for the Birth of Christ.

A Recap of the Sister Madeleva poems included in this praying with “Poetry for Pilgrims” series:

1. The Dead Woman who Changed my Life—just might change yours—and a two-poem poetry primer. (Posted November 28, the day before Advent began)

   Poems: “The Time is Now” and “Swaddling Clothes”

2. A Word and The Word, the fruits of Mary’s Fiat. (Posted November 30, 1st Monday of Advent)

   Poem: “Dialogue”

3. Wild, New Fears that Shatter the Dark, reflecting on Christmas in light of war; applicable now as it was when the 1941 poem was written. (Posted December 10, 2nd Wednesday of Advent)

   Poem: “New Things and Old”

4. Pregnant Clouds, Lambs and Lights, looking at the roles of supporting characters in the Nativity. (Posted December 19, 3rd Friday of Advent)

   Poem: “Elizabeth Watches the Night Sky”

5. The Hour to which All Hours Lead on the Incarnation and the Eucharist; Emmanuel as God-still-with-us. (Posted December 25, Christmas Day)

   Poem: “Christmas”

   And this poem is one new subscribers received but those who started during Advent have not seen…

   A Word for Shepherds and Angels

   I spoke to Gabriel and was not afraid;
   But to these herdsmen, hardy keepers of sheep,
   And their singing midnight skies, what reply shall be made?
   
   I may say to them—it were a gracious thing to do—
   “My Son when grown to a man, my Child asleep,
   He will care for flocks; He will be a shepherd, too.”
   
   Then mayhap their hearts will be opened as mine, with pain;
   They may understand how my first-born, my only One
   Will be our unblemished Lamb—and slain, and slain!
   
   Angels and shepherds and I have known, have heard
   Tidings to shatter the earth and amaze the sun.
   Angels and shepherds, tonight I bring you the Word.
   
   
   -Sister M. Madeleva Wolff, CSC (1887-1964)
   
   From American Twelfth Night and Other Poems by Sister M. Madeleva; 1955, The MacMillan Co. © Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Cross, Notre Dame, IN. Reprinted with permission. 

Gerard David, early 1480s; on view at The Met. In the Public Domain.

• This poem is written by Catholic nun, Sister M. Madeleva, CSC, who was President of St. Mary’s College in Notre Dame for almost thirty years in the mid-20th century. She was a prolific poet, although she never called herself one saying poetry was simply her way of seeing and expressing her experience of the world. The Incarnation is the most featured topic among her poems. She was from a small town in rural NW Wisconsin and never forgot her roots. Her upbringing—a devout Catholic mother and literature-loving harness-maker Lutheran father—greatly influenced her continuous drive for learning and serving the work of education. Her philosophy was that “immortality is our proper domain.”

  This interconnectedness of faith, daily life and the soul’s eternal calling can be seen by the interweaving of the poet’s rhyme scheme. Each stanza presents one idea, but the middle line rhyme creates a unity throughout the poem signaling the need to both zoom in to the meaning of the details, and to keep the big picture in mind. A creative poetic strategy but also applicable to daily life!

• The poem invites to a contemplation of what words were exchanged between the Holy Family and the shepherds that Christmas night. The astonishment shared, the joy and consternation, the history-changing event that was, in many ways, virtually invisible to the world in real-time.

So glad you found this series and WELCOME!