Prayer and Yearning (Mid-week Message)

Prayer and Yearning 

A parishioner a couple of Sundays ago, while leaving church, leaned over and said to me, "Your whole sermon for me was in one memorable phrase.  You threw it out as an aside near the end, but it was the main point:  yearning is prayer."  

I thought that I'd complement that thought with a wonderful poem that another parishioner shared with me: 

 

An Embarrassment
by Wendell Berry

"Do you want to ask
the blessing?"

"No. If you do,
go ahead."

He went ahead:
his prayer dressed up

in Sunday clothes
rose a few feet

and dropped with a soft
thump.

If a lonely soul
did ever cry out

in company its true
outcry to God,

it would be as though
at a sedate party

a man suddenly
removed his clothes

and took his wife
passionately into his arms.

"An Embarrassment" by Wendell Berry from Leavings. © Counterpoint, 2010.

Grace and peace,

Fr. Tony