I take the Food to feed your flock,
A servant serves beyond the Mass.
In love You move as by a clock,
By motor, plastic, steel, and glass.
To drive my Lord to those bound home,
A round pyx bound around my neck.
A picture map on my smart phone,
A small black book for me to check.
I find your Face shines in the sick,
My hands and feet fix such a feat!
Am I a star that you did pick?
To raise the Body they will eat!
Our Lord, ALL OF YOU, I do bring,
The Second Council has since raised:
A priest, a profit, and a king!
Your greatest glory to be praised!
- Gary Edward Geraci
“Believers” - to the purely atheistic secularist, in using the term “believers” to describe a religious phenomenon, it would seem that ALL of us would be lumped into the category of “people having six heads.” But among a group of finite, human believers in God, we may rightfully discern that some of our differences often amount to merely the human attributes or limitations, through biblical interpretation or the study of Church tradition, that we may or may not assign to an Infinite God. And so we use human language to try to differentiate our beliefs from one another. For example, in my own faith tradition, we make this absolutely incredible claim, based on our reading of the Gospel of John, Chapter 6, that this little white host that we consume has been transubstantiated into the real body and blood of Christ. And if someone cannot come to Mass due to an illness or disability, then a lay minister can carry this little white host to them. “If God can create the world out of nothing then He can certainly transubstantiate a small piece of unleavened bread into His body and blood” we say. And so, if I, the “believer”, truly believe this, then how do I the poet, use human language to describe this absolutely enormous miracle and the honor of carrying out such ministry? “Raised” is my attempt to do such. Through the use of capitalization, strict meter and rhyming conventions, and the recounting of my own fond memories serving as an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion for the Catholic Church, I try to show my readers, with the utmost reverence possible, what this is like. If this is all really as the Church teaches, then the awe and privilege must follow, out of necessity: we carry Our Lord’s body to an ill person, raise Him up, and feed Him to the communicant. Words should indeed fail to adequately describe this but I’ve tried, in four stanzas, in a small way, to do just that.
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