Poetry

Lectionary Poetry – 13th Sunday After Pentecost (Year A)

With the dawn of a new church year, we have launched a new feature on our website, a weekly post of poetry that resonates with the lectionary readings for that week (Revised Common Lectionary).

 
 

Lectionary Reading: Romans 12:9-21

 
 

CLASSIC POEM:

The Divine Image
William Blake

To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
All pray in their distress;
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.

For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is God, our father dear,
And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is Man, his child and care.

For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity a human face,
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.

Then every man, of every clime,
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine,
Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.

And all must love the human form,
In heathen, Turk, or Jew;
Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell
There God is dwelling too.

*** This poem is in the public domain,
  and may be read in a live-streamed worship service.

 
 
CONTEMPORARY POEM:

“Love my enemies, enemy my love”
Rebecca Seiferle

SNIPPET:

Oh, we fear our enemy’s mind, the shape
in his thought that resembles the cripple
in our own, for it’s not just his fear
we fear, but his love and his paradise.

[ READ THE FULL POEM ]

 
 

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