Home  Inspiration Poems Personal Prayer of Pedro Arrupe
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Personal Prayer of Pedro Arrupe |
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Grant me, O Lord, to see everything now with new eyes,
to discern and test the spirits
that help me read the signs of the times,
to relish the things that are yours,
and to communicate them to others.
Give me the clarity of understanding that you gave Ignatius.
—Pedro Arrupe SJ
O God, give me the courage and strength
to be worthy of being called a Christian.
—Karl Rahner SJ
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Prayer
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Oh God, I wish from now onto be the first to become conscious
of all that the world loves, pursues, and suffers;
I want to be the first to seek,
to sympathize and to suffer;
the first to unfold and sacrifice myself.
To become more widely human
and more nobly of the earth
than any of the world’s servants.
—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ
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Inspiration
'Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore'
(from Sonnet 60 by William Shakespeare)
So did his dying come in gentle waves,
Arriving unnoticed and then receding.
No one noticed the lifting
And the diminishing of the waves,
Too much sea breaking
To notice subtle failures of the pebbled sand
Being sucked into the sea.
It had come at last,
In sorrow almost hoped for,
This dreaded moment,
The grand cancellation of Time.
Expectations of healing had bounded
and had fallen back,
As hope for the shore glimmered and dimmed,
Like the running down of a giant clock,
Noiselessly, back into the sea.
'Salve Regina,' the priest intoned.
And the gathered room followed:
Verse followed verse
Of this ancient chant,
'Arces and theses,'
The swelling and the restraint,
The rising and the falling away.
Wave pushes on after wave
The clock of his heart keeping steady pace
O Clemens,
O Pia,
O dulcis virgo, Maria.
Amen.
The monitor, satisfied and silent,
Had finished its task.
The grand silence had spoken at last.
We caught our breath as his breathing stopped,
The wave took the shore
Like a roused dragon firing from its den,
O the beauty and the symmetry
The tired old sea made new again!
O Beauty, ever ancient, ever new!
Awe wept its faithful Angelus,
Lulled by the rhythm of the chiming of the sea.
In Memory of Anthony Cho, July 31, 2008
Feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola
(Anthony died aspiring to be a Jesuit)
Written by Edward G. Zogby, S.J.
3 August 2008 |
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