Saints whose names we remember . . .

During this morning's Eucharist here at Gladstone's Library, Peter, the warden, interspersed the service with poetry by R. S. Thomas.  Today at at Llanbadrig, the church that St. Patrick supposedly founded in the early fifth century after being shipwrecked along the coast of Wales during a storm, we read this Thomas poem.  The baptized seas, silent congregations of shadows, and the saint's name that time has not forgot . . . descriptions of many of the holy sites we have visited to recreate our spirits on this pilgrimage.

The Moon in Lleyn by R. S. Thomas

The last quarter of the moon
of Jesus gives way
to the dark; the serpent
digests the egg. Here
on my knees in this stone
church, that is full only
of the silent congregation
of shadows and the sea's
sound, it is easy to believe
Yeats was right. Just as though
choirs had not sung, shells
have swallowed them; the tide laps
at the Bible; the bell fetches
no people to the brittle miracle
of bread. The sand is waiting
for the running back of the grains
in the wall into its blond
glass. Religion is over, and
what will emerge from the body
of the new moon, no one
can say.

But a voice sounds
in my ear. Why so fast,
mortal? These very seas
are baptized. The parish
has a saint's name time cannot
unfrock. In cities that
have outgrown their promise people
are becoming pilgrims
again, if not to this place,
then to the recreation of it
in their own spirits. You must remain
kneeling. Even as this moon
making its way through the earth's
cumbersome shadow, prayer, too,
has its phases.