Feast of the Holy Innocents

28th December

The Angels have heralded, shepherds have run
from their fields to the stable to cradle the one,
who is sung as a saviour who’ll die in his time.
But that’s years to come, here’s only infants, a crime.

From each house, ev’ry family, the mournings emerge.
Tears of horror and terror and anger converge.
And this Bethlehem charnel house hate finds its pain,
and the sun sinks to sleep where it weeps and remains.

Ev’ry child who has perished, the end of a thread.
Ev’ry family impov’rished, each parent’s hope dead.
And the life of the village is weakened, unreal;
but there’s one who will shun his escape: He will heal.

Ev’ry day there are children who suffer and fade.
Whether war or starvation or balance of trade.
Whether alien or stranger or migrant or drain
on resources is used, Herod still seems to reign.

Feast of the Holy Family

29th December

The Virgin

The virgin holds her ‘godling’ close.
The ancient fosterer holds her.
Their precious circle holds the world.
Inspiring all who stretch to love.

Not emulation, but the hope
that love, wherever it is found,
can draw new life from stone shard ground.

The Ageing Father

The ageing father holds the child
his scarred hands, splintered, marked by years.
His maiden wife looks lovingly
upon his gentle fostered tears.

She, pondering the time ahead,
sees loneliness and widowed life
and, when her son is grown to man,
his hands marked too, by sacrifice.

Feast of Mary, Mother of God

1st January

A stall stands overlooked and quiet
where oxen feed and donkeys wait,
where hay and straw shine out like gold
to clothe a child, our history’s fate.

The girl, who holds the child with care
and feeds him love, her very self,
will come in time to know this truth.
She nurtures, teaches God Himself.

By Fr Mark Skelton.
A priest of the Plymouth Diocese and a poet who has always had a keen interest in the interface between Literature and Theology.

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