On the Feast of the Holy Innocents

BABY HOPE

What should we say of this day
          How shall we describe its pain
                 If grief is a word so inadequate

How shall we gather up or even measure
          So many tears now falling
                 Into this garden of sorrow

Will we ask God for an answer
          Since no one can say
                 Why this infant life
                        Should not come to stay

 Why we must gather this way
          To say goodbye
                   Even before sweet welcome
                
 Why baby Hope is taken from us
           Before a joyful sound is heard

Love is sorrowing for her loss
          A mother's love -arms waiting to hold
                 God's gift withheld

          A father's love helpless before
                 So powerful a foe as death
          A pastor's love so frail and shaken
                 Who must speak for God
                       And now give answer

Who is this other One I hear weeping
          In this garden of grieving

Who is this who reaches out first
          To take up the cup of sorrow
                   This chalice of tiers

 Who is this who consumes it fully
          Leaving only one drop
                   For each of us to taste

Is not this garden Gethsemane
          Where God came first to weep for us
                   Again today that we weep
                             Not alone

Is not this garden Paradise our home
          Where Hope now lives and awaits
                   Our coming too?

Dedicated to newborn baby Hope February 2000. Fr. James Curtin