and if I admire the saints in their categories
the nostalgia of Catholic funeral cards
or leathern books with tissue paper over the
frontpieces veiling St. Therese with her bouquets of
pink roses as if she'd just won some eternal beauty contest
I know you will still regard me as non Catholic
because I still think and after many years
as beautiful as the votive candles may be
their lengthening lights and shadows in the fragrant chapels
the ruby of the glass or the emerald of it
the pearl paved litanies of the Mass
leading back in time so close to the temporal Christ Himself
still more surpassing to me it always was
to stand on a windy hilltop
and think that God, pure God was in the apple blossomed winds.
mary angela douglas 27 july 2021
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