The poetry of these images speaks to me of “deep calls to deep”, “heart speaks to heart”…
There are a number of recent, inspiring, awesome comments on the post “[“Pinned” post: scroll down for newer posts] Sister Lucia of Fatima’s future miracle for “Aussie Mum” aka Yvonne Cheryl Ann” which, however, request that I do up a philological foray into Psalm 42:7 (careful of the numbering of both chapter and verse), particularly the words “deep calls to deep,” rendering, then, an exegesis for the benefit of these good souls.
Translations of this are as poetic as the vocabulary. None of them fail. All are glorious. We could say that all the translations struggle, as would any attempt of mine. But poetry is all about “triggering”, to use a modern poetic descriptive. You yourself have to bring your whole life to any poetry as an occasion to hope to unlock a smidgeon of what, as Hopkins said, is inscaped therein. Take his description of the Holy Spirit as Manley speaks directly to Christ Jesus, Divine Son of the Immaculate Conception:
THE WINDHOVER — by Gerard Manley Hopkins —
To Christ our Lord…
- I caught this morning morning’s minion, kingdom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
- Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
- High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
- In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
- As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
- Rebuffed the big wind.
- My heart in hiding
- Stirred for a bird, – the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!
- Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
- Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
- Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!
- No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
- Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
- Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.
Speaking, repeating… such words to Christ Jesus, the Son of His Maid-Servant, words spoken to the Risen Jesus still bearing His wounds – that Heart! – King of kings, Lord of lords, Prince of the Most Profound Peace, I weep as “deep calls to deep.”
Who am I to interpret such things? I am very much afraid, of myself, my lack, my ineptitude, my nothingness. Do people want my death consequent upon the hubris of my claiming such a pulpit, the angels desirous of sundering me with mighty swords for not rendering justice to the Scriptures inspired by that fiery Holy Spirit? I fear that everything I might say will be an insult, not that it would be wrong, or malicious, but that it would be devastatingly inadequate…
Wisdom, chapter 9, comes to mind:
- “God of my ancestors, Lord of mercy, you who have made all things by your word, and in your wisdom have established mankind to rule the creatures produced by you, and to govern the world in holiness and righteousness, and to render judgment in integrity of heart: Give me Wisdom, the consort at your throne, and do not reject me from among your children; for I am your servant, the child of your maidservant, a man weak and short-lived and lacking in comprehension of judgment and of laws. Indeed, though one be perfect among mortals, if Wisdom, who comes from you, be lacking, that one will count for nothing.”
Some months ago while preaching on the glories of Sacramental Confession, I waxed poetic on my fear of hearing the words at the end of my life, called before Jesus for my judgment: “Get away from me you evildoer: I never knew you.” I rhetorically asked in my homily about how it is that we can be certain that Jesus will know us as His friends, as part of His Holy Family. I again spoke of Sacramental Confession where we hear the words of Jesus commanding His Father to forgive us: “Father! Forgive them!”
To hear those words, we have to be there, on Calvary, returning, like John, accompanying Mary accompanying Jesus (back to the images at the top of this post). That’s where we are when we go to Sacramental Confession.
Well, well… we can speak of such things as poetically as we might, but it is not a matter of us inscaping everything we are into the facts at hand, but of dying to ourselves and being drawn into the reality of what is happening there, where heart speaks to heart. The yearning of my heart, crying out to Jesus, wanting to explain to His Little Flock such Mysteries of the Kingdom, was this deep speaking to deep, heart speaking to heart?
I am nothing. But the Lord Jesus had pity on me, right then, right there, while I was preaching away. I went silent, standing there not saying a word for what seemed an eternity, self-conscious that the homily was delayed and someone would try to help me because of thinking that I was suffering a stroke.
But here’s my experience of heart speaking to heart, deep calling to deep, and this has nothing to do with me bringing anything, inscaping anything into the situation:
All of a sudden my perspective, my heart, my depths [if any], were those of Jesus on the Cross, no longer looking to Him but instead one with Him, He sharing with my continuing nothingness and continuing blindness and continuing weakness and continuing ineptitude… He sharing the solidarity He had with His Immaculate Mother, the depths of those Hearts crying out to each other.
It’s not philology speaking to philology, exegesis speaking to exegesis. Instead, deep calling deep, heart speaking to heart, is the consequence of the fulfillment of Jesus’ prophesy: When I am lifted up [on the Cross], I will draw all to myself. When we are there, one with Him on the Cross, we see Mary’s heart from within Jesus Heart… we’re drawn into the calling out of those depths…
The images, the sounds, that come to mind, so banal, I’m so sorry, are those of whales, mother and calf, in the deep, calling out to each other in the deep, obviously heart speaking to heart…
I feel like running away, thinking I could speak to such ineffable, unspeakable calling, crying out…
I beg the Lord that I not to fall asleep again in this Gethsemane of today, oblivious that the betrayer is at hand, oblivious of Sacred Heart speaking to Immaculate Heart, of such Deep calling to Deep.
It is not a matter of our nothing-love that we stay awake and not run away into the dark, a matter of our hearts speaking, our depths crying out, but a matter of His love, His Mother’s love, those Hearts, those Depths into which we are drawn so as to be one with the two Hearts of Jesus and Mary. I know who you are! Come into the kingdom prepared for you!
We must wake up now in the Gethsemane of today:
Arise! Let us be going! Behold! My betrayer is at hand!
/// This waking up was moments after Jesus was sweating blood, after Jesus’ Heart was sundered in concern for His Mother’s heart… Back to the poetry of those images up top…
ARISE! LET US BE GOING! 