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    Credo Cymru

    A voice for traditional believers in the Church in Wales
    Forward in Faith Wales

    © 2015 - 2020 by NWCC : Credo Cymru / Forward in Faith, Wales

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    Poetry Review

    David Hodges is a monk at the Cistercian Abbey on Caldey Island and a published poet. Many of his poems reflect the monastic life of prayer, seascapes, lives of the saints, themes of suffering and forgiveness as well as a surprising array of contemporary issues.

     

    Here are just a few quotes from poems on the saving work of Christ:

     

    ‘From suffering brought peace

    turned sorrow into joy.

    All guilt and shame

    and hate embraced

    transfigured by His love…

     

    The Love of Father and Son

    now flowing to us

    source of love indwelling

    allowing us to echo if we dare,

    “not my will,  but yours

    be done.”

                                                                                        Resurrection Life

                                                                                        from ‘Delayed by Rough Seas’

     

    And these telling words that say so much so succinctly:

     

    ‘Love, the only bridge

    there is to cross

    between eternity and time:

    suspended over the

    abyss of nothingness.

     

    Christ the bridge

    absorbs our sin and hate,

    transforms us into love,

    his arms stretched wide for us

    between eternity and time.’

     

    Towards the end of his poem on Emmaus - “They recognised Him at the breaking of the bread,” he dwells on what happens after Jesus made himself known in the breaking of the bread and so disappears from their sight.

     

    ‘Christ who had gone from your sight

    to teach you to be spiritual

    became incarnate once more in  both of you.

    His life penetrating your minds and hearts

    changing you to become like Him.’

     

                                              And then an interesting climax:

     

    ‘It was then you recognised Him

    in each other,

    for He disappeared from sight,

    and you became His hands and feet

    when you went and revealed Him

    to the others …. how you had recognised Him

    at the breaking of the bread.’

                                                                                       

                                                                                    From 'Songs from Solitude'

     

     

    Esther de Waal writes in the front - ‘We all need more poetry in our lives, poetry that is both accessible and profound, poetry that is prayer.  What better place to find this than from a Cistercian monk, on an island, off the coast of Wales.’

     

    A theme that runs through some of his poems is the need to transform our desires into self-offering in union with Christ’s total surrender. For Brother Hodges – prayer is “turning desire into self-offering.”

     

    ‘We could not bear

    all that love and mercy,

    so we hung it on a tree

    where it surprised us,

    turned our sorrow

    into joy.

     

    Now it is always with us

    at the breaking

    of the bread.

    Joy of total sacrifice,

    moving us towards becoming

    ourselves that humble lover

       who washed our feet.  

                                                  

                                                                                   From 'Songs of Solitude'

     

    Reviewed and contributed by C.S.

     

     

    All Brother Hodges' books are available from Caldey Island Shop online [see link below] and some are available from Amazon.

    Poems of David Hodges

    Click the Caldey Island logo to visit their shop: