Saint Who?
Saints Who Were Poets
Poetry has a somewhat sacramental character, making everyday words transcend mere talk. To illustrate, Wordsworth’s poem “The Daffodils” could be summed up: “When I remember these beautiful daffodils I once saw, they cheer me up.” But Wordsworth wrote, “And then my heart with pleasure fills,/ and dances with the daffodils.” Poetry captures and communicates experience.
The Catholic Church is the best of poets, and counts many among her saints. Saint John Henry Newman puts it beautifully: The Church, he wrote, is “the poet of her children…. Her very being is poetry; every psalm, every petition, every collect.… Such poets as are born under her shadow, she takes them into her service; she sets them to write hymns, or to compose chants, or to embellish shrines, or to determine ceremonies, or to marshal processions; nay, she can even make schoolmen of them…till logic becomes poetical.”
For the faithful, every day is raised to the extraordinary. This month, we encounter the poetic saints who reveal this mystery at work. There will be Catherine of Bologna, patron of artists; David of Wales, patron of poets; and others, religious and lay, whose lives as well as writings give us the poetry of God. Through the intercession of Our Lady, may we too become songs of praise.
