Angelic Encounter
St. Michael and All Angels Day (written September 2020)
If you ask me if I’ve seen an angel,
I’m not sure what you’ll make of my answer:
I have seen a great wing in the heavens
with light gilding the arc of its feathers;
though I knew it was cloud, yet the message
was as clear to my heart as if spoken:
“In your grieving, fear not, God is with you.”
I’ve no doubt that to people beside me
not a hint of an angel was noted,
but I felt as though graced by the sacred:
as I flew to that tender departing,
the last day of Dad’s battle with cancer,
I was held by that vision of feathers,
lifting grief into meaning that changed me.
Then I knew that my father had entered
a new life co-existing with this one,
and the veil that had come down between us
was much thinner than I had imagined:
for a time, he seemed able to reach us,
share his love and the gift of his humour
so that laughing was mixed with our weeping.
What began with the wing of an angel
wakened some different knowing within me,
so I recognized something was calling,
and said, “Yes!” with no clear destination:
then my grieving set spurs to my searching,
as I longed for that sense of unveiling
of the kingdom of heaven so near me.
Now I think that an angel did visit,
setting me on this ministry journey,
and I write of the grace and the mystery
of the God who is present in suffering,
and in joy and in laughter and questions,
for I know there are messengers calling
if we’re brought to a thin place to listen.
Sonnet for St. Francis Though Francis bore the marks of Jesus’ pain, he walked the roads in simple joy and danced. He cast aside the robes of merchant gain, embracing poverty as life enhanced. A fearsome wolf at his request grew tame – for animal and town a happy end. He preached to birds and even dared to claim that sun and moon were kin, and death a friend. The Spirit urged him to rebuild the church: both stones and preaching seemed a burden slight, with soul and body yoked in eager search, his life a guiding fire, a beacon bright. The centuries have not eclipsed the sight of this man, naked, singing dawn alight. Barbara Messner 28/09/2021
Barb, poet priest 
On the day my father died, the caregivers in the memory care unit where my father lived told me he was surely a week from death and I could go to Orono Maine to plan the regional youth event and I went in another person’s car, more than three hours drive. When I arrived I received a call telling me to come back immediately and one of the other women just handed me her car keys and I raced down the spacious Maine turnpike. On the southbound side there was no rain but on the northbound there was. I looked over to see an amazing rainbow and pulled off to watch it and pray. It was, indeed, the time he died. I arrived “too late” to say a last goodbye but knew it was all right. Thank you for your poem,
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How blessed we are to have these numinous experiences that illuminate the dying of a loved one, but also assure us that a loving God is there for us and them. how blessed too to share these stories.
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