July 22nd is the feast of St Mary Magdalene who, many say, should be numbered among the apostles. Poet Marie Howe writes of her in her provocative poem “Magdalene – The Seven Devils” (only a selection here; remember that the Gospel says that Magdalene was “possessed of seven devils”)
July 22nd is the feast of St Mary Magdalene who, many say, should be numbered among the apostles. Poet Marie Howe writes of her in her provocative poem “Magdalene – The Seven Devils” (only a selection here; remember that the Gospel says that Magdalene was “possessed of seven devils”):
The first [devil] was that I was very busy.
The second—I was different from you: whatever happened to you could not happen to me, not like that.
The third—I worried.
The fourth—envy, disguised as compassion.
The fifth was that I refused to consider the quality of life of the aphid,
The aphid disgusted me. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
The mosquito too – its face. And the ant—its bifurcated body.
Ok, the first was that I was so busy.
The second that I might make the wrong choice,
Because I had decided to take that plane that day
That flight, before noon, so as to arrive early
And, I shouldn’t have wanted that.
The third was that if I walked past the certain place on the street
The house would blow up.
The fourth was that I was made of guts and blood with a thin layer
Of skin lightly thrown over the whole thing.
The fifth was that the dead seemed more alive to me than the living…
[there’s more, but that’s enough for here].
What do you think?
And let us pray for/with one another.
Michael
The Paulist Center