Jeremiah

Reluctant prophet!
"Ah, Lord God, behold I cannot speak."
Shrinking from the call and the burden,
Sensitive, hesitant; weak?
Ah, no! How many before the vision have questioned,
Why me?
And thought to fly to the wilderness seeking
A refuge in matter; but he—
In his growing perception of Love as the Father of all—
Could he stay,
Or forbear to go forth with the Word of the Lord,
Though the way
Passed through scorn and derision of those who heard not,
Would not see?
Imprisoned and beaten: a failure? Alone?
Ah, not he!
For the love of the Father he taught
And the presence of God
Were the consciousness where he abode,
Lit the way that he trod.
Despondent?
At times in despair lest the seed he had sown
Should wither and die in idolatrous hearts,
Had he known
That his courage from faith and his message of love
Should sustain
The exiles in bitter dejection
And raise them again!
And endure? Truth is proved through enduring:
So when there should come
Our blessed Way-shower, the Christ, the immaculate one,
Men could say: "Who is this teaching love,
Yet rejected and spurned?
After six hundred years Jeremias—the prophet—
Returned?"