Thank you — I am glad you enjoyed it (and will suggest others to read it); I try to make sure we get content like this on VN because I think it is important not to forget our spiritual center.

That’s a great poem by Hopkins; and certainly relates to much of what I thought about when writing this, though I didn’t think of looking into his poems for this post. Now I know I should have!

Yes, I found it online; when looking for icons for my posts, I use google image finder to start (unless I already have an icon — I own many; to be sure, some think too many).

I hope people like the text; when doing this series, I’ve found some days are more difficult to write about, and I try to find something to bring out of it. Some days just are quite easy.

WILD air, world-mothering air,
Nestling me everywhere,
That each eyelash or hair
Girdles; goes home betwixt
The fleeciest, frailest-flixed 5
Snowflake; that ’s fairly mixed
With, riddles, and is rife
In every least thing’s life;
This needful, never spent,
And nursing element; 10
My more than meat and drink,
My meal at every wink;
This air, which, by life’s law,
My lung must draw and draw
Now but to breathe its praise, 15
Minds me in many ways
Of her who not only
Gave God’s infinity
Dwindled to infancy
Welcome in womb and breast, 20
Birth, milk, and all the rest
But mothers each new grace
That does now reach our race—
Mary Immaculate,
Merely a woman, yet 25
Whose presence, power is
Great as no goddess’s
Was deemèd, dreamèd; who
This one work has to do—
Let all God’s glory through, 30
God’s glory which would go
Through her and from her flow
Off, and no way but so.

I say that we are wound
With mercy round and round 35
As if with air: the same
Is Mary, more by name.
She, wild web, wondrous robe,
Mantles the guilty globe,
Since God has let dispense 40
Her prayers his providence:
Nay, more than almoner,
The sweet alms’ self is her
And men are meant to share
Her life as life does air….