During this wondrous season of Christmas and Epiphany, many of us have been blessed with access to the abundance of the Church’s liturgical riches, many of us have simply united in spirit using missals or Dom Guéranger's “The Liturgical Year” and most of us have surely tapped into the wealth of Christmas music as part of our celebrations. Just think of that, over two thousand years ago a Baby was born, and countless people the world over are still raising their voices in songs of praise to this Infant!
To further enrich our understanding and enliven our faith in the great mysteries of these events, True Restoration would like to bring our readership’s attention to an alternate source of inspiration; being poetry. In particular, we are highlighting a poet of our own times, who is one with us in the true Faith: Joseph Charles MacKenzie.
In his own words: “While I am surprised by the diversity of buyers coming back and thanking me for the Sonnets, I ultimately wanted my fellow Sedevacantists to enjoy the kind of confirmation that only traditional lyric poetry can bring to our faith. Poetry has always had a place—a role to play—in Christendom.”
From the vast corpus of his works, we have selected the “Song of the Magi” to share in full here:
XI
We gazed upon our world and reasoned why
The Sibyls danced in clockwork like the stars,
We knew the lifting of time’s veil was nigh,
And watched the sky whilst tuning our setars.
We heard the harmonies of distant spheres,
And knew their counterpoint would soon resolve
Into the perfect cadence of the years,
The vanquished years, whose vanished snows dissolve.
For, Hope revealed the place, foretold the hour
When finite would enclose Infinity
And earth would merge with Heaven, weakness Pow’r,
Creature Creator, flesh Divinity.
We followed in the fullness of the night,
And found the fragile Origin of light.
In Epiphania Domini
This season, please also enjoy:
Quoting MacKenzie again:
“Sonnets for Christ the King are the only significant body of traditional lyric poetry of Catholic inspiration to appear in at least 100 years.” They were featured last year in a well-respected poetry review in New York City, as discussed in an article on his website.
“Given the deep and burning hatred our Puritan nation bears for the Blessed Virgin, it was a heroic act of courage for the Society of Classical Poets to have published five Mariological sonnets honoring her role in the Incarnation, one of the central mysteries of Christianity.”
We hope throughout the rest of the liturgical year you will please consider being uplifted by the Sonnets for Christ the King free on Spotify (an email address is all it takes to open an account).