#eleison

“Our modern translation 'have mercy' is a limited and insufficient one. The Greek word which we find in the gospel and in the early liturgies is eleison. Eleison is of the same root as elaion, which means olive tree and the oil from it. If we look up the Old and New Testament in search of the passages connected with this basic idea, we will find it described in a variety of parables and events which allow us to form a complete idea of the meaning of the word. We find the image of the olive tree in Genesis. After the flood Noah sends birds, one after the other, to find out whether there is any dry land or not, and one of them, a dove - and it is significant that it is a dove - brings back a small twig of olive. This twig conveys to Noah and to all with him in the ark the news that the wrath of God has ceased, that God is now offering man a fresh opportunity. All those who are in the ark will be able to settle again on firm ground and make an attempt to live, and never more perhaps, if they can help it, undergo the wrath of God.”

we won’t reach perfection on this side of Heaven; we’re striving for something that’s out of our grasp. but we lift our voices -  try to make the best choices -  in pursuit of the one who says “come - seek - knock - ask.”

"Even the gods are moved by the voice of entreaty" — Ovid

Κύριε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ ἐλέησόν με 

Kyrie Iesou Christe Eleison me

(KEE-ree-ay ee-SOO khree-STAY eh-lay-ee-SOHN meh)

*

Eleison / mercy. Once I read this poem about mercy in Boston. The great poet Fanny Howe was in attendance. After the reading she asked me if I was raised Catholic (I was) and said she wished she had the whole night to think about the poem. "I was still myself before I was born"--she told me she had had the same thought recently. As a materialist, I am not even sure what I meant by that line, but the line--the poem--wrote itself through me. God? I'm not sure I believe in God. I left the Catholic Church long ago. But still I sense an absent presence and because I have the consciousness of Homo sapiens, I project a "mind" onto that absent presence. I would like to understand why we are wired this way, why we seem to have been made for prayer.