The Family Foundation School Catholic Community Bulletin
Rise! O rise, you little one
Teetering on the edge of a scalpel
Like flotsam on a paddle.
The shifting lee is not too great for you.
Turn into safety, into the weathered palm
Of a once-dead Savior
Who glares at your killing
And melts into love for you.
Overcome the fraud of life without life,
A pounding heart shrinking
From a salt-choked cesspool.
Sewage is not your fate!
Rise up, please, you tiny knight!
The crusade against you is a crooked cross
Fashioned by fashion and a bloodless vein
Of a dead heart.
Cry out, you little one and find solace!
Your executioner’s hand is limp
And cannot forbid your soul
Brimming into glory.
Take heart and see with converse eyes
The holiness of life without regret,
The dream of One who welcomes
The frailest and the gross.
O joyous mite, o radiant wretch!
How beautiful a blob washed pure by God
Through a white-clad monster.
Grow into glee.
Rise into stunning sight despite
The attempt to drag you into offal!
You are my awful hope,
Prolonged by oaths of mercy.
Emerge! For without your still-born hope
Where is mine, where is ours?
A trust baptized in blood
Is your fetal gift.
