A Year of Jubilee

You grew up like a sapling
With fishermen and shepherds
And the God-haunted mountains
Of your small holy country

You looked the same
As all your people
So for a time
You went unnoticed
You who were later killed
Most cruelly

One Sabbath morning
You stood up in the temple
Young village rabbi
From the provinces

And you unrolled the scroll
And read aloud from it
The Word welled up to us
Out of Isaiah's book
As fresh as the clear streams
That well up in the mountains

"The spirit of the Lord
Has come upon me
He has anointed me
To bring glad tidings
To the poor
To heal the brokenhearted
To give the blind their sight
To free the captives
Release the prisoners and proclaim
A year of jubilee"

We recognized the voice
This was the Promised One
This was the Shepherd
Our hearts were burning.

We listened when you told us
About our heavenly Father
Who wishes us
To cherish one another
To be forgiving, generous
As he is himself

And festive, carefree
As the meadow-flowers
Light as the swallows

He wishes us 
To be like children

You also told us
Our Father
Bless us most of all
When we are poor

So even when our bodies
Have grown old
And our heads are filled with confusion

He will not love us
Any the less for that.

--Anne Porter (1911-2011), American Roman Catholic poet, from Living Things: Collected Poems, 2006

Scripture references: Luke 4:14-21 (3rd After Epiphany Year C)