Route 7 Review | Page 87

LIGHTING A FRAIL FLAME By Stephen Reilly Oh, sweet burn! Oh, delectable wound! Oh, soft hand! Oh, delicate touch That savours of eternal life and pays every debt! In slaying, thou has changed death into life. –St. John of the Cross, Living Flame of Love Under this rising sun, in its faint light, we gathered together to dream and pray that no more will young men drag themselves from battlefields, the smell of gun-power and the dead staining their senses gray. Let no battle hymn inspire us. Let’s never raise our voices, wave our flags, to flame the funeral pyres of the innocent. Make this day our hope. Dear Jesus, we call you the Prince of Peace, the Savior, and yet we keep ourselves crucified to the despot’s dreams. Like Nero, we fiddle and play while our nations dance in flames. Who among us grids up courage? Whose voices sing in a wilderness where warlords and tyrants wallow in blood and would whip the fires of despair into all-consuming flames? When will God open His eyes so that we may see?