By Torsten Schwanke
PLATO AND ARISTOTLE
When you look at a mare,
When you look at a stallion,
You have the idea of horse-ness,
Have the horse-itself in your mind.
When you look at a table,
A big one, a small one,
You have the idea of the table
In general in your mind.
But what are ideas?
General entities,
Existing in the spirit,
In the pure spirit of the Godhead.
How does the philosopher know
Of the nature of ideas?
Because before conception
They saw in the mirror of the Godhead!
All souls were once
Before the day of conception
In the heaven of ideas above,
Beheld God and the ideas!
But when they entered the dungeon
Of their bodies,
They forgot everything,
Had forgotten the idea!
But artists, philosophers
And lovers remember,
These drank not of Lethe
At the moment of conception.
Now when philosophers love,
In the beautiful child they love
The idea of pure beauty,
Look again at the idea.
When the philosopher is in love,
He gazes above the beautiful child
The idea of beauty, which
Is Urania, the goddess.
But are the ideas
Beings, spiritual-real?
Or are they in things
Only as a pure principle of form?
Are all earthly things
Built up from matter,
Which is a chaos, a substance,
Which is shaped by a form.
This form is in the substances,
Which they create from potency
Of matter to the thing,
To realisation, to act.
This form is in the human being
His soul, which builds up
His body,
So that he becomes a true life.
All things in the cosmos,
That somehow move,
Are moved by one cause,
This is the first mover.
This first mover is
First Cause of all things,
This is God, who gives to all things
Their goal in perfection.
But what is perfection?
That is perfection:
God is perfection,
God is also the goal of beings.
In the beings, in the things
Works the form that develops them.
This principle of becoming is
The entelechy of beings.
All beings develop
Thus through entelechy
To the state of perfection,
Where they are perfected in God.
God is therefore the first cause,
God is also the goal of all beings.
Soul is the form of the body,
God is the form of all souls.
HORACE AND VERGIL
When Horace in his youth
Sang to his golden lyre,
He followed the serene wisdom
Of Epicurus, exalting lust.
Pleasure, the highest virtue
Of a man on earth,
Is not frivolous lust,
Is the serenity of joy.
What does man need for joy?
Not a hall of marble columns,
But a green garden,
Where the happiness of friendship smiles.
Nor shall love of evil
Torture your soul,
But serve light maidens
With love's mirth.
Praise Venus! Praise Bacchus!
When thou hast tasted the wine,
Then Cupid will join in,
That sweet little rascal!
When Horace in his old age
Sang to his golden lyre,
He followed the earnest Stoa,
The cardinal virtues.
A cardinal virtue
Teaches you to remain moderate,
So even when drinking
Drink your cup Socratically.
A cardinal virtue
Is courage, but Horace
In war dropped his shield
And so fled.
A cardinal virtue
Is justice. Horace
Always looked at the great ship of state
With grave concern.
A cardinal virtue
Is prudence, and Horace
Was a sage, was a seer,
Sang his odes prophetically.
Of Virgil I know to say
That he was the poet of Advent
Was proclaiming the Church
Of Rome and the Messiah.
In the Fourth of the Eclogues
He praised a pure virgin,
Who will bear the offspring
Who will bring us paradise.
Jove as the great father
Of all gods, of all men,
Sang Virgil, who for our salvation
A saviour will send.
What the seer Moses wrote
Of the children of Israel,
Vergil, the seer, wrote also
Of the great son of Troy.
But who has so directed the fate
To Aeneas in such a way
So that he could found Rome,
The capital of all ecumenism?
It was his mother Venus,
Venus Genitrix, the goddess,
The personification
Of purest Providence.
For Vergil was a devout student
Of the learned Stoic school,
Praised the Providence,
God's first-born daughter.
Goddess Providence
Or Venus Genitrix,
She built Rome, there reigns
The longed-for world saviour,
Who in all ecumenism
Reigns als Caesar, this Son
Of God, the sublime.
Once, as the Sibyl said,
Over the Vatican was
A virgin who gave birth
The Son of God, the Saviour of the World,
Who reigns in Mother Rome.
DIONYSIUS AREOPAGITA
Paul taught in Athens
In old times at the Areopagus,
Before the disciples of Epicurus
He spoke and to the Stoics.
But when he preached
Of the man Jesus Christ
And of his anastasis,
All the philosophers thought:
This one proclaims new gods,
A new god, the Christ,
A new goddess, too,
Namely, Anastasia!
But when Paul spoke
Of the resurrection of the flesh,
All the philosophers said,
Oh, you're a stupid talker!
We have known since Plato,
That the flesh is a prison,
Psyche is imprisoned in it!
Psyche can only be released,
When she is set free
From the dungeon of her flesh,
That is the immortality
Of Psyche in Elysium!
And in the kingdom of heaven
To imprison Psyche again
Into the dungeon of her flesh?
No, you are a grain-picker!
Psyche we want to free,
That's why the Stoics
Love very much the wise suicide,
To free the psyche!
But Pauli's sermon was listened to
By Damaris, the philosopher,
Damaris was a young cow,
Already sexually mature, not yet a mother.
But Pauli's sermon was listened to
By Dionysius, the drunkard,
A Platonist who believed
In the God of the flesh.
This Dionysius
Is the father of all mysticism
In the pious West,
Is a great ecclesiastical teacher.
What can be said of God,
Is only what God is not.
God is not a mortal,
God is not bound by time,
God is not bound by space,
God has no beginning ever,
God has no end ever,
God has no human body,
God is neither man nor woman,
Is not seen by man,
God is a supergod,
Being above all existence.
God is of all hierarchy
Supreme Ruler, for
All thrones (or gods)
Pray to the Eternal,
Cherubim and Seraphim
Pray to the Eternal,
Principality and dominion serve
God the Most High always,
Gabriel and Michael
And Archangel Raphael
Serve ever the Eternal,
Their Most High Lord.
All the angels who protect us
Serve the Lord God at all times,
See the Unseen One,
Bringing his help to us.
In the church hierarchy
Reflects the hierarchy
Of all the angelic choirs above,
Namely, in the sacraments.
Baptism is the new birth
As an adopted child of God,
Confession is the sacrament
Of reconciliation with the Lord,
Confirmation is the sacrament
Of being filled with the Spirit,
Myron ointment, chrism ointment
Strengthens us with the Spirit of the Lord.
The Eucharist is Christ,
Union with him,
Marriage is a sacrament,
As one gives love to another,
Priestly ordination is the consecration
Of an alter ego of Christ,
Anointing of the sick is the healing
Of a Christian in distress.
AUGUSTINE
Monica, the pious mother,
Loved as a young person
Wine above all things,
That was in her father's cellar.
When she went to the cellar
To fetch wine for her father,
She always drank of the wine,
Secretly from the daughter of the vine.
But God freed her
From the addiction to red wine.
Her liquid prayers
Were not flowing from the red wine,
Her liquid prayers
Were hot rivers of tears,
When they asked the Lord God
To deliver Augustine.
Thirty years she prayed,
She prayed the liquid prayers,
And Ambrose spoke,
Who was the bishop of Milan:
So many tears of a mother
Will surely be heard!
And indeed, Augustine
Heard a boy slurring:
Take and read! Take and read!
Augustine took the Bible,
Opened it and read the word:
Live not in the lusts
Of your heated flesh,
But put on the Christ!
Augustine was baptised,
Put on the baptismal garment of Christ.
His concubine's son
Also, Adeodatus was his name,
Was baptised in the church
By Ambrose of Milan.
Hail, Ambrose of Milan!
The Ambrosian
Hymns are still sung
Many hundreds of years later.
But Mother Monica
Felt that she must die,
And she came to her son
And met him in Ostia,
In the harbour near Rome.
And the mother said to the son,
Formerly I would be buried
By my husband's grave,
But now I care not,
Where my body will be buried,
Only when I am dead,
Let mass be said for me!
Monica and Augustine
Lovingly held each other
And considered all things,
Made by God,
And stripped away all that is finite,
What was temporal, what was spatial,
And so at last they beheld
In the spirit the Wisdom of God!
But Augustine spoke
Gloriously of eternity,
Not with one eye only
We behold the glory,
The vision of the Glory
Is not only a fixed looking,
But eternal enjoyment,
Where the Godhead we enjoy!
Yes, we shall be completely satisfied
And be so completely satisfied
By the beautiful love of God
And be loved by love,
Yet without weariness
Will we be satisfied,
But eternally we shall pine
For the pleasures of love!
Eternally we will be satisfied,
Eternally we will pine,
Eternally we will languish,
Eternally we will be satisfied!
LUTHER
Martin Luther studied
And he became a Bible teacher,
At the University
Of Wittenberg he studied.
And he met William Ockham
Whom the Pope condemned,
For he was a heretic,
Yet Luther revered him.
These two heretics spoke
Not of a holy,
Apostolic and Catholic
Roman Ecclesia,
But of the Christianity
A universal Church.
For the popes, said those
Heretics, have often erred
And also the councils
Of the college of the Fathers
Have often falsified the word
And misinterpreted the Bible.
A thousand years of Christianity
Had erred, so said
Those heretics, but today
There would be no faith left.
When Christ comes again,
Will he still find on earth
Faith? Oh, not in the church,
In one man alone!
Popes and councils
And the Church went astray
And the faith was kept
By one monk alone.
This drunken German monk
Has drunk too much of the beer,
Said the Pope when he heard it,
Luther alone is still faithful.
All the world has fallen away
From the true Christian doctrine,
All alone keeps the faith
A drunken German monk!
What is a heretic?
And what is a cleric?
So my lady asked
Today on the feast of Christmas.
Luther is a heretic,
For he said that the Lord
Himself hardened Pharaoh
And condemned Pharaoh,
And then God's great power
Came on the children of Israel
Whom he brought
From the slavery of Egypt.
When the Lord condemned Pharaoh,
He himself hardened, himself condemned,
To lead the children of Israel
To the Promised Land,
Then God does the evil himself,
To bring about good,
Then in the Lord is evil,
As in the Lord is good.
Since in God is evil,
He hath ordained the wicked
To eternal damnation
And the good to salvation.
There is nothing man can do,
For either rides
Satan on his back or
Christ shows him grace.
If there is evil in God,
Predestination to evil,
Said the Lutheran Hegel,
Then God himself is dialectical,
Then God does evil in order
Thus to bring about the good,
Then to the Triune One
Comes the fourth of the persons
Lucifer, the fourth
He in the Trinity.
And the Lutheran woman,
Who studied Doctor Luther,
Fears that God condemns her,
That she is predestined
By the Lord God to hell,
So she falls into madness.
FRANCIS DE SALES
Francis de Sales in his youth
Suffered from the infernal thought,
That God predestined him
To perish in hell.
This is what Calvinists taught,
This is what Martin Luther taught,
Who man's free will
Rejected as a vile heretic.
Against Doctor Martin Luther
Wrote the glorious Erasmus
Of man's free will,
Confounding all minds.
If Christians no longer listen
To the church of the apostles,
They live in schism,
Come strange doctrines.
Francis de Sales stood in fear,
That God predestined him
To eternal damnation
And the torments of hell.
And he prayed to the Lord God,
Am I already damned to hell,
This life on earth
I will love thee with all my might.
But he found salvation
From the infernal thoughts
Through the mother of all graces,
Our Lady Mary.
Victress is Saint Mary
In all God's battles,
She alone conquers error,
She leads us to Jesus Christ.
When Francis de Sales consecrated himself
To Our Lady Mary,
The Mother freed him
From the Calvinist error.
God wants all men
To come to him in heaven.
To each one he gives abundant grace,
Free to choose God.
So he was ordained bishop
In the beautiful city of Geneva, where
Calvinism was in the minds
And the truth was obscured.
Francis became a preacher of truth,
Who the apostles' doctrine
Against Calvin well defended,
Against Luther well defended.
Luther once quarreled with Calvin,
Whether the bread, the wine of the table
Be the body, the blood of Christ
Or this only signify.
Calvin taught this error,
That the bread signified the Lord,
But that the Lord was not really
Present in the bread.
Luther said, In the bread is
Christ during prayer,
Through faith the Christ
Is present in the cult.
But Francis de Sales taught,
What the Church of the Apostles
Taught from the beginning,
This bread becomes Corpus Christi.
Present in the host
Is the body, the blood, the soul
And the divinity of Jesus Christ,
As the Lord himself taught.
Francis, I would like to say this,
Had a girlfriend of the mind,
Who was Joan of Chantal
A widow in love with God.
I read his letters
To his girlfriend Joan the Pious,
Who after her married state
Consecrated herself to the Lord alone.
These pious love letters
Are very tender and Joan
Saw in Francis de Sales
Her spiritual guide.
HÖLDERLIN
Hölderlin, the young poet,
Read the German philosophers,
Kant and his Prussian ethics
He read as his model of virtue.
Fichte and his I and non-I
And absolute freedom,
He also studied Hegel,
His doctrine of the world spirit.
He also read Schelling,
How the religion of truth
Needs new myths to dress.
Schiller and the ideals
He also studied and saw
In Schiller his great master.
But above all philosophers
He loved the great Plato.
Hölderlin was hardly a German,
He was rather an old Greek.
Like the pious school of the Stoa
He loved the father ether
And the sun like the Greeks,
Plato's Urania
He loved as mother goddess,
Queen and Beloved.
And Empedocles, the wise,
He loved who sacrificed himself
To nature, who plunged loving
Nature into her womb.
Whether Hercules and Bacchus
Were heroes of his youth,
He also loved the Christ,
He saw in him the greatest hero.
When the world of young beauty
Perished in the storm of time,
God, the great Father,
Sent the Son, the beautiful hero.
He was so completely perfect,
That Hölderlin loved him
More than any other demigod
From Greek antiquity.
But when he came to Frankfurt
To the banker Gontard, in the house
To educate their boy
Henry, this fair lad
In the blond curly hair,
He saw the lady of the house,
Saw Suzette, the lovely one,
The Madonna of his soul.
And after this Madonna's head
He fashioned his work of art,
Was a household friend to his lady,
Whom he loved with a passion.
But his mistress's husband
Sent him from the house.
To Bordeaux he wandered,
Beheld lyre, swan and eagle
In the fair summer sky.
The Madonna of his soul
But was called home
By the God of her life.
Hölderlin became a madman,
Schizophrenic paranoia
Now plagued the high poet
And he lived completely alone
Thirty years in the tower,
In the tower of ivory,
Often played the piano,
As he cut the strings,
He changed his name
To Scardanelli, wrote poems,
Called rare visitors
Pope and Emperor, his Highness,
Boys in the alleys laughed
At the confused poet,
Whose soul was benighted
And his nerves were shattered.
But what gentle beauty
Have his tower poems!
He wrote only to his mother,
To his old, pious mother,
My revered mother,
I am well. Now I must end.
I shall always be obedient,
Noble mother, your son.
KIERKEGAARD
Kierkegaard was one evening
In company, among people,
Witty, he knew how to chat
Like rockets explode,
He told good jokes
And many an anecdote
Of famous philosophers,
Poets or theologians,
He was gallant to noble ladies
And humorous to the children,
Drank red wine in moderation
And then went home happily.
But at home he was overcome
By a bottomless gloom,
Like nothingness in the abyss
The night of mourning lay before him.
This inheritance from his father
He could not overcome.
This bottomless gloom
Enveloped everything in mist,
Enveloped everything in grief
And hot tears streamed
And paralysed he lay on the ground
And only wanted to die!
But this black gloom
Made him a philosopher
Who distinguished truth from error,
Who saw through vanity.
This abysmal melancholy
Bordered on the absolute,
It broke away from vanity,
Carried me to the heart of God.
This Socrates of melancholy
Was lonely in Copenhagen,
Condemned to solitude
By the melancholy of his wisdom.
O Regine, why did
I part from thee, ah woe is me,
Who am all alone betrothed
To Wisdom full of gloom?
O Regine, if I walk lonely
Here in Copenhagen
Through my Denmark in the mist,
Something is rotten in our state.
O Regine, an emptiness
Remains in my heart
And in my soul's wasteland
Thy black shadow walks about.
O Regine, I alone
With the Wisdom of my melancholy,
You alone with your heart
Full of feminine love!
O Regine, because my father
Bequeathed me this melancholy,
No lady can comfort me,
Because the Godhead does not comfort me.
O Regine, I have never
Like a Don Juan the women
As a seducer only conquered,
To abandon them in the next moment.
O Regine, I was never
Such a great connoisseur of women
And connoisseur of beautiful maidens
Like the father poet Goethe.
O Regine, never I was
Fit for a good marriage,
Our conjugal love
Would have become only ruin.
O Regine, my longing,
I must all alone in sorrow
Carry the passion of the soul
And can hope only in Christ.
O Regine, I leave you
A thousand times daily, hourly,
To marry me to Minerva,
To marry myself to Minerva!
EVENING KNOWLEDGE AND MORNING KNOWLEDGE
The knowledge of the evening
Of a life, of all days,
Is the great pessimism
And the great resignation.
In the evening of his life
Said King Solomon,
All is vain on earth,
Nothingness of nothingness.
Everything is a puff, everything is a breath,
All is but a figment of the air,
All is futile on earth,
Meaningless under this sun.
True, one strives for Wisdom,
But Wisdom is very far away,
Is very deep, is unfathomable,
No one can find Wisdom.
Even laughter is so meaningless
And joy is so vain.
Why does one toil so much
With the work of his life?
Always one has created one's work,
Only to die in the end,
To leave the work
To people who are not wise.
Vanitates Vanitatem
Is the whole course of Latin.
Vanity of vanities
Is the whole reformation.
So drink thou thy wine,
So feed your flesh.
But he that is sorrowful,
Alas, he cannot enjoy either.
And what is the use of all this wisdom?
Even the foolish man must die
And the wise man must also die
And in the end it is nothing.
The knowledge of the morning
But, this is the knowledge,
As the cherubim know,
As the seraphim know.
In the morning you are on the summits,
The summits of this creation,
Angels in the splendour of the morning,
In the dew of the dawn.
Son of man, your sons
Are begotten by the Spirit
Like the fresh dew of the morning
From the womb of the dawn.
Morning glow of eternity,
Angels sing beautifully in choirs,
Who is that fair maiden
Who rises like the morning?
Morning glow of eternity!
Saint Mary is Aurora,
Who precedes Christ,
The Sun of Righteousness.
Jesus Christ speaks to all,
Look, I make all things new!
Christ is risen
Early on Sunday morning.
Look, I am making all things new!
Christ is risen,
We too shall rise:
Morning glories of eternity!
In the morning as of sweet wine
The apostles were drunk,
When the spirit with tongues of fire
Overshadowed the church.
Hallelujah, hallelujah,
Come, O spirit of fair love,
Singing praise and worship
Virgins in the young church.
Hallelujah, hallelujah,
Jesus is risen from death!
Hallelujah, hallelujah,
We too shall rise!
RUSSIAN ICONS OF THE MOTHER OF GOD
Russia under communism.
A young woman, a student,
Should write about
What was written on Lenin's grave.
But she did not know exactly:
Did it say that religion
Be an opium for the people
Or opium of the people.
And so she wrote her essay,
She handed it in and went to the grave,
And saw she had written right,
God be opium to the people.
The student was so happy
That she prayed spontaneously,
Our Lady of Kazan,
Thank you for your help!
When one day the Golden Horde
Of the Mongol horsemen came,
Genghis Khan and Tamerlan,
Wanted to invade Russia,
Then the Russians took courage
And they marched to the border,
To the Mongol Empire in the east
With the Russian army,
And the Russian army
Wore at its front
A holy icon,
Our Lady of Vladimir.
And the Russian soldiers
Shouted, Hail, Mother of God,
You drive out our enemies,
Victoress in all battles!
Mother of God of Vladimir,
You drove out the enemy
And saved Russia from
The golden horde of the barbarians.
Miraculous icon
Of the great Mother of God,
Victoress the Mother of God
Is in all God's battles!
Leo Tolstoy wrote the book
War and Peace, the novel
About Russia at the time
When Napoleon came.
Once I saw a film
Based on the book of Tolstoy,
When the Russian commander knelt
Before the shrine of the Mother of God.
When the commander with the army
Faced Napoleon
To protect Russia,
Orthodox priests came
With the holy icon
Of Our Lady, the Mother of God,
And the pious commander kissed
The icon of Our Lady.
The soldiers knelt down
Before the black Mother of God,
All shouted, Hail Mary,
Protect our Mother Russia!
And so Russia triumphed over
That emperor of the French
And Napoleon was driven out
By Our Lady!
When in the Second World War Hitler
With the German troops invaded
Into the great empire of the Russians,
Where the communists ruled,
Stalin, the dictator, knew
That the Russian soldiers
Did not think like communists,
But still like pious Christians.
When the Russian army
Fought against Hitler's army,
Stalin the Terrible left
Above the army of the Russians
Circling high a plane with
The icon of Mary,
And Mary protected Russia
And defeated Hitler's army.
THEORY OF LOVE
Two failures of love
We must clearly name,
One is eudaemonism,
One is altruism.
For in eudaemonism
The lover seeks his happiness
And he loves only the beloved,
Because she gives him his happiness.
Once a woman said,
That's why I love you,
Because I feel so good
When I am near you.
That's not why I love you,
Because you are the way you are,
But because I'm in a good mood,
Happy when I'm with you.
Some men want a woman
Because she's beautiful and presentable.
But when she's forty
Then she's no longer beautiful either.
But altruism is
Another transgression.
Here the lover speaks,
Ah, my name is Mr. Nobody!
I am but a mere nothing
And I am nothing but your servant,
Serving that you may be happy,
Whether I am happy or not is not important.
Though that sounds holy
As a model of humility,
But still the truth is,
That I am beloved of God.
Though I should not seek my happiness,
But I should give love.
But if I give love,
I shall be happy.
And to love myself teaches me
Love too. I love myself,
Only then can I give myself away
In the consciousness of my worth.
Love wants to be fruitful,
Love creates beautiful unity,
Unity creates fruitfulness,
Love thus brings us fruit.
When two philosophers' spirits
Are one in the love of friendship,
Friendly love will be fruitful
In spiritual formations.
And when muse and poet
Are one in the love of friendship,
Friendship will be fruitful
In poetic formations.
For love wants to do good,
Wants the good of the beloved.
Love is the heart's response
To the value of the beloved.
Love loves not only the beautiful,
For the beautiful is fleeting.
Love loves persons, beings,
Who receive value from God.
In the loving eroticism
Of a woman and a man
Is desired the unity of spirits,
Is desired the unity of soul,
Is desired the heart-unity,
Is desired the body-unity.
In the body-unity Love celebrates itself
In the most intimate way.
Also the bodily unity
As the celebration of eroticism,
Beautifully it joins two hearts,
When spirits are also united.
Then the physical unity
Will also be fruitful
And the fertility of love
Becomes visible in the child of parents.
Therefore it is also reprehensible,
In physical unity
Only to celebrate the erotic
And not to want the fruits.
THE MOTHERLY FACE OF GOD
So a Cardinal wrote
His teaching on Jesus
And the Lord's Prayer put
So from the Cardinal,
Is God then also a mother?
In Isaiah's book of consolation it says,
That God comforts us as a mother,
As a mother comforts her son.
It is also written in the Book of Isaiah,
That though a mother may
Forget her own son,
But God does not forget us.
Also in Hebrew
Mercy as a word
Is related to a womb,
To the womb of God.
But still Jesus addresses
God as his Father
And in no verse of the Bible
Is God addressed as mother.
But among the heathen nations
There were mother goddesses,
But always there it seems
That the world was born,
That the world was born
By a great mother goddess,
And the world was emanated
And that the world is divine.
But in Judaism
The world was created by God,
But God is before the world,
God is outside of it.
This transcendence of the divinity
Be better represented
With the title of God Father,
Therefore God is called Father.
And so the Cardinal spoke,
Although God has the features
Of a loving mother,
He must be called Father,
For one must not simply pray,
As feeling dictates,
But we must pray
As Jesus prayed for us.
But I say personally,
That I have written a letter
To the Order of Benedict
And the wise monk wrote,
Yes, adore Mary,
For Mary is the Mother
And she is also the Beloved,
Spiritually your wife,
But Mary will lead you
To the motherly God.
Bernard of Clairvaux once wrote,
The Lord God is Magna Mater!
Leonardo Boff, the free,
Wrote, Mary is the mirror
For the motherly face of God,
Mother is our Holy Spirit.
So I searched with all my heart
For the Motherly Face of God
And I found the Wisdom of God,
For it speaks Jesus Sirach,
Lady Wisdom comes to meet us
But as a loving mother
And as a youthful bride.
Grignion of Montfort spoke thus,
This beautiful Wisdom of God
Is the Queen of Heaven
And is the idea of beauty
And to the mystic betrothed.
This Hagia Sophia
Heinrich Seuse once chose
As his Love‘s mistress,
His mystical fiancée.
This Hagia Sophia
As the motherly face of God
Led me to the Love of God,
Led me to the Fair Love.
This Fair Love of God
Hildegard of Bingen called
Mater Caritas, the Lady,
Mater Caritas, the Godhead.
So I say in the night,
In the dark night of the soul,
My divinity is mother to me,
A loving mammy!
THE DIVINE CHILD JESUS
For a time I read the little
Saint Therese of the Child
Jesus and of the Holy Face,
When I often played with children.
Saint Therese spoke to the child
Jesus: Let me be your ball!
You may always play with me,
If you only feel like it.
But if once you don't want
To play with the ball, Jesus,
Put me in a corner
And there I'll wait patiently.
When I read these words,
I often played ball with a boy
In the garden, in the yard.
Once the little boy said,
You, my godfather, you are God,
I am the archangel Michael
And we play with the sun
Football up in the sky.
And I saw in the little boy
Always Jesus, saw in the boy
Always the baby Jesus,
Yes, the baby Jesus of Prague.
So I play ball myself
With the Infant Jesus of Prague
And I gave my love
All to the Infant Jesus of Prague.
But the little boy loved
Me as his heart's father,
His pure filial love
Was even similar to adoration.
Once the little boy spoke,
O my godfather, tell me, who are you?
Are you Joseph? No, not Joseph,
But thou art God the Father!
O madness of a poet!
Then it seemed to me as if
Prague's little Jesus
Worshipped me as God!
Once it was at Christmas,
At the Christmas celebration,
After the Holy Mass I saw
Jesus lying in the manger.
This little baby Jesus
Was but a little doll,
But suddenly I was struck
Deeply the baby Jesus' love!
And the love of the baby Jesus
Was, as on Mount Sinai
The thorn bush once stood in flames,
That burned, not burned,
And it was as if the voice
Said, Take off your shoes,
This rocky ground is holy,
You'll meet God's Love!
God's love was a fire,
God's love was an arrow,
God's fire-hot love
Was an arrow of fire from Cupid!
Since Cupid's fiery arrow
Struck me in the heart,
I burned like the thorn bush once did,
Burned, but did not burn.
Fire arrow of Cupid of God,
Who once struck the heart
Saint Teresa of Jesus,
As Bernini depicted,
I too was struck by the fiery arrow
Of the little Cupid of God,
Of the little baby Jesus,
And I loved God's Love.
But unlike Teresa
Once in Avila, I loved
Not only the Love of God,
But also the beautiful girlfriend.
At Christmas I sang hymns
Of the seraphic poet
Klopstock to the Eternal,
Jehovah, who is Love.
THEOLOGY OF THE BODY I
Let us read the Song of Songs
With the wise double vision,
How the Lord loves the soul,
As the man loves the virgin.
Virgin, I say, namely Almah,
Not a little girl at all,
But a young woman,
Sexually untouched.
Eros is depicted here,
As it is also found in God,
In the Godhead, Eros is
One with the Agape of God.
But in the Song of Songs
A marriage is described
Of a woman with a man,
A sacred eroticism.
For the eros of a man,
The eroticism of a woman,
Is ennobled in the Song of Songs
By the divine Agape.
Nietzsche is not right who said,
That Christianity poisons
The erotic. It is true:
God ennobles eroticism.
So even a pope taught
Of sexuality:
Love is the total gift,
Not selfish desire.
When man and woman unite
In the act of sexual desire,
Let them seek out of love
A rhythm that is harmonious.
For man is fast, a runner,
Hurriedly running in the swift race,
A woman is very patient,
As in a marathon.
A woman comes slowly to
The sexual climax,
But she also lingers very long
In the enjoyment of the climax.
Dear women, says the monk,
Teach the men, your husbands,
The secret of your soul,
The secret of your body.
For there are few men
Who understand women so well
That they know of their own accord
What a woman wants from them.
But the normal men
Have to be taught
From women what they want.
Women, please speak clearly!
Women, lead your men
Into the mysterious world
Of your soul-body unity
Full of erogenous zones!
Women have more
Erogenous zones
Then men. So women have
To teach their own men.
Because the woman is a mystery,
Not a riddle to be solved
By the clever thinker,
Nay, mystery unfathomable.
For the soul of a woman
Rooted in the mystery
Of God! God is a mystery,
Mystery unfathomable.
Women are icons namely
Of the mystery of the Godhead!
Sevenfold veiled is
The mysterious Godhead.
Once a soul doctor spoke
To the girlfriend of my soul,
No, I cannot heal you,
Thy soul is veiled.
And I said to my girlfriend,
Therefore I love thy soul,
Because it is mystically veiled
And wears the Godhead's veil.
THEOLOGY OF THE BODY II
Now when a married couple
Want to unite sexually
The couple should be open
To the fertility of love.
Today there is a pill,
A birth control pill
To separate from the act
Of this love fertility.
The wife should always be
At the man's disposal,
That he may satisfy his lust
Without producing children.
For feminism taught
According to Simone de Beauvoir,
That motherhood is slavery,
Marriage is a woman's yoke.
But quite naturally
A woman is fertile at times,
Barren at other times,
As nature intended.
If one regulates conception
According to the cycle of the wife,
The woman must know the body
And the husband must know the wife.
Times of abstinence
And natural asceticism
Only strengthen the marriage bond,
Increase also the pleasure of the act.
But when the married couple
As Sara and Tobias
Want to unite in marriage,
Why not pray to God?
For the conjugal act
Can beget a human being,
God the Creator breathes the soul
Into the germ at conception.
When the Creator of all men
Thus acts as creator
In the midst of the act of love,
Why not pray to God?
Adam and Eve were naked,
Were not ashamed of their nakedness,
For they lived in love,
In the gift of love.
But when in the Fall
In place of pure love
Desire had taken its place,
The first parents were ashamed.
Today people are shameless,
Openly displaying in the marketplace
Their sex and publicly
They perform the mating.
But after the Fall
The sense of shame is natural
And it also protects people
From the abuse of sex.
But this sense of shame is
Overcome by love,
By the trust of pure love,
By the gift of love.
In the intimate space of marriage,
Unique, indissoluble,
Shame is overcome
And nakedness becomes natural.
But revolutionary
Socialist Marxism,
Feminism, free love,
Women's communism,
Taught, sexuality
To detach from bondage
And in freedom
To live out all urges.
Because the revolutionaries
Wanted communism,
They were hindered by
Christianity of the West.
If they wanted communism
And the new man,
They had to destroy
Christianity of the Occident.
So they destroyed marriage
And Christian culture
And we have in Europe
Masses of crippled souls.
THE CHILD JESUS
When the little child Jesus
Played in his mother's house
He played with a little cross
Which he had made himself.
And the mother Mary
Gave the baby Jesus
Freshly picked figs or
Freshly picked dates too
Or almonds that were salted
With the salt of the covenant.
The baby Jesus liked to drink
Freshly milked goat's milk.
Jesus played very early
In his father's workshop,
His foster father Joseph,
Who was a carpenter.
Joseph once had to make
For Herod, for the king,
A throne carved from wood,
Joseph had miscalculated,
One slat was too short,
When the baby Jesus saw this,
The baby Jesus did a miracle
And lengthened the slat.
When the baby Jesus was
To go to school, Anne
Or Joseph took him to school,
And the teacher was very strict.
And the teacher taught him,
How to write the A,
Then the teacher taught him
How to write the B.
But then the child Jesus said,
O you stupid fat teacher,
Don't know what the A means,
Will you teach me the B?
And the baby Jesus said.
That slanting line at the A,
That goes up from left to right,
That is God the Eternal Father,
That slanting line at the A,
That goes down from left to right,
That's God the Eternal Son,
Greeks call him the Logos,
And the little line in the middle,
That joins the two slanting lines
Lovingly connecting, that
Is the Holy Spirit, Love.
Will you teach after the A
Me the motherly B,
I say that A and B
Are to be pronounced Abba.
At school during recess
But said his friends,
Jesus, you are the Son of God,
Build us a rainbow
That we may walk on the rainbow
So that we can walk through the air.
So the baby Jesus
Quickly did a little miracle,
Built a rainbow.
Baby Jesus and his friends
Climbed the rainbow,
Walked through the air
But Jesus' little friends
Fell from the rainbow
On their noses, and beat
Their little noses bloody.
When Grandma Anne heard that,
She took a willow rod,
Smacked Jesus on the butt,
Three times she hit him on the butt,
For Grandma Anne said,
Jesus, you are the Son of God,
But always remember
That men are made of clay.
ADAM AND EVE
An old Jewish woman said,
Eve, the mother of us all
Is not the temptress,
Not the female, eternally alluring.
Adam himself ate the fruit.
But no, it was not an apple,
Apples were not of old
In the garden of the Middle East.
There was wheat, there was barley,
There were purple shells,
There were grapes on the vine
There were quinces, dates and figs.
Now when Eve and Adam also
Tasted the forbidden fruit,
They both saw that they were naked,
And covered their nakedness.
And the fig tree gave them
Leaves, that they might cover themselves,
They covered their nakedness
With the leaves of the fig-tree.
Therefore the rabbis say,
This fig-tree hath surely
Some remorse,
Because he gave them the fig.
That is why this
Fig tree produced the large leaves,
Because first it produced
The forbidden fruit, the fig.
If you want to look at it that way,
The story of paradise is
The story of a childhood,
Of pure child innocence.
Little children run naked
Through the garden of their childhood,
Who only later begin
To be ashamed of their sex.
Shame is something quite healthy.
But when adults are shameless
Then they are mostly sinners,
Whoremongers, sodomites.
But only the old people
In the old people's hospitals
Become childlike-shameless again
And so the circle closes.
If you want to see it that way,
The story of paradise is
The story of humanity,
Gathering fruit at the beginning.
When Cain and Abel were born,
Mankind was already developed,
For there was the cultivator
And there was also the shepherd.
Later came Nimrod,
Who was a hunter before the Lord.
He brought from afar
Delicious flesh of wild beasts.
But that the mother Eve
Is at the same time the friend Ruth
And the holy Mary,
This is Christian thought.
For the Christian brethren say,
How sinned the first Adam,
The new Adam, Christ,
Make atonement for sinners.
And because Eve disobeyed
Against God, and obeyed
To the fallen angel,
Sin entered the world,
Therefore came the new Eve,
This is holy Mary, she
Listened to the angel of God
And obeyed God's word.
This new, second Eve
Is the eternal feminine,
That leads us to God,
To the mystery of eternal love.
PRE-SOCRATIC
Parmenides travelled alone
Riding through the dark night,
Daughters of the sun led him
To justice, to the gate
In the heaven where he beheld
Goddess Truth in the throne
And the Goddess Truth spoke
To the pious philosopher,
All things on earth
Become and pass away again,
All existence is so void,
Nothingness of nothingness!
But what has an existence,
Has its being alone,
Because it has a share
In the absolute being.
This absolute being
Is immortal, imperishable,
Eternal and omnipresent,
And it is the One Being.
Heraclit, the dark thinker,
Wrote of the interior of the cosmos,
Dedicated this his work to the goddess
Artemis of Ephesus,
This cosmos is dynamic,
In the cosmos works the force
Full of energy, I call it
Fire, that is the Dynamis.
But all the dynamics
Of that energy in the cosmos
Does not act blindly and aimlessly,
There is a power of order.
This power of order in the cosmos,
That orders and shapes
Ordering and shaping, I call
Logos or All-Reason.
The dynamic structure
This cosmos full of power
Directs and leads to its goal
The Logos, God's All-Reason.
And Anaxagoras said
To the annoyance of the Athenians
That the sun was not a god,
But dead flint,
That Luna and Venus
Were not goddesses
And that Jupiter and Mars
Are not celestial gods,
But cosmic planets,
Simply dead celestial bodies
That walk in wise paths
According to the laws of nature.
The laws of nature,
Which the physicist discovers
Are inscribed in
The nature of a nous,
A divine intellect,
A divine reason,
A spirit of divinity
As the supreme being.
But the Athenians and
The Athenian women also
Accused Anaxagoras
A blasphemy.
Another way to God
Socrates smilingly pointed out to us,
But the Sophists made
Wisdom the business of money.
But then Socrates said,
That in every man's mind
Dwells a daimonium
Or divine conscience.
This divine conscience
Now teaches the human spirit
To strive for truth
In its human knowledge,
To strive for goodness in
A pure life of virtue.
In the Daimonium
The human spirit hears the voice of God.
PLATON
Plato saw in all things
Their spiritual laws.
That we recognise a tree,
Makes the spiritual law.
When we recognise a woman,
So we recognise her essence,
What makes a woman a woman,
This he calls her womanhood.
Although Diogenes mocked
This teaching of Plato, and said,
I have met a woman,
But I have never seen womanhood.
But Plato speculated,
Behind all phenomena
There are spiritual entities,
Which he called ideas.
These spiritual ideas
Were in the pure spirit world,
Were in the heaven of ideas,
Where they dance like the gods.
But among the ideas
Is also a hierarchy,
Some ideas stand
Higher than others.
And the highest of the ideas,
Let this be the Idea of Freedom,
Be it Truth, be it Goodness,
Be it the ideal of Beauty.
When the human spirit recognises
In the spiritual knowledge
Of a thing the pure being,
He strives towards the idea of truth.
When man acts morally
According to the catalogue of virtues,
He strives to attain
The idea of the highest good.
When the human sense enjoys
Some works of beautiful muses,
It enjoys the idea
Of the beauty begotten by God.
Of the trinity of ideas
What is the highest good?
Truth, beauty, goodness I see,
But goodness is the highest.
Plato calls goodness
His supreme deity.
What the good God creates,
All is created good.
When man strives for goodness
And realises goodness himself,
He is on the way to God,
Lives a life of virtue before God.
But Plato of the soul
Teaches that it is immortal,
Yes, conceived from eternity
As an idea in the mind of God.
At the moment of conception,
When it enters the body,
The soul was already with God,
It was in the heaven of ideas.
And the soul saw God,
Beheld all the ideas,
Dancing before the Godhead,
Beheld them in the heavenly mirror.
But the soul has fallen
Into the prison of this flesh
And it must now rise,
To return to heaven.
Love now helps it to do so,
For in the moment of love
The soul sees in the beloved
This splendour of the divinity again.
And the soul spreads
Its wings, inspired by love,
To the highest beauty,
To the highest goodness.
Cupid is the mediator of God,
Cupid leads souls in love
Up the ladder of heaven to
The primordial deity of primordial beauty.
MAN AND WOMAN
The pure soul of man
Is from eternity in God,
Is idea in God's spirit,
Is foreknown in Christ.
A soul is the form
Of a body, blood and flesh,
But Christ is the form
Of a God-breathed soul.
When parents unite
In conjugal love,
As co-creators with the Creator.
They form the human body.
But God, who is pure spirit,
At the moment of conception
Creates and breathes the soul
Into the germ of the human body.
This breath of the human soul
Into the germ of the human body
Is a kiss of Jesus Christ,
Is a kissing of this human being.
But in the beginning
Adam and Eve were
In the presence of the Godhead
And that is paradise.
In the evening twilight
The Eternal One went for a walk
With the first human couple
In the garden of paradise.
Adam and Eve were
In harmony with God
And also in the marital
Harmony of Lovers.
And the love of Adam was
A pure gift of self
And the giving of his love
Was entirely free from selfishness.
And the love of Eve was
Selflessly giving, wholly giving,
Being Adam's help,
Help on the way to God.
But when the serpent approached
And the fig of knowledge,
Eve bit the snake,
Adam plucked the fig,
Pure love became
Heart-consuming lust.
Adam no longer loved Eve
As the mirror of the divinity,
Adam now desired Eve
In the desire of his urges,
Eve was his object of lust,
That he enjoyed selfishly.
Eve was his object of lust,
Eve was his sex idol.
He in masturbation
Knew only the urge's hunger.
But what is the redemption
Of the fallen human couple?
Since the smile of their love
Was the snarl of hate,
Since the bundle of instincts
Wanted to devour the object
And to satisfy the urge
Even kill the sex idol,
Did, as Martin Luther said,
God these sins?
No, through the cross and resurrection
Of His Son Jesus Christ
He promised all mankind
A resurrection too
And also a new body
And a new paradise.
In the spiritual body of paradise
People do not celebrate a wedding,
But are like the angels,
Completely united with the Godhead.
Not the devouring desire
Satisfies itself in the sex idol,
But pure love of God
Will be all in all.
DOSTOYEVSKY
Dostoyevsky's Guilt and Atonement
I once read in Oldenburg,
The criminal still at the end
Saw the young dawn.
But I was completely captivated
By Dostoyevsky's Idiot,
Which I read in Poland
At the foot of the Carpathians.
My two dear wives
Slept there in a tent
To my right, to my left.
My grandmother was dying.
O smiling Aglaja,
A grace of pure virtue,
But proud and thorny
And unapproachable like an iceberg!
O lovely Natasha,
That dark woman's affliction,
Sinner, yet full of loveliness,
Unhappy, desirable!
O the pure Idiot,
Myshkin, that Christ of Russia,
Children only understood him,
Who loved children very much!
When my grandmother died
I saw Myschkin standing before me
Or was it the Christ of Russia,
The Dionysian Messiah?
But then in Berlin
With the two wives
I saw Russian icons
Of the black Mother of God.
Who were humiliated and insulted
I read there,
Who were humiliated and insulted
Were awakening my tears.
And one of my wives
Cooked me a midday meal,
But I turned my back on her,
I wanted to read Dostoyevsky.
Brothers Karamazov I read
In Tyrol and in Venice,
In Venice I thought
Of repentance and penance.
When Sossima preached
Of God's great love,
I spoke of deep-felt remorse,
Alas, I must change my life!
To meet such a Starez,
As Alyosha met him,
Was the longing of my soul,
But I did not meet him.
Later, in Oldenburg,
I sat with the two women,
Reading The Brothers Karamazov
In our reading circle.
But all I could do was stare
At one of my wives,
The other was jealous,
Felt left behind.
It's been a long time since I read
Dostoyevsky, but I've heard,
That he adored Mary,
Russia's black mother of God,
Wet Mother, Black Earth!
Dear Mother, Old Rusj!
Great Mother, Mother of God!
So Dostoevsky pleaded.
And then I heard Pope
Benedict on the feast day
Of the Immaculate Conception
Dostoevsky quote thus:
Only beauty can save us!
The virgin Mary
Alone can save us now,
Mirror her to the beauty of God!
Dostoevsky once said,
Only beauty can save us!
And a man asked him,
What beauty do you mean?
Only beauty can save us,
Only the beauty of a love
That embraces even pain,
Said the wise Dostoevsky.
THE VEGETARIENS
Animals are kept today
In mass cages,
Artificially and chemically bred,
Until they die of fear.
That is not humane,
The righteous man loves his cattle,
Takes care of all his animals,
As does a good shepherd.
But vegetarians
Cultivate a pagan animal worship.
Children are aborted,
For the frogs they demonstrate.
Caritas, it's supposed to mean,
That the rich donate money
For the condor, which is threatened,
But they kill embryos?
Vegetarians, what do you say,
That the animal also eats animals?
Since God's covenant with Noah
Man is also allowed to eat animals.
Vegetarian, will you sue
Jesus Christ then,
Who as risen Lord
Ate the fish he created?
Children, have you nothing to eat?
Jesus Christ, risen from the dead,
Spoke first to the disciples:
Children, have you nothing to eat?
And a monk once said,
If I had become a bishop,
This would be my bishop's motto:
Children, have you nothing to eat?
And my bishop's coat of arms would be
Two crossed chicken legs.
So I also say as a parable
Of the prayer of the rosary:
You must try it,
The prayer of the rosary!
If you've never had Wiener schnitzel,
You don't know how good it tastes!
And Teresa of Jesus
Spoke of fasting and prayer,
If it's Lent, fast!
If it's Easter, eat a partridge!
And Teresa of Jesus
Once wrote in a letter,
I have to eat poultry now,
Because the mutton is not so good.
Hildegard von Bingen herself
Was not a vegetarian.
But she warned against eel,
But she warned against the duck.
Because the eel at the bottom of the sea
Feeds on bad things.
And the duck on the ground
Feeds on bad things.
Hildegard recommends spelt,
Eat spelt bread instead!
Hildegard recommends the walnut,
Walnut butter on the bread!
But if once in heaven
I may live with Jesus Christ,
Invited to the banquet
To the Easter meal of the Lamb,
I want to be Chinese
Eating Chinese food with the Lord,
I'd love a Peking duck,
It takes four people.
God the Father I invite,
Father full of tenderness,
God the Logos I invite,
Son, who redeems me on the cross,
God the Spirit I invite too,
Who prayed so much in me,
And fourth, I sit down
To the Trinity,
And we'll eat in heaven
A delicious Peking duck.
Children, have you nothing to eat?
Jesus! A Peking duck!
CHINA
From the dictator Mao
First I read poetry,
Then I read the dialectic
After the Dictator Mao.
The erotic novel
About Dame Dija,
I learned to love my China
Which speaks of love in flowery terms.
And I read Lao Tse
About Tao, about Te,
Almost a gospel
Of the wisdom of Jesus Christ.
Read Confucius,
The conversations with the disciples.
God created the Master as a bell,
When the world was without a word.
And I read of the flower land
In the south of Chuang Tse,
I hear the organ of the earth,
I hear the organ of the sky.
And I read Li Tai-Po
Who drank three hundred cups
And sang three hundred odes
To the beautiful concubine.
And I also read Du Fu,
More serious than Li Tai-Po,
And I read Bo Djü-I,
Who read to his handmaid.
And I read the Book of Songs,
Old odes of the Chinese,
I have composed them myself,
Which are as old as David's psalms.
And I read the nineteen old
Ancient poems,
Verses full of love's lament,
Verses full of death's sorrow.
And I wrote of my China
A blooming novel
In the midst of the muddiest madness,
Thought I was Chinese myself.
And then I met the Chinese
Rong-Ji Pan, who was a Christian,
Who wrote a dissertation
On Confucius.
And I helped him formulate
The idea of pedagogy,
Of the father-son relationship,
As Confucius taught it.
And I read the folk stories
And the fairy tales of the Chinese,
Read the Kin-Ping-Meh and other
Ancient Chinese novels,
And the wild brigands
By the moor Liang-Shan,
The erotic novel, too,
Which was censored in Germany,
Read also the book by the original source,
Which Liä-Dsi wrote,
Read also in the book of manners,
In the old book Li Gi,
Also wrote about music,
The education of children,
Read the life of Hudson Taylor,
Missionary to China he,
Heard also of Fu Chen Fu,
Missionary to China he,
Who saw the many dragons,
Thought it was all the devil's work,
Became Chinese himself
And finally died in China:
Lord, in heaven
I want to be Chinese forever!
Yes, in another life
I was a poet once in China,
Lived in the bamboo hut,
Watched the full moon at night,
Loved a beautiful woman
With her black hair pinned up
And pierced by a needle
Of her marriageable age.
LENTEN SERMON ON WINE
Dear brothers of mine in Christ,
I, as your bishop, say
That during Lent
Drink wine in moderation!
The Lord God speaks in the Psalms,
That he himself created wine
To break your sorrows
And to refresh the heart.
Is there any of you brothers
Who can hold but a little glass,
Let him drink a little,
If he drinks more, he becomes foolish.
He that drinks more of the wine
Than he can hold,
He goes no more to his work,
Stays in bed all day,
Then he beats his wife,
Because she is always quarrelling,
And curses his own children
For robbing him of his rest.
If a man is such a weakling,
He had better abstain,
Drink but a small glass,
Thank God and go to sleep.
But if there be other brothers,
Who can bear two glasses,
Of the stronger wine, too,
Let him drink the noble wine,
Like a Gran Reserva
Or perhaps the Bordeaux.
But more is forbidden him,
For otherwise he will become choleric,
And quarrels with his gentle wife,
Who won't say yes or no,
Locks up the little children
As punishment in the chamber.
Let each drink only his measure.
Whoever drinks more than he can stand
From the wine created by God,
I command him moderation.
Dear brothers in Christ
And you dear sisters also,
I, as your bishop, say
That the Lord hath more graced me.
Would that God so pardoned you,
As he hath blessed me,
You might as well drink
A bottle that night.
The Lord God has given me
A steadfastness in drinking,
As he hath not so blessed you.
To each his measure the Lord gives.
But have you ever seen
That I slurred my words at the sermon
Or in the procession
Or staggered ahead of you?
No, you never saw me staggering
At mass at the altar
And in my pastoral care
I have never wavered.
No, the sick I have visited
In the hospital
And to the dying I gave
The last sacraments.
I faithfully taught the little children
Fatherly the teachings of the Bible,
Teaching them the catechism
To the first communion.
In the Bible study group
God's word to the brothers
And the teachings of the Mother Church
Faithfully I handed down to the sisters.
In ecumenism I have
Discussed with Lutherans,
With Pentecostals and Baptists,
Without ever departing from the Lord.
Summa: If God had graced you,
As he would have pardoned me,
Drink you a bottle of wine
In the evening, praising Christ.
VIRGINITY, MARRIAGE, DIVORCE
When I had become a Christian
I parted from my concubine,
For I read the Apostle Paul:
All shall be like me!
This said the apostle
Not to put on chains,
But for the sake of freedom
And of free worship.
Namely, he who is called
Into the sacrament of matrimony,
Desires to please his wife,
Is not wholly free to God.
But with half a heart
He serves the Lord with his work,
Half-heartedly he serves
His wife in the business of daily life.
But he who is called
To virginity before God,
He is free to serve the Lord,
With all his heart he serves God.
And once there was a monk
In the desert of Egypt,
Who was tormented by lust,
He longed for a woman.
Said the desert father to him,
Spiritually wise was Abbas,
Make thee a woman of clay,
Think of her as your wife.
Now you must go to work,
To feed your wife.
Make a child out of clay,
This you must also provide for.
Make a second child out of clay,
Then think of all your worries.
The lust of the flesh
For a wife you will surely want.
But if thou wilt live
For the kingdom of heaven,
Choose Our Lady
To be your mystical spouse.
But he who is afraid in his heart
That God may call him
To celibacy,
He is called for marriage.
As the Father loves the Son
And the Son loves the Father
And the love of both breathes
God's Spirit as the bond of love,
So the husband loves the wife
And the wife loves the husband
And the love of both creates
Then the child as the fruit of love.
As Christ loves the church,
The husband loves the wife,
As the Church loves Christ,
The wife loves her husband.
For marriage is a mystery,
Is a real sacrament,
Reflects God's faithfulness,
Is, like this, indissoluble.
Oh, what must I hear
From the dear Protestants?
This woman was once married
The lukewarm Catholic,
Then divorced him,
Took a second husband
Who hated Catholics,
He loved whores in the brothel,
And she divorced again
From the Catholic-hater,
Went to church with a third man
Holding hands in church.
Yes, they do read the Bible,
That the Lord forbid divorce,
But do what they desire
In the Christian's freedom.
He who has broken the sacrament of marriage
Against God has broken the faith,
Cannot receive the sacrament of love
From the holy altar.
MARTYRDOM OF PURITY
When the Apostle Paul was
At Iconium in Hellas,
Virgin Thekla heard him
Speaking of the love of Christ.
Virgin Thekla was inflamed
By the love of Christ on the cross,
Who died the death of love
For the salvation of the bride, the soul.
Virgin Thekla fell in love
With the Bridegroom Messiah,
As the bride of Christ
To live in virginity.
But there was a wild heathen,
Who was full of lust,
Passionate as an animal
He desired the virgin Thekla,
Wanted her for his wife,
To make love to her intimately.
But Thekla was horrified
At the lust of the heathen.
Then Thekla denied herself
To the covetous heathen,
No, I will live as a virgin,
Christ is my bridegroom!
But the fierce anger of the heathen
And the furious disappointment
Of his animal desire
Accused virgin Thekla.
Thekla was condemned to death,
To die by fire.
As she stood on the funeral pyre
In the midst of the flames,
She prayed to Christ,
Oh my Bridegroom and Lord,
Give at the last moment
The sacrament of baptism to me!
Rain fell from heaven,
Christ baptised the Virgin Thecla.
And she died the death of love
And entered heaven.
Similarly Agnes also, the virgin,
Loved Jesus as her husband,
Wished to remain a pure virgin
For the kingdom of heaven's sake.
Behold, Agnes was very beautiful,
So a man fell in love
With the beautiful girl
And desired to make love to her.
But Agnes refused,
No, I want no man,
But the Son of God alone,
All my love is for him.
Then the man was enraged
And seized the maiden Agnes,
Dragged her to the whorehouse
Where he had often been a guest,
Stripped the maiden naked,
To expose the maiden
Before the eyes of those men
Who frequented the brothel.
But Agnes prayed
To the bridegroom, to Christ,
And her bridegroom heard
The prayers of his bride.
And from heaven came a light,
Which veiled Agnes all,
And the whorehouse-goers
Were blinded by the light.
Agnes was killed,
But Christ took her up,
His martyr Agnes
Sits on her throne in heaven.
And there was once a monk
Who vowed virginity,
Was plagued with lust
For the charms of a pagan woman.
Then the spiritual guide advised him,
Call upon the Virgin Agnes!
And the monk called on Agnes,
And found peace of soul again.
THE ANTICHRIST
Yes, the Antichrist is coming
As a great theologian
Who has earned his doctorate
In beautiful Tübingen.
What then does the Antichrist teach
In biblical scholarship?
That they are all myths,
Which need not be believed.
And the Antichrist teaches
That the gospel
Is not to be taken literally,
But is to be read in a modern way.
Jesus was born of
A virgin without a man?
That's what they say about Plato too,
It's nothing but a myth.
That Mary was immaculate
From the stain of sin,
That's just highly neurotic,
A sexual neurosis.
That the Master performed miracles,
That is really not to be believed.
Only the paschal church
Made up the miracles.
That the Lord multiplied the bread,
That is but a symbol and a parable.
Just give the people their bread,
That is the whole message.
That the Lord is the Son of God,
Later the apostles believed.
Jesus did not proclaim himself,
But only the kingdom of God.
For the man from Nazareth
Believed that the kingdom of God
Had now come, but the Nazarene,
Alas, the Nazarene was mistaken.
That the Lord at the Last Supper
Gives himself as food,
May only be taken symbolically,
Or else one becomes a cannibal.
That the Lord died on the cross,
That is certainly historical,
But that he rose again,
That is a pious fable.
Magdalene is called a whore
And Mary a pure virgin,
These are men's fantasies,
That's sexual neurosis.
That the tomb of Christ is empty,
That's a pious fable.
Jesus' body is still buried
Somewhere in Israel.
The apostles, who were frightened,
Who believed in the Messiah,
Were after the crucifixion
Became completely depressed
And so they devised
The poem of the resurrection.
Some had visions,
Religious delusions.
What Jesus really taught,
No one can say today.
But the Christ in the church,
That is not the Nazarene.
So the Antichrist teaches
As a super-theologian,
All journalists celebrate
This critical scholar.
When the Pope proclaims a word,
All journalists ask
That scholar from Tübingen,
Provoke him to contradiction.
And the Protestants love
And many a Catholic
This critical scholar,
Who contradicts the Pope.
And so the Antichrist creeps
Sneaking into the church
And confuses the lukewarm priests
And the unlearned laity.
THE WHORE AND THE BRIDE
Luther sang in the hymn,
Luther also sang of the little whore,
Zebaoth is the bridegroom,
But his bride is a whore.
Virgin Israel, the bride,
God's marriage has broken
And loved the idol Baal,
The idol of the wilderness.
Yet God has not divorced,
God is faithful to his marriage.
But the bride broke the marriage
With the idols of Canaan.
Yet the harlot Israel
Is still the beloved,
But she must turn
To the God and Bridegroom.
Even the soul of a man
In the state of sin is
A whore only before God,
A harlot beloved of God.
A soul in sin
Lives divorced from the Lord.
But the God and Bridegroom
Yet woos that soul.
A soul in sin
Breaks marriage with the Lord,
God cries, Soul, repent
And turn to the Lord!
Jesus came as a bridegroom
And his gospel
Invites us all to the wedding,
Jesus was the friend of harlots.
A harlot wept tears,
Anointing thus the feet of Jesus,
Drying his wet feet
With her long curly mane.
This harlot comes even sooner
Through repentance to heaven
Than the self-righteous teachers,
Who confess no guilt.
When the soul is converted
To the Lord and Bridegroom,
Lives again in the state of grace,
In grace through faith,
Then shall this maiden again
Be bride of the bridegroom.
Jesus is the bridegroom,
Bride is a Christian's soul.
Jesus, most beautiful man,
Most beautiful of all the sons of men,
O Bridegroom and King,
To thee will I sing my psalms.
Behold, at your right hand
Thy bride in golden ornament.
Hear, daughter, the Lord God
Is thy Lord and Bridegroom.
The Messiah full of beauty,
Thy beauty he desires,
So bow down before him,
Jesus Christ is Lord!
A soul in grace,
In grace through faith,
Is the bride of the bridegroom,
Namely, Jesus is Love.
Jesus Christ died
For the bride he loved,
When she was an enemy and a whore,
He died for her on the cross.
Paul wrote in his letters,
That he would woo the bride
And lead her to the Lord,
To the one Bridegroom,
He will lead a bride
To the Bridegroom Messiah,
A virgin without blemish,
A bride without spot or wrinkle.
This spotless virgin
Without wrinkle, without spot,
Is the soul in grace,
In grace through faith.
THE WHORE IN THE PROPHETS
So it was with Hosea,
The Lord said to him,
Take the harlot to be thy wife,
Testify with her sons of a whore!
So Hosea took
Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim,
That whore to wife.
And he begat sons of the whore.
Firstborn son of a whore,
That was Jezreel the farmer,
Jezreel means: God sows seed,
God sows seed in the field.
Then were born two sons
Of the whore, one was called
Ammi, which means God's people,
One was called Ruchama, Grace.
Just as Hosea took
A harlot for a wife,
So did the Lord God love
Israel the harlot.
But Israel the harlot
Departed from her husband,
Broke her marriage with the idol
Baal, the idol of Canaan.
But the Lord God remained faithful,
And so the harlot
Returned to her husband,
To the Lord and Bridegroom.
God spoke thus to Israel,
I deceive thee in the wilderness
And I speak passionately
With thee in solitude.
For I will betroth myself to thee
For the bride-price of my grace,
For the bride-price of my faithfulness,
Then shalt thou know the Lord.
Thus said Ezekiel,
Through Ezekiel the Lord:
O Jerusalem, virgin,
O Jerusalem, thy parents were heathen,
And when thou wast born,
They loved not the child,
But cast thee into the field,
Where you wriggled in blood.
Virgin, yet the Lord
Lovingly by thee passed.
Your breasts have grown beautifully,
Small breasts, round and firm!
Your pubic hair has sprouted beautifully,
A thick, curly wool!
Your hair has grown long, too,
It fell upon thy breasts!
And there the Lord saw,
The springtime of love was come,
He covered thy nakedness
With the wool of his mantle.
Ah Jerusalem, but later
Thou didst give thyself to all,
A public whore
In the cult of Astarte,
Thou didst spread thy legs
To every heathen, to every goat,
On public display,
You took no money for it.
Thou didst open thy quiver
To every man's arrow,
In the public markets
Was thy lascivious brothel.
The Egyptians have come,
The Chaldeans have come,
To all you gave yourself willingly,
Public sinner.
Return to thy Lord,
Who has chosen you as his bride!
Lord, kiss me with your mouth,
Kisses better than wine!
CUPID AND PSYCHE
Apuleius wrote the fairy tale,
It's Neoplatonism.
Psyche is the bride of God,
God who is Love.
Psyche was a young girl,
Who was adored.
Yes, the beautiful girl was even
Adored as a goddess of love.
Who otherwise worshipped Venus,
Now worshipped Psyche.
But Psyche was prepared
For marriage with Death.
Psyche stood on the mountainside
In the white wedding veil,
That she might fall to her death,
To consummate the marriage.
But a good spirit from heaven
Brought her to a garden,
To a beautiful garden house,
Where she lay on a bed.
Cupid came, the god of love,
Took Psyche to wife,
Cupid gave her a commandment,
Not to light the candle.
For the god was invisible,
Wanted to remain invisible too.
But Psyche had sisters,
Who were jealous of Psyche.
And so those sisters said,
Thy spouse, is it a god
Or even a monster,
Is perhaps an enemy of man?
Light the forbidden candle,
Look upon thy husband,
Whether he be a red dragon,
Whether it be a fair god.
Psyche followed her sisters,
Lit the candle,
And the wax in hot drops
Stained Cupid's naked body.
So Cupid slipped away
From the unfaithful Psyche
And the mother of fair love
Strictly tested poor Psyche.
Psyche was severely tested,
Had to go to the realm of the dead,
To bring up from there
A bowl full of ointment.
Psyche served many years
As the maid of the goddess Venus,
But Venus spoke for Psyche
To the little god.
Venus thus obtained mercy
For the little slave Psyche
By the god of love Cupid,
Who accepted her again.
Cupid took his Psyche
To the heaven of Olympus,
In the Elysian realm
The two celebrated their wedding.
Ceres brought to the wedding
The consecrated sacrificial bread,
Bacchus brought to the wedding
The consecrated sacrificial wine.
And the Hours, beautiful women,
Brought sacred prayers,
And the Graces, young girls,
Scattered beautiful spring flowers.
And Apollo with the lyre
Sang the Hymen Hymenaeus
And the choir of the Muses sang
Hymen Hymenaeus to them.
And the great father of the gods
And the father of all men
Has the human daughter Psyche
For the little god deified.
Psyche became a goddess,
Lived with the god Cupid
In the Elysian realm
Of eternal paradisiacal delight!
CHRIST IS DIVINE EROS
Dionysius tells us,
That Christ is called love,
Namely, divine agape,
So the fathers call him,
For divine agape
Is love, selflessly giving,
Is the pure love of God,
Is the chaste love of neighbour.
For Eros, this love
Of the desire for unity,
Was not used for Christ,
Because Eros has often been abused.
For in the culture of the Greeks
Venus was already degraded
To a temple whore
In the harbour of Corinth.
And the son of Aphrodite
Eros was also degraded,
That Eros' works were called
The lust of wild boy-abusers
And the lust of whoremongers,
Who in the harbour of Corinth
Slept with the harlot Lais,
Slept with the whore Thais.
Eros became the epitome
Of a sexuality,
Which has completely detached itself
From the love of the person.
Eros became the epitome
Of a sexuality,
Which, purely animalistic and libidinous
Egoistically desires.
That is why the fathers called
Christ divine Agape,
Called him Dilectio
Or Caritas.
But Eros they called not
Christ, for fear of the vulgar,
Of the vulgar rabble
Of the brothels of Corinth.
Dionysius tells us,
That the teachers of mysticism
Christ also called Eros,
But only to the initiated.
Let not the rabble hear it,
But Christ is Eros,
Who has come from heaven
To take a bride for himself.
Christ is the Eros of God
And the soul is the bride,
Christ wants union
Or communion of love.
Christ as the Eros of God
Is the bridegroom of the soul,
Who wills the soul to be married
Through marriage with God.
Christ's Gospel
Is the marriage with Eros
For the deification of the psyche
Through the communion of love.
Therefore also the saints
On the holy Good Friday
Walk weeping through the world,
Ah, my Eros is crucified!
Therefore also the saints
On Easter Sunday joyful
Rejoicing in the world,
Eros, Eros is risen!
Therefore also the saints
In the godforsaken world
Lament that men do not
Love this Eros of God.
Woe, woe, that my Eros
Is not loved by men!
This Eros loves people,
Wants to lead them to the Godhead.
This Eros is a god,
Who has become a true man,
That through marriage with Eros
Men are so deified.
THEOSIS
No one has given himself
This life on earth,
But this life was
Given to us by our God
Through the cooperation of parents.
No one was ever asked
If he too would be born
On the black earth.
But God the Creator wanted
To create our life.
Let us be grateful to the Father,
Let us be grateful to the Mother,
And let us acknowledge the Lord
As the source of our life,
As the firm foundation
Of our existence in creation.
So no one becomes a Christian
By the effort of his own will
And the striving of his spirit,
But being a Christian is a gift.
Christianity is given by the Lord
In the sacrament of baptism,
It is a new birth,
Which is given to us from above.
In the sacrament of baptism
We are born of God,
By the God who is love,
Love of father, love of mother.
What is the foundation of this faith
In the Father of all men,
To whom we are all children,
All men are children?
This faith is based
On the sonship of Jesus Christ,
God's only begotten Son
Namely became a man,
That men might become the children
Of their Father in heaven.
God's Son became man,
Men become children of God.
But in the Church of the East,
Greek Church Fathers
Say, God became man,
That man might become God.
Eve and Adam once wanted
To become like the Godhead itself,
But without God's grace,
But by the hubris of man.
But God became man
In the divine kenosis,
In the descent from heaven
Into the womb of the Virgin Mother,
That man, by the grace of God,
By the most gracious theosis
In the God-man Jesus Christ
Be divinised with grace.
Peter writes in his epistle,
That by the grace of Christ
We may now receive a share
In the Divine Nature.
For when we as Christians
Are transformed into Christ
By the grace of God,
We are deified by the Lord.
But how does the grace
Of our Lord comes into our soul,
That would transform us
Into the image of the Son of God?
God's grace comes into our souls
Through the sacraments,
Baptism, Confirmation, Confession, Marriage,
Through the sacrament of love,
For when we receive the body of Christ
In the sacrament,
We are, by God's grace.
Transformed into Christ.
Augustine, in fact, said,
Christians should not follow
Christ on the way,
But become Christ himself.
Christ is the God-man,
He is divinity, he is humanity,
And in Christ, humanity
Is transformed into the Godhead.
BIRTH OF GOD IN MAN
When the strong angel of God
Came to Our Lady,
He said, Blessed art thou,
God is with you, Most Gracious.
You shall receive in the womb
God's Word, the Logos of God,
Son of the Most High Father
By the power of the Holy Spirit.
And Mary, woman of strength,
Said to the strong angel,
How shall I become a mother,
For I am a consecrated virgin!
And the strong angel said
To the femina, the strong one,
God's power will overshadow the,
Receive with the ear!
So Our Lady
At the greeting of the strong angel
Has received with the ear
God's word in her soul.
And having thus received
With the ear of her soul,
God's power, the divinity,
God's word in her womb.
And Mary carried the Logos
Within her womb,
Yes, she bore the Corpus Christi
In the temple of her womb.
For Mary's beautiful body
Was the monstrance of the Son of God,
Was the temple of the Holy Spirit,
Masterpiece of the Most High.
And Mary lovingly nourished
Jesus under her heart,
As a monstrance she carried the Corpus
Christi to her neighbours.
Then she gave birth to Christ,
The God-bearer Mary,
Gave God's Word and Wisdom
To all men on earth.
So you too, O soul,
Receive God's word ready,
God's wisdom, which proceeds
From the mouth of the Most High.
Speak only to the God of gods,
Behold, I am thy slave,
I will do thy will,
Live according to thy word.
God's power will overshadow thee,
O soul, handmaid of the Most High,
And thou shalt receive blessed
From the Holy Spirit of God
God's Wisdom in the soul.
Nourish thou within
Christ's body, blood and soul,
Nourish within you Christ
With prayer and new graces,
Let the inward Christ grow,
Feed the Christ within
With the sacrament of love.
If the inner Christ lives in you,
You will become a tabernacle
For the Word of the Most High,
For the beautiful Wisdom of God.
As a monstrance, as a tabernacle
Present Christ on earth,
Present him to the people
As the temple of the Holy Spirit.
And give birth to this Christ
For the people of this earth
And give birth to God's Wisdom
Through your works of charity.
Carry God's Word and Wisdom
To the neighbours on earth
Through a smile of your love
And kindness of heart.
God-bearer, O soul,
Shall you be on this earth,
Carrying Christ to men
By the works of thy love.
IN GOD IS ONLY GOD
Master Eckard had disciples,
Heinrich Seuse was also a disciple,
Servant of the Eternal Wisdom,
His mistress and beloved.
Sister Kathrein was his pupil,
Who also had visions.
Once she was in heaven herself
And there she saw the deity.
But she was not just an eye,
Eternally gazing at the Godhead,
But she enjoyed God,
Uniting with the Godhead.
She did not only unite,
As two persons love each other,
But she had entered
Into the inner being of God.
She was always within
God, in the light of God,
In the fair love of God,
Deep in the nature of the Godhead.
And she said, In the inner being
Of God, there is nothing but Godhead,
God is within God,
He that is in God, is deified.
Therefore I was god in the Godhead,
I was divinised in divinity.
Indeed I was person and being,
But not human-all-too-human,
Not in fleshly infirmities
A soul full of weaknesses,
With the spirit that darkened
The world can only think and earth,
But my spirit's soul
Was of God by grace alone
Solely through the participation
In the essence of my God.
I myself had become quasi-God,
That I was God in divinity
And in divine knowledge
I knew God in unity.
Peter writes in his epistle,
That through the grace of Christ
We shall once have a share
In the Divine Nature.
What is this, the participation
In the Divine Nature,
Than that our human nature
Is deified in the divinity?
In the divinity is life,
Love in eternity,
In the Godhead is beauty,
Is the glory of the Lord.
In the Godhead is mercy,
In the Godhead is wisdom.
So we shall enjoy
All these hypostases.
Knowledge we shall have in the heavens
Of God as the wisdom of God.
We shall love in the heavens
God as with the love of God.
We shall shine in heaven
Like the glory of the Lord.
Beautiful we are in paradise
Like the beauty of the primeval Godhead.
All the redeemed souls
With the resurrected bodies
Are within the Godhead
And the Godhead is in them.
God's love then is all,
God's love is in all.
And so we become gods
And goddesses in God.
Divinely we will know
The knowledge of our divinity.
Divinely we will be united
With the oneness of our divinity.
And thus we will merge
Divinely with the womb of the Godhead
And there will be in all the heavens
Only God and gods-in-God.
ETERNAL GODS AND GODDESSES
Saint John of the Cross
Speaks in his love songs
Of men in heaven
As of goddesses and gods.
While Nietzsche spoke godlessly
Of the strong superman,
The wise Soloviev spoke
Of the Lord who is God-man.
Through union with Christ
Thus God-manhood comes into being,
Namely wise man-gods,
Beautiful human goddesses.
After the resurrection of the dead
The redeemed souls
In the spiritually transfigured bodies
Will be goddesses and gods.
These goddesses and gods
In the paradise of God,
They move so fast,
Faster even than lightning.
These goddesses and gods
Are even lighter than the fluff
Of a little dove's chick
Or than the flake of snow.
These goddesses and gods
In the spiritually transfigured bodies
Are like crystal in clarity
And in transparency and purity.
These risen bodies are
Like the crystal vases,
In them stands the white lily,
Visible their soul's beauty.
These goddesses and gods
Share in the knowledge of God,
In the universal Wisdom,
And they love each other in God.
These goddesses and gods
Love each other with God's love,
Love each other infinitely, eternally,
Boundless and fervent.
There we meet like gods
And goddesses, different
Hypostases of our God,
This One God-Nature.
There we meet full of goodness
The mercy, the mildness,
Like the womb of God,
Like the uterus of the Godhead.
Wisdom meets us there,
Hagia Sophia,
She appears as an angel-like woman
Clothed in wings of fire.
There we meet grace,
This young charisma of God,
Full of beauty, full of loveliness,
Full of grace, enchantment, charm.
Love meets us there,
This fair love binds
All the goddesses and gods
There with its belt of loveliness.
Beauty meets us there,
The primordial beauty,
All worship beauty,
Beholding it and enjoying it.
Mercy, the gentle one,
Dances there with young Charis,
And Wisdom, like an angel,
Dances round dances with them,
And Fair Love smiles,
Dances with all the hypostases,
The primordial beauty of the divinity
Dances the most beautiful dances.
Choirs of angels, all nine,
Cherubim and seraphim
And the beautiful principalities
Dance all in the heavens.
And the goddesses and gods
All dance with the Godhead,
And the goddesses and gods
Laugh all in the divinity!
DEIFIED MARY
What then do all the popes say
And the councils all?
That Mary is the Mother
And the ever-pure Virgin,
That Mary is
Mother and Childbearer,
Who bore the person
Jesus Christ, our Lord,
That Mary is the Virgin
Before and during childbirth
And after childbirth too
Mary remained a pure virgin,
Immaculately conceived
Is Mary, pre-redeemed
In view of the cross,
Is preserved from all sin,
That Mary ascended
Into God's paradise
With her body and soul
And is already risen.
Some wait for the dogma
That she is the mediatrix
Intercessor-all-power on her knees
And the Coredemptrix.
And the Pius XII said
As the angelic shepherd,
That Mary is risen,
Is risen and gone before us.
Yes, Mary is perfected,
The resurrection of the flesh
Our Lady experienced,
Is already divinised in God.
All pilgrims of the earth
And souls of purgatory
And the blessed of heaven
Now look to Our Lady.
Our Lady is deified,
Goddess she by Christ's grace,
Virgin she in the womb
Of the Most Holy Trinity.
My chaste Goddess of Grace,
Look, I am at your feet:
May I kiss your feet?
My Goddess of Grace smiles
And I kiss her feet
And the feet are of light,
Are of light spiritual flesh,
And I kiss them fervently.
To the spotless one I say,
My goddess in heaven,
In paradise I want
Thee alone for my bride!
And when I am married in heaven
With Our Lady,
She gives me the pearl of love
And she gives me her son.
Ah, there you are, sweet boy,
Sweet God and dear boy,
You my God and my Lord,
Let me love thee as my child!
Behold, wounds of this earth
Have made it all my offence,
To worship God as my father,
Father I could not say.
But God as my son
I will honour, I will love,
I will sanctify the Son,
Love him as my darling,
Will caress my son,
My son and God's son,
My son, Mary's son,
In marriage with Mary
In the paradise of God
Will I play with the boy,
I want to kiss the boy Jesus
And give him my love.
O Mary, all in all
On the way to the baby Jesus,
I want to be the father of God,
Father to the Son of God!