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St. Perpetua
Eyewitnesses of the atrocity
Report that on that Carthage afternoon,
Already scourged and gored repeatedly
By savage bulls, she fell into a swoon
(Of Spirit, so they said), then rose immune
To further horror and quite calmly lent
Her hand to guide the bloodied sword that soon
Would cut her throat, her final testament
So we could give up chocolate for Lent.
.
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Jeffrey Essmann is an essayist and poet living in New York. His poetry has appeared in numerous magazines and literary journals, among them Agape Review, America Magazine, Dappled Things, the St. Austin Review, U.S. Catholic, Grand Little Things, Heart of Flesh Literary Journal, and various venues of the Benedictine monastery with which he is an oblate. He is editor of the Catholic Poetry Room page on the Integrated Catholic Life website.
What a weird and wonderful poem, Jeffrey, leading me to do a bit of research, especially on the chocolate front.
Thanks for pulling me out of a heat-induced stupor to get a bit more educated.
I like chocolate, but I don’t love it. What I mostly give up for Lent is Lent itself. In a sermon I once listened to, the preacher suggested that rather than giving something up for Lent, a person should take something on instead. By either standard, I am a hopeless failure.
Jeffrey, your striking poem is powerful in its brevity. It highlights the self-centered nature of a society drooling for chocolate like Pavlov’s dogs when Lent and Easter are mentioned. I like your clever use of homonyms. Thank you for bringing some much-needed perspective to this Holy time.
As a Catholic myself, I laughed out loud at the last line. It really does put things into perspective. The early Christians suffered horrible deaths rather than deny their faith, and we whine like babies when we give up chocolate for Lent.
What I’ve started doing for Lent is picking one or more bad habits and then gradually quitting them over Lent, so that I’m done with them by Easter. This year, I chose caffeine and useless Internet surfing.
I can see you know, Jeffrey, the verse (Colossians 1:24) where Saint Paul says he “fills up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for His body, which is the Church.” It is quite a stretch from Paul’s and Perpetua’s sufferings to our own small sacrifices. I’ll say your poem with the surprise ending helps explain how saints indeed contribute to that treasury of merit we needy ones can benefit from, if we take the trouble to do the little prayers or penitential practices required to gain an indulgence. Good work!
Thanks so much, everyone. So glad you liked it. Yes, although I suppose I’ve kept a “good Lent”–fasting, various givings-up (no, not chocolate, but like you, Joshua, a serious cutting back on my internet engagements), praying and almsgiving, I then was confronted by St. Perpetua, whose feast was a couple weeks ago and whose extraordinary suffering and Christian witness suddenly made my efforts seem, at best, bourgeois. And yes, Margaret, I’ve focused on St. Paul as my personal Scripture reading (and am revisiting Bonhoeffer’s letters from prison), so I’ve been steeped in the radicality of the Christian message–and its radical take on the mystery of suffering. So I wrote a dark poem with a punchline, since it best reflected my earnest prayer that at the very least God might find me amusing. God bless you all, and thanks again.