The Sandals of Saints

Dear Friend,

On March 21st, the poet Adam Zagajewski died in Poland at the age of 75. One headline announcing the news called him “Poet of the Past’s Presence,” a phrase that for me captures a big part of the magic he worked with words and why I found him such a helpful companion.

His rich awareness of the past – his memory – imbues his poems with humble strength, for he grew up in the shadow of the Second World War II, the holocaust, and the brutality of a communist state. The future is there, too, in his writing – at least in my reading – the miracle being that it carries not despair but the tender sound of hope. 

Here’s a poem of his called “Sandals”

The sandals I bought many years ago

for twenty euros

in the Greek village of Theologos

on the Island of Thassos

haven’t worn out at all,

they’re just like new.

I must have gotten,

quite accidentally,

a hermit’s, a saint’s sandals.

How they must suffer,

carrying an ordinary sinner.

In these lines – for me at least - Zagajewski’s voice, like that of all great writers, is an instrument of love and resounds the voice of Christ, the Good Shepherd. There is Easter beauty here. We are a parish within a California Mission and therefore the past – its glory as well as its tragedy – is with us daily in a way that sets us apart from most other parish communities in the U.S. It’s humbling to be entrusted with the sandals of saints. They never wear out. Ordinary (undeserving) sinners, we can put them on with courage and walk together the road ahead.

Gratefully,

Fr. Dan ofm