For there is always a mystery that transcends the very language with which we try to capture it. (61)

Malcolm Guite would know, having written many bestselling collections of poetry. His very slim contribution to the My Theology series explores the confluence between the Word, the word, and words. That is, Jesus, scripture, and our attempts to limn the ineffable.

Shot through with Guite’s verse, The Word within the Word is a beautiful meditation on divine revelation, whether in word, liturgy, or sacrament. It is reflection on the God that bursts out of any box we use to enclose him.

Not that we think he is confined to us,
Locked in the box of our religious rights,
Or curtained by these frail cathedral walls,
No church is broad or creed compendious
Enough. All thought’s a narrowing of sites,
Before him every definition fails,
Words fall and flutter into emptiness,
Like motes of dust within his spaciousness. (83)

Amen.

Guite, Malcolm. The Word within the Words. Fortress Press, 2022.