Posts Tagged ‘Christmas poems’

In our previous post we discussed how the poets Harry Morris and Sister M. Madeleva drew a line connecting the wood of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil with the wood of Christ’s crib and cross.  In doing this they followed an ancient Christian tradition dating back to Irenaeus of Lyon in the second century.  This tradition expressed the Christian teaching that in his work of salvation God would utilize even the instruments of sin and man’s fallenness; thus nothing is left without meaning and purpose.

Our next poem is “New Heaven, New Warre”[1] by Robert Southwell (1561-1595).  In it he extends back to the Nativity the related classical Christian theme of Christ the victor.  However, he begins with a call to the angels to descend to the new heaven, where God has chosen to dwell in a stall. Read the rest of this entry »

As far back as Irenaeus of Lyon (AD 120-202) and probably earlier, Christians have drawn parallels between the sin of man having come by means of eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and salvation being accomplished on the cross of Christ.[1]  Our two American Christmas poets tie in the tree of Genesis and the cross of Christ with the crib of the baby Jesus. Read the rest of this entry »