The Physics of the Liturgy

by Walt Garlington (January 2023)

Evening Mass in a Gothic Church, Hendrick van Steenwyck the Younger, 1609

The Holy Liturgy
Is heavy with reality.
Divinity is densest there,
The giant mass
Of the Body
Of God, present
In the little
Portions of bread and wine,
Creates a bend
In the unseen realms,
Around which hosts
Of angels wheel,
Countless multitudes
Of saints bow low,
And the gathered faithful
On the earth stand and sing.

The power of God
Reverberates throughout
The cosmos from thousands
Of these points, resting
Upon the holy altars,
The pillars that uphold
The universe, like Atlas
In the tales of old,
Destroying the deeds
Of darkness, making strong
The works of light.

All of creation
Is flowing back
Into these parabolas
That God has pressed
Into the fabric
Of the worlds, back
To the God Who made it,
Absorbing the energy
Of the Maker’s warming love.
But what sorrow for those
Who stubbornly resist,
Who will feel the effects
Of chilling entropy,

The biting cold,

The dreary

emptiness,

The

dreadful

loneliness.

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Walt Garlington was born and raised in that part of Dixieland called Louisiana. A chemical engineer by training, he has spent the last several years writing full-time. He has written essays and poems for The Hayride, New English Review, The Tenth Amendment Center, The Abbeville Institute, Reckonin’, Katehon, Geopolitica, and USA Really. He writes regularly at his own web site, Confiteri: A Southern Perspective.

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