He stood outside the church, that man,
And paced, and paused, and paced again;
He’d not gone through that ancient door
In nine long years, or maybe ten.
The chapel now he longed to see,
And loathed, and longed still, all the same;
The age-old boards where incense sleeps,
The faces in the candles’ flame.
The silence of that silent room
Was one that probed his very soul;
He loved its peace, but hated more
To feel it probe his heart’s dark hole.
And peace, and hate, and misery
Struggled now in anguished fight;
Until that fear which in all creeps
Fled from the whisper, “Do what’s right.”
With pounding heart and stricken soul,
He stepped into the church so dim;
He entered through the creaking door;
He yielded to fair grace’s whim.
Before the sacred screen he knelt,
And in the darkness, whisper-fringed,
He spoke these words, that long-lost sheep:
“Bless me, Father; I have sinned.”
And from Heaven’s floodgates an ocean streamed
Of grace flowing from a wounded Heart;
The blood, the water, forgiveness bore,
To mend what had long been torn apart.
The flood, it roared in healing strength;
The force of love swept sin away;
And the White Dove of Peace, whom all
sainthood keeps,
Fluttered into that long longed-for soul, to stay.