“As Kingfishers Catch Fire, Dragonflies Draw Flame”

To follow Christ is, according to Micah 6:8, to "act justly," or as Gerard Manly Hopkins expresses it, "to justice." While we celebrate Christ's birth, think on how you can be Christ's presence on earth now.

This is the second half of one of Hopkins's poems, "As Kingfishers Catch Fire, Dragonflies Draw Flame," in which he compares the kingfisher, one of England's most colourful birds, catching the fire of the sun on its wings, and the dragonfly drawing flame on its iridescent body to humans that should reflect Christ, since God sees us, by His grace, as "little Christs."

Í say móre: the just man justices;

Kéeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces;

Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is—

Chríst—for Christ plays in ten thousand places,

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

To the Father through the features of men's faces.

Hopkins was a Jesuit monk, so a follower of Ignatius's theological teachings. Jesuit professor Tim Muldoon explains this poem as such:
When a kingfisher, a dragonfly, a stone tumbling down a well, a bell does what it is made to do, it "selves"– it speaks itself. And when a human being "selves," the person manifests Christ in the world. That, according to Aristotle, is virtue. That, according to Ignatius, is freedom. (http://ignatianspirituality.com/4534/faith-and-action/)
Hopkins's beautiful verse and inventive language convinced me to study his works for my master's thesis. I hope you will also be inspired by his words.

(photo of kingfisher from Creative Commons)

The Poems of Gerard Manly Hopkins

You can hear another one of Hopkins' most famous poems,"Inversnaid," here.