Fr La’s weekly ‘Pause and Ponder’ from along the Pilgrim Path at Lough Derg. This week’s reflection is ‘The Rising Sap’.

On the radio recently I heard a question in a quiz:

They say that in Spring the sap rises: true or false?

Along the Path there are signs of Spring to be seen,

yet to look at these bare branches it seems

that nothing much is happening in a hurry.

But the voice on the radio says it is true:

in Spring the sap does begin to rise in the trees. 

Behind and beneath their mottled and mossy bark,

the sap of life is on the move.

Some lines from Kavanagh stir in my memory:

‘These men know God the Father in a tree,

The Holy Ghost is the rising sap,

And Christ will be the green leaves that will come

At Easter from the sealed and guarded tomb.’

Fr La Flynn, Prior

15 March 2021