A Welsh Catholic hermit-priest and poet living in Ireland finds his space on the internet

Some of you might already have encountered Fr David Jones, who now lives as a hermit-priest in the Diocese of Meath? After trying his vocation in various monasteries, including the popular Abbazia di Sant'Antimo, Fr Jones eventually found a bishop willing to "recognise the life of hermits" as it expresses itself within the diocesan structure (cf Canon 603, CIC). In doing so, and after many twists and turns,

Fr David Jones was able to fulfil the persistent desire that God had given him to live the eremitic life as a diocesan priest.

Those who are interested in knowing more about Fr David Jones or the eremitic life, will now be able to visit his new website (here), which was set up a few days ago. The site contains a links and videos, as well as recently updated homilies.

Since moving back to Ireland - for he previously lived the religious life there - Fr David has been an active supporter of the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, as well as a popular retreat giver. He has also published a few volumes of poetry, and is quite skilled in the art of the sonnet - writing in English, Welsh, French, German, Italian, Latin, Hebrew and Greek!

Below are two sonnets from Fr David Paradise Regained (Melrose Books, 2006). I chose the first, The prostitutes, as it seems to coincide well with my recent post on St Mary of Egypt (here). The second, Quid hic agis, Elia?, is a reflection on the life of solitude and silence.

The prostitutes

O! lonely ones who walk with many men

Into a heat so cold that naught can melt

Or touch or reach aught in the hidden den

Of hard iniquity of hearts unfelt

Amid the feel of all - O! little ones

Much used to fill with streams of unthought sense

Where truth with gesture copulated runs

No more, and nearness holds a distance dense, -

Where do you lie when you must lie alone

With thoughts unpierced, with moments not yet sold

To gazes all of greed that feed a stone,

Again, again in this familiar hold,

And do you feel when held by oft a clutch

For but a little meaning in a touch?

Quid hic agis, Elia?

To sit and listen and to wait awhile

For something more to be - to be alone

With nothing but a thought, and to beguile

The urgencies that these our moments own -

To be no more than nothing in a space

Not filled with any thing, to be but here

And to be here, all here, all in a place

Made of nothing else, and there to hear -

To hear, that is, the sound of listening:

'Tis to hear one small thing, for when no more

We pulse, and hard repulse all hastening

And linger for a while where once before

We heard hours pass, this is to pass along

A chasm where no travell'r lingers long.

Links:

Fr David Jones's biography as found on Llenyddiaeth Cymru / Literature Wales

Fr David Jones's website

The Diocese of Meath

[Image: Fr David Jones, as found on the cover of Paradise Regained, Melrose Books, 2006]