A bell peals softly in the distance
announcing the end of another day.
Unlike the silver dew of morning
which revitalizes the spirit,
sunset brings a golden haze,
dusting the receptive mind
with evanesent thoughts
of mortality and immortality.

Kyrie Eleison!

Footfalls of the pious approach.
The Benedictines of Weingarten
enter the sanctity of the Basilika
accompanied by the millenium chant:

Christe Eleison!

Echoes from a thousand years resound within the walls;
antiphonal harmonies of present and past,
a counterpoint created by time, heard by the soul.

At this hallowed moment, the liturgy of the church
gains its proper meaning before the empty throne:

We proclaim your death and your resurrection,
Lord Jesus, Until you come in Glory.

The canon of the Mass shall continue
down to the end of days,
When the seals will be taken away
from the Book of the Lamb,
And in the radiance of the final sunset,
God shall be seen...as he is.

Kyrie Eleison!

By Henry Matthew Ward (c) 1993