It’s There
I can hear it
spiral the tornado
howl the blizzard force
against the kitchen wall
push the sixteen-wheeler on I-35
into a jack knife down a deep ditch
blast me in a straight derecho drive
with an August mid-day surprise.
I can feel it
burn my face more quickly
by the flapping beach umbrella
penetrate me deep inside my parka
in twenty below shivering night
cool me swiftly after biking
in the chair under the shade
of the big elm and ruffle my hair
in the uphill walk to morning prayer.
I can’t see it
rattle the bare oak tree limbs
on a freezing January afternoon
dry the patio garden in a little
over an hour after a good rain
billow the sails of the thirty-six-foot boat
as we near the Apostle Islands
move the deep array of fallen leaves
to my neighbor’s fully raked lawn
The Wind
I can hear it
speaking my deeply felt truth
at just the right moment
I can feel it
when I hug a grieving parent
who has lost a beloved child
I can’t see it
set me on fire with the Word
as it moves to open hearts.
The Spirit
Copyright Lawrence Robert Hoffmann, 2022
As a member of Serra International, I have the privilege to pray every day for brothers and sisters who are called to the priesthood and consecrated religious life.
Serra is the organization for lay Roman Catholics specifically designated by the Holy See as a “primary pontifical work” to provide spiritual and material support for vocations. Founded in Seattle in 1935, based in Chicago today, Serra International includes more than 1100 chartered regional clubs in 46 different countries.
One benefit of membership in Serra International is opportunity to become better acquainted with priests and religious. I experience awe and wonder at the myriad gifts poured forth by the Holy Spirit into these individuals.
Many are disciplined athletes and gourmet cooks, working to maintain God’s gift of physical strength for their missions. Several are talented painters, calligraphers or print makers. Most of them write daily, for homilies, articles in religious newspapers, and to enhance their personal spiritual growth in private prayer journals.
Today I want to present a portrait of this kind of dedication to accomplish fullness in our own lives with God. Whether our vocations are lay or religious, we’re all striving for the same end.
Reverend Lawrence Hoffmann celebrated his Golden Jubilee in May 2021, after 50 years of service as a parish priest in the Diocese of Des Moines, Iowa.
The third child and third son among ten siblings, he grew up with sensitivity to the rhythms of nature, working close to the earth on his father’s farm in Shelby County, Iowa. Every night of his childhood, ten children went down on their knees to pray the rosary with their mother before they went to bed. At age 77, Fr. Hoffmann continues to ride his bike for miles through the hilly Iowa heartland. He still hikes and skis in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, summer and winter.
Having served in a multitude of parishes, rural, urban and suburban, he’s always been a go-to person for every fund-raising auction committee. Bidding wars for his popular hand-soldered stained-glass lampshades and crucifixes have yielded tens of thousands of dollars for Catholic education and philanthropy.
Today, Fr. Hoffmann continues to serve his diocese as Co-Vicar for the retired clergy, Chaplain to the local Serra Club, and Board member for Catholic Charities.
If all that weren’t enough, in retirement Fr. Hoffmann has brought his vigor and practicality to serious study of poetic form, meter, and technique. His sensibility for the light, color, and moods of human life are reflected in his poems above and below.
May they help inspire us all to become everything we can be, as Catholics and as writers.
Copyright Margaret King Zacharias, 2022.
Fr. Hoffmann’s poems are included here with the author’s permission to Catholic Writers Guild, and published under his own Copyright.
Love’s Entry
From the eternal now, from eternal void,
moments – seconds; matter – exploding
time begins – the universe grows
In creative Threeness,
gift, life chosen and loved unfolds to fill the earth
within splitting and enlivened cells
For extending love into everything created unique
persons, man and woman given free will
to say yes and no
In haughty hearts,
choices, “mine and mine” with “no” echoing loud
overwhelms their human condition
With eternal care, in light of decisions poor,
Emmanuel, human and divine, born
to save, forgive and grace
In our response,
love, given and lived is enabled
by the divine and human sent
into our continuing history
Into the eternal now,
persons free, we can touch
divinity, shared and loved.
Copyright Lawrence Robert Hoffmann, 2022
