From Poetry to Reality

By Fr. Jerry Pokorsky ( bio - articles - email ) | Jul 27, 2026

At Christmas, God's reconciliation with fallen humanity becomes visible in the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem. Heaven and earth are reconciled. The Incarnation even reconciles the beauty of poetry with the literal understanding of reality. Poetic Scriptural expressions are not merely symbolic. In Christ, biblical images become historical realities.

Creation is real. God creates man—male and female—in the Divine image, a reflection of the generosity of the Blessed Trinity. He creates us to love and be loved. He gives us freedom. The tree of knowledge of good and evil symbolizes the freedom to choose to obey Him or reject His gifts. He places the tree of life in the Garden to sustain us. Our first parents ruined His gifts by their disobedience. Original Sin wounds—but does not destroy—human nature. God promises Adam and Eve a Redeemer.

Christ is the Redeemer. In the Kingdom Parables, He reveals the Divine Sower of grace. He uses metaphors to express the realities of God’s grace and our duty to respond to His gifts with faith, hope, and love. The seed He sows is an image of the grace God bestows upon us.

Jesus also illustrates our reception of His grace through parables. At times, the seed of His grace is devoured by the birds. It falls on rocky soil or is choked by thorns. But the seed that reaches fertile soil bears fruit in abundance.

In private with His disciples, the Lord explains the meaning of His poetry. Sometimes the Devil despoils the seeds of His grace. Sometimes the world’s allures distract and choke the sprouts. But some receive the seeds of His grace and grow in understanding, virtue, joy, and generosity.

The parables illuminate the history of mankind. After the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Mary and the disciples at Pentecost, the Church is born. The Church is one, holy, catholic (universal), and apostolic:

• The graces of unity in the Catholic faith heal the divisions caused by man's rejection of God's help, as symbolically expressed in the account of the infamous Tower of Babel.
• Jesus fulfills the Old Testament and the Church becomes the new Zion, the People of God, the universal Chosen People.
• The Twelve Apostles fulfill the mission prefigured by the twelve tribes of Israel. Authentic faith in Jesus transcends every tribe and nation.

Christian realism fulfills these types. The Holy Orders conferred upon bishops and priests extend, by sacred word and gesture, back to the Apostles. In communion with the papacy, every bishop and priest shares in that apostolic succession. (Hence the terrible evil of schism.)

Rooted in apostolic faith, the Church remains on a sacred journey. Final victory is assured. But just as the Kingdom parables reveal, God’s relentless progress through history is hindered by detours caused by human failures. The Kingdom parables include disturbing realities. We may refuse His grace and refuse to repent. Sometimes the good seed is mixed with weeds, nearly indistinguishable until the harvest. The Kingdom also works like yeast, quietly transforming souls until grace overcomes the power of sin.

We see the pattern in many forms. Many believers are on fire with the faith, but then lose interest. Marriages become dangerously selfish. Priests lose the love they once had for the Church. Without setting our hand to the plowshare and refusing to look back—as Jesus teaches—we lose our confidence in God.

Catholic spiritual theology teaches that the Devil has access to our memory, imagination, and emotions, but not our intellect and will unless we invite him in. He stirs up our imagination with visions of evil. Pornography has become a global scourge.

The Sacrament of Penance is a frequently neglected oasis of freedom for a repentant soul. The Devil is persistent. He stirs up the memory of sins forgiven with the same spiritual discouragement that overwhelmed Judas: "You're a bad boy—a very bad boy! Do you really think God has forgiven you?"

Many of us have memories of high achievements in our younger years, but may be overcome with all-consuming anxieties. Will we invoke God’s grace for the wisdom to distinguish between a legitimate and prudent concern and an obsessive fear?

The Kingdom Parables repeatedly refer to the reality of hell. Atheists complain it’s a harsh Christian teaching. They have a point. Reality can be painful, and the Catholic faith is a reliable witness to reality, both seen and unseen. Hell is an inconvenient truth. We become what we choose; God honors our freedom even as He lavishes grace upon us. The Act of Contrition acknowledges a holy fear of hell.

Someday we will inescapably face the Divine Judge. With His angels, He will sort out the good and the bad. The Divine poetry leads us to the final realities: “The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous, and throw them into the furnace of fire; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.” (Matthew 13:47-50)

Samuel Johnson observed that "when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully." Similarly, Christ's warnings about hell concentrate our attention upon our eternal destiny. A healthy fear of hell saves lives.

The Church has never declared that any particular person is in hell. But we dare not reduce its reality to poetry. The fact of hell warns us that God will not be mocked by unrepentant injustices. Fear not. The Church forever remains, eager to forgive every sin and redirect her members to the path of salvation.

The reality of the Cross fulfills the poetry of Genesis. As we gaze upon the Cross, we see the horror of evil. As we gaze upon the Cross, we see the goodness of Divine Innocence. After the Resurrection, the poetic tree of life in the Garden is restored through sacramental realities flowing from the glorious Cross that adorns every Catholic sanctuary.

“Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13)