A Child Asks For A Star

Poem by Sister M. Madaleva Wolff CSC 

You quiet, wise, 
wondering-men who know and love
the skies,
you who can make a jet, a satellite
with formulas to guide you and
compel you, make me a star
greater than all the
world’s piled up 
munitions are.
Put in it all these things that I
shall tell you.
Put in a sorry innkeeper’s gruff
word, unsaid,
a small, straw bed
against the winter night;
a shepherd’s crook, and
since you once were little as I am,
put in a lamb,
three crowns for three great kings,
some homely simple things,
toys for our small world’s
girls and boys.
You have not made a star
like this before,
but there is nothing, nothing that all
men are seeking more.
Sky-lovers,
make the best star you can make
for a Child’s sake.

Used with permission of the Sisters of the Holy Cross, Saint Mary’s, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA. Originally published by Dimension Books.

Sr Madeleva Wolff CSC was a leader in speaking on behalf of the education of women. She served as President of Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, IN, from 1934 to1961 and initiated a graduate degree program in Theology for women, the first such in the USA. Anticipating the ‘women’s movement’ of the late 1960s and the reforms of Vatican II by more than a generation, Sister Madeleva was an advocate for the improvement of the status of women in the Church. She was a renowned scholar, mystical poet, and author of more than twenty books. She died in 1964.