Czeslaw Milosz: A Different Kind of Faithfulness

By Laura Sheahen for America magazine, 2004

What are we to make of a genius who states categorically that he believes in angels, the Fall, the Gospels and the spirit of God brooding over human history--yet whose faith eludes us even at his most candid? One of the world’s and Christianity’s great poets, Poland’s Czeslaw Milosz, has left us. The Catholic who just a few years ago wrote of God: "Now You are closing down my five senses, slowly,/ And I am an old man lying in darkness" died on Aug. 14.

His work remains, a solace and a challenge to believers everywhere. Along with Israel’s Yehuda Amichai, Milosz wrote some of the most searching religious poetry of the 20th century.

Read the full article on the America website