Cato's Liberty, Or Christ's? Poem by Daniel Partlow

Cato, it is always time to profess Truth,
For therein lies our liberty
For when we forget our Apology,
We port the chains of spiritual poverty.

Telling the Christian
To discard the “Ought”,
Is treasonous to the Good News
For which so many fought.

Is our war one
Which is waged with carnal blade?
Indeed this is the assertion
Which Augustine made.

But it is also denied
Point blank, by the tentmaker Paul.
Who set down his sword,
To accept Jesus’s call.

And James
Forswears the human blood lust
In favor of placing
In our Savior, an all-embracing trust

Indeed, our war is waged
Not with grenade or gun.
It is only with the true Word
That our battle will be won.

So let us never run from the true field
On which His fight is fought.
In the hearts and minds of all men
Where we profess and defend the ‘ought’

His conquest does not ride
On a river of enemy blood
But on His own – spilled from
His own side – reddening the mud.

Let us serve our enemies
Not a bullet or a blade
But a cupful of salvation
The Sacrament of the Sacrifice He made.

Yes Lord, You have given me liberty
So too give my sinful will death
To preserve my eternal spirit
With your life giving breath.

And let me carry your message
To the ends of the earth
That others may die-to-self
And be born a new birth.