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Katherine’s poetry inspired by faith

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Katherine at World Youth Day in 2016, where she first met Verbum Dei missionaries, a Catholic fraternity of priests, consecrated religious and lay people. PHOTO: Supplied

First-time author is well-versed in scripture

St Joseph’s Moorebank parishioner Katherine Webb has used the lockdown to share her love of Jesus and her passion for poetry.

The 32-year-old flight attendant may be grounded due to the pandemic but her first self-published book of spiritual poems is cleared for take off, with the first 50 copies selling in the first two weeks.

He is coming soon is a self-published collection of poems influenced by Katherine’s Catholic faith and her personal experience of prayer through meditating on Scripture as a lay member of the Verbum Dei Missionary Fraternity.

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Designed as a gift book to be given to others, it is grounded in Katherine’s love of the Eucharist and her conviction that Jesus always comes to a person who seeks him, particularly in Holy Communion, which St Pope John Paul II described as the “source and summit” of our Catholic faith.

Katherine’s career has taken her to more than 30 countries and she has seen more arrivals and departures than she can count, but she is convinced that the most important arrival to anticipate is that of the Lord in the heart of someone who has tried to prepare to receive Him.

She wrote most of the poems in the book during personal prayer time at Verbum Dei weekly gatherings throughout 2017, having first encountered Verbum Dei missionaries as a World Youth Day pilgrim in the previous year.

“That year I learned how to pray with the Word of God,” she said. “They teach you how to recognise how God speaks to you through the Word and for me he spoke a lot through poetry and I spoke back through poetry [so the poems reflect] a kind of dialogue with him.”

Katherine Webb. PHOTO: Supplied

She says her favourite piece of scripture is hard to pick but it could be from the Gospel of Matthew 6:34, “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

Katherine has written poetry since she was 13 and said she is shocked that people are responding so well to the book. She already has her second collection of prayer-poems in mind, relating to the theme of trusting God. “Growing up I’ve always had a very personal relationship with God, but never [realised I could] with Jesus and I’ve learnt to develop a deeper relationship with Jesus,” she said.

“Everyone can have that personal experience with Jesus, who is God, the only thing they need to do is to recognise how he speaks to them. For me it’s through poetry, but how does he speak to you personally is something people have to discover for themselves.”

He is coming soon is available here.

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