Venial Stones
Just a little stone that tripped me up,
unnoticed and unheeded.
Falling headlong,
my mind reeled,
seeking for cause.
On watch for larger rocks,
I overlooked this pebble,
petty in size,
powerful in prostration.
September 7, 1999
Category: Poetry
Checkmate
Checkmate
Why do I seek to understand
what I cannot understand?
My mind is yet too strong.
Heart must win this game.
Crafty mind designs
will not capture this king.
Let the queen surrender.
Then will He fully yield.
~Yours truly (August 30,1999)
He knows how to love best
(Note: this is a respost. But you can’t get enough of a good thing. Have a blessed Sunday!)
Amy Carmichael’s note on this poem of hers: “Ps 109.21. A prayer that may be unfathomable comfort to the ill and tired: ‘Do Thou for them, for him, for her, O God the Lord.’ When one cannot pray minutely or powerfully, this prayer suffices. We need not tell Love what to do; Love knows.” God knows better than we what is best for those we love. Here Amy is simply encouraging us to trust Him who knows how to love best.
Do Thou For Me
Do Thou for me, O God the Lord,
Do Thou for me.
I need not toil to find the word
That carefully
Unfolds my prayer and offers it,
My God, to Thee.It is enough that Thou wilt do,
And wilt not tire,
Wilt lead by cloud, all the night through
By light of fire,
Till Thou has perfected in me
Thy heart’s desire.For my beloved I will not fear,
Love knows to do
For him, for her, from year to year,
As hitherto.
Whom my heart cherishes are dear
To Thy heart too.O blessèd be the love that bears
The burden now,
The love that frames our very prayers,
Well knowing how
To coin our gold. O God the Lord,
Do Thou, Do Thou.
Taking in Your Loveliness
A beautiful poem on beauty by one of our sisters, Sr. Stacy Whitfield:
Beauty
I love your wild extravagance,
mountain flower and autumn leaves
Endowed with lovely lavishness,
making much of what none sees.
Yet surely you would not adorn
with greater glory grassy hills
Than sons and daughters made for joy
and destined for more beauty still.
Oh give me hope to lift my soul
to beauties that yet lie unseen,
That wait beyond the shimm’ring veil,
awaiting Dawn’s eternity.
The wondrous views of heaven’s scope
from which earth’s grand reflection springs,
The beauty that is fairer still
than all your earthly artistry.
Oh give me faith and love to long
to see all beauty’s heavenly source,
From which all loveliness is flowing,
river-like upon its course.
The fullness of all beauty there
on which to gaze to soul’s delight,
A heart all pure, a form all fair,
the fountainhead of love, of light.
I shall abide in blissful rest,
loving Love and Beauty seeing,
Taking in your loveliness
with opened eyes, with transformed being.
©Sr. Stacy Whitfield (revised February 3, 1991)
Raging Sea
Raging Sea
Michael W. Smith
Sometimes the journey makes you weary
Feels like a long and winding road
Sometimes this life can lose its meaning
But you might be surprised to find some hope
Maybe you’re wondering where love is
You may feel it’s far away from here
Maybe you’re wondering where I am
You might be surprised to find I’m near
Chorus:
And when your life is tossed and turning
And you’re on the raging sea
I’ll come and pull you from the water
Then you will know that you are free
So if you’re stumbling through the valley
Or if you’re tempted to give up the fight
Reach out your hand and I will lead you
I will be your strong arm in the night
Repeat chorus
A Prayer of Hope
A Prayer of Hope, Before the Blessed Sacrament
Within Your small circumference,
my Eucharistic Lord,
I see the world entire,
an image of the globe as You made it:
pure round planet
lovingly crafted,
playfully spinning,
laden with hope and promise.
Within Your shadow,
my Eucharistic Lord,
I see the world as well,
an image of the world as it became:
dark round abyss
hollowed out in rebellion,
yawning in malice,
swirling with rage and despair
But into the maw
of that black hole of sin
You have tossed this tiny Orb
of Your divinity.
The blackness swallows
but chokes:
Death must die.
For this humble Star has burst
into a glorious Supernova
filling the abyss,
slaying the darkness,
transfiguring the heaven
with the splendor of a billion suns.
Draw me in,
my Eucharistic Lord,
by Your gravity of goodness;
set ablaze, set me spinning
into orbit around You.
Lead me in Your radiant train,
a bright speck
in Your galaxy of grace.
~Paul Thigpen
On Corpus Christi
On Corpus Christi, Before the Blessed Sacrament
You languish in the darkness like
a criminal imprisoned
a sick man quarantined
an eccentric, babbling uncle, hid away.
Are they so afraid of You?
Are we so ashamed of You?
This is Your pageant day!
Where are Your holy calvacades
Your solemn ranks of soldiers
with their Captain at their head?
Your festal, fair processions
winding through the curious crowds
who marvel at the sacred spectacle?
In the quiet I hear echoes
from the stones of ancient streets
crying out with praise to shame us
for our silence.
In the blackness I see faces
of a multitude of children
looking down the ages, wondering
to see so plain a feast.
For the glory due Your name,
how long, O Lord,
must You wait?
~Paul Thigpen
Wrapped in silence
Words fail me tonight, O Lord,
But wrapped in silence,
My heart speaks its adoration with every beat
As my gaze meets yours
And I’m held captive within that single glance.
Jeanne Kun
His goodness is never one whit diminished
In the matter of
God’s goodness
we have got to be
irrational.
This is the way it is,
with love, for instance,
and with any other
deep down, visceral persuasion.
We go beyond reason,
we do not trust
appearances.
All surface indications
to the contrary
we have got to believe that
God is good,
unfailingly good to us.
Even in the thick
of troubles,
in moments of dire tragedy,
calamity,
disaster,
God is being good.
This is illogical,
it is nonsense
but it is true.
His goodness
is never
one whit diminished,
obscured
or blunted.
Monsignor James Turro
The mystery of Mary
The Mystery of Mary
She is our Mother
But she is also our daughter.
A little girl and the Queen of Heaven.
The Queen of the Angels–
and yet she is still a little girl!
Remember this!
Georges Bernanos
Witnesses to Hope 