Category: Saints (and sinners)

Our Lady = Laser Light

Sr. Dorcee, beloved3 Comments

A Sunday poem about Our Lady:

Our Lady = Laser Light

Our Lady, Laser Beam, incredible creature held
in God’s omnipotent hand, for help of deviant, unwise man;
pure straight-line, steady, truth’s most leashed light,
love’s billions more than surface-sun concentrated fire,
sure, unwavering, non-fanning beam, heaven-homing radar-ray.

Coherent, clear, no unsimple spectrum spread,
but narrow one-wave-only burning arrow-jet
that in a single photon-packed burst of focused fire,
with a needle point annealing heals smallest rent in eyes;
light that lures dark-lurking cancers of the soul
to absorbent ruin, fuses lips of lesions and wide wounds
unites, not rough-stitching but with a mother’s gentle
hand and surgeon’s high finesse; and with no scarring pain
erases demon-traced tatoos that mar God – consecrate limbs.

Humble, immaculate beam borne by peasant Bernadettes;
yet fiery-potent force that light-explodes gloom-visaged
serpents of evil; slender, sensitive finger probing
for uncoined gold hid deep within us; mercifully wise
lens in whose clear scrutiny we see, multi-dimensional,
known and secret faces unparalleled path-finder ray
spearheading balanced tunnel through mountains of rock-doubt
and tightly-tangled fears, into the open valleys of whole air.

Final, lucent tool in God’s hand, cutting flawless-faceted
blue-brilliant Christ-diamonds, light sculptured souls of men,
Our Lady, Laser Light, inerrant, bright rod-road trajectory-less,
high-given guide-line, shortest-surest, pure light-fire path
flaming straight out, unfaltering, even to infinity …. to God.

Albert Joseph Hebert, S.M.
Mary, Our Blessed Lady
New York: Exposition Press, 1970.

Greater tenderness

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

“The mystery of the Immaculate Conception allows us to understand how Mary is surrounded by the Father with greater tenderness and love than the love surrounding Eve before her sin.  Through this mercy, Mary is able to enter into a unique intimacy with the Father; she is the beloved little child, the smallest, the ‘Benjamin.’ Is one not tiny when enveloped in mercy?  Only mercy makes us small.”  (Fr. Marie-Dominique Philippe)

The wonder of God’s mercy is that this love which He has shown to Mary–his greater tenderness and love–is bequeathed to us as well through her as our Mother.  St. Thérèse confirms this: “O Jesus!  why can’t I tell all little souls how unspeakable is Your condescension?  I feel that if You found a soul weaker and littler than mine, which is impossible, You would be pleased to grant it still greater favors, provided it abandoned itself with total confidence to Your Infinite Mercy.”  And that is the key that Mary found: abandonment with total confidence to His Infinite Mercy.  Mary, sweet Mother, help us to do the same.

The Presentation of Mary

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

“Listen, O daughter, give ear to my words . . . So will the King desire your beauty.” (Ps 45.11-12)

Come, all believers,
and praise her who alone is without blemish,
whom the prophets foretold,
who was brought into the temple.
From all eternity she was predestined to be Mother.
And in these last times
she has been revealed as Mother of God,
Lord by her prayers give us your peace and abundant mercy.

“We need have no fear”

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

Pope Benedict’s address yesterday as he completed his visit to Germany is a word for us as well:

On Mary’s “Yes”

“In All Our Cares We Need Have No Fear, God Is Good”

FREIBURG, Germany, SEPT. 25, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Here is a Vatican translation of the address Benedict XVI delivered before praying the midday Angelus with those gathered at the Freiburg airport, and after celebrating the last public Mass of his four-day state visit to his native Germany.

* * *

Dear Sisters and Brothers!

At the end of this solemn celebration of holy Mass we now pray the Angelus together. This prayer constantly reminds us of the historical beginnings of our salvation. The Archangel Gabriel presents God’s plan of salvation to the Virgin Mary, by which she was to become the Mother of the Redeemer. Mary was fearful, but the angel of the Lord spoke a word of comfort to her: “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.” So Mary is able to respond with her great “yes”. This “yes”, by which she accepts to become the handmaid of the Lord, is the trusting “yes” to God’s plan, to our salvation. And she finally addresses her “yes” to us all, whom she received as her children entrusted to her at the foot of the Cross (cf. Jn19:27). She never withdraws this promise. And so she is called happy, or rather blessed, for believing that what was promised her by the Lord would be fulfilled (cf. Lk 1:45).

As we pray this Angelus, we may join Mary in her “yes”, we may adhere trustingly to the beauty of God’s plan and to the providence that he has assigned to us in his grace. Then God’s love will also, as it were, take flesh in our lives, becoming ever more tangible. In all our cares we need have no fear.

Birth of Mary

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

A repost:

Today we celebrate the birth of Mary.  I have to say that this morning when I woke up, I felt like breaking into a little song to her, at least “Happy birthday to you . . .”–which sounds so trite–but I knew in my heart that that would be dear to her . . . because she is that kind of Mother.

I want to share the first verse of a poem by Rilke because I think it conveys the sense of joy in the heavens at the birth of this great gift of God to us.

Birth of Mary

O what must it have cost the angels
not suddenly to burst into song, as one bursts into tears,
since indeed they knew: on this night the mother is being
born to the boy, the One, who shall soon appear.

(Rainer Maria Rilke, translated from the German by M.D. Herter Norton)

Remembering all that God has done for us

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

Pope Benedict XVI has been giving a series of talks on prayer recently in his Wednesday audiences.  I am including an excerpt below from August 17 in which he spoke about Mary as a model for us of a woman who truly pondered God in all things.  (If you are interested in hearing a talk that I gave recently on remembering God throughout the day, go to the Talks tab above.  Click on “Other Talks” and then on “A Thousand Times a Day.”)  Continue reading “Remembering all that God has done for us” →

Room in this inn

Sr. Dorcee, beloved3 Comments

A Sunday-poem from Mother Mary Francis, from a longer poem entitled “The Mysteries of the Rosary”:

XIII. The Descent of the Holy Spirit

Fiat!  there’s room in this inn
Of huddled community, Mary,
For you and your telling of Jesus
Over and over again
Until there’s a splitting of heavens
And fire comes and Spirit, and souls

Are drenched with the wine of that Fiat!
That suits men for martyrs.  Is there
Space for us, too, in that upper
Room of your love where first Fiat!
Let God be Man, where first Fireing
Of Spirit enkindled Redeemer?

“Our Lady of the Ascension”

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

A singular poem about what it was like for our Lady after the Ascension.  How could she stand this separation?

Our Lady of the Assumption

Fold your love like hands around the moment.
Keep it for conference with your heart, that exit
Caught on clocks, by dutiful scribes recorded
Less truly than in archives of yor soul.

Turn back from His going, be His still-remaining.
Lift the familiar latch on cottage door . . .
Discover His voice in corners, hear His footfalls
Run down the porches of your thoughts.  No powers

However hoarse with joy, no Dominations
Curved with adoration guess what whispers
Of “Mother, look!” and “Mother, hurry!”
Glance off the cottage walls in shafts of glory.

How shall your heart keep swinging longer, Mary?
Quickly, quickly, take the sturdy needle
Before your soul crowds through your flesh!  the needle
And stout black thread will save you.  Take the sandal

Peter left for mending.  After that,
The time is short, with bread to bake for John.

Mother Mary Francis

He comes without waiting for us to ask him

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

Mary arose and went to Elizabeth without Elizabeth having asked her.  This is the way Christ is always with us.  He comes to us without waiting for us to ask Him. May this Feast remind us of that:

The visit that so honored and overwhelmed Elizabeth had not been sought by her: part of the very honor consisted int he fact that Mary had paid it of her own accord. . . . Our God treats us His poor creatures, in the same way. Whether the sinner who needs converting, or the just who is called to a higher life and the way of perfection, be concerned, He alike comes without waiting for us to ask Him.  We are often not thinking of Him specifically at all–we may have forgotten Him; but He seeks us out–goes before us–or as sacred language has it, “prevents” us: we feel and know His grace, suddenly present with us, as the Baptist knew it in his mother’s womb, when we have done absolutely nothing to call it down.  (Jacques Benigne Bossuet)

“. . . when we have done absolutely nothing to call it down.”  What hope-filled words.  A blessed Feast!

“Night is not dark where she shines bright”

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

That line, taken from the line of a song about Mary, reminds me of a poem by Jessica Powers that Iwould like to share with you this Sunday:

And in her morning

The Virgin Mary cannot enter into
my soul for an indwelling.  God alone
has sealed this land as secretly His own;
but being mother and implored, she comes
to stand along my eastern sky and be
a drift of sunrise over God and me.

God is a light and genitor of light.
Yet for our weakness and our punishment
He hides Himself in midnights that prevent
all save the least awarenesses of Him.
We strain with dimmed eyes inward and perceive
no stir of what we clamored to believe.
Yet I say: God (if one may jest with God),
Your hiding has not reckoned with our Lady
who holds my east horizon and whose glow
lights up my inner landscape, high and low.
All my soul’s acres shine and shine with her!
You are discovered, God; awake, rise
out of the dark of Your Divine surprise!
You own reflection has revealed Your place,
for she is utter light by Your own grace.
And in her light I find You hid within me,
and in her morning I can see Your Face.