On the top of my pile
A grant of grace
A Sunday-poem by Jessica Powers:
Suffering
All the day long I spent the hours with suffering.
I woke to find her sitting by my bed.
She stalked my footsteps while time slowed to timeless,
tortured my sight, came close in what was said.
She asked no more than that, beneath unwelcome,
I might be mindful of her grant of grace.
I still can smile, amused, when I remember
how I surprised her when I kissed her face.
A dimly burning wick
Hauled over the coals
February 2002
Blue Journal
“So you’ve been hauled over the coals? Don’t follow the advice of pride and lose your temper. Think: how charitable they are toward me! The things they’ve left unsaid.” (Josemaria Escriva)
Making us wait
January 31, 2002
Blue Journal
“Simply by making us wait he increases our desire, which in turn enlarges the capacity of our soul, making it able to receive what is to be given to us.” (St. Augustine)
All He can do
December 25, 2001
Blue Journal
“Never be afraid of God. All He can do is love.” (St. Therese in vision to Marie-Michel Marcel Van)
When in the dark
The least understood
December 11, 2001
Blue Journal
“Jesus chooses for each person the type of suffering which He sees is most suited to sanctify that person, and often the cross which He imposes is the one which, accepting all the others, one would have refused if one had dared. The one He gives is that which one understands the least.” (Charles de Foucauld)
My Own Heart
My Own Heart
My own heart let me more have pity on; let
Me live to my sad self hereafter kind,
Charitable; not live this tormented mind
With this tormented mind tormenting yet.
I cast for comfort I can no more get
By groping round my comfortless, than blind
Eyes in their dark can day or thirst can find
Thirst’s all-in-all in all a world of wet.
Soul, self; come, poor Jackself, I do advise
You, jaded, let be; call off thoughts awhile
Elsewhere; leave comfort root-room; let joy size
At God knows when to God knows what; whose smile
‘s not wrung, see you; unforeseen times rather—as skies
Betweenpie mountains—lights a lovely mile.
Abundant cause for gratitude
June 6, 2001
Blue Journal
“And if you have nothing more to thank God for than that He bears with you and spares you and waits for you and is so utterly forbearing about all your unruly ways, which never give Him a chance to achieve all His great designs in you, surely in this alone, you have abundant cause for gratitude.” (John Tauler)
Witnesses to Hope 