Messenger

My work is loving the world.

Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird —

equal seekers of sweetness.

Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.

Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?

Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me

keep my mind on what matters,

which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be

astonished.

The phoebe, the delphinium.

The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.

Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart

and these body-clothes,

a mouth with which to give shouts of joy

to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,

telling them all, over and over, how it is

that we live forever.

~ Mary Oliver ~

Prayer for Holy Week

As we enter into these holy days
commemorating the love 
which filled the Heart of Jesus 
in His Passion and Death, 
let us reflect on that love.  
Let us remember that we are loved, 
we are loved,
as if we were His only love.  
If we could only remember that 
we would never again feel alone, 
afraid, or abandoned.  
That love fills all the longings
of the human heart.
And then let us love Him back.
"Love is repaid by love alone."  

The Christ of St. John of the Cross

Down toward the beauteous water, mountains, air,

This mercy straining,

This love that pleasures to have told itself

Even (and most of all) in agony,

Carved from the wood to find a prayer, 

Oh, any prayer to hear and answer,

Tortured with ripeness and yet held to a tree.

This love that shouts with a God’s cry for the 

right to loose itself, to be redeeming,

Painfully, brokenly,

Pleading to let its godhood drop like blood, 

soak like blood 

into the souls of all doomed creatures

Whom its own hand set free.

O Jesus, Jesus, bound Divinity...

Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit, OCD

(Jessica Powers)

Sister Wendy

I could listen to Sister Wendy all day and never grow tired.  Her lisp and buck teeth are so charmingly unselfconscious that not only do they not get in the way, they rather rivet my attention on what is being said.
To me, this is how a woman of faith speaks.  She comes from a place of deep integrity, without labels, without bias or preconceived notions that things must be a certain way and no other.  
Atheism and Fundamentalism are two sides of the same coin.  Does that shock you?  Well, both are based on a fear of God, a lopsided perception that distorts everything that follows from it.  It is not true.  And when religion is false, it is very dangerous, as we witness daily in the world and in our country.  As Jesus taught us, from the depths of His Truth:  "Beware the leaven of the pharisees."
So, just sit back and listen with a beginner's mind to what Sr. Wendy is saying here.  Her wisdom comes from a long life of prayer and contemplation.  Let us attend.

Julian of Norwich & the Hazelnut

"And in this he showed me something small,  no bigger than a hazelnut, lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed to me, and it was as round as a ball. I looked at it with the eye of my understanding and thought: What can this be? I was amazed that it could last, for I thought that because of its littleness it would suddenly have fallen into nothing. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and always will, because God loves it; and thus everything has being through the love of God.

"It lasts and always will, 

          because God loves it... "

Christmas Meditation

While all things were in quiet silence, And that night was in the midst of her swift course, Thy Almighty Word, O Lord, Leaped down out of thy royal throne.  Alleluia!

When I first watched this remarkable video taking us to the far reaches of the Universe, I thought "What a perfect meditation this is on the great Mystery of Christmas!"

For it gives us a visual perspective of the unimaginable distance that Christ spanned when He came forth from the Father and came into this world.  If the Universe seems vast, it is as nothing compared to how far it would be to travel from the Divine to the Human.  It cannot be measured, yet God did indeed choose this insignificant little planet in a minor solar system in a not too important galaxy, He the Lord and Creator of all.  As we pray in the Divine Office on January 1st, 
O Admirabile Commercium!...... 
O Admirable Exchange!
What is the exchange?  It is a human nature for a divine.  When the Word became flesh, God took on the nature of man.  In doing this He also gave us the wonder that we humans could also become divine.  That is what Christmas means.  O Wonder!

O Living Flame of Love

The Living Flame of Love

St. John of the Cross, Discalced Carmelite
Stanzas the Soul Recites in Intimate Union With God

O living flame of love

That tenderly wounds my soul

In its deepest center! Since

now you are not oppressive,

Now consummate! if it be your will

Tear through the veil of this sweet encounter!

O sweet cautery,

O delightful wound!

O gentle hand! O delicate touch

That tastes of eternal life

And pays every debt!

In killing you changed death to life.

O lamps of fire!

in whose splendors

The deep caverns of feeling,

Once obscure and blind,

Now give forth, so rarely, so exquisitely,

Both warmth and light to their Beloved.

How gently and lovingly

You wake in my heart,

Where in secret you dwell alone;

And in your sweet breathing,

Filled with good and glory,

How tenderly You swell my heart with love.