Let nothing disturb you, Let nothing frighten you, All things are passing away: God never changes. Patience obtains all things. Whoever has God lacks nothing; God alone suffices. ~ St. Teresa of Avila
“Lost in the fathomless abyss of God.” ~ The Spiritual Canticle
Distantly pure and high, a mountain sparrow
is solitary in transfigured sky.
A ball of bird melodious with God
is lightsome in its love.
Not to dear mate or comrade do I cry
but to my own remote identity
who knows my spirit as divinely summoned
to gain that perch where no horizons lie.
Here is the king’s secret scattered when I focus
unworthy song on one small eremite
lost in infinities of airy desert
where love is breathed out of the breast of light.
For call, for meeting-place, good end and rest
each has a symbol; each invokes a sign.
I take a bird in vastness and on height
to mark my love. It sings its jubilation
alone upon the housetop of creation
where earth’s last finger touches the divine.
~ A poem by Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit (Jessica Powers) O.C.D.
Happy & Blessed Feast of Saint John of the Cross!
❤ Discalced Carmelite, Reformer, Doctor of the Church, Mystic and Poet
“The Lord promised that He would dwell in a cloud.” ~ 2 Chronicles 6:1
Symbol of star or lily of the snows,
rainbow or root or vine or fruit-filled tree:
these image the immaculate to me
less than a little cloud, a little light cloud rising
from Orient waters cleft by prophecy.
And as the Virgin in a most surprising
maternity bore God in the mysteries of grace
beseech her: Cloud, encompass God and me.
Nothing defiled can touch the cloud of Mary.
God as a child willed to be safe in her,
and the Divine Indweller sets His throne
deep in a cloud in me, His sanctuary.
I pray, O wrap me, Cloud, . . . light Cloud of Carmel
within whose purity my vows were sown
to lift their secrecies to God alone.
Say to my soul, the timorous and small
house of a Presence that it cannot see
and frightened acre of a Deity,
say in the fullness of your clemency:
I have enclosed you all.
You are in whiteness of a lighted lamb wool;
you are in softness of a summer wind lull.
O hut of God, deepen your faith anew.
Enfolded in this motherhood of mine,
all that is beautiful and all divine
is safe in you.
~ A poem by Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit (Jessica Powers), O.C.D.
I recently got back from a wonderful trip to Scotland. My daughter and I visited the beautiful and magical city of Edinburgh and later on we took a full day tour to visit the Scottish Highlands—It was such a wonderful experience to be surrounded by majestic mountains and valleys, visiting small Victorian little towns, cruising the dark and deep waters of Loch Ness with breathtaking views followed by a visit to Urquhart Castle. And feeding the Highlands Cows—Unforgettable! What an amazing day we had!
I’m feeling very humble and blessed by the extraordinary experiences we had with my daughter during our visit to Scotland. So thankful to our Beloved Lord for blessing us with this amazing opportunity to travel together and treasure those moments for a lifetime.
Here I share a few of the photos I took during our visit to this beautiful land of many treasures. . .
Relaxing at sunset with a view of Edinburgh Castle in the background (My photo – July 2019)
Our climb to Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh…Philippians 4:13 (My photo – July 2019)
Attended Mass at St. Patrick’s Church in Edinburgh on July 16th Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel ❤ A very blessed day! (My photo – July 2019)
Saint Thérèse ❤ you are always near! Thank you Little Flower! At St. Patrick’s Church, July 16th 2019 (My photo)
Cruising on Loch Ness…Enjoying all the beauty and wonder! God’s creation is awesome and a precious gift to us all! (My photo – July 2019)
Visiting the ruins of Urquhart Castle. . . (My photo – July 2019)
Visiting the Highland Coo! They are so docile and cute! (My photo – July 2019)
Beautiful roses everywhere in Edinburgh and The Highlands…The climate favors them for their growth and beauty! Here I took this photo in the Victorian town of Pitlochry (July 2019).
The Highlands! So grateful to God for this unforgettable trip! (My photo – July 2019)
❤
For a Lover of Nature
Your valley trails its beauty through your poems, the kindly woods, the wide majestic river. Earth is your god—or goddess, you declare, mindful of what good time must one day give her of all you have. Water and rocks and trees hold primal words born out of Genesis.
But Love is older than these.
You lay your hand upon the permanence of green-embroidered land and miss the truth that you are trusting your immortal spirit to earth’s sad inexperience and youth. Centuries made this soil; this rock was lifted out of aeons; time could never trace a path to water’s birth or air’s inception, and so, you say, these be your godly grace. Earth was swept into being with the light— dear earth, you argue, who will soon be winning your flesh and bones by a most ancient right.
But Love had no beginning.
~ A poem by Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit (Jessica Powers), O.C.D.
There is a homelessness, never to be clearly defined. It is more than having no place of one’s own, no bed or chair.
It is more than walking in a waste of wind, or gleaning the crumbs where someone else has dined, or taking a coin for food or clothes to wear. The loan of things and the denial of things are possible to bear.
It is more, even, than homelessness of heart, of being always a stranger at love’s side, of creeping up to a door only to start at a shrill voice and to plunge back to the wide dark of one’s own obscurity and hide.
It is the homelessness of the soul in the body sown; it is the loneliness of mystery: of seeing oneself a leaf, inexplicable and unknown, cast from an unimaginable tree; of knowing one’s life to be brief wind blown down a fissure of time in the rock of eternity. The artist weeps to wrench this grief from stone; he pushes his hands through the tangled vines of music, but he cannot set it free.
It is the pain of the mystic suddenly thrown back from the noon of God to the night of his own humanity.
It is his grief; it is the grief of all those praying in finite words to an Infinity Whom, if they saw, they could not comprehend; Whom they cannot see.
~ A poem by Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit (Jessica Powers), O.C.D.
Art by Anton Raphael Mengs (1769) at Palacio Real de Madrid, Spain
God is the strangest of all lovers; His ways are past explaining. He sets His heart on a soul; He says to Himself, “Here will I rest My love.”
But He does not woo her with flowers or jewels or words that are set to music, no names endearing, no kindled praise His heart’s direction prove.
His jealousy is an infinite thing. He stalks the soul with sorrows; He tramples the bloom; He blots the sun that could make her vision dim.
He robs and breaks and destroys—there is nothing at last but her own shame, her own affliction, and then He comes and there is nothing in the vast world but Him and her love of Him.
Not till the great rebellions die and her will is safe in His hands forever does He open the door of light and His tenderness fall, and then for what is seen in the soul’s virgin places, for what is heard in the heart, there is no speech at all.
God is a strange lover; the story of His love is most surprising. There is no proud queen in her cloth of gold; over and over again there is only, deep in the soul, a poor disheveled woman weeping . . .
for us who have need of a picture and words: the Magdalen.
~ A poem by Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit (Jessica Powers), O.C.D.
The Entrance of the Lord into Jerusalem, art by Yelena Cherkasova
Cycle C: Luke 22: 14 – 23, 56
Today’s gospel is the Passion according to Saint Luke.
One of the priests executed during the Mexican Revolution was Miguel Pro. A famous photograph of his execution shows him with his arms outstretched in the form of a cross. The government took the photograph, mass produced it, and distributed it among the people as a means of both mocking the Church and showing people who was in charge. But within a year, the government banned the photo because it had become an icon of adoration among the Mexican people.
Where does real power reside? Pilate’s statement, “Do you not know that I have the power to release you, and the power to crucify you” is an illusion, for Jesus laid down his life of his own free will. At times, power seems to lie in the hands of the rulers of this world, but in due time, the truth emerges that it lies in the hands of God.
One of the truths embedded in the Passion of Jesus is that the reality of any given situation comes to light in God’s time. What looked like defeat on Good Friday was disclosed as the triumph of God’s love on Easter Sunday. The import of this truth for our lives is that no act of love is ever wasted. Every time we do the will of God, in spite of all appearances, we contribute to the redemption of the world. We may never see the positive impact of our good deeds; nevertheless, if they are acts of Love they are guaranteed by God.
“Love,” writes Evelyn Underhill, “after all, makes the whole difference between an execution and a martyrdom” (55). If the Crucifixion had not been an act of Divine Love, it would have been no more than a routine execution in a remote corner of the Roman Empire.
The same is true with us. Because we are members of the Body of Christ, whenever we unite our actions with Christ upon the Cross, they are redemptive. Love transforms the banal actions of daily life into divine deeds that plant the seeds of God’s transforming love in our world.
~ A Meditation by Marc Foley, O.C.D.
The Sign of the Cross ❤
The lovers of Christ lift out their hands to the great gift of suffering. For how could they seek to be warmed and clothed and delicately fed, to wallow in praise and to drink deep draughts of an underserved affection, have castle for home and a silken couch for bed, when He the worthy went forth, wounded and hated, and grudged of even a place to lay His head?
This is the badge of the friends of the Man of Sorrows: the mark of the cross, faint replica of His, become ubiquitous now; it spreads like a wild blossom on the mountains of time and in each of the crevices. Oh, seek that land where it grows in a rich abundance with its thorny stem and its scent like bitter wine, for wherever Christ walks He casts its seed and He scatters its purple petals. It is the flower of His marked elect, and the fruit it bears is divine.
Choose it, my heart. It is a beautiful sign.
~ A poem by Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit (Jessica Powers), O.C.D.
Michael is a prince of God and page of Mary. He stands beside the tall throne of his Queen. He is the warrior who made peace in heaven and keeps the earth serene.
Then why should I take fright when foes or demons assail me with their treacheries or wrath, when I have knowledge that the Queen’s archangel is keeper of my path?
O heart, believe. The great winged prince of heaven watches the Queen’s child with a warrior’s eye and lifts his flaming spear and comes like lightning at the first cry.
~ A poem by Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit (Jessica Powers), O.C.D.
❤
“I have great reverence for Saint Michael the Archangel; he had no example to follow in doing the will of God, and yet he fulfilled God’s will faithfully.”
~ St. Faustina Kowalska
“O glorious prince Saint Michael, chief and commander of the heavenly hosts, guardian of souls, vanquisher of rebel spirits, servant in the house of the Divine King and our admirable conductor, you who shine with excellence and superhuman virtue deliver us from all evil, who turn to you with confidence and enable us by your gracious protection to serve God more and more faithfully every day. Amen!”
God is not garden any more, to satiate the sense with the luxuriance of full exotic wilderness. Now multiple is magnified to less. God has become as desert now, a vast unknown Sahara voicing its desert cry. My soul has been arrested by the sound of a divine tremendous loneliness.
I write anathema on pool, on streams of racing water. I bid the shoot, the leaf, the bloom no longer to intrude. Beyond green growth I find this great good, a motionless immensity of oneness. And Him I praise Who lured me to this edge of uncreation where His secrets brood, Who seared the earth that I might hear in silence this infinite outcry of His solitude.
~ A poem by Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit (Jessica Powers), O.C.D.
❤
“Listen to God’s speech in his wondrous, terrible, gentle, loving, all-embracing silence.” Catherine Doherty
