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
The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs — Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
The Visitation art by Angiolo D’Andrea (1880-1942)
Go, roads, to the four quarters of our quiet distance, While you, full moon, wise queen, Begin your evening journey to the hills of heaven, And travel no less stately in the summer sky Than Mary, going to the house of Zachary.
The woods are silent with the sleep of doves, The valleys with the sleep of streams, And all our barns are happy with peace of cattle gone to rest. Still wakeful, in the fields, the shocks of wheat Preach and say prayers: You sheaves, make all your evensongs as sweet as ours, Whose summer world, all ready for the granary and barn, Seems to have seen, this day, Into the secret of the Lord’s Nativity.
Now at the fall of night, you shocks, Still bend your heads like kind and humble kings The way you did this golden morning when you saw God’s Mother passing, While all our windows fill and sweeten With the mild vespers of the hay and barley.
You moon and rising stars, pour on our barns and houses Your gentle benedictions. Remind us how our Mother, with far subtler and more holy influence, Blesses our rooves and eaves, Our shutters, lattices and sills, Our doors, and floors, and stairs, and rooms, and bedrooms, Smiling by night upon her sleeping children: O gentle Mary! Our lovely Mother in heaven!
~ A poem by Thomas Merton
Happy & Blessed Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary!
My mom is always near even though we live miles apart. She lives in my heart. She is with me all the time. . . In my daily walks around the neighbourhood. She is the music I enjoy listening, that brings me calm and peace.
She is the joy and the sunshine when I contemplate the beauty of God’s creation. She is the fragrance of fresh flowers. She is in my mind when I’m not feeling well. She holds my hand and reassures me that all will be well.
She is my warmth and my rest. She is the sound of the birds chirping at dawn when I awake. She is the colors of the rainbow, reminding me of the promises of God. She is in the clouds that are slowly passing by.
She is in the day and the night. She is in my heart, you know. She is the place where I came from, my first home, my childhood memories.
She is the one leading me into Mary, Our blessed and heavenly Mother. She placed me under Her care and protection. She is my first love, my first friend. She is my mom! ❤
~ My personal reflection
Wishing you all a very Happy & Blessed Mother’s Day! ⚘
The Madonna, art by Giovanni Battista Salvi – called Sassoferrato (1609-1685) Rome
When a sister, born for each strong month-brother, Spring’s one daughter, the sweet child Mary, Lies in the breast of the young year-mother With light on her face like the waves at play, Man from the lips of him speaketh and saith, At the touch of her wandering wondering breath Warm on his brow: lo! where is another Fairer than this one to brighten our day?
We have suffered the sons of Winter in sorrow And been in their ruinous reigns oppressed, And fain in the springtime surcease would borrow From all the pain of the past’s unrest; And May has come, hair-bound in flowers, With eyes that smile thro’ the tears of the hours, With joy for to-day and hope for to-morrow And the promise of Summer within her breast!
And we that joy in this month joy-laden, The gladdest thing that our eyes have seen, Oh thou, proud mother and much proud maiden — Maid yet mother as May hath been — To thee we tender the beauties all Of the month by men called virginal. And, where thou dwellest in deep-groved Aidenn, Salute thee, mother, the maid-month’s Queen!
For thou, as she, wert the one fair daughter That came when a line of kings did cease, Princes strong for the sword and slaughter, That, warring, wasted the land’s increase, And like the storm-months smote the earth Till a maid in David’s house had birth, That was unto Judah as Mary, and brought her A son for King, whose name was peace.
Wherefore we love thee, wherefore we sing to thee, We, all we, thro’ the length of our days, The praise of the lips and the hearts of us bring to thee, Thee, oh maiden. most worthy of praise; For lips and hearts they belong to thee Who to us are as dew unto grass and tree, For the fallen rise and the stricken spring to thee, Thee, May-hope of our darkened ways!
~ A poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-89) , S.J.
Happy Mother’s Day Blessed Virgin Mary, my heavenly Mother! Ora pro nobis!
❤
Meditation of The Holy Virgin (1889), art by Sarah Paxton Ball Dodson
May is Mary’s month, and I Muse at that and wonder why: Her feasts follow reason, Dated due to season —
Candlemas, Lady Day; But the Lady Month, May, Why fasten that upon her, With a feasting in her honour?
Is it only its being brighter Than the most are must delight her? Is it opportunest And flowers finds soonest?
Ask of her, the mighty mother: Her reply puts this other Question: What is Spring? Growth in everything —
Flesh and fleece, fur and feather, Grass and greenworld all together; Star-eyed strawberry-breasted Throstle above her nested
Cluster of bugle blue eggs thin Forms and warms the life within; And bird and blossom swell In sod or sheath or shell.
All things rising, all things sizing Mary sees, sympathising With that world of good, Nature’s motherhood.
Their magnifying of each its kind With delight calls to mind How she did in her stored Magnify the Lord.
Well but there was more than this: Spring’s universal bliss Much, had much to say To offering Mary May.
When drop-of-blood-and-foam-dapple Bloom lights the orchard-apple And thicket and thorp are merry With silver-surfed cherry.
And azuring-over greybell makes Wood banks and brakes wash wet like lakes And magic cuckoocall Caps, clears, and clinches all —
This ecstasy all through mothering earth Tells Mary her mirth till Christ’s birth To remember and exultation In God who was her salvation.
~ A poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ
❤
“Mother of God, tell me your mystery; of how your earthly life was spent: the way, right from the time of ‘Fiat – how you’d be buried in adoration, Mary! Say how – in a peace, a silence – you could enter in to deeps that none but you could do – bearing the gift of God within. Secure in God’s embrace keep me I ask. In me his imprint may He place – For wholly love is he.”
