Why apart? From the in-gathering, all embracing Mother Church you flee, to remain apart all the while, calling and yearning for your God.  You flee and I run after you, pursuing you at every turn, and twist and fall. I reach and you pull your hand away.  Why not stay?  My Body yearns for you. My members long to know you.

I wait upon your prayers with angels ready to dispatch.
O, Pardoned Soul, you seek your God in myriad ways, I am here, wedded to My Bride, always at her side. promised never to depart. You hold yourself apart.

You’ve built a chapel in your heart for others that play God,
I call and draw you by Love within the chapel of your heart.
You sigh as I tug at heart strings tight and taunt.  You resist Me for fear they’ll break. I woo, I’m told to wait.  You say you are not ready for Love’s music.

“Measure me Your Love,” you say.  “Give comfort, strength and sure supply, but do not on my ‘Yes’ rely.”

Perhaps the Bride, the Church, who bears My Word forth unto all centuries, has words you n’er obey, in dread fear of the “ought” you can not bear. You will your will be done on earth and choose to judge all heaven.   You want only love’s first glance, the sweet embrace and kiss upon the cheek, nothing too dear, nothing too deep.  It seems a bitter end, to lose yourself in giving all, O Measured One.

You know Love comes with a Cross, a Cross you fear to carry. You choose to stay apart and skirt the Cross. Alas, the world without has crosses, too.  They may come disguised in promised delight, but soon you’ll drag that empty dream uphill.  How long one longs and labors longingly and all alone beneath the weight of vanities profane,  I do not say. I only await a cry, a plea, glance of recognition.  When our eyes meet, then our hearts meet;  at long last your leap into the arms of One Who grasps you in your fall.

Be mine as Church joined to Husband.  At last the Lord of All can leap the walls you’ve built about yourself to know you now within His Sacred Heart, bearing your cross in His,making all things new and all your burdens light. Count now as joy life without measure.

Fear not my Church.   She is My Spouse, My very Body; I ,the Head.
I woo and wait,  now, as Groom upon the altar.  You must give yourself away.

by Joann Nelander