Category Archives: All Things Catholic

The Robe

by

Lord of the centuries,
Knit, of our pain, the knots,
That mysteriously arrange themselves
Across our days.

Guide, by unseen fingers,
Each little pearl,
To form a cloth
Alive with Your Golden threads,
Infinitely more than happenstance or tragedy.

Each strand of Time a mystery,
Bathed in trial and tears,
Yet rich in Awe,
Resplendent in Beauty,
And the gracious beneficence
Of sacrificial love.

Whole cloth,
Woven into a seamless robe,
You don in majesty,
Humble and meek in triumph o’er our graves,
As Life welcomes to the Banquet,
Our souls, now clad in bodies,
One with Your Own.

© 2015 Joann Nelander

The Embrace

by

image

Clutching You to my heart,
My sins before me,
I make Your Death,
My dying,
And find my life.

You give Yourself to me.
You give Yourself for me.
I hold Your cold,
Your bruised and bloodless Body
As I pray.

Wiping the spittle from Your Face,
I behold the Man,
My sins before me always,
I embrace Your Words.
“Father forgive.”

Copyright 2016 Joann Nelander

PHILOSOPHY – ST. AUGUSTINE

by

The Pope and the Our Father – Patrick Madrid

by

NOW FOR ETERNITY

by

All days have led to this day.
Yesterdays march up to the edge in Time,
But cannot enter upon my Now.

As precursors they stand,
Peering onto this Today,
Blind as bats.
Their edges approach
But halt at the Present.

Here I reign with my will.
If all my mistakes
Shout for change,
Am I now the fool
Who fails to learn?

With the sun,
I am begun.
Eternity beckons me,
Where Time cannot go,
Invites, “Come.”

He, Who sails on Eternity’s Wing,
Would be my Mender,
Not in a breaking of the Past,
But a knitting of it,
A seamless cloth,
As His very own.

The morrow begins as a Way I choose;
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
Are gift to my being,
And beginning in this Now,
I am His.

©2015 Joann Nelander

LONGINUS, SOLDIER SAINT

by

Longinus,
You, who beheld Life,
As your Savior
Hung between Heaven and Earth,
Dying on His Cross,
Your heart came alive
At the sight of the Mother’s agony.

The thrust of your spear
Lanced the heart of the Christ
And pierced your own
To let Him enter,
He, who would henceforth,
Possess you in contemplation.

His blood, falling upon weak and worldly eyes,,
Touched in you, the pagan,
Opening eyes blind to the things of God,
With the sight of the Holy.

Your life became a contemplation
Of the Dying and the Rising,
Did you fall into a sleep,
As the angels descended to roll away the stone?
Did premonitions of sacred mystery stir you,
Wakening the soldier witness soul,
To serve not merely an emperor,
But True God?

The Cassius of the Crucifixion
Died, only to open his eyes in faith,
And live, henceforth a new man,
With a story of Blood and Water,
And New Life,

copyright 2014 Joann Nelander