
Category Archives: All Things Catholic
Remembering the Seasons of My Soul
Old year passes,
Becoming yet another ghost,
Withered as leaves,
Crumbled, and carried aloft
By winter winds,
Too soon scattered
By the breezes of Time.
Is it truly spent,
Dead and long forgotten,
Living but in memory?
May not reflection
Call it from the grave,
Uncover the gain
Hold it fast
To live again?
How has its many waters
Blessed thee and me,
As sacred signs?
Will it, as muse, retain a power
For its having been,
And then no more?
What saints and angels
Sent my way,
Colored its day?
In sorrow,
Who came to hold my hand?
In joy,
Who shared my hearth?
Were there hugs, and smiles,
And laughter to tilt the scale of grief?
Can kisses and embraces be resurrected,
That fires of love be stoked
To warm and blaze anew?
Has my thanksgivings
Been recorded in the pyre,
Written in the embers now glowing
As tiger eyes flashing from the ash.
Years come, doomed , too soon to go,
But let them not hurry
To a crypt without a wake.
Drink the happy wine of memory,
Sip, as the seasons turn.
Contemplate and savor
The seasons of your soul.
©2011 Joann Nelander
Dawn Comes
O see,
Dawn comes
The first rays of Light
Upon the mountain.
How I have waited.
How I have longed.
Having embraced Faith
I possessed Truth,
But it was like the dawn,
Outside myself.
Written, as on tablets,
But, not yet,
Written on my heart.
It’s glory was God”s,
And not my own,
Not of my forging,
Not for me to fashion,
As a graven image,
Or molten calf,,
Arising from the fires
Of my concupiscence,
A counterfeit for Love,
Revealing only the blindness
Fallen on hearts,
Minds, and wills
Apart from Light
Of Dayspring
On Holy Night.
Now come
The long awaited symbolon
To make whole
To heal my soul.
O Holy Night
Putting an end
To lonely darkness
O Holy sight,
I wait
To see aright.
By Joann Nelander
Pope’s childhood letter to Baby Jesus shows his faith :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)
Sunday Snippets–A Catholic Carnival
Hello, and welcome. We are a group of Catholic bloggers who gather weekly to share our best posts with each other. Join us to read and contribute if you like. Make sure that post links back to Sunday Snippets–A Catholic Carnival. Don’t forget to leave a link to your post on our host, at RAnn’s site, This, That and the Other Thing.
Here are my contributions from the past week:
2012 Landscape Dreams Photo Contest Winners
Babe of All Perfection
Prayer to the Powerful Babe
The Shawl of Prayer
Rejoice! Gaudete
Babe of All Perfection

O happy Babe.
Babe of All Perfection,
Your little heart, so full of love,
Your face radiant,
Reflected in Your mother’s gaze.
Your soul, ablaze!
Hearth of longing and compassion,
The Family of Nations comes to adore You
©2011 Joann Nelander