Abiding All the While

We await Your Second Coming, O Lord.
In reality, You never left us.
Your Body and Blood,
Upon the altar of Your Presence,
Witness to Your People, Your constancy.

Before Your dying upon the Cross,
You prepared a Body for Yourself in the Church,
Embracing those who would soon desert You,
Feeding Your Apostles the very Flesh,
That would so soon be scourged.
Giving Your Chosen, as drink,
The very Blood destined to be poured upon the ground,
Staining pillar and the coarse streets of the city,
Whose people had welcome and acclaimed You,
In Your wonders and power,
Only to decry your claim upon their hearts,
And flee to the side of worldly power and might.

Though You never left us,
How soon we forgot You,
You, Who cannot forget
Those You chose to be Your Body on Earth,
And were called to remember You
Upon at the Table of Your Presence
Transforming bread and wine,
To mend and enable a broken people,
To experience Salvation,
In the Divine Intimacy as friends.

Holy Presence,
Remain always in my heart,
That looking inward,
My stained garment may be purified in penitence,
Bleached white in Your Light,
And my eyes behold Your image as Promise,
Wooing me from world and worry.

May Your Second Coming find me with You
In this world or in the next,
As bride with her Bridegroom,
Your beloved beholding Her Love.

©2012 Joann Nelander
All rights reserved

“Give them something to eat.”

“Give them something to eat.”

On the mountain of Your Holiness,
You commanded,
“You give them something to eat.”

What have I that would feed,
And satisfy so many?
You give to me,
In steady supply.

You are my All.
In You, I believe,
It is You, I adore,
And from You, I draw my hope,
And loving trust.

You have fulfilled Your promise,
Feeding me with the finest wheat, the Eucharistic Wheat,
Made Bread, most holy,
Your body and Your Blood.

“Give them something to eat.”

What have I that would feed,
And satisfy so many?
I will give them my Treasure,
My Only Good.

As life flowing from this temple
Flow from me,
To water,
And sup with humanity all about me.

© 2017 Joann Nelander

Holy Thursday – about today

“So when he had washed their feet [and] put his garments back on and reclined at table again, he said to them, ‘Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do,’” (John 13: 12-15).

Today’s Gospel reading models what Christian love looks like. Jesus bends down and washes the feet of his disciples, commanding them to do the same for others. In the washing of feet and the sacrament of the Eucharist, we see “the same mystery of a divine expression of love.” Both show Jesus humbly lowering down, meeting us where we are, and offering an expression of love. 

Pope Francis said: “There is much that we can do to benefit the poor, the needy and those who suffer, and to favor justice, promote reconciliation and build peace. But before all else we need to keep alive in our world the thirst for the absolute, and to counter the dominance of a one-dimensional vision of the human person, a vision which reduces human beings to what they produce and to what they consume: this is one of the most insidious temptations of our time.”[1][2][3][4]

Written by Sarah Ciotti