I am no one,
But see the army
Of saints and angels
Who implore Thee.You say “Feed my lambs,
Feed my sheep,”
And I am tempted
To think, I have nothing,
But, Lord, are You
Not the Whole Loaf,
And are You not
Eternal and ours?I will give
From my Ever Present Lord.
In my poverty,
You are my abundance.What I can not see,
I know is on the way.
You are not far off.
You have come,
And You are coming soon.
Emmanuel.© 2011 Joann Nelander
Category Archives: Christian
Prayer and the Indwelling Christ
Your gaze have made it very easy,
praying that is.
Yet, for such as me,
it’s still very hard,
not seeing You across the table.Your eyes follow me.
I know You hear me.
“It’s not You, it’s me”,
as faulting lovers say.Your gaze never leaves me,
I can feel it
in the depths of my being.
I am never alone.You wait,
as I turn to trifles,
or beat down troublesome giants.
You dwell upon my last words,
feeling my joy or pain
through every season of my soul.Though my words can stop mid-sentence
or conversation cease,
still You know the whole.
With the patience of eternity, my God waits.Eventually, I turn back to You.
Your eyes sear my soul,
O, that my heart could return that gaze.On the best of days,
unless You bind me to You, I flit.
A thousand trumpets vie for my ear
and I am torn.New love has a magic,
erasing the world, and becoming all.
Re-ignite that flame in me
To shut out causes, fears and strife.Your Presence felt is strength and consolation,
Your tug is joy
and Your conversation sweetness.
If pain be the messenger
that draws me back to You,
so be it.
Better the torment of an earthly purgatory
than the foretaste of hell.If it seems I sit at our table alone,
the note of sadness betrays the truth.
I miss you and the missing is from You.
You beckon anew.Sup with me.
Dwell with me.
Gaze on me.
I am not alone.
My Christ is with me.By Joann Nelander
Anchor
Hope, an anchor tossed,
Plummeting to fathomless deep,
Careless of the cost.
Hope, an anchor tossed,
Implacable, while storms accost.
Faith, the ground, the keep.
Hope an anchor tossed,
Plummeting to fathomless deepCopyright Joann Nelander
(experimental triolet)
Listen Live – Immaculate Heart Radio
From a homily on Ecclesiastes by Saint Gregory of Nyssa, bishop There is a time to be born, and a time to die
From a homily on Ecclesiastes by Saint Gregory of Nyssa, bishop
There is a time to be born, and a time to die
There is a time to be born and a time to die. The fact that there is a natural link between birth and death is expressed very clearly in this text of Scripture. Death invariably follows birth and everyone who is born comes at last to the grave.
There is a time to be born and a time to die. God grant that mine may be a timely birth and a timely death! Of course no one imagines that the Speaker regards as acts of virtue our natural birth and death, in neither of which our own will plays any part. A woman does not give birth because she chooses to do so; neither does anyone die as a result of his own decision. Obviously, there is neither virtue nor vice in anything that lies beyond our control. So we must consider what is meant by a timely birth and a timely death.
It seems to me that the birth referred to here is our salvation, as is suggested by the prophet Isaiah. This reaches its full term and is not stillborn when, having been conceived by the fear of God, the soul’s own birth pangs bring it to the light of day. We are in a sense our own parents, and we give birth to ourselves by our own free choice of what is good. Such a choice becomes possible for us when we have received God into ourselves and have become children of God, children of the Most High. On the other hand, if what the Apostle calls the form of Christ has not been produced in us, we abort ourselves. The man of God must reach maturity.
Now if the meaning of a timely birth is clear, so also is the meaning of a timely death. For Saint Paul every moment was a time to die, as he proclaims in his letters: I swear by the pride I take in you that I face death every day. Elsewhere he says: For your sake we are put to death daily and we felt like men condemned to death. How Paul died daily is perfectly obvious. He never gave himself up to a sinful life but kept his body under constant control. He carried death with him, Christ’s death, wherever he went. He was always being crucified with Christ. It was not his own life he lived; it was Christ who lived in him. This surely was a timely death – a death whose end was true life.
I put to death and I shall give life, God says, teaching us that death to sin and life in the Spirit is his gift, and promising that whatever he puts to death he will restore to life again.
Be Holy! 