Tag Archives: Christian

Sunday Snippets–A Catholic Carnival

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On EucharistIt’s time once again for Sunday Snippets. We are Catholic bloggers sharing weekly our best posts with one another. As for me, I am a wife of 51 years, a mother of two beautiful daughters, a Sinai nurse (NYC – 1962), a photographer (of sorts- photo-jo.smugmug.com) a writer (poet in awe of God). Prayer and daily Mass feed me. Lioness ( lionessblog.com ) is my way of evangelizing, a persistent shout out for God.

Join us to read and/or contribute.

To participate, go to your blog and create a post titled Sunday Snippets–A Catholic Carnival. Make sure that the post links back to here, and leave a link to your snippets post on our host, RAnn’s, site, This, That and the Other Thing.

My Posts for the past week:

Come, O Creator of Man

How Wisdom Treats His Mother – the Queenship of Mary

The Miracle of Days

Mother of Our Re-Creation – the New Eve

Prayer At Adoration

Move the Hands of God by Prayer

My All in All

Let Me

Found

 

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How Wisdom Treats His Mother – the Queenship of Mary

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King Solomon is, as the Church teaches, a type of Christ. Let us note the regard and honor with which he treats his mother. If he, who was blessed by God with wisdom, honors the Queen Mother so, how much more should we regard , Mother Mary, given us from the Cross as our Mother by Jesus as one of His supreme final acts before ascending His Throne in heaven, and opening heaven to all believers. Note,too, that he does not refuse his mother.

“So Bathshe’ba went to King Solomon, to speak to him on behalf of Adoni’jah. And the king rose to meet her, and bowed down to her; then he sat on his throne, and had a seat brought for the king’s mother; and she sat on his right. Then she said, ‘I have one small request to make of you; do not refuse me.’ And the king said to her, ‘Make your request, my mother; for I will not refuse you,’” (1Kings 2:19-20). [1]

Move the Hands of God by Prayer

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In the silence God invites without words.  My prayers are often noisy affairs filled with faces, memories, love and feelings of sorrow.  I am often overwhelmed and moved to tears by the poignancy of a fleeting thought. My heart tells me that what seems insignificant holds a treasure.  God’s gifts often come in disguise like the beggar at the door who is Christ.  The Spirit says minister here in this place at this time; reach back through the years to move the hand of God by prayer.

I am with God, the Lord of All, including Time.  I may have missed or misused moments to do good, but God reigns in Eternity, as present in the Past as He is in my heartbeat.  God’s hands are not tied by the flow of Time.  He is there and here and Eternal Now.  My lowly prayer, clothed in The Name, breaks down the wall that stands between my need or regret, and blessing.  Like the little donkey that carried the King of Kings, my humble prayer sets in motion the flow of grace to love, to heal, to mend, to restore and bless anew.

Joann Nelander

I love because I love, I love that I may love

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From a sermon by Saint Bernard, abbot I love because I love, I love that I may love

Love is sufficient of itself, it gives pleasure by itself and because of itself. It is its own merit, its own reward. Love looks for no cause outside itself, no effect beyond itself. Its profit lies in its practice. I love because I love, I love that I may love. Love is a great thing so long as it continually returns to its fountainhead, flows back to its source, always drawing from there the water which constantly replenishes it. Of all the movements, sensations and feelings of the soul, love is the only one in which the creature can respond to the Creator and make some sort of similar return however unequal though it be. For when God loves, all he desires is to be loved in return; the sole purpose of his love is to be loved, in the knowledge that those who love him are made happy by their love of him.

The Bridegroom’s love, or rather the love which is the Bridegroom, asks in return nothing but faithful love. Let the beloved, then, love in return. Should not a bride love, and above all, Love’s bride? Could it be that Love not be loved?

Rightly then does she give up all other feelings and give herself wholly to love alone; in giving love back, all she can do is to respond to love. And when she has poured out her whole being in love, what is that in comparison with the unceasing torrent of that original source? Clearly, lover and Love, soul and Word, bride and Bridegroom, creature and Creator do not flow with the same volume; one might as well equate a thirsty man with the fountain.

What then of the bride’s hope, her aching desire, her passionate love, her confident assurance? Is all this to wilt just because she cannot match stride for stride with her giant, any more than she can vie with honey for sweetness, rival the lamb for gentleness, show herself as white as the lily, burn as bright as the sun, be equal in love with him who is Love? No. It is true that the creature loves less because she is less. But if she loves with her whole being, nothing is lacking where everything is given. To love so ardently then is to share the marriage bond; she cannot love so much and not be totally loved, and it is in the perfect union of two hearts that complete and total marriage consists. Or are we to doubt that the soul is loved by the Word first and with a greater love?

Found

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My Lord, my Love,
Turning to you,
I meet Your gaze.
Your eyes never stray
From your child.

Since my conception,
That awesome moment,
You have kept
Careful watch over me.

Through fleeting years,
You have guarded me,
As the apple of Your eye.
Your angels await my prayers.
I part my lips,
Pronouncing Your Name,
And they are at alert.

“Thy Kindom come”
A flurry of wings
Break the silence.
“Thy Will be done. “
The brightness of electrum
Pervades the air.

“Give us this day
Our daily bread.”
Shining  beings glow white hot,
Wings unfurl.

Soaring heavenward
To the throne of God,
Weightless spirits
Obtain my abundance,
In measure overflowing.

Depending on You,
For even my gratitude,
I rejoice,
For the Sun rises
Each day in my heart.

Searching for You,
I find Your trail,
There is food on the table
And horses in the stall,
My children, too, are clothed,
And I am adorned in virtue,
Protected by humility.
What have I,
You have not given me?

Though I spend myself in labor,
My vigor, I have not exhausted.
Though, I fall into bed at night,
I look back on a day,
Lived in Your Presence.

Now, I recognize Your disguise.
I find You in the dawn.
Announced by bird song.
Heralded in my children’s cries.
“Tie my shoes,”
I hear You say.

Hope sends out new shoots,
As I find my strength refreshed
By your calm streams.
My duty awaits me,
And I am Your steward.

Drawing from coffers
That may appear empty,
They are, none-the-less,
Full of opportunity,
As Your poor
Are always with us,
Depending on You,
And, You, on me.

You no longer hide.
You await me in the voiceless.
Your vessels of helplessness
Beckon me, “Come!”

Your Cross surrounds me,
As I find myself
Nailed to the society of men.
The blood of Adam fills my veins,
But, so too,
The Blood of Christ.

As I expend myself on family
You are fed and clothed
In your hunger and nakedness.
As I lift my voice in song,
The high heavens resound,
Echoing Your Name.

My Jesus, You, fill the Universe,
For need and the Promise of Plenty,
Are all about me,
And I am Church,
Throbbing with Your Blood,
Beating with Your Heart.

Copyright Joann Nelander

Sunday Snippets–A Catholic Carnival

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It’s time once again for Sunday Snippets. We are Catholic bloggers sharing weekly our best posts with one another.  Join us to read and/or contribute. To participate, go to your blog and create a post titled Sunday Snippets–A Catholic Carnival. Make sure that the post links back to here, and leave a link to your  snippets post on our host, RAnn’s, site, This, That and the Other Thing.

My Posts for the past week:

Perfected Through the Cross

No Empty Dream

Folly’s Zeal

On Eucharist

 

 

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