Tag Archives: Christian

Heart Afire

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Jesus, Heart Afire,
Furnace blazing,
Fueled by Love,
Burning without consuming,
Radiant heat,
And all pervading.

Soul, drawn to escape
The hell of Darkness,
With an exchange
Of holy vows.
Free to flee,
Though enraptured
By superior desire.

Created One,
Of two natures,
Once at peace,
Fallen, then to warring,
Barred from Eden’s gate.

Blazing Promise
And Redemption,
Offering Sin’s undoing,
Constant in Your wooing.

Creat anew,
As once in Paradise,
Purified and restored
Exceeding recognition.
Raised beyond perfection,
Melted, purged,
Merged, and welded,
Seamless life as Mother’s garment.
To live now
In Thee,
For Thee,
Through Thee.
Knowing All
In knowing Thee.

Two natures,
Now at Peace
Both lost,
And found,
In Loving Thee.

Copyright Joann Nelander 2011

All rights reserved

Invite the Angels and Saints

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I’ll be headed out the door in a few minutes to attend the Mass. It amazes me that year after year I have been given the grace to participate in daily mass. It is a great blessing especially since I am no saint.  I’m slogging it out here below hoping one day that Jesus will call me and bid me come to Him that with angels and saints I might be with Him forever.

Sometimes at communion, I am overjoyed but most often my feelings are like those expressed by the Little Flower.  Would that my response also be as hers.

What can I tell you, dear Mother, about my thanksgivings after Communion? There is no time when I taste less consolation. But this is what I should expect. I desire to receive Our Lord, not for my own satisfaction, but simply to give Him pleasure. I picture my soul as a piece of waste ground and beg Our Blessed Lady to take away my imperfections–which are as heaps of rubbish–and to build upon it a splendid tabernacle worthy of Heaven, and adorn it with her own adornments. Then I invite all the Angels and Saints to come and sing canticles of love, and it seems to me that Jesus is well pleased to see Himself received so grandly, and I share in His joy. But all this does not prevent distractions and drowsiness from troubling me, and not unfrequently I resolve to continue my thanksgiving throughout the day, since I made it so badly in choir. You see, dear Mother, that my way is not the way of fear; I can always make myself happy, and profit by my imperfections, and Our Lord Himself encourages me in this path.”

Moments before Dawn

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In these precious moments before dawn
Prepare my waking body and soul
to serve You,
As You served our heavenly Father,
In Your Incarnation.

Dawning in the Virgin’s
Womb,
Hidden Divinity,
Secret, sacred, Savior,
Announced and served by Angels,
Alive in hallowed Love,
Glorifying Man in Your Mortal Garb,
You are hidden now in me.

Manifest Your glory,
In all humility,
As, yet again,
You dawn anew,
In this heart that longs for You.

copyright 2015 Joann Nelander

You are the Music

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Jesus, write the symphony of my life.
In Your Mystery of becoming,
Blend every note,
And sing the harmony
That embraces the sinner
To create the saint.

You are here
With the Father and Holy Spirit,
Supping and residing,
I receive You in Holy Communion,
Grant that I might never neglect You,
My Holy Guests.

I place You on the music stand of my life.
You are the Score,
And Conductor.

All I receive, I give
On the wind of the Spirit,
To be rightly arranged.
You be the music playing in my soul.

In chorus, Seraphim and Saints intercede,
And I and all creation dance with Miriam
As Jesus mediates the Victory
In His Song of Salvation.

© 2015 Joann Nelander

Father Forever

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“Father forgive them they know not what they do.”

Cords of sorrow draw me.
I am witness to the plight,
Man become beast,
Without wisdom or wit,
Licking his own blood,
Hungry, harrowed,
Stunned in horror.

The knots of revenge entangle,
Cry for evermore blood,
Ever more abasement,
Ever more widows,
Ever more orphans,
Ever more refuse and waste.

A crying child becomes hundreds,
Then thousands,
Then millions,
Left to wander,
Left to dissipate and hate.

Vengeance is sweeter than food,
To one who chooses to live
Without Love,
Without Light,
Without the Holy and the True,
For such is the abode of Sin,
And many the roads
Leading to its gate.

Bestial brutality,
Raging insanity,
Now reigns the malignant.
The disconsolate refuse all solace,
Wounds of the heart,
Wounds of the mind,
Wounds of the body of Man.

Look to the high mountain,
Eyes to the heavens,
Wake the long dead,
Who await the promised Banquet,
Those, who now know,
They are one Family of Man,
Divested of tribal allegiance,
Awaiting the One,
And coming, King.

Offer a sacrifice of prayer.
Pour forth the balm of Gilead.
Speak, in the tongue of angels,
The comfort of peoples,
Hope in the Darkness.

Humanity’s ties are stronger than its sins,
More numerous than the cords
That draw it down in the Dark Night.
For its One God
Is Father Forever.

IN BAPTISM

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The flood waters of heaven
Pour over me.
Your Death holds me fast,
Drawing body and soul,
Down in Your Dying.

Flood gates open,
And yet, the sea parts.
By Your Spirit I pass over.
The soul that gives life to my body,
Now rises,
Your Spirit, giving Life to my soul.

More than a corpse
Raised from the dead,
I rise a priest, a prophet and a king,
Betrothed and free to be
What You would make of me.

copyright 2015 Joann Nelander