Let Me

Let me be the Star that guides.
Let me be the Voice crying in the wilderness.
Let me be the Brother that leads a brother.
Let me be the Mother bidding
“Do whatever He tells you.”

Let me be tears upon Your feet,
Let me be anointing oil
Let me be a cloak that hides your nakedness.
Let me be the prayer of the Blind Bartimaeus:
“Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.”

Let me pray with You in the garden
Let me draw a spiritual sword by Your Side.
Let me help you carry Your Cross.
Let me weep with You for the Fallen and the Lost,
Lamenting, “.. you would not be gathered.”

Let me feel with Mother Mary
Let me cry out like the Magdalen.
Let me, like the Centurion, recognize You in Your Dying.
Let me sit beside the Angel at Your Tomb.
“He has risen, He is not here”

By Joann Nelander

Intention

All the people of my life,
I place in Your Life.
Living Savior,
One with the Father,
The Spirit,
And lowly me,
Look on my memory,
And on my forgetfulness.

Search my corridors and halls.
Find all those faces and voices
Of my past, present and forgotten.
Forgive them,
As You’ve forgiven me.
Draw them,
As You have drawn me.

Prepare a heavenly paradise,
In which each may dwell.
Life is short,
Memories fleeting.
You alone endure,
O, Trinity,
Embracing all,
In Your Eternity.

Amen.

Copyright Joann Nelander  © 2011

A woman clothed with the sun – Fr. Harold Cohen

A woman clothed with the sun – Fr. Harold Cohen

A Home for My God

David, Thy Servant, desired to build You a house.
I, too, desire to build You a holy dwelling.
I desire to build it here,
In this space in which I live.

Here on this ground of my being,
More than brick and mortar,
More than outward beauty,
I raise its rafters of prayer.

I desire this house to be a home,
Where angels and saints are welcome,
And drawn by the Heart of this dwelling,
For the home I will build is totally Yours.

With Davis, Your servant, I desire.
I desire to please  and serve my God.
Make of me a home, an abode,
In which we may sup,
Now, and eternally.

© 2016 Joann Nelander

 

On Eucharist – Reflection on St. Augustine and My Prayer

Reflection on St. Augustine’s, “I seemed to hear your voice from on high: ‘I am the food of the mature: grow, then, and you shall eat me. You will not change me into yourself like bodily food; but you will be changed into me’.”

 

On Eucharist

O Christ, I receive Thee
That I might become Thee.
I desire to be as You would have me,
To be, Christ, living Your Life,
In the time and place and space
That is me,
Soul and matter one,
And wed to my All Holy Three.

Come, O come to me, My Christ.
My blind eyes see but bread.
Hope lights my darkness.
Faith assures me
Of what I can not now behold.

You are the food,
That transforms my being
To Your Being,
Though the steps and stages
Be but measured.
You respect my frailty,
Adding strength upon strength,
That the common might be wed
To the Magnificent
Without my dissolution..

Only in union can I live
“Thy Will be done,”
As You, the Son.
Grow me, grace me,
That I might become mature.
Sanctify this soul
So unlike Your own,
That free of Sin.
I be as the moon to You, O Sun.

I want to become,
To be of You,
And by You completely transformed.
I pray that Your Holy Spirit
Conform me to the Will of the Father,
That I may answer
As Mother Mary, “Fiat.”.

In Fire’s purifying ardor
Remove my dross.
Make me malleable.
Impress Yourself on me.
Ready me, as melted wax,
That I may receive the image,
That You conceived for me.
That with all my being,
I may spend myself totally
On the Father’s All Holy Will,
Answering with the voice of Christ
One great “Amen.”

As a desert penitent
May I shed my tears for Your cause in me,
And in the world of souls,
For whom You shed Your blood.
May I complete my time on this earth
Running the race with You as my Way.

Although I am all effort,
And that pleases You,
A thousand efforts
Do not make the slightest grace.
So grace me, Beloved,
That the Father will delight
To see His Only Son in me.

More than a Conqueror,
You become my very being.
May I live my life in Your Life.
Come, O Eucharist,
O, Sanctifier of my soul.

By Joann Nelander

Behold Me

Behold me, beholding Thee,
Blessing Thee, my Three.

Behold me, anointed and gladdened,
Rejoicing in Thee.

Behold me, on bended knee,
Rising, by Thy Spirit,
Setting Your Love free.

© 2017 Joann Nelander