Tag Archives: Faith

Eyes

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How often I beseech
“All the angels and saints”,
Yet, fail to realize
The multitude of the holy,
I call to my side.

They do come.
They come ready to aid,
To do battle,
To protect,
And do bless.

God give me eyes,
That I may see,
For, indeed,
I am, too often,
Blind.

There are wise infrared eyes,
Spying the sky.
We see our universe at its birth.
For eons,
We knew of no such birth.

Blindness of a kind
Can kill.
A child in the womb,
Heart beating for the cameras,
Still fails
To make a Presence known.
How blind the eyes
That refuse to see.

Father of all that is,
Give me eyes of the heart,
That I may
Make a start.

© 2016 Joann Nelander

As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’

Smiling Eyes

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Lying in the sunshine of Your love,
Recounting humming bird days,
Flitting as flashes flung to the heavens,
I look to the horizon,
For the rising of yet another sun.

I feel I know You.
It is me I doubt,
But I don’t know why.
I have spent my life
Becoming what I think
You want me to be.
Others, though, have always
Seemed to do it better.

Here I am at eve tide,
Recounting the many waters,
That wash these shores.
Your Beauty plays for me,
Painting the setting sun;
I guess, to reassure my clay
Of The Love You are,
As I still look for me,
Reflected in Your smiling eyes.

copyright 2014 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 Eucharist

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All that I need,
All that is good,
You bring to me in this Eucharist.

Help me to desire,
All that You want to give me.
Open my eyes,
To see myself as You see me,
And long for You all the more.

I abandon myself to You,
That You may make me holy,
And do everything for me,
By Your limitless grace.

© 2017 Joann Nelander

Food For the Poor

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Lord, make my ears
Hungry for Your Word.
Give me a living relationship
With Your Father,
Who Fed You
In solitude.

May every Word He Speaks
Resound in my spirit.
May it nourish me,
Sustaining me,
As all, worshiping the world,
Suffer famine,
For want of Faith.

With Bread comes
Health and vigor,
Power to feed others
With the Food You give me
Daily at Your Table.

I listen for Your call
I listen for Your footsteps.
I hear You,
In the breaking
Of Your Word.
Bread for the hungry world.

©2012 Joann Nelander

 

 

Father Forever

by

“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.