I bathe my whole life
In the Blood of Christ.
In Spirit, I place my Soul,
Envisioned as a newborn,
In the water that flowed
From the Side of Jesus,
At the piercing
Of His most Sacred Heart.
O Holy Bath, flow over me.
Flow within me,
Permeating even
To the marrow of my bones.
Embrace my thoughts.
As a river in flood,
Envelope all in Your path.
Possess all.
Carry the delinquent and wayward,
As a torrent,
To the ever peaceful Mind of Christ,
Redeeming and reconciling opposites.
May the Christ,
As priestly chrism,
Penetrate the mundane of me,
And divinate my being.
Heal forever my disparity,
Remove all trace
Of Sin’s dominion and damage.
O Holy Love, at Your insistence,
I trust in You.
Coming forth from this bath,
Dry me, Your child,
As tears upon Your cheek
to honor all the tears
You shed for want of me.
Be solace to my regret .
Be comfort in my sorrow.
Wrap me, in my infancy,
In the heart of the Mother,
That Immaculate Heart
That longed with You
For my birth anew,
And enflesh me as a child.
By water and the Spirit
As Your child.
Sweet Peace, O Holy Peace,
You are All in All.
I, a child of God, will thank You
For all Eternity
In Triune embrace,
A happy word, whispered in Spirit,
From the Son to the Father.
© 2013 Joann Nelander
As Pope Francis visits the Holy Land, I offer a prayer as we accompany him in spirit:
Water of Peace
Jesus, enter the waters of our lives.
As at the Jordan,
You made holy
The water of Baptism,
Renew, in all men of good will,
Life, that flows from the God of Heaven,
Your Father, our Father, my Father.
May Your Holiness
Infuse the elements,
That compose all created things.
By the Water,
Cascading from the Temple,
Your pierced, open, and hallowed Side,
Prepare here a place for all men to abide.
Amen
Copyright 2014 Joann Nelander
Joann Nelander
lionessblog.com
O crystalline waters of grace,
Pure outpouring of the Trinity,
Vessel of redemption,
Into which has been entrusted
The manifestation of the Son of man,
And Son of God,
Pour into me your holy contemplations
That my soul may behold the Light
That transformed humanity with your “Fiat.”
Restoring paradise to the fallen.
Ground of His Coming in the Flesh,
Visit me
Who am pregnant with Promise,
As I await the flowering
Of the seed of your faith,
Jesus, taking root in me.
O Women, my Mother,
Nurture the Word spoken to my heart,
That Love may again fulfill
The Will that caused Hope
To spring up in the soil
Into which His Cross
Has been planted.
Water me,
Who drinks
From the streams
Of your remembrances,
As I behold in my soul
The Water and the Blood.
Copyright 2014 Joann Nelander
Only, and far flung God,
Bursting upon the scene of Time
To start the clock
By uncreated might,
And usher forth
Your manifold good will,
In the splendor of creation,
Look on me,
In my becoming.
In this, the only now I know,
This precious fleeting instant,
Reveal Yourself evermore.
You entered Time
That Man might enter Heaven.
You, Who are Eternal Being,
Let me contemplate Thee
Wrapped in swaddling clothes,
Nursing at the Virgin’s breast,
Growing as men grow,
Yet knowing the Father Creator
As only Son.
I see Thee arrayed,
Transfigured in the Light,
Even as You are stretched
Between Heaven and Earth
On Your Holy Cross,
Becoming Sin,
And dying in my stead.
Lifted above the earth in Your divinity,
Higher than the mountains,
Yet pervading depth and breathe,
To shake and shape
The cursed land and Man anew,
In elegant Revelation of Mystery,
Rising from the dead,
To live in universal blessedness,
Across all time and space,
Known but by grace.
Copyright 2013 Joann Nelander
From a sermon by Saint Leo the Great, pope
My dear brethren, there is no doubt that the Son of God took our human nature into so close a union with himself that one and the same Christ is present, not only in the firstborn of all creation, but in all his saints as well. The head cannot be separated from the members, nor the members from the head. Not in this life, it is true, but only in eternity will God be all in all, yet even now he dwells, whole and undivided, in his temple the Church. Such was his promise to us when he said: See, I am with you always, even to the end of the world.
And so all that the Son of God did and taught for the world’s reconciliation is not for us simply a matter of past history. Here and now we experience his power at work among us. Born of a virgin mother by the action of the Holy Spirit, Christ keeps his Church spotless and makes her fruitful by the inspiration of the same Spirit. In baptismal regeneration she brings forth children for God beyond all numbering. These are the sons of whom it is written: They are born not of blood, nor of the desire of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
In Christ Abraham’s posterity is blessed, because in him the whole world receives the adoption of sons, and in him the patriarch becomes the father of all nations through the birth, not from human stock but by faith, of the descendants that were promised to him. From every nation on earth, without exception, Christ forms a single flock of those he has sanctified, daily fulfilling the promise he once made: I have other sheep, not of this fold, whom it is also ordained that I shall lead; and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.
Although it was primarily to Peter that he said: Feed my sheep, yet the one Lord guides all the pastors in the discharge of their office and leads to rich and fertile pastures all those who come to the rock. There is no counting the sheep who are nourished with his abundant love, and who are prepared to lay down their lives for the sake of the good shepherd who died for them.
But it is not only the martyrs who share in his passion by their glorious courage; the same is true, by faith, of all who are reborn through baptism. That is why we are to celebrate the Lord’s paschal sacrifice with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. The leaven of our former malice is thrown out, and a new creature is filled and inebriated with the Lord himself. For the effect of our sharing in the body and blood of Christ is to change us into what we receive. As we have died with him, and have been buried and raised to life with him, so we bear him within us, both in body and in spirit, in everything we do.
Be Holy! 