Brink of Eternity

Good morning, Jesus.
Here we are again,
At the beginning of a new day.

Can you feel me?
Here I am in Your Great Heart,
Reaching for You with my heart.

I feel Your eyes upon me.
You are perfume to my senses.
You are the touch of sweetness
I taste wafting on the breeze of Spirit.

You sound in my heart
With the beating of Yours.
Ever near, ever dear, everlasting,
Song of my soul.

Good morning, my Jesus.
Hold me here,
On the brink of eternity.

©2014 Joann Nelander

You are the Music

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

Food For the Poor

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

 

 

Prayer and the Indwelling Christ

Your gaze have made it very easy,
praying that is.
Yet, for such as me,
it’s still very hard,
not seeing You across the table.

Your eyes follow me.
I know You hear me.
“It’s not You, it’s me”,
as faulting lovers say.

Your gaze never leaves me,
I can feel it
in the depths of my being.
I am never alone.

You wait,
as I turn to trifles,
or beat down troublesome giants.
You dwell upon my last words,
feeling my joy or pain
through every season of my soul.

Though my words can stop mid-sentence
or conversation cease,
still You know the whole.
With the patience of eternity, my God waits.

Eventually, I turn back to You.
Your eyes sear my soul,
O, that my heart could return that gaze.

On the best of days,
unless You bind me to You, I flit.
A thousand trumpets vie for my ear
and I am torn.

New love has a magic,
erasing the world, and becoming all.
Re-ignite that flame in me
To shut out causes, fears and strife.

Your Presence felt is strength and consolation,
Your tug is joy
and Your conversation sweetness.
If pain be the messenger
that draws me back to You,
so be it.
Better the torment of an earthly purgatory
than the foretaste of hell.

If it seems I sit at our table alone,
the note of sadness betrays the truth.
I miss you and the missing is from You.
You beckon anew.

Sup with me.
Dwell with me.
Gaze on me.
I am not alone.
My Christ is with me.

By Joann Nelander

Mother of Our Re-Creation – the New Eve

John the Baptist baptizing Christ

Image via Wikipedia

Mother of our re-creation, Chosen One,
Queen Mother of Our Savior and Salvation,
Through You The Father has restored
Life and beauty to Creation.

The poison of Adam’s Fall
Has now an antidote and more.
Your humility lifts Eve to her feet,
And sets her wailing heart at peace,
For her children have a Remedy.

The punishment of Death decreed,
Which we suffer in this life,
And at its end,
Because of Father Adam’s Sin,
That Death is now a Door.

God made us like Himself,
So we, too, have a choice.
We may enter the waters of Baptism
As Christ entered the waters of Mary’s womb,
Clothing Himself in human form,
And the waters of the Jordan,
Preparing a way for our resurrection.

Jesus despised not our wretchedness,
But invested Himself in our plight,
By taking flesh as a mantle,
Worn into battle for the fight.

At the beginning of His earthly life,
Jesus entered the water of humanity
In the womb of Mary.
At the beginning of His earthly ministry,
Christ’s purifying presence
Entered the Sea of Man and Sin
In the waters of the Jordan.

Jesus, Son of Mary, the New Eve,
Blessed the Jordan waters.
By entering our pollution,
The Sinless Savior made it a symbol
Of the endless stream,
That washes sin away
And joins us to Himself.

Christ has offered us
His Life and Resurrection
In bidding us, ‘Come to the Water.’
This Water is for all the Children of Eve
Both womb, and tomb.

All Creation rejoices at our Restoration.
In Baptism’s holy bath,
We are saved and re-created,
The First Fruit of the glory
Of the Virgin’s First Born Son,

Our new Mother receives us from our dying
As she did the Body of her Son at the Cross.
Mother Mary is rewarded for her sorrow
And crowned for her hope.

By Joann Nelander

Repenting and Forgiven

c. 1632

Image via Wikipedia

How true it is,
That we are wretched sinners,
Dying since our birth,
Condemned by Man’s First Sin.

Yet, we wait, in hope believing,
For what we have begun to be,
Since our Christ died upon a Tree
Shedding His blood at Calvary.

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,
One of the Holy Three,
All Man, All God, All Given
That for repenting
We become the Forgiven.