Tag Archives: Prayer

Your Presence

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Your presence is all around me,
And Your glory shines forth
From even the smallest of Your creation.

If I were to feel Your effects all day long
I would live in tears,
Rejoicing with tearful gladness,
And weeping, conscious of my desert.

So I avert my gaze from these flowers of love
That I may carry on
Keeping my feet anchored on earth,
Though my soul would have me take flight
And keep company with the angels.

My spirit strains upward
As over and above all
I reach for You in humility of heart,
Worn out by Your mercies,
Never tiring in Your consolation.

Come Holy Spirit!
Make Your home in me
With customary gentleness.

Copyright 2013 Joann Nelander
All rights reserved

Light to My Light

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Round and round,
Oft’ repeated action,
Oft’ repeated sin,
I go,
Blinded by the storm within,
To folly’s fortune,
And wayward whim.

Hunger and thirst
Assail in just desert,
Assail with a vengeance.
Who will pay the piper?
Who will ransom the captive heart,
Break my fetters,
And smash my chains?

Crying into the night
Black my heart ache
Black my guilt.
Still my tears betray my hope,
As for Love I grope,
Calling, because primal urge
Causes me to shout into the Darkness.

I am the smoldering candle,
That will not go out.
That will not curse the darkness.
You are fan to my flame,
And breath in my nostrils,
You are the oil that fuels my lamp
To show the way out of darkness,
Light to my light.

© 2013 Joann Nelander
All rights reserved

Forever in Your Love

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You are the sun
At the center of the Cross.
I have polluted the waters of my baptism,
And come again
To the foot of Your Cross.

As my prayer rises
From the dust of my fall,
Into the heaven,
Which is with You,
Stretch out Your arms eternally,
To embrace me yet again,

Bring me to Your Heart,
At the crossing
Of heaven and earth
To be transformed
By You,
And in You,
And through You,
Becoming new man,
A holy man.

Silenced for three days on earth,
That heart of Yours,
Beating now eternally,
Lives in me,
Who will live
Forever in Your love.

© 2013 Joann Nelander
All rights reserved

Complete Fullness of Christ

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From a homily by a spiritual writer of the fourth century
May you be filled to the complete fullness of Christ

Those who have been considered worthy to go forth as the sons of God and to be born again of the Holy Spirit from on high, and who hold within them the Christ who renews them and fills them with light, are directed by the Spirit in varied and different ways and in their spiritual repose they are led invisibly in their hearts by grace.

At times, they are like men who mourn and lament over their fellow men, and pouring forth prayers for the whole human race, they plunge into tears and lamentation, on fire with spiritual love for mankind.

At other times they are enkindled by the Spirit with love and exultation that, were it possible, they would clasp in their embrace all mankind, without discrimination, good and bad alike.

Sometimes they are cast down below all mankind in lowliness of spirit, so that they reckon theirs to be the lowest and most abject of conditions.

And sometimes they are held by the Spirit in ineffable joy.

At one time they are like a brave man who puts on the king’s full armor and goes down into battle; he fights bravely against the enemy and defeats them. In like manner, the spiritual man takes up the heavenly arms of the Spirit and marches against the enemy and engaging in battle tramples the foe beneath his feet.

At another time the soul is at rest in deepest silence, tranquility and peace, existing in sheer spiritual pleasure and in ineffable repose and a perfect state.

Again, the soul is instructed by grace in a certain understanding in the ineffable wisdom and the inscrutable knowledge of the Spirit on matters which neither tongue nor lips can utter.

Then again, the soul becomes like any ordinary man.

In such varied ways does grace work within them and many are the means by which it leads the soul, renewing it according to God’s will and training it in different ways so that it may be set before the heavenly Father pure and whole and blameless.

We, too, therefore must make our prayer to God and entreat in love and in great hope that he may bestow upon us the heavenly grace of the gift of the Spirit. We pray that we, too, may be guided by that Spirit and that he may lead us into the fullness of divine will and refresh us with the varied kinds of his repose, that by the help of this guidance, exercise of grace and spiritual advancement, we may be considered worthy to attain to the perfection of the fullness of Christ, as the Apostle says: that you may be filled to the complete fullness of Christ.

A Thousand Little Moments

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I fail and I fall.
Yes, Father, it’s me, again.
My prayers and tears reach Your heart
With plaintiff sighs.

I reach for Love,
As a baby grasps the finger,
Securing You to my heart,
Binding You by trifles.
A thousand little moments,
Like a knitter’s weave,
Trivial triumphs conquering like souls,
For made in Your image, I desire only You.

Of wooing, my begging be a part.
I turn, my God, to You
As a prayer with every care.
Prayer and tears, now, all one.
I nestle to Your breast
And am all ear.

I listen as beat upon beat,
Love’s rhythm reassures me of the next
And of Your eternal constancy.
I listen, as for a whisper,
And fear not to whisper every care
And fretful prayer.

I reach for You with every breath,
And sigh when You draw nigh.
You answer with a mother’s warmth,
Bending low, picking me up, pressing me
To Your great and consoling bosom.

“What is it my child. Am I not here?
Haven’t I given you all?”
You kiss away my tears,
And delight in the exchange.
I have given nothing but complaint,
Yet You are full of smiles.

A thousand little moments knit our day.
I cry and You comfort.
I beckon and You bend in kind regard.
You draw me into that chamber,
In which I was formed,
That hallowed space,
In which my time began.

Heaven and rest contained
In one all holy Name.
Name me, my God,
And I will come into being,
Called forth from my darkness
Into Your marvelous Day.

All our moments measured by Your mercy,
I cry out for a heart made unto Your own,
That I may grow to give Your Love.
Love begetting love, for love alone.

©2010 Joann Nelander

the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple

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Let us receive the light whose brilliance is eternal

From a sermon by Saint Sophronius, bishop

In honor of the divine mystery that we celebrate today, let us all hasten to meet Christ. Everyone should be eager to join the procession and to carry a light.

Our lighted candles are a sign of the divine splendor of the one who comes to expel the dark shadows of evil and to make the whole universe radiant with the brilliance of his eternal light. Our candles also show how bright our souls should be when we go to meet Christ.

The Mother of God, the most pure Virgin, carried the true light in her arms and brought him to those who lay in darkness. We too should carry a light for all to see and reflect the radiance of the true light as we hasten to meet him.

The light has come and has shone upon a world enveloped in shadows; the Dayspring from on high has visited us and given light to those who lived in darkness. This, then, is our feast, and we join in procession with lighted candles to reveal the light that has shone upon us and the glory that is yet to come to us through him. So let us hasten all together to meet our God.

The true light has come, the light that enlightens every man who is born into this world. Let all of us, my brethren, be enlightened and made radiant by this light. Let all of us share in its splendor, and be so filled with it that no one remains in the darkness. Let us be shining ourselves as we go together to meet and to receive with the aged Simeon the light whose brilliance is eternal. Rejoicing with Simeon, let us sing a hymn of thanksgiving to God, the Father of the light, who sent the true light to dispel the darkness and to give us all a share in his splendor.

Through Simeon’s eyes we too have seen the salvation of God which he prepared for all the nations and revealed as the glory of the new Israel, which is ourselves. As Simeon was released from the bonds of this life when he had seen Christ, so we too were at once freed from our old state of sinfulness.

By faith we too embraced Christ, the salvation of God the Father, as he came to us from Bethlehem. Gentiles before, we have now become the people of God. Our eyes have seen God incarnate, and because we have seen him present among us and have mentally received him into our arms, we are called the new Israel. Never shall we forget this presence; every year we keep a feast in his honor.