What of Tears?

What of tears?
What of feelings of deep emotion?
What of the thoughts that seem to interfere
When one encounters the One to Whom we pray?

Don’t let them get in the way.
What is a poor body to do,
But quake before the awesome Presence?
What better use of tears
But to purify the vessel.
Allow the thoughts to bathe therein,
Outside the city
And realms of sin,
In the arms
Of One Who loves you
Through and through.

Seeming

Lord, you pass by.
A sea of hands reaches for You.
Straining to its end,
Determined, one hand, truly, seems all Heart.

You pass, seeming out of reach.
From Heaven the Father sees,
And satisfies the soul’s desire.
“Who touched me?”, says the Son.

© 2017 Joann Nelander

Vessel of Redemption

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

The Apple of Your Eye

You are before me,
Drawing me ever closer.
I am lost in loving,
Beseeching and begetting
By Your grace.

You call me
“The apple of Your eye”.
Look, then, upon my world.
Perfect it,
Through this, my prayer.

Color the ghettos of sin
With hues of charity.
Bring a springtime of purity,
That earth may be as heaven,
Peopled with Children of God.

My loaves and fishes
Can feed the poor and hungry.
Though they be few, You are mighty.
Grace, Grace, O Holy Grace,
Behold me,
As I feast on Thee.

copyright 2014 Joann Nelander

What of Tears?

What of tears?
What of feelings of deep emotion?
What of the thoughts that seem to interfere
When one encounters the One to Whom we pray?

Don’t let them get in the way.
What is a poor body to do,
But quake before the awesome Presence?
What better use of tears
But to purify the vessel.
Allow the thoughts to bathe therein,
Outside the city
And realms of sin,
In the arms
Of One Who loves you
Through and through.

Seeming

Seeming

Lord, you pass by.
A sea of hands reaches for You.
Straining to its end,
Determined, one hand, truly, seems all Heart.

You pass, seeming out of reach.
From Heaven the Father sees,
And satisfies the soul’s desire.
“Who touched me?”, says the Son.

© 2017 Joann Nelander