We are willing to discard the person for the part.
“We’ve made great strides”, “…a long way, Baby.”
You and Your creation shall serve us.
Yes, that is our “Way”.It makes perfect sense to us.
After all, You are invisible,
as invisible as a child within the womb,
…that is, until the flesh is torn away.
We have the technology.See, no cringing here. “Just do it!”
We’re tough as nails.
You are familiar with nails?
Yes, tough as nails.
In this world you have to be!by Jobolai/photobucket
Hello, (knock,knock). Are You there?
…. See, He doesn’t care.
You hold Your anger, so we say,
“Where is this God of yours?”.Our world crumbles,
Chaos all around.
Evidence of Your absence or Your ire?
It doesn’t matter.
You are the Past. We are Now!If I pull Your beard, will You awaken.
Are You like us?
Will You take a poll
or turn Your blind eyes?In Your retirement or death,
we’ve found our voice. We’ve found our fist!
Not to worry. We’ve come a long way;
Crowned ourselves God!By Joann Nelander
Tag Archives: Religion and Spirituality
Cry of the Heart
My Prayer
Lord, do others speak to you in whole sentences.
My prayer is like me in my raw and bewildered state,
mind and feelings at war within me,
straining to understand, to comprehend myself,
and wondering what You desire,
still in a quandary to know what to pray;
indeed, how to prayer.
All I know is that You, O Lord, are.
Though I seem alone, You are with me,
Your Holy Name, my byword.
My prayer is Your Name,
Now echoing in the Father’s ear.
I do not call it back.
It shall resound through eternity,
and on its strains I hold fast.
I wait and I adore.
Let me rest here,
safe in Your embrace.
By Joann Nelander
Expanding Our Desire In Prayer
Image via Wikipedia
St. Augustine’s Instruction:
Let us exercise our desire in prayer
Why in our fear of not praying as we should, do we turn to so many things, to find what we should pray for? Why do we not say instead, in the words of the psalm: I have asked one thing from the Lord, this is what I will seek: to dwell in the Lord’s house all the days of my life, to see the graciousness of the Lord, and to visit his temple? There, the days do not come and go in succession, and the beginning of one day does not mean the end of another; all days are one, simultaneously and without end, and the life lived out in these days has itself no end.
So that we might obtain this life of happiness, he who is true life itself taught us to pray, not in many words as though speaking longer could gain us a hearing. After all, we pray to one who, as the Lord himself tells us, knows what we need before we ask for it. Continue reading
Beyond a ‘Tea and Cookies’ Dialogue With Islam by National Catholic Reporter
Beyond a ‘tea and cookies’ dialogue with Islam | National Catholic Reporter.
ROME — Given the setting of the Middle East, Christians are compelled to pursue dialogue with the vast Muslim majority; in fact, it would be virtually impossible to avoid.
Several participants at the Oct. 10-24 Synod of Bishops for the Middle East, however, seem eager to push that dialogue beyond a “tea and cookies” stage, where the point is merely being polite to one another, into blunt talk about religious freedom, democracy, and what one speaker described as “satanic plans by fundamental extremist groups” to extinguish Christianity in the region.
While it’s not clear what real impact either the local churches of the Middle East or Catholicism generally can have on those fronts, there appears to be a strong feeling in the synod that it’s time to lay things on the line.
One such call came from Archbishop Cyrille Salim Bustros, a Greek-Melkite prelate in the United States.
“On one hand and in principle, the assertion of tolerance is clear in the Koran,” Bustros said. “On the other hand, and in fact, the laws of all the Arab countries, except for Lebanon where one is allowed to change religion, threaten death to all Muslims who convert to another religion.”
Mincing no words, Bustros added, “We ask here: where can tolerance be found?”
“The first principle of all societies is the equality of all citizens before the law,” Bustros said. “The respect for the conscience of each individual is the sign of the recognition of the dignity of the human being.”
Chaldean Archbishop Thomas Meram of Iran was equally candid.
“The Christian hears every day from loudspeakers, television, newspapers and magazines that he is an infidel, and he is treated as a second-class citizen,” Meram said. Continue reading
Carmelite tells of Incense of the Heart
Image by Lawrence OP via Flickr
There are moments when the physical and the spiritual harmonize in an astounding, yet simple symphonic moment.
That just happened to me.
You see, our Chapel is connected to our convent. So yesterday evening as I was walking in from the gardens, I was met by the unmistakable fragrance of incense, in the hallway of the convent. I’ve probably had this experience a hundred times, but last night it was very moving.
Incense is a sign of our adoration of God. We use it every day in our convents during Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and Benediction. It is a sign not only of our prayers rising before Him, but the total holocaust of our lives that we offer, holding nothing back, being totally consumed in the Flames of His Love.
But I was not in a particularly sacred space. It was a hallway. Actually, there was a bathroom right by where I smelled the incense. I pass through this area countless times every day. I probably know every nook and cranny. It could not be more familiar, or mundane for that matter.
Despite all this (because of all this?) I encountered a reminder of God’s presence. He is here. Right in the midst of my everyday “stuff.” A routine I follow day in and day out. Surroundings that I know like the back of my hand. Steps I could take blindfolded. Last night I was stopped in my tracks and made to reflect, “He is here. He is always here with me.”
I smelled it with my nose as I looked around with my eyes at what I could reach out and touch and know so well. And my spirit rose up within me. Just a brief moment, but deeply profound. Again, physical and spiritual intertwined in an inseparable and graced union.
My point is not to make you jealous of the beautiful life we have in Carmel. That hallway will be bustling today with sisters headed here and there, busy about the Father’s business. It will be moped later this week and the toilets will be scrubbed. Still, daily the perfume from the altar will penetrate this space, making it holy. May this same fragrance fill your lives, your very ordinary, yet anointed, lives.
Prayer At Adoration
You, My Lord, light up my darkness. I join my voice to the bright “Hosannas” of adoring angels. With the elect of Heaven here at my side, I call upon these holy saints and angels to remember before the throne of God all who labor in Your vineyard. Make me Your monstrance that I may carry You in my heart and be Your light to all I meet today. Amen.
by Joann Nelander
Be Holy! 