Tag Archives: Religion & Spirituality

Intimacy of Prayer

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Who can fathom the intimacy of prayer?
Your eyes never leave me.
Your Heart is ever open to my sighs.
You wait, watching to catch my eye.
You watch, waiting for a return of love ,
And suffer my distraction.

You listen for my footsteps.
You long to hear my voice,
And Your Heart leaps,
When I whisper Your Name.

Who can penetrate
The devotion of Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
To this poor work of Your Hand,
Waiting, waiting, waiting,
For the final touches of Your Love?

©2013 Joann Nelander

All rights reserved

The season of Advent

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From a pastoral letter by Saint Charles Borromeo, bishop
The season of Advent

Beloved, now is the acceptable time spoken of by the Spirit, the day of salvation, peace and reconciliation: the great season of Advent. This is the time eagerly awaited by the patriarchs and prophets, the time that holy Simeon rejoiced at last to see. This is the season that the Church has always celebrated with special solemnity. We too should always observe it with faith and love, offering praise and thanksgiving to the Father for the mercy and love he has shown us in this mystery. In his infinite love for us, though we were sinners, he sent his only Son to free us from the tyranny of Satan, to summon us to heaven, to welcome us into its innermost recesses, to show us truth itself, to train us in right conduct, to plant within us the seeds of virtue, to enrich us with the treasures of his grace, and to make us children of God and heirs of eternal life.

Each year, as the Church recalls this mystery, she urges us to renew the memory of the great love God has shown us. This holy season teaches us that Christ’s coming was not only for the benefit of his contemporaries; his power has still to be communicated to us all. We shall share his power, if, through holy faith and the sacraments, we willingly accept the grace Christ earned for us, and live by that grace and in obedience to Christ.

The Church asks us to understand that Christ, who came once in the flesh, is prepared to come again. When we remove all obstacles to his presence he will come, at any hour and moment, to dwell spiritually in our hearts, bringing with him the riches of his grace.

In her concern for our salvation, our loving mother the Church uses this holy season to teach us through hymns, canticles and other forms of expression, of voice or ritual, used by the Holy Spirit. She shows us how grateful we should be for so great a blessing, and how to gain its benefit: our hearts should be as much prepared for the coming of Christ as if he were still to come into this world. The same lesson is given us for our imitation by the words and example of the holy men of the Old Testament

Via divineoffice.org

What Shall We See When the True Light Comes

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From a treatise on John by Saint Augustine, bishop
To the source you will come, the light itself you will see

We Christians are the light, at least by comparison with unbelievers. Thus the Apostle says: For once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk then as sons of the light. And elsewhere he says: The night is far spent, the day is drawing near. Let us therefore lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us walk uprightly as in the day.

Nevertheless, since the days in which we are now living are still dark compared to the light which we shall see, hear what the apostle Peter says. He speaks of a voice that came from the Supreme Glory and said to the Lord Christ: You are my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. This voice, he says, we heard coming from heaven, when we were with him on the holy mountain. Because we ourselves were not present there and did not hear the voice from heaven, Peter says to us: And we possess a more certain prophetic word to which you do well to attend, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

When, therefore, our Lord Jesus Christ shall come and, as the apostle says, bring to light things hidden in darkness and make plain the secrets of the heart, so that everyone may receive his commendation from God, then lamps will no longer be needed. When that day is at hand, the prophet will not be read to us, the book of the Apostle will not be opened, we shall not require the testimony of John, we shall have no need of the Gospel itself. Therefore all Scriptures will be taken away from us, those Scriptures which in the night of this world burned like lamps so that we might not remain in darkness.

When all these things are removed as no longer necessary for our illumination, and when the men of God by whom they were ministered to us shall themselves together with us behold the true and dear light without such aids, what shall we see? With what shall our minds be nourished? What will give joy to our gaze? Where will that gladness come from which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, which has not even been conceived by the heart of man? What shall we see?

I implore you to live with me and, by believing, to run with me; let us long for our heavenly country, let us sigh for our heavenly home, let us truly feel that here we are strangers. What shall we then see? Let the gospel tell us: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. You will come to the fountain, with whose dew you have already been sprinkled. Instead of the ray of light which was sent through slanting and winding ways into the heart of your darkness, you will see the light itself in all its purity and brightness. It is to see and experience this light that you are now being cleansed. Dearly beloved, John himself says, we are the sons of God, and it has not yet been disclosed what we shall be; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.

I feel that your spirits are being raised up with mine to the heavens above; but the body which is corruptible weighs down the soul, and this earthly tent burdens the thoughtful mind. I am about to lay aside this book, and you are soon going away, each to his own business. It has been good for us to share the common light, good to have enjoyed ourselves, good to have been glad together. When we part from one another, let us not depart from him.

Setting Sail

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Come Wind of the Spirit.
O Holiness, fill my sails
That we may traverse the oceans,
And laugh at the power of the seas.

Set my course
According to the plan of the Father,
Brought to fruition in the Son,
Who purifies the many waters.

©2013 Joann Nelander  All rights reserved

I Watched a Friend at Prayer

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I watched a friend at prayer.
From the moment her eyes
Met Yours on the Cross,
She was enraptured.

What is it that passes between like souls?
The gulf between You, God,
And Your creature is unfathomable,
Yet, Your love spans the distance and dissimilarity
With the intimacy of a mother
Suckling her infant,
All giving, all gift and all grace.

I watched my friend at prayer.
The world about her changed.
A holy space surrounded her,
As angels hurried to and fro,
Now bowing, now prostrate, now adoring.

All prayer unites,
As earth receives its Savior-God,
As Man exercises dominion,
Freed from Sin and chains.

Angels in swift flight,
Aloft on mission-wings ,
Now ascending,
Now descending.

Peace on earth
To men of good will,
As Time and Eternity kiss,
Love knowing no distance.

I watched my friend at prayer,
As her prayer became my prayer,
You drawing all to Yourself.
Draw me now,
And all will in turn
Run after the odor of Your ointments.

 ©2011 Joann Nelander

 

“The Smoke Of Satan” Homily – Jimmy Akin

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As the Church is in the news and Cardinals and bishops clash, (if reports are to be believed) here’s a bit from the thought of Pope Paul Vl reflecting on Vatican II

via The Smoke Of Satan Homily

Here’s the paragraph in which the quotation occurs, as well as the following one:

Referring to the situation of the Church today, the Holy Father

affirms that he has a sense that “from some fissure the smoke of Satan

has entered the temple of God.” There is doubt, incertitude,

problematic, disquiet, dissatisfaction, confrontation. There is no

longer trust of the Church; they trust the first profane prophet who

speaks in some journal or some social movement, and they run after him

and ask him if he has the formula of true life. And we are not alert

to the fact that we are already the owners and masters of the formula

of true life. Doubt has entered our consciences, and it entered by

windows that should have been open to the light. Science exists to

give us truths that do not separate from God, but make us seek him all

the more and celebrate him with greater intensity; instead, science

gives us criticism and doubt. Scientists are those who more

thoughtfully and more painfully exert their minds. But they end up

teaching us: “I don’t know, we don’t know, we cannot know.” The

school becomes the gymnasium of confusion and sometimes of absurd

contradictions. Progress is celebrated, only so that it can then be

demolished with revolutions that are more radical and more strange, so

as to negate everything that has been achieved, and to come away as

primitives after having so exalted the advances of the modern world.

This state of uncertainty even holds sway in the Church. There was

the belief that after the Council there would be a day of sunshine for

the history of the Church. Instead, it is the arrival of a day of

clouds, of tempest, of darkness, of research, of uncertainty. We

preach ecumenism but we constantly separate ourselves from others. We

seek to dig abysses instead of filling them in.

In the next section the subject of the devil is further expounded upon:

How has this come about? The Pope entrusts one of his thoughts to

those who are present: that there has been an intervention of an

adverse power. Its name is the devil, this mysterious being that the

Letter of St. Peter also alludes to. So many times, furthermore, in

the Gospel, on the lips of Christ himself, the mention of this enemy of

men returns. The Holy Father observes, “We believe in something that

is preternatural that has come into the world precisely to disturb, to

suffocate the fruits of the Ecumenical Council, and to impede the

Church from breaking into the hymn of joy at having renewed in fullness

its awareness of itself. Precisely for this reason, we should wish to

be able, in this moment more than ever, to exercise the function God

assigned to Peter, to strengthen the Faith of the brothers. We should

wish to communicate to you this charism of certitude that the Lord

gives to him who represents him though unworthily on this earth.”

Faith gives us certitude, security, when it is based upon the Word of

God accepted and consented to with our very own reason and with our

very own human spirit. Whoever believes with simplicity, with

humility, sense that he is on the good road, that he has an interior

testimony that strengthens him in the difficult conquest of the truth.

Read Jimmy Akins analysis here: via The Smoke Of Satan Homily.