Tag Archives: vision

Listening to Love

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What are you saying, dear Lord?

You Who speak with Your poor creature.

Give voice to Your desire.

Place Your lips to my ear.

How do You speak?

Will I hear a voice?

See a vision?

Feel Your stirrings in my soul?

Will there be thunder as on Sinai

Or the breeze of Carmel?

Can I see in my blindness?

Hear, despite ears that have inclined to foreign gods?

Barnacles of perversion weigh on me.

Encrustations of sin hamper my ascent.

Give me feathers,

And wings of desire,

That I might rise, weightless and free,

Drawn by Your Love for me,

As music on the Wind of Your Spirit.

 

©2011 Joann Nelander

IF AND WHEN

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My dearest Heart,
If I but had pure vision
Of Your Holiness,
My soul would take wing,
To break the hold
And travesty accursed,
Which chains me here,
Forever, casting off,
The gravity of Sin.

Hold, before my eyes,
The Christ upon the Cross,
That Longinus beheld,
That I, too, might soar to Your Side,
And enter there that Wound,
Which You love best,
That holy invitation,
That bids me "enter here".

No accident of fate,
That sword that pierced Your Heart
But providential lance of Holy Love,
That freed, fortuitous,
The wellspring of Salvation.

The sight of Love dying,
And undying,
Crosses the divide of Heaven and Hell,
To bathe with healing,
My eyes, as Raphael did Tobit.
And causes me to say with blind Bartimaeus,
In compassionate encounter,
"Lord, that I might see."

Love bathes me, as Mother,
At the first sign of my distress,
Before my disbelief of Mercy
Could raise objection
To Your eternal Kindness.

In the sunrise of the First Morn
Of New Day,
I see You, my sweetest Heart,
Resplendent, yet still pierced.

O, my Resurrected Lord,
Promise of my victory,
I adore with Seraphic praise,
And taking wing,
I rise with Thee.

Listening to Love

by

1

What are you saying, dear Lord?

You Who speak with Your poor creature.

Give voice to Your desire.

Place Your lips to my ear.

 

How do You speak?

Will I hear a voice?

See a vision?

Feel Your stirrings in my soul?

Will there be thunder as on Sinai

Or the breeze of Carmel?

 

Can I see in my blindness?

Hear, despite ears that have inclined to foreign gods?

Barnacles of perversion weigh on me.

Encrustations of sin hamper my ascent.

 

Give me feathers,

And wings of desire,

That I might rise, weightless and free,

Drawn by Your Love for me,

As music on the Wind of Your Spirit.

 

©2011 Joann Nelander

The Vision to Zachary / Catholic Spiritual Direction

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“Fear not, Zachary, for thy prayer is heard, and thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John. And thou shalt have joy and gladness, and many shall rejoice in his birth, for he shall be great before the Lord. . . . And he shall convert many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. And he shall go before Him in the spirit and power of Elias, that he may turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the incredulous to the wisdom of the just, to prepare for the Lord a perfect people.” Luke 1:13-17

ZacharyDetailFromLievensVisitation-sm1. The story is the first distinct shadow of the great event that is to come. It is cast first upon the Temple, upon the most sacred spot of the Temple, at the most sacred time, while “all the multitude was praying without at the hour of incense,” on the most sacred person, the priest Zachary, whose lot it then was “to offer incense, going into the Temple of the Lord,” and after the most sacred manner, for “there appeared to him an Angel of the Lord, standing on the right side of the altar of incense.” Zachary saw “the Angel, was troubled, and fear fell upon him”; Mary later saw the Angel and “was troubled”; he before the Angel spoke, she after; which helps us to see the difference in their fear.

READ MORE: via Spiritualdirection.com | Catholic Spiritual Direction | The Vision to Zachary Catholic Spiritual Direction.

IF AND WHEN

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5

My dearest Heart,
If I but had pure vision
Of Your Holiness,
My soul would take wing,
To break the hold
And travesty accursed,
Which chains me here,
Forever, casting off,
The gravity of Sin.

Hold, before my eyes,
The Christ upon the Cross,
That Longinus beheld,
That I, too, might soar to Your Side,
And enter there that Wound,
Which You love best,
That holy invitation,
That bids me “enter here”.

No accident of fate,
That sword that pierced Your Heart
But providential lance of Holy Love,
That freed, fortuitous,
The wellspring of Salvation.

The sight of Love dying,
And undying,
Crosses the divide of Heaven and Hell,
To bathe with healing,
My eyes, as Raphael did Tobit.
And causes me to say with blind Bartimaeus,
In compassionate encounter,
“Lord, that I might see.”

Love bathes me, as Mother,
At the first sign of my distress,
Before my disbelief of Mercy
Could raise objection
To Your eternal Kindness.

In the sunrise of the First Morn
Of New Day,
I see You, my sweetest Heart,
Resplendent, yet still pierced.

O, my Resurrected Lord,
Promise of my victory,
I adore with Seraphic praise,
And taking wing,
I rise with Thee.