Fenelon ~

I beg you not to listen to the self. Self-love whispers in one ear and the love of God in the other. Self-love is always worthless, aggressive, grasping, and impulsive. But the love of God is so different. It is simple, peaceful, and speaks but a few words in a mild and gentle voice. And the moment we decide to start listening to the voice of self screeching its complaints in our ear, we can no longer hear the more modest whisperings of divine love. You can always tell when the self is speaking. Self always wants to entertain itself and never feels sufficiently well attended to. It talks of friendship, regard, esteem, and does not wish to hear anything that is not flattering. The love of God, on the other hand, desires that self should be forgotten, that it should be counted as nothing, that God might be all in all. God knows that is best for us when self is trampled under foot and broken as an idol, in order that He might live within us, and make us after His will. So let that vain, complaining babbler-- self love-- be silenced, that in the stillness of the soul we may listen to God.

Uplifted is the stone

Uplifted is the stone --
And all mankind is risen --
We all remain thine own.
And vanished is our prison.
All troubles flee away
Thy golden bowl before,
For Earth and Life give way
At the last and final supper.

To the marriage Death doth call --
The virgins standeth back --
The lamps burn lustrous all --
Of oil there is no lack --
If the distance would only fill
With the sound of you walking alone
And that the stars would call
Us all with human tongues and tone.

Unto thee, O Mary
A thousand hearts aspire.
In this life of shadows
Thee only they desire.
In thee they hope for delivery
With visionary expectation --
If only thou, O holy being
Could clasp them to thy breast.

With bitter torment burning,
So many who are consumed
At last from this world turning
To thee have looked and fled,
Helpful thou hast appeared
To so many in pain.
Now to them we come,
To never go out again.

At no grave can weep
Any who love and pray.
The gift of Love they keep,
From none can it be taken away.
To soothe and quiet his longing,
Night comes and inspires --
Heaven's children round him thronging
Watch and guard his heart.

Have courage, for life is striding
To endless life along;
Stretched by inner fire,
Our sense becomes transfigured.
One day the stars above
Shall flow in golden wine,
We will enjoy it all,
And as stars we will shine.

The love is given freely,
And Separation is no more.
The whole life heaves and surges
Like a sea without a shore.
Just one night of bliss --
One everlasting poem --
And the sun we all share
Is the face of God.

~Novalis (1772-1801)

A Song of Light

O I would be as clear as air

And I would be as water clear

That lovely light may shine through me

On shadowed ignorance and fear.

How can I think? how can I hope,

How can I dream that this may be,

I who am dull within the flesh

And clouded with mortality?

How can I dare to ask at all,

Who knows such glory burns away

Through doubt, and terror, and doom, and tears

Into the everlasting day?

O strong Eternal Light because

I love the radiance that I fear,

Let me become as clear as air

And let me be like water clear.

~Marguerite Wilkinson

An Hymn

Drop, drop slow tears,

And bathe those beauteous feet

Which brought from heav'n

The news and prince of peace.

Cease not, wet eyes,

His mercies to entreat;

To cry for vengeance

Sin doth never cease;

In your deep floods

Drown all my faults and fears,

Nor let his eye

See sin but through my tears.

~ Phineas Fletcher

How Many Heavens ~

How Many Heavens ...

The emeralds are singing on the grasses

And in the trees the bells of the long cold are ringing, --

My blood seems changed to emeralds like the spears

Of grass beneath the earth piercing and singing.

The flame of the first blade

Is an angel piercing through the earth to sing

"God is everything!

The grass within the grass, the angel in the angel, flame

Within the flame, and He is the green shade that came

To be the heart of shade."

The grey-beard angel of the stone,

Who has grown wise with age, cried "Not alone

Am I within my silence"... then, above the glade

The yellow straws of light

Whereof the sun has built his nest, cry "Bright

Is the world, the yellow straw

My brother, -- God is the straw within the straw: -- All

things are Light."

He is the sea of ripeness and the sweet apple's emerald lore.

So you my flame of grass, my root of the world from

which all Spring shall grow,

Or you, my hawthorn bough of the stars, now leaning low

Through the day, for your flowers to kiss my lips,

shall know

He is the core of the heart of love, and He, beyond

labouring seas, our ultimate shore.

~Dame Edith Sitwell

Lines for a Drawing of Our Lady of the Night ~

This could I paint my inward sight,

This were Our Lady of the Night;

She bears on her front's lucency

The starlight of her purity:

For as the white rays of that star

The union of all colours are,

She sums all the virtues that may be

In her sweet light of purity.

The mantle which she holds on high

Is the great mantle of the sky.

Think O sick toiler, when the night

Comes on thee, sad and infinite,

Think sometimes 'tis our own Lady

Spreads her blue mantle over thee,

And folds the earth a wearied thing,

Beneath its gentle shadowing;

Then rest a little; and in sleep

Forget to weep! Forget to weep!

~Francis Thompson

Mary's Girlhood

I
This is that blessed Mary, pre-elect
God's Virgin. Gone is a great while, and she
Dwelt young in Nazareth of Galilee.
Unto God's will she brought devout respect,
Profound simplicity of intellect,
And supreme patience. From her mother's knee
Faithful and hopeful; wise in charity;
Strong in grave peace; in pity circumspect.
So held she through her girlhood; as it were
An angel-watered lily, that near God
Grows and is quiet. Till, one dawn at home
She woke in her white bed, and had no fear
At all, - yet wept till sunshine, and felt awed:
Because the fulness of the time was come.

II
These are the symbols. On that cloth of red
I' the centre is the Tripoint: perfect each,
Except the second of its points, to teach
That Christ is not yet born. The books - whose head
Is golden Charity, as Paul hath said -
Those virtues are wherein the soul is rich:
Therefore on them the lily standeth, which
Is Innocence, being interpreted.

The seven-thorn'd briar and the palm seven-leaved
Are her great sorrow and her great reward.
Until the end be full, the Holy One
Abides without. She soon shall have achieved
Her perfect purity: yea, God the Lord
Shall soon vouchsafe His Son to be her Son.

art and poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)

Wild Blossoms

No lilies all for milk,

Nor roses rich in blood,

Can settle my best thoughts

to browse in solitude.

But where the primrose grows,

Primrose and violet

In their first, happy state

No mortal hand has set.

Where these wild blossoms grow

All in the grass and moss--

I'll raise my hand, O Lord

With a sign of the Cross.

~W. H. Davies

Quiet Way

It was a quiet way --

He asked if I was his --
I made no answer of the Tongue
But answer of the Eyes --
And then He bore me on
Before this mortal noise
With swiftness, as of Chariots
And distance, as of Wheels.
This World did drop away
As Acres from the feet
Of one that leaneth from Balloon
Upon an Ether street.
The Gulf behind was not,
The Continents were new --
Eternity it was before
Eternity was due.
No Seasons were to us --
It was not Night nor Morn --
But Sunrise stopped upon the place
And fastened it in Dawn.

~Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

For Our Lady of the Rocks

Mother, is this the darkness of the end,
The Shadow of Death? and is that outer sea
Infinite imminent Eternity?
And does the death-pang by man's seed sustained
In Time's each instant cause thy face to bend
Its silent prayer upon the Son, while He
Blesses the dead with His hand silently
To His long day which hours no more offend?

Mother of grace, the pass is difficult,
Keen are these rocks, and the bewildered souls
Throng it like echoes, blindly shuddering through.
Thy name, O Lord, each spirit's voice extols,
Whose peace abides in the dark avenue
Amid the bitterness of things occult.

~ Dante Gabriel Rossetti

art, Leonardo Da Vinci

Annunciation

(Words of the Angel)

You are not nearer to God than we,

and we are far at best,

yet through your hands most wonderfully

his glory's manifest.

From woman's sleeves none ever grew

so ripe, so shimmeringly;

I am the day, I am the dew,

you, Lady, are the Tree.

Pardon, now my long journey's done,

I had forgot to say

what he who sat as in the sun,

grand in his gold array,

told me to tell you, pensive one

(space has bewildered me).

I, the beginner, have begun,

you, Lady, are the Tree.

I spread my wings out wide and rose,

the space around grew less;

your little house quite overflows

with my abundant dress.

But still you keep your solitude

and hardly notice me;

I'm but a breeze within the wood,

you, Lady, are the Tree.

The angels tremble in their choir,

grow pale, and separate:

never were longing and desire

so vague and yet so great.

Something perhaps is going to be

that you perceived in dream.

Hail to you! for my soul can see

that you are ripe and teem.

You lofty gate, that any day

may open for our good:

your ear my longing songs assay,

my word- I know now- lost its way

in you as in a wood.

And thus your last dream was designed

to be fulfilled by me.

God looked at me: he made me blind...

You, lady, are the Tree.

~Rainer Maria Rilke

(trans by JB Leishman)

featured art-- Domenico Beccafumi

Growing ~

Lilies in a stained glass window

are beautiful,

so are saints.

The light shines through them

and they glow.

They have about them a serene perfection

like eternity's.

Lord, I don't want to be a flower in a

stained glass window,

or even a saint,

Lord let my flowering be

more like a daisy's

or even a dandelion 's

growing in a dusty field,

but growing...

~ J D Freeman

There is a Brokenness

There is a brokenness

out of which comes the unbroken,

a shatteredness out

of which blooms the unshatterable.

There is a sorrow

beyond all grief which leads to joy

and a fragility

out of whose depths emerges strength.

There is a hollow space

too vast for words

through which we pass with each loss,

out of whose darkness

we are sanctioned into being.

There is a cry deeper than all sound

whose serrated edges cut the heart

as we break open

to the place inside which is unbreakable

and whole,

while learning to sing.

~Rashani

Worship ~

All beauty seems regathered and reborn

Thou art that rose whose garden is the morn,
The pearl whose beauty haunts the dreamland sea,
And that romance whose immortality
Endures our dreary planet but in scorn;
For thee the lyres of Eden wait forlorn
Ere yet thy coming set their music free.

In what sincerity can I defend
Mine art's insistence of thy loveliness,
Tho' such be but the mortal shadow thrown
By soul on flesh! Before its light I bend
As one who holds his kindred none the less,
Yet who has worship for one face alone.

~ George Sterling, (1869-1926)

The Mind Can Never Understand

The mind can never understand how Love,

By Love sees all the way to the Beloved's depths,

Sees how freely Love lives in everything.

When your soul has come to this freedom

You will no longer fear life or death.

Your soul wants the whole of Love,

And nothing else.

~Hadewijch (1250-?)

Star of the Sea

Cover Me with the Night

Come Lord,

and cover me with the night.

Spread your grace over us

as you assured us you would.

Your promises are more than

all the stars in the sky;

your mercy is deeper than the night.

Lord, it will be cold.

The night comes with its breath of death.

Night comes; the end comes; you come.

Lord we will wait for you

day and night.

Dance

I cannot dance, O Lord,

Unless You lead me.

If You wish me to leap joyfully, 

First You must dance and sing--

Then I will leap into Love--

And from Love into Knowledge,

And from Knowledge into Fulfillment,

A harvest of sweet fulfillment beyond human sense.

There I will stay with You, circling

and circling

forevermore.

~Mechthild of Magdeburg (1212-1282)