A Prayer ~

Holy Spirit of God, visit now this soul of mine,

and tarry within it until the eventide.

Inspire all my thoughts.

Pervade all my imaginations.

Suggest all my decisions.

Lodge in my soul's most inward citadel, and order all my doings.

Be with me in silence and in my speech, in my haste and in my leisure,

in company and in solitude, in the freshness of the morning

and the weariness of the evening.

Give me grace at all times to rejoice in

Thy mysterious companionship.

~ John Baillie

into great silence clip

My Hope.

Though in a foreign land I dwell afar,

I taste in dreams the endless joys of heaven.

Fain would I fly beyond the farthest star,

And see the wonders to the ransomed given!

No more the sense of exile weighs on me,

When once I dream of that immortal day.

To my true fatherland, dear God! I see,

For the first time I soon shall fly away.

Ah! give me, Jesus! wings as white as snow,

That unto Thee I soon may take my flight.

I long to be where flowers unfading blow;

I long to see Thee, O my heart's Delight!

I long to fly to Mary's mother arms,

To rest upon that spotless throne of bliss;

And, sheltered there from troubles and alarms,

For the first time to feel her gentle kiss.

Thy first sweet smile of welcoming delight

Soon show, O Jesus! to Thy lowly bride;

O'ercome with rapture at that wondrous sight,

Within Thy Sacred Heart, ah! let me hide.

O happy moment! and O heavenly grace!

When I shall hear Thee, Jesus, speak to me;

And the full vision of Thy glorious Face

For the first time my longing eyes shall see.

Thou knowest well, my only martyrdom

Is love, O Heart of Jesus Christ! for Thee;

And if my soul craves for its heavenly home,

'Tis but to love Thee more, eternally.

Above, when Thy sweet Face unveiled I view,

Measure nor bounds shall to my love be given;

Forever my delight shall seem as new

As the first time my spirit entered heaven.

~ St Therese of Lisieux

Beloved

My beloved is mine: and I am his. ~ Cant. 2:16.

I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine. ~ Cant. 5:8.

Long did I toil, and knew no earthly rest;

Far did I rove, and found no certain home:

At last I sought them in His sheltering breast,

Who opes His arms and bids the weary come.

With Him I found a home, a rest divine;

And I since then am His, and He is mine.

Yes, He is mine! and naught of earthly things -

Not all the charms of pleasure, wealth, or power,

The fame of heroes, or the pomp of kings—?

Could tempt me to forego His love an hour.

Go, worthless world, I cry, with all that's thine!

Go! I my Savior's am, and He is mine.

The good I have is from His store supplied;

The ill is only what He deems the best:

He for my Friend, I'm rich with naught beside;

And poor without Him, though of all possessed.

Changes may come—I take or I resign -

Content to know I'm His, and He is mine.

Whate'er may change, in Him no change is seen!

A glorious Sun that wanes not nor declines;

Above the clouds and storms He walks serene,

And sweetly on His people's darkness shines.

All may depart—I fret not nor repine,

I know that I am His, that He is mine.

He stays me falling; lifts me up when down;

Reclaims me wandering; guards from every foe

Plants on my worthless brow the victor's crown,

Which, in return, before His feet I throw:

Grieved that I cannot better grace His shrine,

Who deigns to own me His, as He is mine.

While here, alas! I know but half His love,

But half discern Him, and but half adore;

But when I meet Him in the realms above,

I then shall love Him better, praise Him more ?

And feel, and tell, amid the choir divine,

How fully I am His, and He is mine!

A New Identity

A New Identity and a New Mode of Action

Christ living in me is at the same time himself and myself. From the moment that I am united to him "in one spirit" there is no longer any contradiction implied by the fact that we are different persons. He remains, naturally and physically, the Son of God who was born of the blessed Virgin in Nazareth, who went about doing good, and who died on the Cross, two thousand years ago. I remain the singular person that I am. But mystically and spiritually Christ lives in me from the moment that I am united to him in his death and resurrection...

This union is not merely a moral union, or an agreement of wills, nor merely a psychological union that flows from the fact that I keep him in my thoughts. Christ mystically identifies his members with himself by giving them his Holy Spirit...

"I came," said Jesus, "that they may have life" (John 10:10). The life he came to bring us is his own life as Son of God. And because of his resurrection he received the power to communicate to us all his Spirit as the principle of our own life and the life of our own spirit. The uncreated Image, buried and concealed by sin in the depths of our souls, rises from death when, sending forth his Spirit into our spirit, he manifests his presence within us and becomes for us the source of a new life, a new identity and a new mode of action.

~Thomas Merton

~fine art, W Hunt, "Light of the World"

Secrets of the Soul

“We know only that we are living in these bodies and have a vague idea, because we have heard it, and because our faith tells us so, that we possess souls. As to what good qualities there may be in our souls, or who dwells within them, or how precious they are, those are things which seldom consider and so we trouble little about carefully preserving the soul's beauty.”

“Each of us has a soul, but we forget to value it. We don’t remember that we are creatures made in the image of God. We don’t understand the great secrets hidden inside of us.”

"Let us see life as it really is...
It is a moment between two eternities..."

~ St. Therese