JMJT! Praise be Jesus Christ! Now and Forever!
Happy Advent season! We all are familiar with the million contradictions that exist in our age between the silence and sense of wonder and waiting that is necessary to prepare our hearts for the birth of Christ during these four short weeks of Advent, and our current culture. With a spirit of intentionaliy and 'determined determination', we are invited to move beyond how difficult it can be, and do what is necessary to make this pregnant space within our hearts, minds, and souls happen. In modern lingo, one could say, 'Just do it.'
That means feeding ourselves with beauty and silence even if it we find ourselves with just a few minutes between activities and people that require our attention. The 20th century poet, Jessica Powers, otherwise known as Carmelite Sr. Miriam of the Holy Spirit is an excellent way to begin. She wrote an entire series of Advent poems known as Journey to Bethlehem. She also wrote many other poems that speak of seeking the Kingdom of God within, and creating our own cave of Bethlehem where the Christ Child can lay his head. Perhaps we can carry these around with us or bring them to Adoration. They will feed and soothe our souls and remind us of higher realities. Her inspired and gold-tongued words will expand our hearts to seek and remember our First Love amidst the hustle-bustle of this new liturgical season- to capture the excitement of Christ in our hearts and keep Him nestled within as Our Lady did.
In Mary-Darkness
by Jessica Powers
I live my Advent in the womb of Mary
And on one night when a great star swings free
From its high mooring and walks down the sky
To be the dot above the Christus i,
I shall be born of her by blessed grace.
I wait in Mary-darkness, faith’s walled place,
With hope’s expectance of nativity.
I knew for long she carried me and fed me,
Guarded and loved me, though I could not see,
But only now, with inward jubilee,
I come upon earth’s most amazing knowledge:
Someone is hidden in this dark with me.
Source: “In Mary-Darkness” from The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers,edited by Regina Siegfried, ASC, and Robert F. Morneau. Kansas City, MO: Sheed & Ward, 1989.
Mosaic of the Journey to Bethlehem (1315-1320)Church of the Holy Spirit, Chora, Turkey
The Ledge of Light
by Jessica Powers
I have climbed up out of a narrow darkness
on to a ledge of light.
I am of God; I was not made for night.
Here there is room to lift my arms and sing.
Oh, God is vast! With Him all space can come
to hole or corner or cubiculum.
Though once I prayed, “O closed Hand holding me…”
I know Love, not a vise. I see aright,
set free in morning on this ledge of light.
Yet not all truth I see. Since I am not
yet one of God’s partakers,
I visualize Him now: a thousand acres.
God is a thousand acres to me now
of high sweet-smelling April and the flow
of windy light across a wide plateau.
Ah, but when love grows unitive I know
joy will upsoar, my heart sing, far more free,
having come home to God’s infinity.
Source: “The Ledge of Light” from The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers,
edited by Regina Siegfried and Robert F. Morneau. Kansas City, MO: Sheed &
Ward, 1989.
THE POOL OF GODThere was nothing in the Virgin’s soul
that belonged to the Virgin–
no word, no thought, no image, no intent.
She was a pure, transparent pool reflecting
God, only God.
She held His burnished day; she held His night
of planet-glow or shade inscrutable.
God was her sky and she who mirrored Him
became His firmament.
When I so much as turn my thoughts toward her
my spirit is enisled in her repose.
And when I gaze into her selfless depths
an anguish in me grows
to hold such blueness and to hold such fire.
I pray to hollow out my earth and be
filled with these waters of transparency.
I think that one could die of this desire,
seeing oneself dry earth or stubborn sod.
Oh, to become a pure soul like the Virgin,
water that lost the semblances of water,
and was a sky like God.
~Jessica Powers
Prayer: A Progression
by Jessica Powers
You came by night, harsh with the need of grace,
into the dubious presence of your Maker.
You combed a small and pre-elected acre
for some bright word of Him, or any trace.
Past the great judgment growths of thistle and thorn
and past the thicket of self you bore your yearning
till lo, you saw a pure white blossom burning
in glimmer, then, light, then unimpeded more!
Now the flower God-is-love gives ceaseless glow;
now all your thoughts feast on its mystery,
but when love mounts through knowledge and goes free,
then will the sated thinker arise and go
and brave the deserts of the soul to give
the flower he found to the contemplative.
Source: “Prayer: A Progression” from The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, edited by Regina Siegfried, ASC, and Robert F. Morneau. Kansas City, MO
