I cannot take you there,
Set apart, dispensation,
Alone, where the reflection is luminescent.
A strange mysterious interior space expanding,
Transfiguration,
A Crucifixion confronted alone,
In the secret recess, the repose of every moment,
Trials and tribulations, smiles and adulation,
In merriment and love you can come along.
Through faith a pause at every instant,
Sharing with simplicity,
Blinded by humility,
Normal in fallibility,
Weak and obedient,
Genuflecting, making the sign of the Cross,
Receiving Communion within the Church,
The sacrifice of Mass,
We can be human together,
In diversity seeking divine unity,
A silent hidden trinity revealed,
Breathing, bleeding, being,
You and I and God,
Walking hand in hand,
On the edge of the sand.

Be silent.
Be still.
Alone. Empty.
Practice. Prayer.
Before God.
Transparent.
Say nothing.
Ask nothing.
Be silent.
Be still.
Be healed.
Uncomplicated.
Over time change.
Patient. Waiting.
A psychic reformation.
Divine abrasion.
Smoothed away.
Contrite. Content.
Habituation. Pain.
Emergence. Acceptance.
Transformation. Allow.
Let God observe.
That is all.
Elementary.
Enough is enough.
God knows.
God understands.
God loves.
An immense LOVE.
God wants to observe.
Knowingly present.
Through, with, and in LOVE.
Quiet.
Still.
Be.

Silence the memory,
Silence the imagination.
Silence the fantasy,
Silence the ambition,
Silence the vision,
Transform and change me in ways I do not understand,
Allow me to cherish a moment of grace,
A simple unknown sitting in awareness,
The continual exercise of prayer,
Not for pleasure,
Not for perception,
Not for reputation,
Not to be hidden,
Not for spiritual empowerment,
A harvesting of profound utilitarian riches,
The increasing of faith and charity,
The resilience of interior space shaped by you O Lord,
Lovingly forming,
Hope endowed through releasing pain,
Abrasive smoothing of erotic musings,
Possibilities and choices quieted,
Time and patience accepted,
Growth implanted,
A process continued,
The self-willed hope of things unseen dissipated,
The hope of eternity prevailing,
Wisdom attained in the surrender,
Acquiescence and passive reception,
A photograph of a childhood lived,
A black and white first communion,
Blessed with a birth sister companion,
A shared experienced unconfined,
The love of God supreme,
Silence the memory,
Silence the imagination,
Silence the fantasy,
Silence the intention,
Silence the stranger,
Awaken the friend on into a lover,

Resounding to prayer, calliopean proclamation on into the interior chamber,
Caste metal formed into a larger than life bells, matter on into harmonious transubstantiation,
Precisely timed concussions, premediated and dictated, cascading impacts striking voluminous tones,
Centered points of emanation, proceeding from an origin, sounding out to be heard,
Reverberating, going forth, ripples of sound penetrating, wave upon wave,
Repeating patterns, human endeavor, sender/receiver, in between silence, birds singing, secretly kissing and blessing,
Abounding emphatic during the time of Mass, sacred sacrifice, and the shadow of the Lamb,
In fields a far working noon day sowing, an Angelus breaks descends upon receiving,
Toiling the soil, ash from ash return to ash, oscitant in nature, neighbors smile to one another,
Waving and vibrating, wiping the multitude of sweat from the brow, the ringing portends surreptitious prayer and the hierarchy of the world,
Fading on into dissipation, the wavering intoning merges into nothingness, leaving no trail,
The uttering rope, a knot at the end, dangles lifeless in the lack of a wind, a moment no longer at hand,
Waiting, anticipating, the bell settles on into stillness, close in proximity, chanting for none to be heard, voices further the righteous glorification of God.

By Domincan Father Francis A. Gafney, OP

Lepanto marks the spot of victory,
Over crescent cruel and strong, by forces weak,
Of hallowed cross; of which, “if sign you seek,”
Tis not of man but a Divinity,
The white-robed Pius Fifth the Rosary
Uplifted like the rod of Moses, meek;
Whilst Ottoman on Christians wrath would wreak
And, as of old, engulfed them in the sea.

O Lady of the Rosary today,
Thy clients all beseech thee, hear their prayer,
And beg the Christ Who raging storms did quell,
Bid warring nations cease their bloody fray;
His power and thine honor, we declare;
O Thou All-Fair, thou joy of Israel.

Cervantes at the Battle of Lepanto