O Lord my God,
Make me submissive without protest,
Poor without discouragement,
Chaste without regret,
Patient without complaint,
Humble without posturing,
Cheerful without frivolity,
Mature without gloom,
And quick-witted without flippancy
Grant that I may know what You require me to do.
Bestow upon me the power to accomplish Your will,
As is necessary and fitting for the salvation of my soul.
–St Thomas Aquinas
Late have I loved you,
Beauty so ancient and so new,
Late have I loved you!
Lo, you were within,
But I outside, seeking there for you,
And upon the shapely things you have made
I rushed headlong – I, misshapen.
You were with me, but I was not with you.
They held me back far from you,
Those things which would have no being,
Were they not in you.
You called, shouted, broke through my deafness;
You flared, blazed, banished my blindness;
You lavished your fragrance,
I gasped; and now I pant for you;
I tasted you, and now I hunger and thirst;
You touched me,
And I burned for your peace.
St. Augustine
“Ask anything.” My Lord said to me.
And my mind and heart thought deeply
for a second, then replied
just one word, “When?”
God’s arms then opened up
and I entered Myself.
I entered myself
when I entered Christ.
And having learned compassion
I allowed my soul
to stay.
–St Thomas Aquinas
Applied Spiritually to Christ and the Soul.
A lone young shepherd lived in pain
withdrawn from pleasure and contentment,
his thoughts fixed on a shepherd-girl
his heart an open wound with love.
He weeps, but not from the wound of love,
there is no pain in such affliction,
even though the heart is pierced;
he weeps in knowing he’s been forgotten.
That one thought: his shining one
has forgotten him, is such great pain
that he bows to brutal handling in a foreign land,
his heart an open wound with love.
The shepherd says: I pity the one
who draws herself back from my love,
and does not seek the joy of my presence
though my heart is an open wound with love for her.
After a long time he climbed a tree,
and spread his shining arms,
and hung by them, and died,
his heart an open wound with love.
–Twenty Poems by St. John of the Cross
A PAUSE OF THOUGHT
I looked for that which is not, nor can be,
And hope deferred made my heart sick in truth:
But years must pass before a hope of youth
Is resigned utterly.
I watched and waited with a steadfast will:
And though the object seemed to flee away
That I so longed for, ever day by day
I watched and waited still.
Sometimes I said: This thing shall be no more;
My expectation wearies and shall cease;
I will resign it now and be at peace:
Yet never gave it over.
Sometimes I said: It is an empty name
I long for; to a name why should I give
The peace of all the days I have to live?—
Yet gave it all the same.
Alas, thou foolish one! alike unfit
For healthy joy and salutary pain:
Thou knowest the chase useless, and again
Turnest to follow it.
A petition, an imposition exercising efficacy.
Lord relieve the strain, release the chains, leash the dogs,
Spare the burden of self-advised spiritual superiors,
Leave in the past Bible scholars, an intricate imbroglio,
Lacking formation, demented, inwardly cruel, and perverse,
Tame the tongue of kindly advisors,
A kindness unwanted is no kindness at all,
Blind the eye of psychological incitors,
Teeth bared and barking, incisors sharp, cutting with acute severity,
Self-will run riot, destroying behind a facade, comrades at arms,
Clanging gongs, chaos presenters, remove false teachers, extract and precede,
Please hide me from those who need to surpass,
Who need an advanced reputation,
Who need desperately to be something special,
Shelter me from the desires of spiritual ambition, the proud feeding upon the meek,
Identity increased through continual insistence, exterior stench of deprivation,
Contemplatives in conversation, competitive cleverness, crafty and sly,
Anchor me in prayer, amongst the gentle, simple, and strong,
Make me a serpent and dove coalesced within one,
Attractive and accountable within filial bonds,
Hide me Lord,
Talking Heads clever in pretty persuasion, let them pass by,
Shattered community, gathering in gossiping groups, disguise me Lord,
Falling faces thinking thoughts into spiteful, bitter moments, move me beyond,
Memories usurped within destruction, spare me O Lord,
You, my Lord, the Word Incarnate know the way, Wisdom embodied,
But He passed through the midst of them and went away.
I watched a rosebud very long
Brought on by dew and sun and shower,
Waiting to see the perfect flower:
Then, when I thought it should be strong,
It opened at the matin hour
And fell at evensong.
I watched a nest from day to day,
A green nest full of pleasant shade,
Wherein three speckled eggs were laid:
But when they should have hatched in May,
The two old birds had grown afraid
Or tired, and flew away.
Then in my wrath I broke the bough
That I had tended so with care,
Hoping its scent should fill the air;
I crushed the eggs, not heeding how
Their ancient promise had been fair:
I would have vengeance now.
But the dead branch spoke from the sod,
And the eggs answered me again:
Because we failed dost thou complain?
Is thy wrath just? And what if God,
Who waiteth for thy fruits in vain,
Should also take the rod?
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