All has been consecrated.
The creatures in the forest know this,
the earth does, the seas do, the clouds know as does the heart full of
love.
Strange a priest would rob us of this knowledge
and then empower himself
with the ability
to make holy what
already was.
St. Catherine of Siena
Love Poems from God
He desired me so I came close.
No one can near God unless He has
prepared a bed for you.
A thousand souls hear His call every second,
but most every one then looks into their life’s mirror and
says, “I am not worthy to leave this sadness.”
When I first heard His courting song, I too
looked at all I had done in my life and said,
“How can I gaze into His omnipresent eyes?”
I spoke these words with all my heart,
but then He sang again a song even sweeter,
and when I tried to shame myself once more from His presence
God showed me His compassion and spoke a divine truth.
“I made you, dear, and all I make is perfect.
Please come close, for I
desire you.”
St. Teresa of Avila
Love Poems from God
If He
let go of my hand, I would
weep so loudly,
I would petition with all my might, I would cause
so much trouble
that I bet God would come to His senses
and never do that
again.
Meister Eckhart
Love Poems from God
God
and I have become
like two giant fat people living in a tiny
boat.
We
keep bumping into
each other
and laughing
Hafiz
Love Poems from God
Let God Love You the Way God Wants
I know that true joy comes from letting God love me the way God wants, whether it is through illness or health, failure or success, poverty or wealth, rejection or praise. It is hard for me to say, “I shall gratefully accept everything, Lord, that pleases you. Let your will be done.” But I know that when I truly believe my Father is pure love, it will become increasingly possible to say these words from the heart.
Charles de Foucauld once wrote a prayer of abandonment that expresses beautifully the spiritual attitude I wish I had.
Father, I abandon myself into your hands,
do with me what you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you;
I am ready for all, I accept all.
Let only your will be done in me, and in all your creatures.
I wish no more than this, O Lord.
Into your hands I commend my soul;
I offer it to you with all the love of my heart,
for I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself,
to surrender myself into your hands without reserve,
and with boundless confidence, for you are my Father.
It seems good to pray this prayer often. These are words of a holy man, and they show the way
I must go. I realize that I can never make this prayer come true by my own efforts. But the Spirit
of Jesus given to me can help me pray it and grow to its fulfillment. I know that my inner peace
depends on my willingness to make this prayer my own.
–Henri Nouwen
In you, Father all-mighty, we have our preservation and our bliss.
In you, Christ, we have our restoring and our saving.
You are our mother, brother, and Savior.
In you, our Lord the Holy Spirit, is marvelous and plenteous grace.
You are our clothing; for love you wrap us and embrace us.
You are our maker, our lover, our keeper.
Teach us to believe that by your grace all shall be well, and all shall be well,
and all manner of things shall be well. Amen.
–Julian of Norwich
Take, O Lord, and receive my entire liberty, my memory, my understanding and my whole will. All that I am and all that I possess You have given me. I surrender it all to You to be disposed of according to Your will. Give me only Your love and Your grace; with these I will be rich enough, and will desire nothing more.
–Ignatius of Loyola
My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though
I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
“The Merton Prayer” from Thoughts in Solitude Copyright © 1956, 1958 by The Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani. Used by permission of Farrar Straus Giroux.
In all the woods that day I was
the only living thing
fretful, exhausted, or unsure.
Giant fir and spruce and cedar trees
that had stood their ground
three hundred years
stretched in sunlight calmly
unimpressed by whatever
it was that held me
hunched and tense above the stream,
biting my nails, calculating all
my impossibilities.
Nor did the water pause
to reflect or enter into
my considerations.
It found its way
over and around a crowd
of rocks in easy flourishes,
in laughing evasions and
shifts in direction.
Nothing could slow it down for long.
It even made a little song
out of all the things
that got in its way,
a music against the hard edges
of whatever might interrupt its going.
-John Brehm
It’s all I have to bring today-
This, and my heart beside-
This, and my heart, and all the fields-
And all the meadows wide-
Be sure you count—should I forget
Someone the sum could tell-
This, and my heart, and all the Bees
Which in the Clover dwell.
–Emily Dickenson