The Tree

The Tree of Life with its bleeding branches, has cast its shadow o'er the whole world dispelling the death the devil had sown, bringing Light to all places where only darkness had been known. Its roots are in eternity, its canopy in the sky, but its Victim is its fruitfulness, upon which we must rely, for it contains the secret over death, and only Love can answer Why? “Taste and See that the Lord is good.”

Drive me further

Infect me, Lord with a maddening love for You. My heart is weeping from feasting upon all that is not You. Drive me further from myself, so that I may live with You and then with firm assurance the life I live will surely be True. Release me not, because I will never be free to go for You have created me hungry for a love I need to know.

Concupiscence

 I seek to blossom like a flower in the noonday sun, but as I do my petals are pricked by the thorns in my flesh, and so I accuse the Sun for causing me pain, when the pain I feel is rooted in my very own nature.

Come, take a peek

Clothed in Thanksgiving is the 'Bread' Everliving and no nobler crown doth such a King seek then to have those who are hungry to come take a peek. For with Him is gladness, friendship and cheer, for all those that visit and are weighed down by fear. His gentle embrace no heart will forget because its like Sacred Silence when your caught in its net which entangles the soul until it is 'Wet' as a ritual reminder of the day you both met. He offers you victory, he offers you love in the form of the One who came down from up above. He stands now to greet you and welcome you home, for each time that you visit Him, your heart will be filled to the brim.

He took His seat

In a field of wheat, He took His seat as the multitudes assembled and when they hungered for His love He gave them some to eat. He picked the kernels quietly so as to drop them to the ground for never do they taste as sweet as when from death new life they greet. This field of wheat intensely grew to satiate each heart, for every kernel picked by Christ obediently did its part. And now that life has conquered death as flour with yeast does rise, so too my friends, we must choose the Eucharist upon which to rest our eyes.

Occupying the Skies

Like an eagle occupying the skies with a splendour shared with none save for the sun, Christ proclaims: I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life and when I am lifted up from the earth I will draw all men to me.

O Love worthy of my self-abdication

O Love, worthy of my self-abdication, slow am I to give and weak am I at giving fully; grant me this treasured grace which I seek of Thee now of loving You compassionately. In Your mercy shower  upon me the delightful grief that precedes the thoughts and actions of Your saintly adorers thereby preserving them from the selfishness that inflicts grief upon the Most Benevolent of Lovers. Often I have grieved Thee being wilfully neglectful of the claims Thy unmerited clemency and charity rightly have upon my very existence and so confronted with this hazardous portfolio of self I beg Thee to accomplish within me a gratitude so strong and fresh that it would accompany my every thought, word and deed as if fulfilling the Providential role of those Blessed Angels of guidance who gleefully behold unceasingly Your all-loving face such that the weight of so many reminders of love freely bestowed would stunt in their conceptual tracks any germination of the seeds of infidelity and betrayal. Be pleased O Pleasant Heart of Love to bleed me free from a love of self that honours not the duty to love on bended knee the Will that was pleased so unselfishly to honour me even at great pains to Self. Teach me O Beautiful Beast of Burden the justice that renders its due in cruciform love. Love’s Strength and Longevity, persuade my drifting loyalty that “stolen water” is not in fact “sweeter” but rancid and stagnant causing a thirst that only blisters the tongue with selfish delight. Grant that I may not grieve nor sully the Innocence with which You love me born as it is out of the Divine Child’s playfully excitable Heart.

WE

We listen, we ignore, we bump heads, we explore,
we earn, we spend, we gather, we’d rather,
we read, we need, we want, we taunt,
we lead, we follow, we abstain, we swallow,
we dress, we dream, we watch, we scream,
we visit, we hide, we study, we side,
we invent, we prevent, we plant, we uproot,
we cook, we shower, we eat, we cower,
we feed, we shop, we heed, we stop,
we write, we compose, we sing, we repose,
we imagine, we peek, we wonder, we sneak,
we blush, we rush, we trip, we slip,
we stand, we sit, we chew, we spit,
we greet, we frown, we drift, we drown,
we lose, we lie, we question, we sigh.
Oh how we do sigh!!!

The Destruction of the Temple

The unwelcome watchman, the imprisoned prophet, the ruin ready hearers hiding behind their collaborative smiles as a state of emergency invisibly descends cloaking their tomorrow with today’s solemn rejections. As they are carried off a slight echo can be heard… "the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord."

unfurled

Charting a well worn course through childhood dreams of… "maybe someday”,
living for a moment a selfie cannot procure or imagine, seeking a eureka to make my own while others stare and applaud, growing with the years accompanied by all these hand me down kind of fears, hoping to endure a gift that far outreaches my covetous grasp, running from a memory that I’ll never outlive. Dying slowly yet quickly like autumn leaves in gale force winds that gently let go ending up where only the letting go knows where.

We

We cry, we crawl, we stumble, we walk,
we take, we talk, we bite, we fight,
we give, we learn, we play, we betray,
we work, we love, we regret, we beget,
we retrace our steps,
we repeat our past,
we linger in desolation and wonder: how long will it last,
we search, we despair, we give up, we don’t care,
we know, we see, we see not what we know and we know not what we see,
we get sick, we get scared, we pray, we die.
We hope in the end that our hope is not the end.

O Eternal Word, Your gift for the life of the world is radiantly chaste, filled with silent splendour and hidden grace, grant us the eyes to behold in the Mass what is hidden from the wise and the learned so that as we approach our capacity to cherish Your sacramental sweetness may be our tongue’s sole delight.

A prayer

Eternal Word, whose flesh we now adore in the mystery of the Mass teach us by our sacramental sharing how to take up daily our cross and witness to Your Divine Presence here such that others are won over to join us in act of gratitude commanded by You not so much for Your sake as it is for our growth in undying love.

Witnessing in Blood

O God, You are the Supreme Joy and the ecstatic delight of those precious brothers and sisters whose witness through blood has gained for us the confidence that those who share in Christ the sorrows of Your will shall attain to the highest realms of merit that Your Love visits upon the fidelity born of victimhood.

Gracious Father, loyal and forgiving, You who have willed to wed chosen souls to the power and Person of Your Son for the spread of the Holy Gospel and the Sacramental manifestation of the Sacrifice of the Cross, grant to those Anointed Ones of Your choosing the grace of boredom as regards the profane and unceasing fervour in the service of those realities before which the Angels tippy toe out of reverence.

Creator God, who has willed to be seen in the exquisite beauty and order of a universe teeming with mystery, marvel and wonders galore, grant that the creatures who bear Your image and likeness may manifest in their manner of living that same beauty and order that the material world exemplifies so that amongst themselves man may give his fellow man a living witness of the praises that earth would give had it but a tongue with which to sing.

Worship is a command because love must learn Truth through the beauty of obedience which is none other than the freedom to say in response to Love’s offer: I do, I will, always.