Carmelite QuotesQuote of the day, 8 September: Jessica Powers
The Virgin Mary cannot enter into
my soul for an indwelling. God alone
has sealed this land as secretly His own;
but being mother and implored, she comes
to stand along my eastern sky and be
a drift of sunrise over God and me.
God is a light and genitor of light.
Yet for our weakness and our punishment
He hides Himself in midnights that prevent
all save the least awarenesses of Him.
We strain with dimmed eyes inward and perceive
no stir of what we clamored to believe.
Yet I say: God (if one may jest with God),
Your hiding has not reckoned with Our Lady
who holds my east horizon and whose glow
lights up my inner landscape, high and low.
All my soul’s acres shine and shine with her!
You are discovered, God; awake, rise
out of the dark of Your Divine surprise!
Your own reflection has revealed Your place,
for she is utter light by Your own grace.
And in her light I find You hid within me,
and in her morning I can see Your Face.
Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit, OCD (Jessica Powers)
And in Her Morning (1945; 1946)
Powers, J 1999, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, Siegfried, R & Morneau, RF (eds.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.
Featured image: Rose Window depicting ‘Eight Titles of Mary’ by Margaret Edith Aldrich Rope at St Mary’s, Bourne Street, Chelsea (1952). Image credit: Amanda Slater / Flickr (Some rights reserved)
