Quote of the day, 10 July: Jessica Powers

Mother fair above all mothers,
by the scapular we wear
be your own sign of salvation,
which our willing shoulders bear.
Shield us from the foes of darkness,
we are prey they seek to win.
Guard us as your loving children
from the tragedy of sin.

Virgin of the Incarnation,
In the mysteries of grace
God has made his habitation
In our soul’s most secret place.
Toward that bright and inner kingdom
All our words and ways compel,
For the Father, Son and Spirit
In its sacred silence dwell.

Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit, OCD
(Jessica Powers)

Hymn: Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel, sts. 3–4
Hymn at the Office of Readings, Solemnity of Our Lady of Mount Carmel

Saint Simon Stock, Church of Our Lady and the English Martyrs
Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P. / Flickr (Some rights reserved)

Catholic Church 1993, Proper of the Liturgy of the Hours of the Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel and the Order of Discalced Carmelites (Rev. and augm.), Institutum Carmelitanum, Rome.

#JessicaPowers #OurLadyOfMountCarmel #poetry #salvation #scapular #SrMiriamOfTheHolySpirit

Quote of the day, 31 May: Jessica Powers

The second bead: scene of the lovely journey
of Lady Mary, on whom artists confer
a blue silk gown, a day pouring out Springtime,
and birds singing and flowers bowing to her.

Rather, I see a girl upon a donkey
and her too held by what was said to mind
how the sky was or if the grass was growing.
I doubt the flowers; I doubt the road was kind.

“Love hurried forth to serve.” I read, approving.
But also see, with thoughts blown past her youth,
a girl riding upon a jolting donkey
and riding further and further into the truth.

Sr. Miriam of the Holy Spirit, O.C.D.
(Jessica Powers)

The Visitation Journey

Powers, J 1999, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: A donkey used for transportation through the sandy mountains near the Dead Sea in Israel, pictured outside an Arab village on a clear day. Image credit: Approved Photography / Adobe Stock (Asset ID#: 1270220352)

⬦ Reflection Question ⬦
Am I willing to journey with love, even when the road is rough and the truth unsettling?
⬦ Join the conversation in the comments.

#BlessedVirginMary #HolyLand #inspiration #JessicaPowers #journey #poetry #SrMiriamOfTheHolySpirit #Visitation

Quote of the day, 14 May: Jessica Powers

The soul that cries to God out of the hot heart
of contrition
is indisputably heard.
Here is the pact of love; it is triply signed
with a sure eternal seal.
Though the whimpering call creeps out from the
den of the coiled serpent
that hides from God and lies in wait for the
Virgin’s heel,
it stirs a sudden hastening out of heaven
to the place of the cry. God takes this piteous one
at its urgent word.
He bundles it into His ship, with all its holdings,
and the island of sin is left behind,
in distance blurred.
And He who redeems will use for the soul
the full extent of its cargo:
the songs, the memory’s trivia, the sweet or acid tears,
the spoils or the debt of frightening arrears.
Ingenious to save, in the end His love
will put to divine advantage
the wisdom (if wisdom could be the word) of the wasted
years.

Jessica Powers (Sr. Miriam of the Holy Spirit, ocd)

The Soul that Cries to God (1948; 1984)

The Immaculate Conception

Powers, J 1999, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: The Immaculate Conception is an oil on canvas painting executed between 1767–1769 by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (Italian, 1696–1770).  Image credit: copyright © Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado (used by permission).

⬦ Reflection Question ⬦
Have I ever experienced God bringing grace out of something I once considered wasted?
⬦ Join the conversation in the comments.

#actOfContrition #God #JessicaPowers #poetry #sin #soul #SrMiriamOfTheHolySpirit #VirginMary

Quote of the day, 10 April: Jessica Powers

I love Abraham, that old weather-beaten
unwavering nomad; when God called to him,
no tender hand wedged time into his stay.
His faith erupted him into a way
far-off and strange. How many miles are there
from Ur to Haran? Where does Canaan lie,
or slow mysterious Egypt sit and wait?
How could he think his ancient thigh would bear
nations, or how consent that Isaac die,
with never an outcry nor an anguished prayer?
I think, alas, how I manipulate
dates and decisions, pull apart the dark,
dally with doubts here and with counsel there,
take out old maps and stare.
Was there a call at all, my fears remark.
I cry out: Abraham, old nomad you,
are you my father? Come to me in pity.
Mine is a far and lonely journey too.

Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit, O.C.D. (Jessica Powers)

Abraham (1967; 1984)

Powers, J 1999, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Abraham serving the angels is an oil on oak panel painted by Rembrandt van Rijn (Dutch, 1607–1669) in 1646. In this scene from Genesis 18, Abraham welcomes three mysterious visitors who renew God’s promise of a son. Sarah, standing in the doorway at right, overhears and laughs in disbelief. Image credit: Netherlands Institute for Art History / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

⬦ Reflection Question ⬦
Where is God calling you to walk by faith today—without a map, without delay?
⬦ Join the conversation in the comments.

#Abraham #faith #JessicaPowers #journey #OldTestament #poetry #readiness #SrMiriamOfTheHolySpirit #vocation

Quote of the day, 5 April: Jessica Powers

Little One, come, I will teach you the song of distance
whereby to flee this peacelessness and din.
Turn from the earth as stranger and begin:
My soul is out on paths that have no ending
and no return. Where the noon kneels to pray
love guides my steps, ascending and descending.
Out through the sleeping solitudes I stray
O far
O far away.
Morning and evening do not mark this day. O Little One, believe that earth is alien.
Let its concerns all unremembered lie.
Say to the storm or sweetness passing by:
My soul is out on paths that have no ending
and no return. A light blurs out my way.
I am with God and toward my godhood tending.
I near the foothills of eternal day
O far
O far away.
God speaks to me. Earth has no more to say.

Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit, O.C.D. (Jessica Powers)

The Song of Distance

Powers, J 1999, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: The Hubble Space Telescope captures this image of the “Fireworks Galaxy,” Galaxy NGC 6946. Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Leroy, K.S. Long / Flickr (Some rights reserved).

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💠 Reflection question:
What earthly concern might God be inviting you to leave behind today?
Share your thoughts in the comments.

#earth #God #JessicaPowers #poetry #soul #SrMiriamOfTheHolySpirit

Quote of the day, 14 February: Jessica Powers

God is the strangest of all lovers; His ways are past explaining.
He sets His heart on a soul; He says to Himself, “Here will I rest My love.”
But He does not woo her with flowers or jewels or words that are set to music,
no names endearing, no kindled praise His heart’s direction prove.
His jealousy is an infinite thing. He stalks the soul with sorrows;
He tramples the bloom; He blots the sun that could make her vision dim.
He robs and breaks and destroys—there is nothing at last but her own shame, her own affliction,
and then He comes and there is nothing in the vast world but Him and her love of Him.

Not till the great rebellions die and her will is safe in His hands forever
does He open the door of light and His tendernesses fall,
and then for what is seen in the soul’s virgin places,
for what is heard in the heart, there is no speech at all.

God is a strange lover; the story of His love is most surprising.
There is no proud queen in her cloth of gold; over and over again
there is only, deep in the soul, a poor disheveled woman weeping…
for us who have need of a picture and words: the Magdalen.

Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit, O.C.D.
(Jessica Powers)

God is a strange lover (1947; 1984)

Powers, J 1999, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: This is a detail from The Magdalen with the Smoking Flame, an oil on canvas painting by the 17th century French master, Georges de la Tour (1593–1652). Dating to the period 1635–1637, it comes from the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Image credit: LACMA (Public domain)

#inspiration #JessicaPowers #Lover #MaryMagdalene #mysticism #poetry #spirituality #SrMiriamOfTheHolySpirit

Quote of the day, 5 January: Jessica Powers

There is a star above this street for me.

Hither I came of old,

bearing my myrrh and frankincense and gold.
Hunger and loneliness and poverty

I brought for their delight

once in my youth upon a snowy night.
I did not follow to the inmost place

where the Child lay asleep.

It was too splendid; the light dripped too deep.
I saw the tears upon the Virgin’s face.

I gave my gifts to her,

and the night ended in a golden blur.

Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit, o.c.d. (Jessica Powers)

Michigan Boulevard, Chicago (1932)

Powers, J 1999, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Adoration of the Magi is an oil on canvas painting by Spanish master Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617–1682). Executed ca. 1655–1660, this monumental painting—nearly two meters or over six feet in height—is a treasure in the Toledo Museum of Art collection in Toledo, Ohio. Image credit: Toledo Museum of Art / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

#adoration #frankincense #gold #InfantJesus #JessicaPowers #Magi #myrrh #poetry #SrMiriamOfTheHolySpirit #VirginMary

Quote of the day, 31 December: Jessica Powers

Go alone, he says, to the land of the living,
barefooted, poor,
saluting no one. On this bleak way only
are your steps secure.
Enter in by the gate humility,
his word admonishes, and there embrace
the chill and sharpness of a lonely place.
What are you, nothingness before the All,
and you cling to self as to your good
and spurn your God to keep your creaturehood.
This is the season of the soul’s undoing,
the terrible gateway into the profound,
and it is less a penitent’s renewing
than entrance, birth and difficult beginning.
Lights focus on the years of waste and sinning,
and in God’s presence shame has depths to sound.
Take off your shoes here; it is holy ground.

Yet this is earth; to reach the pure white valley
a way must burn through continents unknown.
Drive yourself forth, O love so newly born,
by blandishment or scorn.
Set out, O soul, in darkness and alone.
You are too feeble yet to bear the leaning
of any other soul, too poor to feed
the smallest mouth of humanity in its need.
It is by flight alone that you are freed.
Go forth then without speech or salutation
and make your borders peace. Admit no ill
into your emptied heart, for in aloneness
God speaks; He names His way where all is still,
and what He hollows out His mercies fill.
Earth has no calm to parallel the soothing
of wanting only the eternal Will.

How glorious, O soul, is this your journey!
Love is its end and love its plan and prod.
Set out then in the riches of your nothing.
Enter into the solitudes of God.

Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit, o.c.d. (Jessica Powers)

On Reading Saint Peter of Alcantara (1946)

Powers, J 1999, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Photographer Greg Rakozy captured this image of a man inspired by the Milky Way at Tony Grove Lake in Utah’s Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest. Image credit: grakozy / Unsplash (Stock photo)

#God #humility #JessicaPowers #love #poetry #solitude #SrMiriamOfTheHolySpirit #StPeterOfAlcantara

Advent II — Voice

SCRIPTURE
Luke 3:1–4

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,

“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
    make his paths straight.’”

READING
Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit, OCD (Jessica Powers)
Bird at Daybreak

Here is a small bird cast as John the Baptist
who from my treetops is inspired to say:
I come from heaven to prepare the way.
Now in the east approach the feet of day.

Day will reward you well, my little bird,
who make his coming such enchanting news,
who with the sweetest music I have heard
unloose the golden lachet of his shoes.

Powers, J 1999, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

All scripture references are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America as accessed from the Bible Gateway website.

Featured image: Two lighted candle grace this German Advent wreath. Image credit: Hermann Auinger / Flickr (Some rights reserved)

#Advent #bird #heaven #inspiration #JessicaPowers #Music #poetry #prepare #SrMiriamOfTheHolySpirit

Quote of the day, 23 November: Jessica Powers

Love writes surrender as its due;
but how is beauty actor?
The heart remembers wound and loss
while mind sings benefactor.

God takes by love what yields to love,
then pours a glowing allness
past the demolished walls and towers
into the spirit’s smallness.

God’s beauty, too, surrender seeks
and take in the will’s lull
whatever lets itself be changed
into the beautiful.

And so, Michelangelo
has marked it out to be,
since beauty is the purging of
all superfluity,

The yielded soul that lifts its gaze
to harms past nature’s claim
expects to have experience
of blade and file and flame.

Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit, o.c.d.
(Jessica Powers)

Beauty, Too, Seeks Surrender (1952)

Powers, J 1999, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: We see a stunning sunset over the Mediterranean at the foot of Mount Carmel in this photo by Maria Lupan on Unsplash (Stock photo)

#beauty #God #JessicaPowers #love #poetry #SrMiriamOfTheHolySpirit #surrender