aeternus

A wonderful woman, who is a true and loving Secular Carmelite sent me this beautiful poem which I would like to share today. I am sure Our Lady was watching over her in a special way yesterday on her feast day…

Soon I’ll hear that sweet harmony,
Soon I’ll go to beautiful heaven to see you.
You who came to smile at me in the morning of my life,
Come smile at me again, Mother …
It’s evening now! ….
I no longer fear the splendor of your supreme glory.
With you I’ve suffered, and now I want
To sing on your lap, Mary, why I love you,
And to go on saying that I am your child !…..

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Happy Feast Day!

I pray today many souls will be open to the invitation of protection and maternal love promised by Our Lady of Mt. Carmel to those who wear her garment of grace, the most holy scapular!

A quick note:

Last evening, at the novena, I was so fortunate and so completely blessed to receive a new scapular from some new friends. I have a special devotion to St. Terese of the Andes and met a wonderful married couple from Chile. We spoke at length about what a great feast happens in their county during the feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel (July 16) and St. Teresa of the Andes (July 13). They said it is a National Holiday! WOW! They brought me a special scapular from Chile and on it is a photograph of dear St. Teresa of the Andes. Oh, I will treasure this gift. THANK YOU!!! You can see a celebratory video of her life here. I think it is called “Vivo solo para dios” which I believe is “live for God alone!” and it is from the Carmelite Missionaries (Carmelitas Misioneras) in Chile.

The photo above was taken last evening at the Novena. Here is a wonderful poem I found to celebrate the day…

BY this blest badge we wear, O holy Mother!
This token of thy love,
Look down on us with eyes of tenderest pity
From thy bright home above —

Thou who didst tread the Via Dolorosa
Through sorrow’s bitterest gloom,
Thou who didst stand beside the Cross in anguish,
Didst mourn beside the tomb;

Thou whose pure heart wast torn with grief whose
tortures
No mortal tongue may tell,
When died thy Son, our merciful Redeemer,
For those he loved so well.

Then, when our sins thy loving heart were breaking,
He gave us unto thee,
That thou our Mother and our Mediatrix
For evermore should be.

And thou hast proved a loving Mother to us,
Blessed Queen of love and light,
Who hast bestowed upon us this most glorious
Badge of the Carmelite —

Gift of thy love unto that chosen servant
Whose heart, wiih love aflame,
Sought daily with undying zeal to honor
Thy pure and holy name.

A boon he craved, a gift from thee, dear Mother
A token from thy hand,
Whose power would fan the flame of praise and
worship
To splendor clear and grand.

And thou didst hear his prayer — this badge thy
answer.
What rapturous surprise
Flooded his soul when from the opened heavens,
To glad his loving eyes,

Thou earnest to earth, the Infant Saviour bearing
Upon thy spotless breast,
And to thy sainted servant gave this armor
And shield for souls oppressed.

Mount Carmel’s caves, within whose shadows lonely
God’s priests and prophets prayed,
Thrilled to the music which uncounted angels
Singing around thee made.

And thence for evermore sweet strains of comfort,
Thy words of promise, flow —
Words which have fallen with a balm of healing
On many a wound of woe.

O dear, dear Mother ! through each passing moment
Look from thy home above,
And shield from tempting wiles the thousands
wearing
This livery of thy love.

Pray for thy children found in every station,
Peasant or prince or peer,
Merchant or soldier, or the rugged sailor
Whose stout heart knows no fear.

But oh ! all blessings choicest still and rarest
Flow round their hearts to-day
Who for Christ’s sake leave home and friends and
kindred,
To tread the ” narrow way ” ;

Whose every aim in life is consecrated
To God, and God alone ;
Whose prayers, a grand, perpetual adoration,
Like incense seek his throne.

Win them, sweet Mother, faith’s celestial guerdon,
To each give strengthening grace,
And let the influence of their lives heroic
Be felt in every place.

–By Marcella Agnes Fitzgerald
Poems, Published 1886 by The Catholic Publication Society, New York

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AND hast thou left us, Sister, Mother, Wife,
Without a message or a brief farewell;
With work unfinish’d, with thy days untold,
With all thy redden’d fruitage hanging ripe I
Art thou so weary of the dusty road,
That though th’ allotted span is out of sight,
Thou needs must lie beside the way to sleep ?
I would not grudge thee, dear, to rest, but 0,
My heart is pierced to know that rest for aye!
I cannot lose thee, Sister; thou hast been
My refuge, staff, and comfort through rough ways,
When clouds and darkness swept across the stars,
And all my reckoning in thick gloom was lost.
We cannot lose thee, Mother. Who will lead
Thy children upward on the heavenly way;
Lead gently, firmly, with that guiding hand
Which moulds with wisdom, softens still with love I
Who shall inform thy sons with knightly mind,
Observance to all women, tenderness
With weak and fragile things—the patient strength
Of manhood? Who thy daughters hourly tend
With influence, refinement, knowledge, grace;

Till every natural gift perfected shine
With added culture, crown’d with woman’s crown
Of strength and meekness, framed with loving heart,
And pure religious earnestness of will ?
O, how to lose thee, loyal, loving Wife !
Or who shall gauge the loss of wedded love
Which thou, above all women I have known,
Distill’d from thy great heart in flowing streams !
Thy husband was thy lord, thy law, thy life;
To serve him was thy honour, thy best joy,
His will unspoken, spoken, still fulfill’d,
And all thy aim to bear the larger load.
Well may he praise thee, wifely, noble heart;
Thy children bless thee, Mother!
Yellow leaves
Are falling through the rain as thus I bid
Thy calm white face farewell. Again I tread
Life’s narrow road, and miss thee to the end.

– From: The three kings, and other poems By Emily Bowles

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As we are getting ready for Pentecost, I remembered to dig out one of my favorite poems from a dear Carmelite, St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. It was a poem that was never completed and one of her last writings before she was taken off to Auschwitz and killed during  August of 1942. The manuscript itself remains in the Carmel in Echt and was probably written in the Summertime of 1942.

By St. Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)

Who are you, sweet light, that fills me
And illumines the darkness of my heart?
You lead me like a mother’s hand,
And should you let go of me,
I would not know how to take another step.
You are the space
That embraces my being and buries it in yourself.
Away from you it sinks into the abyss
Of nothingness, from which you raised it to the light.
You, nearer to me than I to myself
And more interior than my most interior
And still impalpable and intangible
And beyond any name:
Holy Spirit eternal love!

Are you not the sweet manna
That from the Son’s heart
Overflows into my heart,
The food of angels and the blessed?
He who raised himself from death to life,
He has also awakened me to new life
From the sleep of death.
And he gives me new life from day to day,
And at some time his fullness is to stream through me,
Life of your life indeed, you yourself:
Holy Spirit eternal life!

Are you the ray
That flashes down from the eternal Judge’s throne
And breaks into the night of the soul
That had never known itself?
Mercifully relentlessly
It penetrates hidden folds.
Alarmed at seeing itself,
The self makes space for holy fear,
The beginning of that wisdom
That comes from on high
And anchors us firmly in the heights,
Your action,
That creates us anew:
Holy Spirit ray that penetrates everything!

Are you the spirit’s fullness and the power
By which the Lamb releases the seal
Of God’s eternal decree?
Driven by you
The messengers of judgment ride through the world
And separate with a sharp sword
The kingdom of light from the kingdom of night.
Then heaven becomes new and new the earth,
And all finds its proper place
Through your breath:
Holy Spirit victorious power!

Are you the master who builds the eternal cathedral,
Which towers from the earth through the heavens?
Animated by you, the columns are raised high
And stand immovably firm.
Marked with the eternal name of God,
They stretch up to the light,
Bearing the dome,
Which crowns the holy cathedral,
Your work that encircles the world:
Holy Spirit God’s molding hand!

Are you the one who created the unclouded mirror
Next to the Almighty’s throne,
Like a crystal sea,
In which Divinity lovingly looks at itself?
You bend over the fairest work of your creation,
And radiantly your own gaze
Is illumined in return.
And of all creatures the pure beauty
Is joined in one in the dear form
Of the Virgin, your immaculate bride:
Holy Spirit Creator of all!

Are you the sweet song of love
And of holy awe
That eternally resounds around the triune throne,
That weds in itself the clear chimes of each and every being?
The harmony,
That joins together the members to the Head,
In which each one
Finds the mysterious meaning of his being blessed
And joyously surges forth,
Freely dissolved in your surging:
Holy Spirit eternal jubilation!

image above: Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry, Folio 79r - Pentecost the Musée Condé, Chantilly.

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There is a homelessness, never to be clearly defined.
It is more than having no place of one’s own,
no bed or chair.
It is more than walking in a waste of wind,
or gleaning the crumbs where someone else has dined,
or taking a coin for food or clothes to wear.
The loan of things and the denial of things are possible to bear.

It is more, even than homelessness of heart,
of being always a stranger at love’s side,
of creeping up to a door only to start
at a shrill voice and to plunge back to the wide
dark of one’s own obscurity and hide.

it is the homelessness of the soul in the body sown;
it is the loneliness of mystery:
of seeing oneself a leaf, inexplicable and unknown,
cast from an unimaginable tree;
of knowing one’s life to be a brief wind blown
down a fissure of time in the rock of eternity.
The artist weeps to wrench this grief from stone;
he pushes his hands through the tangled vines of music,
but he cannot set it free.

It is the pain of the mystic suddenly thrown
back from the noon of God to the night of his own humanity.
It is his grief; it is the grief of all those praying
in finite words to an Infinity
Whom, if they saw, they could not comprehend;
Whom they cannot see.

– Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit, OCD (Jessica Powers) Carmel of the Mother of God, Pewaukee, WI

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Christmas seems to continue along into the new year and we were blessed to take a family trip up to Iowa to visit with very special folks who we consider to be adopted family. In fact, if it was not for these wonderful souls my husband and I would never have met so many years ago.

It was interesting to be in Iowa among the beauty of recent snow. The children were so happy to go for sled rides that they did not notice the pungent smells of the heartland farms which seems to permeate the air even during the crisp and frozen conditions around us. (O.K.  So maybe the smells did bother Mom’s nose a bit, but I am thankful for them for we had a delicious ham dinner that night!)

In Iowa it is the time for the first “caucus” in the U.S.  The Presidential elections spurred much fan fare despite the holidays and the telephone kept ringing every couple of minutes with another invitation to “meet so and so” at some political rally or other. I am not one for the whole hullabaloo of political life so this was a bit nutty to me. However, my daughter (age 7) decided to make her own “caucus” and she made a great and intricate drawing of names, lines and stars to indicate who was doing well in the polls. In the end, even though I received a few last minute stars, I still came in second to the dog. So it is Obi who won the family caucus of Iowa poll! Somebody call CNN!

The trip home to St. Louis was filled with a bit of excitement as the snow caused a big fog. This fog had continued for a great many days and the condensation upon all the tree branches re-crystalized to form some spectacular scenery. We took a bit of a detour (bless my husband for his patience to do this and so to satisfy my photo adventure spirit) and had a great time spying all God’s wonder. Too bad by the time we got back on the highway it was near blizzard conditions again!

This is a photo from us driving… it is the main highway!

Nevertheless, with some more patience we finally made it south into Missouri. After crossing the boarder the storm subsided and eventually we were southward enough to have no snow at all. The children were not to happy about this, but were VERY happy to have had snow with their friends on the sled hill!

I think I will post some photos for the next couple of days from our trip. I have so often complained there is not much scenery in the Midwest, but after this little trip, I believe I just need to appreciate the subtle beauty there is. In other words, I need to look a little closer…

Here is a little poem I found today which I thought quite nice as it reminded me in parts of our adventure…

The House of Christmas
By G. K. Chesterton

There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.

For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.
Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honour and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.

A Child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost - how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky’s dome.

This world is wild as an old wives’ tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.

To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.

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