#jessicapowers — Public Fediverse posts

Quote of the day, 29 August: Jessica Powers

The lovers of Christ lift out their hands to
the great gift of suffering.
For how could they seek to be warmed and clothed
and delicately fed,
to wallow in praise and to drink deep draughts
of an undeserved affection,
have castle for home and a silken couch for bed,
when He the worthy went forth, wounded and hated,
and grudged of even a place to lay His head?

This is the badge of the friends of the Man of Sorrows:
the mark of the cross, faint replica of His,
become ubiquitous now; it spreads like a wild blossom
on the mountains of time and in each of the crevices.
Oh, seek that land where it grows in a rich abundance
with its thorny stem and its scent like bitter wine,
for wherever Christ walks He casts its seed
and He scatters its purple petals.
It is the flower of His marked elect, and the fruit
it bears is divine.

Choose it my heart. It is a beautiful sign.

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

The Sign of the Cross (1948, 1984)

Powers, J 1999, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, Siegfried, R & Morneau, RF (eds.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: The Beheading of John the Baptist, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, ca. 1869. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)

Quote of the day, 2 August: Jessica Powers

With twenty loaves of bread Elisha fed
the one hundred till they were satisfied,
and Scripture tells us there was bread left over.
Jesus did more: with five small barley loaves
and two dried fish he fed five thousand men,
together with their wives and children, all
neatly arranged upon the cushioned grass.
The awed disciples, when the crowd had eaten,
gathered up what was left: twelve baskets full.

Who then received these fragments? Hopefully,
the least (though not less favored) and the poor.
I think of those who always seem to get
the leavings from the banqueting of others,
the scraps of bread, of life, that goodness saves.
I pray that they come proudly when invited,
make merry at their meal and have their fill,
and rise up thankfully, remembering
the fragments, too, were miracles of love.

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

The Leftovers (1986)

Powers, J 1999, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, Siegfried, R & Morneau, RF (eds.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Spanish photographer Maria Castellanos captures this image of home-baked pita bread, a basic staple in the Holy Land. Image credit: castellanos80 / Adobe Stock (File # 496922488).

Quote of the day, 24 June: Jessica Powers

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.

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

Bird at Daybreak (1938)

Powers, J 1999, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, Siegfried, R & Morneau, RF (eds.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Photographer Aaron J. Hill captures this image of an American goldfinch perched on a branch. Image credit: Aaron J. Hill / Pexels (Stock photo)

Quote of the day, 4 June: Jessica Powers

On a dark night
Kindled in love with yearnings—
Oh, happy chance!—
I went forth unobserved,
My house being now at rest.

— St. John of the Cross

How does one hush one’s house,
each proud possessive wall, each sighing rafter,
the rooms made restless with remembered laughter
or wounding echoes, the permissive doors,
the stairs that vacillate from up to down,
windows that bring in color and event
from countryside or town,
oppressive ceilings and complaining floors?

The house must first of all accept the night.
Let it erase the walls and their display,
impoverish the rooms till they are filled
with humble silences; let clocks be stilled
and all the selfish urgencies of day.

Midnight is not the time to greet a guest.
Caution the doors against both foes and friends,
and try to make the windows understand 
their unimportance when the daylight ends.
Persuade the stairs to patience, and deny
the passages their aimless to and fro.

Virtue it is that puts a house at rest.
How well repaid that tenant is, how blest
who, when the call is heard,
is free to take his kindled heart and go.

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

The House at Rest (1984)

Powers, J 1999, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, Siegfried, R & Morneau, RF (eds.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Kylemore Abbey in Pollacappul, Connemara, County Galway, Ireland, photographed by Kevin Bosc. Published March 30, 2020, and made available through Unsplash under the Unsplash License.

Quote of the day, 24 May: Jessica Powers

All the Apostles looked at one another;
words curled in fire through the returning gloom.
Something had changed and colored all the room.
The beauty of the Galilean mother
took the breath from them for a little space.
Even a cup, a chair or a brown dress
could draw their tears with the great loveliness
that wrote tremendous secrets every place.

That was the day when Fire came down from heaven,
inaugurating the first spring of love.
Blood melted in the frozen veins, and even
the least bird sang in the mind’s inmost grove.
The seed sprang into flower, and over all
still do the multitudinous blossoms fall.

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

The First Pentecost (1937)

Powers, J 1999, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, Siegfried, R & Morneau, RF (eds.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Renáta Sedmáková, The Scene of Pentecost on the Stained Glass in St Etheldreda’s Church, London, photograph, 2017. The stained glass window was designed by Charles Blakeman. Image credit: Adobe Stock / Renáta Sedmáková, Asset ID #187906813.

Quote of the day, 14 April: Jessica Powers

Easter to me my little sister is,
and I affirm her April’s eminence.
No beauty of atoning penances
prevails on light as does her innocence.

Our abstract night is into day transmuted
when she makes entrance into any room.
A call goes out to sunrise, April fluted.
Wakened in dew, the Easter lilies bloom.

Wide rumor says that she must dine on light
to show such health of it in her clear face.
The concept of the flowers is also right
with gleam implicit in the scent of grace.

O full of lilies in the time of lovers!
My little sister whom night did not mar
wins Easter first; its luster, one discovers,
favors the gardens where the lilies are.

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

O Full of Lilies (1956; 1984)

Powers, J 1999, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, Siegfried, R & Morneau, RF (eds.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: The lilium longiflorum is also known as the Easter lily. The University of Wisconsin Horticulture Division of Extension explains that although the plants are forced to bloom at the appropriate time for the religious holiday, this is completely out of their normal flowering time. Today, almost all of the potted plants grown as Easter lilies are produced by less than a dozen growers located in a narrow coastal region along the border of California and Oregon. Image credit: Golden Age Photos via Adobe Stock

Quote of the day, 7 April: Jessica Powers

Grace guards that moment when the spirit halts
to watch the Magdalen
in the mad turbulence that was her love.
Light hallows those who think about her when
she broke through crowds to the Master’s feet
or ran on Easter morning,
her hair wind-tumbled and her cloak awry.
What to her need were the restrictions of
earth’s vain formalities?
She sought, as love so often seeks and finds,
a Radiance that died or seemed to die.

One can surmise she went to Calvary
distraught and weeping, and with loud lament
clung to the cross and beat upon its wood
till Christ’s torn veins spread a soft covering
over her hair and face and colored gown.
She took her First Communion in His Blood.

O the Tumultuous Magdalen! But those
who come upon her in the hush of love
claim the last graces. A wild parakeet
ceded its being to a mourning dove,
as Bethany had prophesied. We give
to Old Provence that solitude’s location
where her love brooded, too contemplative
to lift the brief distraction of a wing.
There she became a living consecration
to one remembering.
Magdalen, first to drink the fountained Christ
Whose crimson-signing stills our creature stir,
is the Blood’s mystic. Was it not the weight
of the warm Blood that slowed and silenced her?

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

The Blood’s Mystic (1950)

Powers, J 1999, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, Siegfried, R & Morneau, RF (eds.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: AI-generated image (Midjourney), Mary Magdalene Runs to the Tomb at Dawn, created in an impressionist style inspired by Richard Miller (educational use).

Quote of the day, 14 February: Jessica Powers

My thoughts of you are fair as precious stones 
out of the memory’s deep mysterious mines. 
I cut and polish, hold the gems to light— 
color of sea water, color of wines 
coaxed from the earth’s sweetest fruits. I drop 
them 
     down 
into my heart, into the lifted hands 
of love whose lone concern is your renown.

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

The Gift of Love

Powers, J 1999, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, Siegfried, R & Morneau, RF (eds.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Gemstones collection jewelry set. Image credit: NPD stock / Adobe Stock (Asset ID#: 233326938)

Quote of the day, 5 February: Jessica Powers

God is the dawn, wakening earth to life; 
     the first morning ever, 
shining with infinite innocence; a revelation 
older than all beginning, younger than youth. 
God is the noon, blinding the eye of the mind 
     with the blaze of truth. 
God is the sunset, casting over creation 
     a color of glory 
as He withdraws into mysteries of light.

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

Songs Out of Silence, 3

Morneau, R F 2010, Songs Out of Silence : 99 Sayings by Jessica Powers, New City Press, Hyde Park NY.

Featured image: Dawn breaks, darkly, at Chatfield State Park in Colorado. Photo credit: Michael Levine-Clark / Flickr (Some rights reserved).

Quote of the day, 4 January: Jessica Powers

I went into the Christmas cave;
there was no Child upon the straw.
The ox and ass were all I saw.

I sought His stable where He gave
His goodness in the guise of bread.
Emptiness came to me instead.

Filled with my Father’s words, I cried,
“Where have You hid Yourself?” and all
the living answered to my call.

I found Him (and the world is wide)
dear in His warm ubiquity.
Where heart beat, there was Christ for me.

I went back to the Christmas cave,
glad with the gain of everywhere.
And lo! the blessed Child was there.

Then at His feasting board He gave
embrace. He multiplied His good
and fed in me the multitude.

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

The Hidden Christ (1963)

Powers, J 1999, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, Siegfried, R & Morneau, RF (eds.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: A donkey, sheep, and cow surround a trough of hay inside a barn. Image credit: Future Vision (AI generated) / Adobe Stock, Asset ID#: 1766663015.

#Christmas #InfantJesus #JessicaPowers #poetry #SrMiriamOfTheHolySpirit

Quote of the day, 1 January: Jessica Powers

There was nothing in the Virgin’s soul
that belonged to the Virgin—
no word, no thought, no image, no intent.
She was a pure, transparent pool reflecting
God, only God.
She held His burnished day; she held His night
of planet-glow or shade inscrutable.
God was her sky and she who mirrored Him
became His firmament.

When I so much as turn my thoughts toward her
my spirit is enisled in her repose.
And when I gaze into her selfless depths
an anguish in me grows
to hold such blueness and to hold such fire.
I pray to hollow out my earth and be
filled with these waters of transparency.
I think that one could die of this desire,
seeing oneself dry earth or stubborn sod.
Oh, to become a pure pool like the Virgin,
water that lost the semblances of water
and was a sky like God.

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

The Pool of God (1950; 1984)

Powers, J 1999, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, Siegfried, R & Morneau, RF (eds.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: French photographer Yoann Boyer captures this image of infinity from La Réunion. Image credit: Yoann Boyer / Unsplash (Stock photo)

#BlessedVirginMary #God #JessicaPowers #poetry #water

Quote of the day, 9 December: Jessica Powers

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 latchet of his shoes.

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

Bird at Daybreak (1938)

Powers, J 1999, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, Siegfried, R & Morneau, RF (eds.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Photo by Aaron J Hill on Pexels.com (Stock photo)

#bird #JessicaPowers #poetry #prepare #StJohnTheBaptist

Quote of the day, 1 December: Jessica Powers

Come is the love song of our race and Come
our basic word of individual wooing.
It lifts audacious arms of lowliness
to majesty’s most amiable undoing,
to Godhood fleshed and cradled and made least.
It whispers through closed doors a hurry, hurry
to Tierce and fiery feast.
The liturgy of Advent plucks its bud
from the green shrub of love’s compendium:
O Wisdom, Adonai, Root of Jesse
and sign by which the mouths of kings are dumb,
O Key, O Orient, King and Cornerstone,
O our Emmanuel, come.
And Paschaltide prepares an upper room
where burns the fuller bloom.
Come is the small sweet-smelling crib we carve
from fir and bear across December frost.
It is the shaft of the flame-hungry Church
in Paschal spring, or the heart’s javelin tossed
privately at the clouds to pierce them through
and drown one in the flood of some amazing
personal Pentecost.

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

Come Is The Love Song (1952; 1984)

Powers, J 1999, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, Siegfried, R & Morneau, RF (eds.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Stock photo. Image credit: Discalced Carmelites (by permission)

#Advent #Christmas #JessicaPowers #OAntiphons #poetry

Quote of the day, 28 October: Jessica Powers

The saints and mystics
had a name
for that deep
inwardness of flame,
the height or depth
or ground or goal
Which is God’s dwelling
in the soul.

Not capax Dei
do you say;
nor yet
scintilla animae
nor synderesis—
all are fair—
but heaven,
because God is there.

All day and when
you wake at night
think of that place
of living light,
yours and within you
and aglow
where only God
and you can go.

None can assail you
in that place
save your own evil,
routing grace.
Not even angels
see or hear,
nor the dark spirits
prowling near.

But there are days
when watching eyes
could guess that you
hold Paradise.
Sometimes the shining
overflows
and everyone
around you knows.

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

For a Child of God (1953)

Powers, J 1999, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, Siegfried, R & Morneau, RF (eds.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Jude Beck / Unsplash (Stock photo)

#ChildOfGod #indwelling #interiorLife #JessicaPowers #poetry

Quote 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)

#BlessedVirginMary #FaceOfGod #God #JessicaPowers #poetry

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

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, Siegfried, R & Morneau, RF (eds.), 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)

Powers, J 1999, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, Siegfried, R & Morneau, RF (eds.), 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, Siegfried, R & Morneau, RF (eds.), 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).

💠 Appreciate these quotes from the Carmelites?
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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, 7 March: Jessica Powers

Worse than the poorest mendicant alive,
the pencil man, the blind man with his breath
of music shaming all who do not give,
are You to me, Jesus of Nazareth.

Must You take up Your post on every block
of every street? Do I have no release?
Is there no room of earth that I can lock
to Your sad face, Your pitiful whisper “Please”?

I seek the counters of time’s gleaming store
but make no purchases, for You are there.
How can I waste one coin while you implore
with tear-soiled cheeks and dark blood-matted hair?

And when I offer You in charity
pennies minted by love, still, still You stand
fixing Your sorrowful wide eyes on me.
Must all my purse be emptied in Your hand?

Jesus, my beggar, what would You have of me?
Father and mother? the lover I longed to know?
The child I would have cherished tenderly?
Even the blood that through my heart’s valves flow?

I too would be a beggar. Long tormented,
I dream to grant You all and stand apart
with You on some bleak corner, tear-frequented,
and trouble mankind for its human heart.

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

The Master Beggar (1937)

Powers, J 1999, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, Siegfried, R & Morneau, RF (eds.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: A small child sleeps on the streets of a small rural town in India. She’s forced by her parents to beg to help support them. Image credit: restless_mind / Flickr (Some rights reserved)

#charity #generosity #JessicaPowers #Jesus #mercy #poetry #poverty #selfGiving

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, Siegfried, R & Morneau, RF (eds.), 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, Siegfried, R & Morneau, RF (eds.), 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

That God made birds is surely in His favor.
I write them as His courtesies of love.
Hidden in leaves, they offer me sweet savor
of lightsome music; when they streak above

my garden wall they brush my scene with color.
They are embroideries upon the grass.
I write the gayest stitched-in blossoms duller
than birds which change their patterns as I pass.

I nurse a holy envy of St. Francis
who lured the birds to nestle at his breast.
Yet I am grateful for this one which dances
across my lawn, a reckless anapest.

Subjects for gratitude push up my living
praise to a sum that tempts the infinite;
but birds deserve one whole psalm of thanksgiving
and these words are my antiphon for it.

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

Birds (1956)

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

Featured image: Photographer Djalma Paiva Armelin captured this stunning close-up of a hummingbird feeding in Amparo (São Paulo) Brazil. Image credit: pexels.com (Stock photo)

https://carmelitequotes.blog/2024/10/23/jessica-birds/

#birds #creation #gratitude #JessicaPowers #nature #poetry #SrMiriamOfTheHolySpirit #StFrancisOfAssisi

Total Virgin

“She was a virgin even of herself.”
Père François de Sainte-Marie, O.C.D.

In a house of mirrors that coveted her image
she never walked
with her own beauty
nor made a feast of her goodness,
inviting friends from the far and wide.
She never sat down with her own innocence
to dialogue together,
nor called a stranger in
to sit at her hearth and be glorified.

She was a maiden promised to one lover
whom she was always seeking.
Though he hid in her heartbeat and settled himself
behind her breath,
he was distance, too. Journeys dwindled to places
beside her own, and miles melted beneath
her steps of wanting. She could by-pass all
meadows that trap us with their poisonous flower
and their soliciting pools
and winding lanes that skirt the only death.

She was out on a road alone, hastening onward,
gathering all as a gift, the small and great
fragments of mystery and reality.
Everything was for Him, even her own being.
Since love marks neither measurement or weight
she carried all, without touching or tasting.

Life which comes as a virgin to us all,
most safely came to her.
Time, when she passed, remained inviolate.

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

Total Virgin (1976; 1984)

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

Featured image: This detail of a manuscript leaf with the Assumption of the Virgin in an Initial V comes from an Italian antiphonary. The illumination by Niccolò di ser Sozzo (Italian, active ca. 1334, died 1363) was executed ca. 1340 in Siena; the materials are tempera, ink, and gold on parchment. This work comes from the Manuscripts and Illuminations Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The museum notes the following: The Assumption of the Virgin, celebrated on August 15, is an especially important holiday in Siena. Niccolò di ser Sozzo, one of the city’s renowned fourteenth-century illuminators, painted it on numerous occasions. The Virgin Mary, in a diaphanous gown, rises effortlessly as choirs of angels guide her path. Image credit: Metropolitan Museum of Art (Public domain)

https://carmelitequotes.blog/2024/08/14/jessica-totalvirgin/

#AssumptionOfTheBlessedVirginMary #beauty #BlessedVirginMary #inspiration #JessicaPowers #journey #love #MarianDevotion #poetry #SrMiriamOfTheHolySpirit

The gesture of a gift is adequate.
If you have nothing: laurel leaf or bay,
no flower, no seed, no apple gathered late,
do not in desperation lay
the beauty of your tears upon the clay.

No gift is proper to a Deity;
no fruit is worthy for such power to bless.
If you have nothing, gather back your sigh,
and with your hands held high, your heart held high,
lift up your emptiness!

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

If you have nothing (1940; 1946; 1984)

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

Featured image: Photographer Daniel Reche captures this photo of a woman with her hands held high, embodying the poem by Jessica Powers. Image credit: Daniel Reche / Pexels (Stock photo)

https://carmelitequotes.blog/2024/07/07/jessica-nothing/

#emptiness #emptyHands #gift #God #heart #JessicaPowers #nothingness #poetry #SrMiriamOfTheHolySpirit

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.

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

Bird at Daybreak (1938)

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

Featured image: Photographer Aaron J. Hill captures this image of an American goldfinch perched on a branch. Image credit: Aaron J. Hill / Pexels (Stock photo)

https://carmelitequotes.blog/2024/06/23/powers-bird/

#bird #coming #inspiration #JessicaPowers #poetry #prepare #StJohnTheBaptist

🤔 How big is your image of God? Read today's poem from the Carmelite author Jessica Powers and broaden your horizons!
🌄 https://carmelitequotes.blog

#poetrylovers #god #horizons #jessicapowers

Carmelite poet Jessica Powers writes, "O Wisdom, Adonai, Root of Jesse / and sign by which the mouths of kings are dumb, / O Key, O Orient, King and Cornerstone, / O our Emmanuel, come..."

💜 Read her poem, "Come is the Love Song"
https://carmelitequotes.blog

#oantiphons #emmanuel #advent #christmas #poetry #carmelite #jessicapowers #catholic #inspiration

Carmelite poet Jessica Powers rejoices in the beauty that surrounds her: “Land that was desolate, impassable, / is forest now where secrets find their voices. / The desert is inhabited and blooms.”

Read her poem, "And Wilderness Rejoices"
☀️ https://carmelitequotes.blog

#jessicapowers #srmiriamoftheholyspirit #poetry #poem #desert #forest #wilderness #blooms #catholic #carmelite #advent #christmas

Carmelite poet Jessica Powers rejoices in the beauty that surrounds her: “Land that was desolate, impassable, / is forest now where secrets find their voices. / The desert is inhabited and blooms.”

Read her poem, "And Wilderness Rejoices"
☀️ carmelitequotes.blog #linkinbio

#jessicapowers #srmiriamoftheholyspirit #poetry #poem #desert #forest #wilderness #blooms #catholic #carmelite #advent #christmas

On the Third Sunday of Advent, well-known Carmelite poet Jessica Powers explains how the image of Our Lady as a “ little light cloud rising / From Orient waters cleft by prophecy” inspires this prayer: “Cloud, encompass God and me.”

Read her poem on our #blog
🕯️ https://carmelitequotes.blog

#advent #poetry #jessicapowers #virginmary #cloud #prayer #inspiration #spirituality #catholic #carmelite