God creates,
And then goes forth
Into His creation.
I come to be in Thee,
And in Love,
I make return.
©2013 Joann Nelander
God Creator
Reply
Tag Archives: Christian
God Creator
God creates,
And then goes forth
Into His creation.
I come to be in Thee
And in Love
I make return.
©2013 Joann Nelander
Like the Dew Fall
Like dew You fall upon me,
I am drenched in Your holiness,
And aglow,
Transformed by Your Light.
Your sweetness woos me,
Even as I lower my eyes,
Beholding my own wretchedness.
Fear not say You,
I yield my defenses.
Your desire for me
Inspires my desire for You,
And my being drinks in Your Presence.
Lightly You settle in me,
Warming me through and through.
In time I will look like You.
©2013 Joann Nelander All rights reserved
A Thought for the Day
It always comforts me that God knows us through and though, and knows all we have suffered, endured and also that which we have never been taught. He also knows how our experiences have shaped us or caused us to be misshapen. In the end He is the perfect judge who knows our hearts inside out. In His unfathomable mercy He still and always wants to adorn us with His attributes. For my part, I want to let Him.
Sing Your Song
Sing your baptism
You have been given the song
The Wind of the Spirit will fill your lungs
But the notes are yours to form.
Copyright 2013 Joann Nelander
Riding the Wind
He rides the Wind in power and right,
Born of Eternal Light.
All goodness follow in His train,
Like comet tails, falling stars,
That fire my night.
Here light upon my soul and nest,
As spirit bird, find place of rest,
Spreading feathered wing
As shelter, and friend,
To Godly bless.
Stirring, fan the embers of my love,
To blaze anew in fire from above
Transforming dust and dross,
To forge one who walks
Amongst the flame, O Holy Dove.
©2013 Joann Nelander
Come Now the Hour
Robed in splendor,
Wrapped in might,
Clothed in a mantle of power,
Holy Majesty, now come Your Hour.
Mercy inclining
Embracing spirit poor,
Abundance kissing
With generous grace.
Common ground
Of God’s own Holiness,
Love’s living bridge
Spanning the breech.
All are called.
Please all come
To live the revelation
Of the Holy Son.
© Joann Nelander 2013
All rights reserved
Successors: A papal transition
Eyes of My Soul
O eyes of my soul,
Eyes of my spirit,
Eyes of my heart,
See!
See the glory revealed
In all creation.
See the Son
Hidden in the least
To the greatest.
Recognize the Christ,
Lord of all.
Lord over the earth
Lord over the sea
Lord raised above the heavens.
Enthrone Him, King,
King of your soul,
King of your spirit,
King of your heart.
As light illuminates,
See that you are a new creation.
See, in this moment,
As in the breaking of the Bread.
Copyright 2013 Joann Nelander
All rights reserved
August Queen of Heaver–Powerful Exorcism Prayer
H/T Barb at Suffering With Joy
A powerful exorcism prayer
Many years ago a spiritual director gave me a holy card with this prayer on the back written in French, and told me to say it every day. The prayer came about this way:
On the thirteenth of January, 1864, the Venerable Father Louis Cestac, founder of the Congregation of the Servants of Mary, was given a vision of the demons of hell spread all over the earth doing indescribable damage, running riot everywhere. At the same time, the Blessed Virgin appeared to him and gave him this prayer, saying that the time had come to spread it all over the world, and that God wished it to be done. What interests me about the history of this prayer is that it predates the St. Michael prayer written as a result of a vision of Pope Leo XIII by approximately 40 years later, and that it clearly derives from Gen. 3:15.
When we are doing our best to live the Faith and to witness to Christ, we will be attacked. Hard. The work of the demons is unceasing and we experience it physically, mentally, and spiritually. Sometimes it seems like many things are conspiring to disturb our peace of mind and wear us out. This is their invisible work bearing visible consequences.
Our loving Mama Mary, the one given us by Jesus at the foot of the Cross, the one who shared His passion most deeply, the one He desires us to love and venerate, wishes not one soul to be overcome by hell. We invoke our powerful and loving mother under the title of “August Queen of Heaven and Sovereign Mistress of Angels” to use the power given her by God to dispel demons.
Pope St. Pius X approved this prayer for indulgences. The power of the keys.
August Queen of Heaven
August Queen of Heaven, Sovereign Mistress of Angels, you who at the beginning received from God
the power and the mission to crush the head of Satan,
we beseech you humbly, send your holy legions so that,
on your orders and by your power, they will track down demons,
fight them everywhere, curb their audacity and plunge them into the abyss.Who is like God?
Oh good and tender Mother,
you will always be our love and our hope.
Oh divine Mother, send the Holy Angels and Archangels to defend me
and to keep the cruel enemy far from me.Holy Angels and Archangels defend us, protect us. Amen.
All Yours for Time and Eternity
All Yours:
All that is uncreated,
All that is of matter,
All we know,
All that is yet unfathomable,
All we shall never know,
All that is yet to be.
Though my will is free,
Yours are the hours that come to me.
You count out my years,
Allot the days of my life.
You feed me,
And so I am still here,
But one day not.
Why do I count the cost?
Why do I hoard?
Why do I envy?
Why do I paw the ground?
You Who span the Universe
Have paid the price,
And covenanted with me.
When I am dust again,
You will remember me.
Outside of Time,
You will hold me still.
My frame is written in Your being
For I am of the Son,
Who died for my eternity.
©2013 Joann Nelander
All rights reserved
The Sword that Divides
Distilling the homily of Monsignor Raun:
The Sword that Divides
The Passion of the Christ,
The sword that divides.
There are Christians,
And then there is Everybody else.
Everybody else sees
An ignominious,
Shameful,
And a meaningless death.
The Christian sees the eternal Christ,
Saving those He calls,
Kings, prophets and priests.
The sword, the Spirit and the Cross,
At the crossroad
Of Heaven and the World.
The people of God,
The Kingdom of God,
Called while yet sinners.
© Joann Nelander 2013
All rights reserved
How to Fold a Palm Cross
The Holy Father Revives an Ancient Tradition
It seems that Pope Francis revived an ancient tradition at the end of the Conclave that elected him to the Papacy.
After accepting the Petrine Ministry, the Holy Father placed his old cardinal’s zucchetto on Archbishop Lorenzo Baldisseri’s head. Archbishop Baldisseri is the Secretary to the College of Cardinals, and therefore, by virtue of his office, served as Secretary to the Conclave. This act means that Archbishop Baldisseri will be formally created a cardinal at the next consistory.
Until recent times, it was common for a newly elected Pope to elevate the (non-cardinal) Secretary of the Conclave to the ranks of the cardinalate upon his own election to the Papacy. He would do this by giving the Secretary his own cardinal’s zucchetto, as he himself was given the white one reserved for the Pope.
The last Pope to do this was Blessed John XXIII, who, immediately after being elected to the See of Peter in 1958, gave his old red skullcap to the then Secretary of the Conclave, Alberto di Jorio. The tradition, until last week, seemed to have come to an end with the election of Paul VI in 1963.
According to a friend, some commentators had noticed that Archbishop Baldisseri was wearing a cardinal’s zucchetto when he appeared in public during Pope Francis’s greeting from the Loggia of St Peter’s on the night of his election. The story has since been confirmed by Vatican Radio’s Portuguese language news section.
Many congratulations to Archbishop Baldisseri! It is also good to note that Pope Francis decided to revive this beautiful and ancient custom.
God bless our Pope!
Be-Attitude–The “No Handed Bandit”
"You can be cool and not have hands" Love it!! We can all find something we lack to insert into this beatitude.
Pope to Journalists I Love You So Much
<p><a href=’http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/pope-to-journalists-i-love-you-so-much-and-i-thank-you-for-everything/’>Pope to journalists: 'I love you so much and I thank you for everything' :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)</a>.</p>Vatican City, Mar 16, 2013 / 08:11 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis told thousands of journalists today he loved them and thanked them for their recent work.
“I love you so much and I thank you for all that you have done,” Pope Francis told over 5,000 journalists today at Paul VI Hall in the Vatican.
“We aren’t called to communicate about ourselves, but on this trinity of truth, goodness and beauty,” he told the journalists at 11:00 a.m. local time.
The newly elected Pope from Argentina spoke to them and their families on the third day of his pontificate.
“Your work needs study, sensibility, experience like all other professions, but needs to also give special attention to truth, goodness and beauty,” said the Pope.
“That is why we are so close because the Church exists to communicate precisely this,” he stated.
He thanked the journalists for their “hard work” covering the days since Benedict XVI announced his resignation adding that it is not easy to communicate to “a vast and varied public.”
“Be sure that the Church reserves a big attention to your precious work,” said the 76-year-old Argentinian.
The pontiff told the professionals that Jesus is the center of the Church and not himself.
Pope Francis: His life before the papacy–Slide Show
Pope Francis is Offer Holy Mass in the Sistine Chapel
BBC News – Conclave to elect a new pope: Interactive video
[object HTMLTextAreaElement]
via BBC News – Conclave to elect a new pope: Interactive video.
The Virtue of Charity – Saint Leo the Great
From a sermon by Saint Leo the Great, pope
In the gospel of John the Lord says: In this will all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love for each other. In a letter of the same apostle we read: Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God; he who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
The faithful should therefore enter into themselves and make a true judgment on their attitudes of mind and heart. If they find some store of love’s fruit in their hearts, they must not doubt God’s presence within them. If they would increase their capacity to receive so great a guest, they should practice greater generosity in doing good, with persevering charity.
If God is love, charity should know no limit, for God cannot be confined.
Any time is the right time for works of charity, but these days of Lent provide a special encouragement. Those who want to be present at the Lord’s Passover in holiness of mind and body should seek above all to win this grace, for charity contains all other virtues and covers a multitude of sins.
As we prepare to celebrate that greatest of all mysteries, by which the blood of Jesus Christ did away with our sins, let us first of all make ready the sacrificial offerings of works of mercy. In this way we shall give to those who have sinned against us what God in his goodness has already given us.
Let us now extend to the poor and those afflicted in different ways a more open-handed generosity, so that God may be thanked through many voices and the relief of the needy supported by our fasting. No act of devotion on the part of the faithful gives God more pleasure than that which is lavished on his poor. Where he finds charity with its loving concern, there he recognizes the reflection of his own fatherly care.
In these acts of giving do not fear a lack of means. A generous spirit is itself great wealth. There can be no shortage of material for generosity where it is Christ who feeds and Christ who is fed. In all this activity there is present the hand of him who multiplies the bread by breaking it, and increasing it by giving it away.
The giver of alms should be free from anxiety and full of joy. His gain will be greatest when he keeps back least for himself. The holy apostle Paul tells us: He who provides seed for the sower will also provide bread for eating; he will provide you with more seed, and will increase the harvest of your goodness, in Christ Jesus our Lord, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.
Forever in Your Love
You are the sun
At the center of the Cross.
I have polluted the waters of my baptism,
And come again
To the foot of Your Cross.
As my prayer rises
From the dust of my fall,
Into the heaven,
Which is with You,
Stretch out Your arms eternally,
To embrace me yet again,
Bring me to Your Heart,
At the crossing
Of heaven and earth
To be transformed
By You,
And in You,
And through You,
Becoming new man,
A holy man.
Silenced for three days on earth,
That heart of Yours,
Beating now eternally,
Lives in me,
Who will live now
Forever in Your love.
© 2013 Joann Nelander
All rights reserved
Conclave Prayers
“We must pray and pray much; for… no science, no human prudence can furnish a remedy to the evils that desolate the Church: the all-powerful arm of God is needed.
We must pray to Jesus Christ that he may give us as the Head of his Church a man, less remarkable by his science and human prudence, than by his fervor and his zeal for the honor of God; a man, absolutely inaccessible to every intrigue, who is above all human respect. For, if we have the misfortune to have a Pope elected, who is not a man that seeks only the glory of God, the Lord will aid us but little, and in the present state of things all will go from bad to worse.
Prayer, then, is the only remedy.
I have, therefore, written to all the houses of our humble Congregation, and have enjoined upon them to pray with more than ordinary fervor for the election of a new Pope…. Such is the advice that can be given by a miserable man like myself.”
–St Alphonsus Maria de Liguori
Bishop of S. Agata dei Goti
Letter from Arienzo
24 October 1774
Holy Praise
Holy hands
Lifted in prayer,
Holy hearts
Wed to the Lord,
Alleluias raised,
As in thankfulness,
We sing Your praise.
©2013 Joann Nelander
All rights reserved
Adopt a Cardinal – Pray,Pray,Pray!
Rend Your Heart and Not Your Garments
This “return to me with all your heart,” then, is a reminder that not only involves the individual but the entire community. Again we heard in the first reading: “Blow the horn in Zion! Proclaim a fast, call an assembly! Gather the people, sanctify the congregation; Assemble the elderly; gather the children, even infants nursing at the breast; Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her bridal tent (vv. 15-16).
The community dimension is an essential element in faith and Christian life. Christ came “to gather the children of God who are scattered into one” (Jn. 11:52). The “we” of the Church is the community in which Jesus brings us together (cf. Jn. 12:32), faith is necessarily ecclesial. And it is important to remember and to live this during Lent: each person must be aware that the penitential journey cannot be faced alone, but together with many brothers and sisters in the Church…”
MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS
BENEDICT XVI
FOR LENT 2013
From the pastoral constitution on the Church in the modern world of the Second Vatican Council
From the pastoral constitution on the Church in the modern world of the Second Vatican Council
Man’s deeper questionings
The world of today reveals itself as at once powerful and weak, capable of achieving the best or the worst. There lies open before it the way to freedom or slavery, progress or regression, brotherhood or hatred. In addition, man is becoming aware that it is for himself to give the right direction to forces that he himself has awakened, forces that can be his master or his servant. He therefore puts questions to himself.
The tensions disturbing the world of today are in fact related to a more fundamental tension rooted in the human heart. In man himself many elements are in conflict with each other. On one side, he has experience of his many limitations as a creature. On the other, he knows that there is no limit to his aspirations, and that he is called to a higher kind of life.
Many things compete for his attention, but he is always compelled to make a choice among them. and to renounce some. What is more, in his weakness and sinfulness he often does what he does not want to do, and fails to do what he would like to do. In consequence, he suffers from a conflict within himself, and this in turn gives rise to so many great tensions in society.
Very many people, infected as they are with a materialistic way of life, cannot see this dramatic state of affairs in all its clarity, or at least are prevented from giving thought to it because of the unhappiness that they themselves experience.
Many think that they can find peace in the different philosophies that are proposed.
Some look for complete and genuine liberation for man from man’s efforts alone. They are convinced that the coming kingdom of man on earth will satisfy all the desires of his heart.
There are those who despair of finding any meaning in life: they commend the boldness of those who deny all significance to human existence in itself, and seek to impose a total meaning on it only from within themselves.
But in the face of the way the world is developing today, there is an ever increasing number of people who are asking the most fundamental questions or are seeing them with a keener awareness: What is man? What is the meaning of pain, of evil, of death, which still persist in spite of such great progress? What is the use of those successes, achieved at such a cost? What can man contribute to society, what can he expect from society? What will come after this life on earth?
The Church believes that Christ died and rose for all, and can give man light and strength through his Spirit to fulfill his highest calling; his is the only name under heaven in which men can be saved.
So too the Church believes that the center and goal of all human history is found in her Lord and Master.
The Church also affirms that underlying all changes there are many things that do not change; they have their ultimate foundation in Christ, who is the same yesterday, today and for ever.
Faces and places of the papal transition
Consolation of Eve
This painting is so consoling, I just have to share it again since Lent brings us closer to our Savior. He comes to save Fallen Man, and with such a gentle hand.
“Virgin Mary Consoles Eve”
Crayon and pencil by Sr. Grace Remington, OCSO
Copyright 2005, Sisters of the Mississippi Abbey
Mother Eve, waiting long,
Your bones resting in the earth,
At Adam’s side,
From which you were taken,
Waiting, waiting for the Woman.Sustained in weary life by a Promise.
Enduring the grave,
Counting the centuries,
Waiting for Good News.
The Virgin is with Child. Rejoice!©2011 Joann Nelander All rights reserved
