Tag: Jessica Powers

Quote of the day: 17 December

Amaury-Duval
Head of the Virgin, Eugène Amaury-Duval, 1865

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.

 

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

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Advent II — The way

SCRIPTURE

In due course John the Baptist appeared; he preached in the wilderness of Judaea and this was his message: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand.” This was the man the prophet Isaiah spoke of when he said:

A voice cries in the wilderness:
prepare a way for the Lord,
make his paths straight.

Matthew 3:1-3

READING

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, OCD
(Jessica Powers)

Bird at Daybreak

 

 

Jerusalem Bible: Readers Edition scripture references provided by St. John’s Parish Mullumbimby, NSW Australia

 

Powers, J 1999, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, ICS Publications, Washington DC.
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Quote of the day: 22 September

Mary-Magdalene reading_anonymous french 18th c
Sainte Madeleine lisant (Meditation)
Anonymous French, 18th c.
Oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Tours

 

The Blood’s Mystic

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, 1950)

 

Powers, J 1999, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, ICS Publications, Washington DC.
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Quote of the day: 2 September

All true ascesis as a desert lies:
hot wind, hot sand, no water, and no way.
The ego agonizes through each day.
Freedom is when it dies.

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

 

dessert mountain during sunset
Photo by Greg Gulik on Pexels.com

 

 

Powers, J 1999, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, ICS Publications, Washington DC.
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Quote of the day: 23 May

Prayer is the trap-door out of sin.
Prayer is a mystic entering in
to secret places full of light.
It is a passage through the night.

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

 

open brown wooden door
Photo by George Shervashidze on Pexels.com

 

The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers (p. 144)  / Edited by Regina Siegfried and Robert Morneau (page 131) 
Published by ICS Publications, Washington DC 
Copyright © 1999 by Discalced Carmelite Nuns of Milwaukee, Wisconsin
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Joseph

Joseph

Joseph has strong arms, a strong grasp
When strength is in demand.
Not only is a child’s soft hand protected
In his brown massive hand,

But he can hold up cities, hold up nations.
Now in the season of weakness, season of search,
He can poise on his shoulder like a child
The ponderous age-old structure of the Church.

There on his shoulder, there in the crotch of his arm,
A church, a people held, a kingdom piled.
And Joseph knows this strength grew great in him
From lifting up a Child.

Sr. Miriam of the Holy Spirit, O.C.D.

Untitled Design (2)
Saint Joseph | Carmel of Terre Haute

Joseph was written by Sr. Miriam of the Holy Spirit, a published poet and Discalced Carmelite nun from the Carmel of Pewaukee, Wisconsin upon a special commission by the Discalced Carmelite nuns of Terre Haute, Indiana to accompany this image of Saint Joseph, which the nuns then used to print holy cards for distribution to their benefactors and to the faithful. We are grateful to them for sending us an image of the prayer card and the text of Sr. Miriam’s poem. Learn more about the Terre Haute Carmel and Sr. Miriam of the Holy Spirit, as well as her published poetry.

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Quote of the day: 17 March

The Far Island

Heaven to me a mystic Erin is,
God’s sea-encircled dwelling, wholly lit
by its own inner and eternal day,
and all my birds of longing nest in it.

I pray to Patrick of the Trinity
to gain for me this isle of the Triune.
Grant me to turn my prow into its port
before the cycle of the next new moon.

I pray to Brigid, Mary of the Gael,
so clothe me with the Virgin it may be
that when my mantle sweeps against the waves
they may take heed to her tranquility.

Brendan the Voyageur I too implore:
through these dark waters take me to my goal.
As once you found my earthland, find for me
the unimagined homeland of my soul.

Have pity, saints of Erin; help my ship
out to the blessed isle! And till I be
anchored in God my postexilic Good,
O Columbkill the exile, pray for me.

(1946)

Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit, O.C.D. 

Ballinacourty Lighthouse County Waterford
Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit, O.C.D. (Agnes Jessika Powers) was born in Mauston, Wisconsin and baptized in St. Patrick’s Church there. Her grandparents’ families were immigrants from County Waterford, Ireland.
Photo: Ballinacourty Lighthouse near Dungarvan, County Waterford | John Finn / Flickr
The Far Island, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers / Edited by Regina Siegfried and Robert Morneau (page 131) 
Published by ICS Publications, Washington DC 
Copyright © 1999 by Discalced Carmelite Nuns of Milwaukee, Wisconsin
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Quote of the day: 2 March

Dreams of You

My dreams of you are like the fallen leaves,
colored with brillance, nomad rustling things,
tossed by the winds of olden memories—
they prate of golden summertimes and springs.

When skies were gray you flung them all away—
but I, who loved them, hoard such gifts as these.
By day I revel in their gilded lights;
at night they whisper tender sympathies.

Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit, OCD
(Jessica Powers)
American Poetry Magazine (March-April, 1924)

close up photo of dry leaves
Photo by WARREN BLAKE on Pexels.com
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The Marie du jour – May 31

The Visitation Journey

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, OCD

 

Visitation journey mosaic, Ein Karem
In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a city of Judah (Luke 1:39)
Central mosaic on the facade of the Church of the Visitation
Ein Karem, Israel
Photo: orlandophotoshooter / Flickr 

 

I doubt the flowers; I doubt the road was kind

 

Church of the Visitation facade full view
Church of the Visitation, Ein Karem
Photo credit: Fr. Gaurav Shroff / Flickr 

 

The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers (p. 67) ICS Publications, Washington DC © Washington Province of Discalced Carmelites, Inc.
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The Marie du jour – May 27

And in Her Morning

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

MacArthur, Lindsay Grandison, c.1866-1945; Dawn over Galilee
Dawn over Galilee
Lindsay Grandison MacArthur (British, c.1866–1945)
Oil on canvas
City of Edinburgh Council

And in her light I find You hid within me,
and in her morning I can see Your Face

The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers (p. 64)
ICS Publications, Washington DC
© Washington Province of Discalced Carmelites, Inc.
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