Carmelite wisdom to encourage & inspire
St. John of the Cross’s eleventh poem closes with a classic quote: “love works so in me that whether things go well or badly love turns them to one sweetness transforming the soul in itself.”
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“The soul is a terrible thing; it cannot die,” writes Carmelite poet Jessica Powers. Her masterful meditation on the soul’s “two destinies” is worth pondering as we commemorate All Carmelite Souls.
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“My dreams of you are like the fallen leaves,” writes poet Jessica Powers in 1924; some 16 years later, she would enter the Carmelites of Pewaukee, Wisconsin, becoming Sr. Miriam of the Holy Spirit, O.C.D.
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When Saint Teresa wrote a poem about the Song of Songs, she said, “my Beloved One is mine and I at last am surely His.” All our self-denial and humble sacrifice prepare us for union with God.
Thanks for joining our novena! We close with St. Thérèse’s most famous poem, “Why I Love You, O Mary.” In the final stanzas she writes, “You who came to smile at me in the morning of my life, come smile at me again, Mother, it's evening now!”
In her 1939 poem "The Valley of the Cat-tails" Jessica Powers writes: “My valley is a woman unconsoled. Her bluffs are amethyst, the tinge of grief; her tamarack swamps are sad. There is no dark tale that she was not told; there is no sorrow that she has not had.”
Many of Jessica Powers poems have been published in various anthologies and journals. But one poem was commissioned by the Carmel of Terre Haute to accompany a special image of St. Joseph that they desired to publish as a prayer card. We hope that you enjoy her captivating verse.
In her poem, "I Will Remain With You", St. Edith Stein writes, "You reign on the Almighty’s throne also in transfigured human form, ever since the completion of your work on earth."
God is the strangest of all lovers; His ways are past explaining. He sets His heart on a soul...
Jessica Powers offers this reflection on the Virgin Mary, 'Full of Grace': "Your own reflection has revealed Your place, for she is utter light by Your own grace..."Your own grace...
God fills my being to the brim with floods of His immensity. I drown within a drop of Him whose sea-bed is infinity....
St. John of the Cross' exquisite Poem 7 about the "lone young shepherd" with the pierced heart, is our canticle for the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus: "his heart an open wound with love".
For the feast day of her prioress in 1902, St. Elizabeth of the Trinity wrote: "Infinite Being! Depth unsoundable! Delighted, lost in Your Divinity — O Trinity, God thrice-immutable, We see Yourself in Your own clarity."
Poet Jessica Powers ponders the first stanza of Saint John of the Cross's poem, "The Dark Night". She asks, "How does one hush one's house?..."
It is hardly surprising to learn that the poet Jessica Powers was a great hymn writer, too. One of the hymns that she wrote for the Carmelite liturgies appears on the Solemnity of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. In it, she mentions the gift of the scapular.
Carmelite poet Jessica Powers contemplates the image of St. Mary Magdalen, who "ran on Easter morning, her hair wind-tumbled and her cloak awry. [...] She sought, as love so often seeks and finds, a Radiance that died or seemed to die..."
Safe sped I through that night, By the secret stair, disguised and unseen, -O moment of delight!- Wrapt in that night serene, New-hush'd to rest the house where I had been.
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.
On the evening of Love, speaking without parable, Jesus said: "If anyone wishes to love me All his life, let him keep my Word.
At the foot of your Cross, Beloved… Jesus, my crucified Love I just told you again to take My heart without ever giving it back to me...
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Let nothing disturb you, Let nothing frighten you, All things are passing away: God never changes. Patience obtains all things. Whoever has God lacks nothing; God alone suffices. ~ St. Teresa of Avila
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