Carmelite wisdom to encourage & inspire
Carmelite poet Jessica Powers draws upon her Irish heritage in the poem, "The Far Island"; she writes, “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.”
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"I am the light of the world," says the Lord. Jessica Powers writes, "I know love, not a vise. I see aright, set free in morning on this ledge of light." Join the poet as she sings of God, who is like "a thousand acres."
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"Christ is my utmost need," writes poet Jessica Powers. "I cling with all my strength unto a nail-investigated hand." This poem is a testament to the poetic genius of Powers, known in religion as Sr. Miriam of the Holy Spirit, OCD.
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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.”
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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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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.
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....
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.
One may kneel down and make a plea with words from book or breviary... But some day, hidden by His will, if this meek child is waiting still, God will take out His mercy-key and open up felicity, where saltiest tears are given right to seas where sapphire marries light
I made a covenant with my eyes not to be watching to see what beauty might come down to me. Christ is my beauty; Him alone I see.
To live with the Spirit of God is to be a listener. It is to keep the vigil of mystery, earthless and still. One leans to catch the stirring of the Spirit, strange as the wind's will.
What could the wise Teresa have been thinking to set these bounds on even my little love? This walling, barring, minimizing, shrinking— how could her great Castilian heart approve?
Then why should I take fright when foes or demons assail me with their treacheries or wrath, when I have knowledge that the Queen's archangel is keeper of my path?
Life which comes as a virgin to us all, most safely came to her. Time, when she passed, remained inviolate.
God is the strangest of all lovers; His ways are past explaining. He sets His heart on a soul...
!["I took for my advocate and lord the glorious St. Joseph and earnestly recommended myself to him. [...] I don’t recall up to this day ever having petitioned him for anything that he failed to grant."](https://scontent-lax3-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t39.30808-6/336879821_1374507696727108_3000064146961560788_n.jpg?_nc_cat=102&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=8ae9d6&_nc_ohc=zESZ1qSPVwUAX_3THr6&_nc_ht=scontent-lax3-1.cdninstagram.com&edm=ANo9K5cEAAAA&oh=00_AfCybK8a3jTdetxTrHEbRzy0EkAOosFqlspJXq6aklVI8A&oe=6425873B)
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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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