Love and praise hold hands.
Happy hearts rejoice.
Song rises from the multitude,
As lives lived in faith believing.
The Just sing with their being,
Resplendent and resounding love.
Praise embodied in saintly flesh.
New song, New Day,
New creation,
In harmony with Heaven
A symphony of faithful, forgiven witness.
Alleluia.
Copyright 2012 Joann Nelander
All rights reserved
Lord of all joy,
Lord of all sorrow,
Lord of plenitude and might,
Lord of hunger and suffering,
In Your Humanity,
You embraced all,
And elevated Mankind,
Giving the highest dignity
To our race,
Which, without You,
Is little more than beastly,
Roaming and devouring
Without hope or holiness.
Your Father waits
To embrace His wayward sons.
We, the Prodigal, are welcomed
To His open arms,
Arms You, Jesus, gave
The Father on Your Cross.
There with abandonment of Spirit,
Willingly nailed to His Will,
You raised helplessness
To heights of Mystery,
And consummate fulfillment.
We rush to You,
In delight,
As the Spirit
Once rushed upon David,
Caught up to the heavens,
Returning love for the Love
That saves and frees.
Alleluia!
Copyright 2012 Joann Nelander
All rights reserved
Lord, make my ears
Hungry for Your Word.
Give me a living relationship
With Your Father,
Who Fed You
In solitude.
May every Word He Speaks
Resound in my spirit.
May it nourish me,
Sustaining me,
As all, worshiping the world,
Suffer famine,
For want of Faith.
With Bread comes
Health and vigor,
Power to feed others
With the Food You give me
Daily at Your Table.
I listen for Your call
I listen for Your footsteps.
I hear You,
In the breaking
Of Your Word.
Bread for the hungry world.
The Lord’s joy
Is my strength.
He persuades my heart
By gentleness.
His mercy is a fountain
Of inner mirth,
Springing up in all seasons,
To temper my sorrow,
To pour oil into my wounds,
To salt my friendships
And to delight the Father,
Who see me
Running after His Son,
And dancing with David’s abandonment.
May I be the dimple
In Your smile,
Appealing as the uplifted arms
Of a child,
And the innocent sleep
Of a baby.
Gladness be my swaddling,
That You may
Impart to me
The power the weak
Have to touch
The Heart of God,
Accepting always
His Loving will.
Copyright Joann Nelander 2012
I live because You died,
Not in guilt,
But in the freedom of Love.
Choices are arrayed before me,
Multiplied by the days of my Life.
With the breaking
Of each New Day,
I rise forever
To choose You,
With the breaking
Of the Bread,
With the Lifting Up,
With the Cross before my eyes
I am a witness
Of the Resurrected One.
You Christ upon the altar,
You, Christ, living anew
In me,
Walk the Earth again
Leaving now my footsteps.
©2012 Joann Nelander
The lilies like trumpets
Stand about Your altar.
In their loveliness,
They proclaim Love.
In their pure white splendor,
They blast forth
Your glory.
All hallowed Mystery,
You satisfy for the Fall,
Make happy our eternal destiny.
In Your thirst for Man,
Your make new our souls,
And plan a future
Full of Hope,
Drinking our condemnation
To its bitter dregs,
Turning back the sea
Of our unrighteousness,
Drowning the enemy.
You are Mercy calling out,
Before the seat of Judgment.
You, “More Than a Conqueror,”
Turn sinner into saint,
Exchange Blessing for the Curse.
By that grace,
I am become the lily
With You on the altar,
Living witness
Of the Light
And the Life.
Alleluia!
Copyright Joann Nelander 2012
All rights reserved
The Breaking
And the Giving,
Broken bread,
Given life,
Mystery
And revelation.
The seed of Resurrection,
Hidden in the Pasch.
The mystery of Redemption,
Shrouded
By His suffering,
And dying,
Prefigured,
Broken Bread,
Given Life,
The Breaking
And the Giving,
“Do this in Remembrance of Me”
Copyright 2012 Joann Nelander
All rights reserved
Jesus, Heart Afire,
Furnace blazing,
Fueled by Love,
Burning without consuming,
Radiant heat,
And all pervading.
Soul, drawn to escape
The hell of Darkness,
With an exchange
Of holy vows.
Free to flee,
Though enraptured
By superior desire.
Created One,
Of two natures,
Once at peace,
Fallen, then to warring,
Barred from Eden’s gate.
Blazing Promise
And Redemption,
Offering Sin’s undoing,
Constant in Your wooing.
Creat anew,
As once in Paradise,
Purified and restored
Exceeding recognition.
Raised beyond perfection,
Melted, purged,
Merged, and welded,
Seamless life as Mother’s garment.
To live now
In Thee,
For Thee,
Through Thee.
Knowing All
In knowing Thee.
Two natures,
Now at Peace
Both lost,
And found,
In Loving Thee.
Copyright 2012 Joann Nelander
All rights reserved
Thomas wanted reality.
Thomas wanted answers.
Thomas wanted undeniable proof.
He trusted his mind.
He trusted his senses.
He walked by sight,
But feared to trust
The witnesses of Resurrection.
A God, with wounds of Love, understood.
A God, marked by our disbelief,
Stood before him,
In plain sight.
Thomas finger my wounds.
Feel the warmth of human flesh.
Feel the throbbing of My Heart,
Bounding against
Your hand in My Side.
Thomas, you sought only
The trappings of reality.
Am I real now,
Real enough for you,
My friend?
Standing, face to face,
Before I Am,
Bought to his knees
By living, breathing, proof,
He stands in our place.
Humbled by faith’s awakening,
Before the True Witness,
Senses satisfied,
Content, now, and forever,
He’ll follow blindly,
Unto death,
Into eternity.
“My Lord and my God.”
Copyright Joann Nelander 2012
All rights reserved
There is a delicacy of old
With which men speak to one another.
Though, approaching from the farthest ends,
Never meeting in the middle,
Yet, do they honor one another,
In their humanity.
They offer the gift of presence,
Gifting to the other
An open ear
That wills to hear.
To do the Good
For the sake of Good,
To forge the best of thought
For presentation at the gate
Is the beginning of our holy end.
Though all men be wrong
In varying degrees,
There is something right
In putting down one’s arms
To meet as warring friends,
In hope and trust
That they serve a higher call,
When men do speak of peace.
Who is honored by this respect,
If not the Maker of all Men,
Who alone can change
Hearts of stone to flesh,
Becoming like unto His own.
©2011 Joann Nelander
Immaculata-Patroness
Joann Nelander Studio 