You looked down
From Your Cross
To behold faithfulness.
There stood Your Mother.
You beheld her look of grief,
Her suffering Your pain.
You wed it
To Your Own,
Presenting all
Before Our Father’s holy throne.
© 2013 Joann Nelander
Mary
All posts tagged Mary
Mary, Mother,
Grace-filled vessel,
Poised throughout your life
To receive God’s word.
Always listening,
By obedience wooing,
From your holy infancy,
Caressing to your heart
The holy Word of God.
You conceived in your heart
Our God eternal,
Before He entered
Your virginal womb.
Grace upon grace
Your beauty unfolded,
In blossom so rare,
Upon this Earth.
Season upon season,
You moved in silence hidden,
In prayer secure.
O Mary Mother,
With kiss so sweet,
lavish upon me
Thy Holy Maternity.
I entrust to your sublimity
My formation within my mother’s womb.
Make happy that dear chamber,
In which my life and love
Were bequeathed and body grown.
“Behold your Mother,”
He said from His Cross.
Now, do I behold you,
And take you to my heart.
Speak here the words
You whispered in Christ’s ear
As He laid his little head
Upon your breast.
Jesus received from you
Milk and kindness
With gentle regard.
Caress now my humanity.
Make me ever your home,
As I welcome you to my soul,
Make me your hearth,
With fires burning bright.
Purify my moments
And sanctify my soul.
By virtue,
Virtue of your wedded Spouse,
Petition the Holy Spirit of Your Son.
Send angels, as you once did stewards,
To wait upon the words of your Son.
Miracles followed
On your behest at Cana.
I wait now and ever in your arms,
Embraced as the Christ Child.
Look upon me, dear Mother
And heal my wounded yet happy heart.
By Joann Nelander
There is only one heart so pure,
As to remain demure,
One life lived in blessed union
With Your Own.
One so holy
As to share Your throne.
Solomon, in His wisdom
A type of Christ,
Rose from his kingly chair
To seat his mother
By his side,
Thereby made clear
Her stature in his sight,
Made queenly and motherly ruling
Her right.
Queen Mother, most pure and holy,
By the Father ‘s will made New Eve
To the New Adam, His Son,
You, Spouse of God,
Of flesh and blood,
Share in the rule
Of David’s Promised House.
When courted by the Holy Spirit,
Your “Fiat”,
Made you One,
To bring forth
Holy Son.
Copyright 2012 Joann Nelander
All rights reserved
Longinus,
You, who beheld Life,
As your Savior
Hung between Heaven and Earth,
Dying on His Cross,
Your heart came alive
At the sight of the Mother’s agony.
The thrust of your spear
Lanced the heart of the Christ
And pierced your own
To let Him enter,
He, who would henceforth,
Possess you in contemplation.
His blood, falling upon weak and worldly eyes,,
Touched in you, the pagan,
Opening eyes blind to the things of God,
With the sight of the Holy.
Your life became a contemplation
Of the Dying and the Rising,
Did you fall into a sleep,
As the angels descended to roll away the stone?
Did premonitions of sacred mystery stir you,
Wakening the soldier witness soul,
To serve not merely an emperor,
But True God?
The Cassius of the Crucifixion
Died, only to open his eyes in faith,
And live, henceforth a new man,
With a story of Blood and Water,
And New Life,
copyright 2014 Joann Nelander
O Infant King benign
I offer You the face
Of Mother Mary
As she gazed upon You
That very first time
Beholding long
Your holy countenance.
Her eyes, drinking in her Babe,
Her King, her Priest,
Her Son Divine,
Wept tears of joy,
And wonder,
In silent adoration,
Pondering comprehension.
She smiled in inward exultation.
You will never forget
Her look of love
As she gazed upon
Him, Who no earthly eye
Had seen,
A treasure for the world,
In her care,
To be wrapped
In lowly swaddling clothes
You, O Christ Child,
In Your humanity divine.
May I live with Mary in my heart this day.
May her thoughts,
And precious memories of You, dear Jesus,
Resound in my mind and fill my soul,
That even Angels in flight,
And the Triumphant in Heaven,
Stop to listen and love with me.
Amen
Sad the plight of Man,
Mourning the lose of Paradise.
Captive to cowardice,
Hiding from his God.
Cast out, betraying,
And accusing one another,
Empty of grace, forlorn.
One garden of hope remains.
One paradise,
Ready for the Spring.
One immaculate heaven on earth.
O Virgin, say but the Word,
And your “Fiat”
Will blossom forth in Faith,
Rarity of your virginal ground.
Immaculate fecundity,
Queen Mother, Desert Willow,
New Eve, bearer of New Adam,
With new creation, rejoicing.
Voicing all thanksgiving,
A Eucharist for the sons and daughters of God.
© 2011 Joann Nelander
You looked down
From Your Cross
To behold faithfulness.
There stood Your Mother.
You beheld her look of grief,
Her suffering Your pain.
You wed it
To Your Own,
Presenting all
Before Our Father’s holy throne.
© 2013 Joann Nelander
You looked down
From Your Cross
To behold faithfulness.
There stood Your Mother.
You beheld her look of grief,
Her suffering Your pain.
You wed it
To Your Own,
Presenting all
Before Our Father’s holy throne.
© 2013 Joann Nelander
Joann Nelander Studio 