How Do We Meet Our God?

How do we meet our God?
He Who pours out His Heart,
His very being, complete and unreserved?
That complete self-gift of our Creator,
Witnessed by the pouring out on the Cross
Of His only Begotten Son
Whose Heart was laid bare,
Whose torture was unbearable,
Yet with Love He offered us all.

How do we meet out God
As His Love and Joy comes to meet us?
How can we hold back
That which He offers us?
Our hearts must rush to meet Him
Pouring out all, giving all, with joy,
Yet willing to sacrifice in union with His,
All given for all.

Lord, my God,
The Fire of Your Love
Stirs my soul
Drawing from the dark night
That which lay sleeping
Until its Beloved drew near.
Ignite Your Fire in this kindling,
The broken pieces of my life,
The peat of years of suffering, of longing,
Ignite it all as an offering,
A holocaust of love and joy,
Its incense rising to meet You.

10/10-11/2011

Nailed Open

Your words heal our souls.
Your touch heals our bodies.
Your profound and challenging Love
Moves deeply into our souls.
Yet this Body of a human man
You took on for us,
To open the doors to freedom
For our deprived souls,
To speak the language we hear,
To move in the language we see.
This most Holy Body of the Divine Presence
We nailed, sprawled in agony,
Stretched in total surrender
And total humiliation
To a wooden Cross
And left to die
Under our humiliating stare.

O Lord,
At Your feet I bow
To Your most profound humility.
You whose Love cannot be altered
By our inability to accept it,
Suffer in agony too overwhelming
For our human minds to grasp.
I watch Your suffering
Prostrated by the majesty of Your Love.
The purity of Your total suffering
Moves my body and soul.
I cannot move from Your feet.
My heart is already captive
To Your Sacred Heart of Love.

Can Your Love,
So pure and incomprehensible,
Accept mine so human and frail?
Your Spirit stirs my heart
Drawing me to offer all I am
To this man yet God on this Cross.
How can I resist Your offer of Love
So open to me
Your arms are nailed open,
Never withdrawn
Even in torturous death?
Nail my arms open to You, my Lord,
That my heart and my soul
May never withdraw
From Your precious
And majestic Love.

3-10-2001

Lenten Series

Dear readers,

It is Lent once again, a time for increased reflection and prayer.

Last year 2015 I put together a Lenten series which followed somewhat a path going from “The Dust of the Journey” along Lenten themes, then proceeded through the Way of the Cross/The Passion of Our Lord. If you would like to follow along that journey again, or for new readers, for the first time, it starts here with the first entry in that series: https://margaretclaireshj.wordpress.com/2015/02/19/desert-of-my-soul/
Then you can follow through with the month of February and March of 2015 until you reach the culmination with the Triduum or Holy Week. The prayer poems are posted most recent to oldest in the archives, so you need to scroll down to the bottom of the archive page to get them in order if that matters to you.
There are more prayer poems listed under the categories Lent, Desert, Passion and Crucifixion, but not all the earlier poems in this series have been tagged yet, and they are not necessarily listed in the order I would want in the general categories. Plus I have added many since last year that have those tags. So you can check additional ones there by clicking on those categories. I will also be adding more unpublished ones during this Lent, and hopefully will get around to adding the tags on the earlier ones that are yet untagged.
In 2014 I left a link to an online prayer retreat that contains many of these poems as well, but as I mentioned in my notes last year, I decided to publish them a few at a time so that it was more of a journey through Lent rather than going through them all at once, or quickly. But if you prefer to have the retreat format where you can find them easier (not all more recently published are on this website though) you can find it here:

http://www.carynscollection.com/sufferingservant/index.html

I hope these prayer poems can enrich your Lenten journey. Feel free to comment if you wish. Will be journeying with you.

God Bless,

Margaret Claire