Nino goes to mass perhaps every month or two,
Since he’s so very busy, his prayers are quite few,
But he says he’s a good Catholic if you ask his view.
Nino needs to sincerely seek so that he may find,
He needs more time with the Lord, away from the grind,
Otherwise, the more he runs, the more he’ll fall behind.
Maybe like Falstaff you were a “practical” man,
It’s even possible that from danger you ran;
Perhaps you were very timid and shy,
Then Jesus called you to life on high;
Did you fear the Holy Spirit’s fire?
If so, even introverts God can inspire!
In Bethsaida born and in Phrygia killed,
Even the meek God’s kingdom can build.
Pre-judging is a vice that we don’t like at all,
Yet doing this can become a habit into which we fall,
Let’s not be like the merciless Pharisee known as Saul.
Instead, pre-loving is what we should do the most,
Assuming the best of others should be our boast,
So we need God's grace from the Eucharistic host.
The Christ was cruelly crucified in
that tumultuous Passover season,
So your life was shattered and shaken,
and you surrendered to the god of Reason;
You started to sound like a practical pagan,
and not like a Christian apostle,
For you to believe Jesus rose from the dead,
it would take a miracle very colossal.
The other apostles saw Jesus alive,
and that’s why their faces turned pale,
But to you this sounded like a stupid story,
like a fantastical fairy tale;
With stony sarcasm you scoffed at them,
and you told them you needed proof,
Without some truly indisputable facts,
it seemed like an apostolic goof.
But a week later you were with them
as He walked right through the wall,
Your dark eyes now twinkled in the Light,
and tears of faith began to fall;
Then you looked closer at Jesus’ flesh,
and it was ripped by a Roman lance,
So you crumbled to your knees in humility,
and you melted in His merciful glance.
Your soul had dried up in the desert of reason,
with troubling doubts all around,
But now in this flash flood of Living Water,
they very, very quickly drowned;
You then became the apostle of India,
as your journeys led to the East,
Helping many people find their way,
to the Heavenly wedding feast.
Charlie’s childhood dream
was about to come true
As he bravely awaited
his blast-off into space,
But at T minus 31 seconds,
things started to turn tense
When the countdown
suddenly stopped;
Fortunately, after many anxious
hours, all systems were go,
And the rocket boosters
powerfully ignited,
The stately spacecraft
lethargically lifted off,
As if it had been awakened
from a somber slumber.
The spacecraft thunderously
roared and rumbled upwards,
With red fiery flames
dancing behind,
And black billows of
smoke quickly clouded the
Launching pad like a dark,
gaseous galactic nebula;
Charlie shook in his seat
as if he were riding on a
Rough road in a rickety,
rollicking stagecoach,
And in two minutes of breathtaking
acceleration, he was
Traveling over three
thousand miles per hour.
He was now thirty miles up
and halfway to space,
When the rocket boosters
abruptly disengaged,
The two of them toppled
and fell downward towards
The bright blue ocean like
giant worn-out pencils;
Still accelerating, the
orbiter speared upwards
At the scintillating speed
of one mile per second,
Charlie’s orbiter now flew
like lightning, and in a
Mere thirty seconds
he was soaring in space.
Charlie was then surrounded
by stars in the black sea
Of space, and he felt
wondrously weightless,
Now gently gliding around
Earth, he was fascinated
As he watched the sensational
brilliance of the sun;
Below, he saw the beautiful
blissful blue globe and
Was awed by its peacefulness
and by its grandeur.
Interestingly enough,
Charlie’s spiritual life
Has followed a very
similar flight path,
Years ago, his petitions
and other prayers seemed
To vanish into the vast void
of a bleak black hole;
This was because his pitiful
prayers were mumbled
Meaninglessly in the last
few minutes of the day,
His rockets had little spiritual
fuel for a journey to Heaven,
So his life’s countdown
suddenly stopped.
Without enough spiritual fuel,
Charlie knew that he
Risked crashing and burning
in the fearful fires of hell,
An open-throated grave
that savagely swallows
Sinners and belches forth
filthy fumes of smoky sulphur;
He knew he needed to
double down on his prayer
Life to give greater thrust
to his mission,
So he went to mass more,
and delighted in the
Divine Office a little at a time
throughout each day.
Because of Charlie’s awakening,
he made the decision
To make persistent prayer
the top priority of his life,
At first he didn’t notice a
change, but with patience,
His spiritual life lifted off
and safely reached orbit;
Soon his spirit was freed
from the burdensome bonds
Of serious sin, and he felt
wondrously weightless,
He gracefully glided towards
the flaming monstrance
Of the Son, and His
rays of Divine Mercy.
From the happy heights
of the heavens, his
Panoramic perspective
really changed,
Life appeared so much
simpler through the
Detachment of prayer in front
of the Blessed Sacrament;
The petty possessions,
the worries of the world,
The fettering fears,
the doomsday deadlines:
They were all so surprisingly
insignificant compared
To a fabulous future
filled with perfect peace.
Everyone runs here and there calling for Merri,
They all need her help for their work at the dairy,
With so many interruptions, she has no time to tarry.
But Merri’s sincere surrender is gentle and sweet,
She turns her life over to Jesus and doesn’t miss a beat,
Living in the present moment, she washes the Lord’s feet.
You collected terribly tall taxes,
And that’s why many called you a beast,
But then you met the loving Lord Jesus,
And quickly your financial career ceased;
Some felt you were a bloodsucker,
With a black-hearted desire to be rich,
But when you followed the mild Messiah,
Immediately you found your niche.
Perhaps like Scrooge you were selfish,
And you knew not how to love,
But then the Savior softened your heart,
And it became like that of a dove;
Maybe you counted clusters of coins,
And had lofty luxurious goals,
But after the Good Master inspired you,
You wrote a gospel to save sinners’ souls.
In a shadow of deep darkness, the Light
of the world hangs crooked on the cross,
A jagged crown of razor-thin thorns is
thrust maliciously into His throbbing head;
Bright-red blood and the fickle crowd’s
sour spittle trickle into His stinging eyes,
He licks His cracked lips, and He tastes
the bold bitter flavor of blood.
The Roman soldiers’ wild whips tore
and radically ripped Jesus’ holy flesh,
And now the sticky crusted wounds cling
to the weatherbeaten wood and ooze;
Knife-like nails puncture His hands and feet,
and make them look like cored apples,
His shoulders slump down, crushed under
the weight of every sin in human history.
The soldiers hellishly hammered the nails
into Jesus’ flesh, as if He were an animal,
Indescribable pain blasted through the
bones of His body like dynamite;
He now surrenders His body, mind, soul,
and spirit to the will of His Father,
He lovingly practices what He preached,
and He prays for His persecutors.
Jesus is high up, as if atop an isolated
island, surrounded by a sea of hate,
A cacophonous chorus of insults assails
His ears, and the smell of sin is in the air;
His mother, living in the dark night of
unknowing, silently waits and watches,
She kneels in total surrender, while a
sword of sorrow slashes her heavy heart.
In the afternoon, Golgotha is enveloped
in a mysterious murky darkness,
Then, when Jesus dies, the earth quakes
in violent anger at the murder of its Creator;
Rumbling and roaring, buildings catastrophically
crash and crumble to the ground,
The terrifying temblor forces the sanctuary’s
curtain to explosively burst apart.
That mysterious murky darkness remains
in the hearts of Jesus’ faithful followers,
Their entire worlds are seriously shaken,
and they are stunned and stupefied;
But on the third day, the nebulous fog
of uncertainty will finally dissolve,
On the third day, a heavenly ray of Light
will come, far brighter than the sun.
Nino is a newscaster who’s
always in hot pursuit of fame,
He aims at human targets
to drop his bombs of blame,
Then he justifies himself saying
it’s just a part of the game.
Vin Scully could certainly
teach him a thing or two,
Nino should stay away
from bombastic gossipy goo,
He should calmly and simply
tell the facts that are true.
You were added to the Eleven just a little bit later,
you’re the one who is known for replacing the traitor;
You were a part of the mission of the seventy-two,
and you saw how Jesus’ power made all things new;
On Pentecost you received the promised Paraclete,
and heard the first papal speech of good old St. Pete;
You mortified your flesh to kill your desire,
coupled with virtue, it helped put out the fire;
As a martyr, you were stoned in the year 80 A.D.,
now surrounded by Love, you’re finally free.
It’s early morning and
the crafty enemy
crouches and waits,
like a hungry lion ready
to devour my world,
with worthless worries;
in the neutral zone,
transitioning out of sleep,
I lie in bed with my eyes closed,
and my mind gradually
awakens into the
nebulous fog
of fear.
My day begins
in the dark night of unknowing.
The enemy tries to strangle me
with multitudinous doubts:
about time,
about interruptions,
about irate people,
about conflicts,
about coertion,
about expectations,
about performance,
about success,
about reputation,
about ability,
about sales,
about money,
about choices,
about decisions,
about relationships,
about rejection,
about knowledge,
about honesty,
about truth.
The fog of failure threatens
in the dark night of unknowing.
With my eyes still closed,
still in the neutral zone,
I am in the darkness;
but the Light is there,
though my mind’s eye
cannot yet see it.
I reach out in faith
in the dark night of unknowing.
I place myself in the presence
of the good God,
I invoke the Holy Spirit,
and in my mind
I sing a hymn of praise;
and through the cloudy mist
like a distant diamond
I see the sparkling of the
Morning Star.
The Light twinkles
in the dark night of unknowing.
In prayer,
I abandon myself
totally
to Jesus,
The Lord of Love,
through Our Lady,
Queen of All Hearts.
The Light shines
in the dark night of unknowing.
Our Lady sweetly
and gently
draws near to me,
in a tunnel of dazzling
Son-shine;
she warmly smiles at me
with her angelic aquamarine eyes,
and her soft hair
and her majestic mantle
blow in the balmy breeze
of the Spirit;
and she lovingly clasps
her own warm hands
around mine,
and then tenderly
embraces me,
with the limitless love
of the Lord.
The Light electrically explodes
with glorious golden rays
in the dark night of unknowing.
Next she places a radiant
little candle
in my right hand,
and points to her only Sun,
Christ the Courageous;
she sweetly whispers to me,
and then, together,
we humbly kneel down
and offer prayers
of complete surrender
to Our Lord and King;
the flame of my little candle
dances with delight.
The fog of fear evaporates
and my heart leaps
with confident joy.
The dark night of unknowing
has been triumphantly
transformed into
the bright light where God’s love is flowing.
The poetic corner of the public square
Has grown exceedingly dark and dreary,
And the fetid fog of moral relativism
Has made this place rather eerie,
The dingy marketplace of worldly poetry
Weighs us down and makes us weary.
But Our Lady ignites her little candle,
To make bright this deep dark night,
At last, beautiful sweet poetry comes to us,
That is right in God’s glorious sight,
The candle’s flame is a spearing sword,
Ready to fight for the one true Light.