I’m nothing more than
a hole in the ground,
and nobody notices me,
and I’m okay with that.
But when I receive the
Body of Christ, an invisible
spring of living water leaps
up out of my peaceful soul.
These crystal clear waters
of pure love surge upwards,
with unbounded freedom and joy,
praising the King of Heaven.
You were the genius blessed by God
Who spoke of the holy marriage of
Faith and reason, and, indeed,
What a fruitful couple they make.
You were the teacher blessed by God
Who showed that everything we do,
No matter how great or how small,
Should point us towards Heaven.
You were the diplomat blessed by God
Who brought Light to the Franciscan order,
And as the sagacious Seraphic Doctor,
You were an instrument of God’s peace.
Gentle St. Mother Teresa
Said that Jesus came to her
In the distressing disguise
Of the poorest of the poor,
And, of course, she was right;
However, is it possible that
Jesus also comes to us
in the distressing disguise
Of the inconvenient,
Of the unexpected,
Of the cross?
This equation is like a golden key,
That will certainly set our spirits free;
Prayer prepares the soul for God’s holy gifts,
While surrender cleanses and also sifts;
These open the door to true heartfelt love,
Which only comes from the good God above;
When love is tested in the deep dark night,
In the morn it shines as mercy so bright.
I am weary,
my eyes bleary;
I drag around,
without a sound;
I have no home,
so off I roam;
I beg for food,
my shoes are glued;
on the mend,
I seek a friend.
We all deserve execution,
To be nailed on a cross of wood,
We all deserve exile in hell,
For only God is purely good;
He chose to take our place in death,
Bloodily stabbed into the tree,
He paid the price to rescue us,
For only He can set us free.
When liberty
is divorced from responsibility,
it dreadfully descends
in a dizzying death spiral of
selfishness.
But when liberty
is married to responsibility,
it courageously spirals upward
in a heroic flight of
freedom.
We must avoid the
stale cookies of selfishness,
for they always crumble
into complaints;
but with the Eucharistic
bread of thanksgiving,
we can then live like
the holy saints.
A castle of carousing was built
On a lazy beach in
The City of Cool,
In the Province of Popular,
On the slippery sand of
Foolish fragile fear:
Then, a voracious tidal wave,
With a savage swarm of
Paranoid piranha,
Chewed apart the castle,
And a furious flood
Of thick red blood
Poured out in torrents,
Turning the green one red.
A humble home was built
On a foundation of faith,
In the Town of Trust,
In the Province of Prudence,
On the rugged rock of
Divine Mercy:
The wild waves awoke
Like ferocious beasts
And beat against the
Formidable fortress,
Wailing with watery fists,
But all to no avail --
Nothing could harm
This holy house of Love.
The wild tempest is unleashed
and approaches us all at night,
Like a fierce, hungry cannibal,
it swallows the moon in a bite;
Awake, awake my dearest souls:
the near occasion of sin beware!
Away, away, while there’s still time,
before you are caught in a snare!
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.
Inspired by Venerable Fulton J. Sheen
The divine
sense of humor
makes us laugh,
Without it,
life is just
lived to the half;
We are happy,
and we smile
with good cheer,
For the Lord’s
perfect love
casts out all fear.
Your jolly, joyful eyes dreamily dance
to the sublime, saintly symphony
Of the unimaginably beautiful creations
of the Most High Lord God;
Your pious, prayerful persistence
and earnest embrace transform the
Leprous lechery of our lives into
the radiant Son-shine of lasting love;
Your voice, like a melodious and
musical church bell, resonates and
Reverberates throughout the ages
with the clarity and purity of truth;
Your simple, kindly actions speak
louder than the sonic boom of the
Ghastly gossip and eloquently
empty chatter of the world.
Your fishing boat bobs up
and down in uncertainty,
As you reflect upon the
meaning of your life;
With a sterile stare you
gaze at the wobbly waves,
While the wonderful wind of
the Spirit is silently approaching;
A merciful Son of Man is
standing on the sandy seashore,
He is looking for his Rock,
to make him a fisher of men;
The breeze blows through
your stubborn dark hair,
As the Son of Man asks if He
can come aboard your boat.
As Jesus ascends, He disappears
into nebulous misty clouds,
You feel like a floundering
fisherman without his nets;
Without the Good Shepherd,
your heart seems hollow,
You now appear more like
a pebble than a rock;
But later, a deafening wind
whirls through the room,
And fantastical flaming
fireballs crown all present;
In divers tongues, all mystically
praise the good God,
And you proclaim the Word
with holy courage.
As you are cruelly crucified
upside-down on Vatican Hill,
Your life is brimming with
meaning and significance;
Your blood falls to the earth
like a myriad of mustard seeds,
Where the Church will
take root and grow strong;
You are the first link in
the precious papal chain,
An unbreakable chain dripping
with martyrs’ blood;
This chain will withstand
the hammering of heretics,
It will be like a fruitful vine
bringing Love to the world.
Inspired by the writing of St. Teresa of Avila
Mortal sin
is a full moon
that moves stealthily
through the dazed,
slothful
daytime sky,
and no one
seems to notice,
but gradually,
its foul black disc
completely eclipses
the Son.
Like an aggressive squadron of
Enemy fighter jets, a flurry of
Problems is rapidly approaching
My sector in attack formation;
In my anxiety I am tempted to take
Them on all at once, but, instead,
I veer off to the right and one breaks
Off from the pack and follows me;
I take my adversary into the Light
And he is utterly blinded by it, so
I launch the missiles of patience
And love until he is destroyed;
One by one, I do the same with
The other challenges until, finally,
The spiritual airspace is clear, then
I praise the King of the Universe.
You were the Lord High Chancellor
Under the infamous Henry the Eight,
At first you tasted the king’s friendship,
But later on the sovereign’s hate;
You were a right honorable gentleman,
With an intellectually sharp mind,
With courage you stood against the crown,
For, sadly, it was spiritually blind;
So you were put in the Tower of London,
A place that vile criminals dreaded,
You faithfully served the good God first,
Thus, the monarch had you beheaded;
In this world, you bravely battled for truth,
The people, you’d never mislead ‘em,
Now from Heaven you pray for us all,
As the patron of religious freedom.
I stagger and stumble
and struggle through life,
my brain twisted into knots
by perplexing problems,
by a delirium of doubts,
by a flurry of fickle fears;
so Our Lady of Love
takes me by the hand
and gently leads me to
The Divine Mercy,
where He is enthroned in His
regal monstrance of gold,
and I pour out my heart
before His Holy Majesty;
from His Most Precious Body
two beams of bright light,
both red and white,
burn through the darkness,
illuminating my mind,
and the Truth has set me free.
They knew you as a Franciscan friar,
And your wise words lit in them a fire;
You preached to the fish when men wouldn’t hear,
They leaped from the water, filled with good cheer;
Then some envious men poisoned your cup,
They stared, aghast, when you drank it all up;
Before you heretics always cower,
Since through you God shows His mighty power;
When we really feel we have lost our mind,
Your passionate prayers help us Jesus find.