Healing Scars

A vision of friends             with the wounds of compassion . Now clothed in garments of joy             who had watched him dying . Now know the healing scars             that pass all understanding. . Image by pixel2013 from Pixabay

In Love There May Yet Be An Answer

Singing in Pain #1 ~ Evil Co-existing with good ~ The riddle Of life’s complexity ~ Smirking Insiduously ~ As our minds Attempt to align ~ The paradoxes Of eternity ~ Yet the heart Responds ~ With compassion And mercy ~ And in love somewhere There may yet be ~ An Answer. ~ “The problem …

The Spiritual Tests

Your humility will be tested by the proud Your faith by the faithless Your compassion by the cruel Your hope by those who despair. Inspired by the writings of St. Catherine of Siena

A Silence That All Surrounds

Compassion Mercy . At the heart Of all . And so we pray With souls that know well . In a silence That all surrounds . That by the bountiful Presence of God . We may be sustained And re-found.

Giving Surpassing Getting

~ As if the world would spin on the axis of his mind  ~ Giving Surpassing getting ~ Compassion demonstrating its truly chivalrous character ~ And the act is worthy Of art ~ To wonder its way through the centuries. ~ St. Francis Gives His Cloak to a Knight - Giotto

Heart of Life

~ At the heart of life, contemplative prayer ~ The silence of wisdom, the courage to dare, ~ A sure judgment to follow, principals rare, ~ Compassion and justice, a heart to care. ~

Contemplation Gives Birth to Charity

~ Contemplation gives birth To charity ~ So let us contemplate This holy mystery ~ Of a babe In a manger ~ Not just For the predictable human feelings ~ Of warmth And protectiveness ~ But also For the world vision ~ Of the man He will become ~ In divine Compassionate humanity. ~ 'Nativity', …

Franciscan Spirituality (2) – The Compassion of the True Self

There is a wonderful story of Francis of Assisi well before the founding of the Franciscan order, running after a poor man that he had first refused to give to: “On one occasion … contrary to his custom, he sent away emptyhanded a certain poor man who had begged alms … As soon as he …

Reflections on The Poverello (7): Kindess for a Stranger

The Little Flowers of St. Francis does not portray all of the first Franciscans as saints.  There is realism about human nature which helps to remind us that although Francis of Assisi himself was clearly an extraordinary person, many others were quite normal, recognisable human beings with normal, recognisable human faults! One of the stories …

Reach Into Life

. This love of the gut . Penetrates beyond competition . Through compassion the heart moves . Approximately sensitively . Beyond the walls Of the soul . Boundaries dissolve . As the spirit reaches into life . With powers of imagination and charge of transformation. .