Poetry

THE SONG OF JESUS

My heart, like a weary dove was searching

For a place to rest,

In the garden of your heart, on the flowers of your beauty

It now makes its nest.

Unlike roses that soon fade away and die,

My longing inside grows each day, watered by thoughts of you,

And I sigh.

Poems they say,  are nothing more than the heart

Singing,

How, then, can I not write, when to my heart new songs

You are bringing.

Your eyes are like the sky on which a

Symphony plays,

Your smile, the hymn of sunshine that chases the

Clouds away.

In thoughts of you, so sweet, I find

My delight,

From nowhere, you stole my heart like a thief

in the night.

I was caught off guard, but

I let you in,

I was captured by your mercy and the cleansing 

Of my sin.

Now, the song of Jesus is what

My heart sings,

A song renewed each day in my heart,

In my soul it rings.

Can you hear the chorus? Can you hear the canticle

It imparts?

It’s my soul soaring to it’s rest in the meadows

                                               Of  your  Sacred  Heart.                                            

                                                                                                   Fr. Jon

WHEN I THINK OF YOU, JESUS

The days drag on, the nights seem longer,

How true it is, Love makes the heart grow stronger.

Why my heart feels this way, Jesus, I haven’t a clue,

I only know it beats faster

When

I think of you

When we talk in prayer, time fades away,

Like icicles that form on a warm winters day.

To be in your presence makes me smile anew,

And my troubles take flight

When

I think of you

Your voice, like the cry of a dove,

Carries my thoughts to the clouds above.

There the Cherubim sing songs that are true,

My heart joins their melody

When

I think of you

Time! Time! What torture you bring!

Hurry before me! Take to the wing!

Let the beauty of your face, Jesus, be ever in my view,

Because I find my greatest joy

When

I think of you

                                                                              Fr. Jon

DIVINE  EMBRACE

My head rushes, I lie awake at night,

Thoughts of you in my mind race,

I smile remembering your gentle voice, how right,

And I close my eyes and

Dream of

Your embrace

A short time I left you Jesus, but you would not leave me,

My soul fell asleep, like dead roses in a vase,

But you moved my heart like the waves of the sea,

And now I think of you still, Jesus, and

I miss

Your embrace

I wake up each day and turn my thoughts to you,

My life goes on, my dreams I chase,

But as spring grass is kissed by morning dew,

Thoughts of your gentle love make me

Long for

Your embrace

Now each night before I sleep,

I pray you, Jesus, for this one grace,

To shorten the days, shorten the nights so deep,

To sooner be eternally in your arms

Lost in

Your embrace

                                                                                Fr. Jon

LOVE DIVINE

In the quiet of the night, my heart calls out to you,

You bring it joy that before it never knew.

Your name is the rhythm with which it now beats,

Being in your presence are the thoughts it now meets,

Things we regret most are the things left unsaid,

So I’ll tell you the things in my heart and the thoughts in my head,

When I left you Jesus, I left something behind,

When I searched my soul, it’s your name I would find,

To think of you now, Jesus, is to fall into a dream,

Is your mercy and forgiveness as real as it seems?

Then let my heart be the garden for your love to grow,

Thoughts of you will be the sun, your smile the rainbow,

I think of you, Jesus, and the joy that will be mine,

When forever in heaven, I will know your love divine.

                                                                                                                                          Fr. Jon

PERSEVERANCE

( THE SOUL STRUGGLING THROUGH THE SEVEN MANSIONS OF ST. THERESA OF AVILA’S ‘INTERIOR CASTLE’.  THIS IS THE SECOND MANSION)

I look into the depths

Not yet void

From the flesh’s pull and steps

I climb, or fall, by the world decoyed.

I search among the clutter

For treasures mislaid

A voice as a whisper, a mutter

Comes then fades.

My soul hears it truer

Than the things that I find

Stepping, straining over the manure

I stumble as one blind.

From whence does this voice come?

Which direction do I turn

To that which I am dumb

Yet for which my heart burns

My journey takes much strain

My intellect flies here and there

Always earthbound, now untrained

Fettered by the flesh’s care.

A presence in the darkness near

Comes as a gentle breeze blows;

“Perseverance is needed here,

there are yet five more to go”.

                                                                                                    Fr. Jon