Poets & Saints

Luke 1:38 (NRSVUE)

Then Mary said, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." Then the angel departed from her.

The eternal satisfies what nothing else can.

Augustine, from On Christian Doctrine

"A temporal thing is loved before we have it, and it grows worthless when we gain it, for it does not satisfy the soul. But the eternal is more ardently loved the more it is acquired. The soul will find the eternal even more valuable after once tasting it."

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James 4:8 (NIV)

Come near to God and he will come near to you.

Even now, life is good.

Etty Hillesum, from An Interrupted Life

"In spite of everything you always end up with the same conviction: life is good after all, it's not God's fault that things go awry sometimes, the cause lies in ourselves. And that's what stays with me, even now, even when I'm about to be packed off to Poland with my whole family."

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John 10:27 (NIV)

My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.

I hearken. God hearkens within me.

Etty Hillesum, from An Interrupted Life

"Truly, my life is one long hearkening unto myself and unto others, unto God. And if I say that I hearken, it is really God who hearkens inside me. The most essential and deepest in the other. God to God."

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Galatians 5:1 (NRSVUE)

For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

Love flows unstoppably toward me.

Richard Rohr, from The Universal Christ

"Love is constantly creating future possibilities for the good of all concerned — even, and especially, when things go wrong. Love allows and accommodates everything in human experience, both the good and the bad, and nothing else can really do this. Nothing. Love flows unstoppably downward, around every obstacle — like water. Love and water seek not the higher place but always the lower."

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Matthew 16:16–17 (NIV)

Simon Peter answered, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God."

Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven."

God is always more than I can hold.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, from The Divine Milieu

"God does not offer Himself to our finite beings as a thing all complete and ready to be embraced. For us, He is eternal discovery and eternal growth. The more we think we understand Him, the more he reveals himself as otherwise. The more we think we hold him, the further He withdraws, drawing us into the depths of himself."

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Mark 5:34 (NIV)

He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering."

I turn toward Love and find my peace.

Eloi Leclerc, from The Wisdom of the Poor One of Assisi

"If we knew how to adore, then nothing could truly disturb our peace. 

We would travel through the world with the tranquility of the great rivers.

But only if we know how to adore."

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Matthew 28:7 (NIV)

Then go quickly and tell his disciples: "He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him."

Love is always ahead, drawing me forward.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

"Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire."

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Romans 8:28–29 (NLT)

And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. 29 For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.

Love is the meaning of everything.

Julian of Norwich, from Showings

"Know it well, love is its meaning. Who reveals this to you? Love. What does he reveal? Love. Why? For Love. Remain in this and you will know more of the same."

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1 John 4:20 (NIV)

Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.

I choose to see the good.

Richard Rohr, from The Universal Christ

"We must — yes, must — make a daily and even hourly choice to focus on the good, the true, and the beautiful."

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Acts 17:28 (NRSVUE)

For "In him we live and move and have our being"; as even some of your own poets have said, "For we too are his offspring."

I am made to participate in beauty.

C.S. Lewis, from The Weight of Glory

"We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words — to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it."

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