Eternal Father, we were locked up in you

"Eternal Father, we were locked up in you, 

in the garden under your ribs.

You drew us out of your holy mind

like a flower petaled with our soul's three powers,

and you placed the whole plant

in each power

so the plant might bear fruit in your garden,

might go to you with the fruit

you generated in her.

And you would come back to the soul

to fill her with bliss and holiness.

There the soul makes her home

like the fish in the sea

and the sea in the fish."

Saint Catherine of Siena (1347-1380)

(translated by Willis Barnstone) 

Voices of Light

1999, edited my Aliki Barnstone

Shambhala Publications, Inc.