1/13/19 Through 1/19/19

1/13/19 Through 1/19/19

Sunday

That day He cleansed what water flows

Between the banks that Jordan knows

Forever holy found is thee,

Which flows from Sea of Galilee.

And flow it must, if life be found

In trees that flourish all around.

For when it fails new life to spread,

What's left are waters, simply dead.

So too the baptized life must be

A vessel clean and flowing free.

To water well the thirsty earth,

And spread the gifts of our new birth.

Monday

Come follow Me, the call of Christ,

Who's invitation seems high priced.

Abandon nets that feed you well,

And listen to the words I tell.

Those nets can just, your belly fill

But if with me, you just be still,

I'll fill your heart and satisfy.

Then grace, in you, I'll amplify.

Tuesday

Such humility unknown

As by the Lord of Lords was shown

To condescend to human form

That men could sinful lives reform.

To show the pow'r of love prevails

Where haughtiness and malice fails.

To bring forgiveness of our sin

And teach us love, to welcome in.

Wednesday

The healing He desires to give

Would teach the multitudes to live

In faith and total trust each day,

And follow on the narrow way.

All sickness that assails my heart

Would fade away and then depart,

If in His presence I would call,

Upon His grace to stop my fall.

Thursday

Blessed are those along the way

Who learn to listen and obey.

Who harden not their sinful hearts,

But learn to love what grace imparts.

For those who turn disdainful eye

To simple words for living by

May never know the promised land

Of love and peace that God has planned.

Their casual defiance of 

His call for self-restraint

Is really just rejecting love,

And choosing that which aint.

Friday

Four friends whose faith was strong that day

Would carry him along the way.

They found no way to get him in, 

Nor thought his need, forgiven sin.

So through the roof they let him down

Before the Lord, and then they found

A controversy taking place

O're blasphemy, or holy grace.

But when He made it plain to see,

The Son of Man's authority

Was that of God's in flesh below,

One stood and grabbed his mat to go.

The crowd astounded, glorified!

Yet one stood there just horrified.  

While all were giddy and aloof,

He wondered, who would fix the roof?

Saturday

Grace will come when need arises

Wisdom, font of love advises.

In obedience, Christ amassing

Grace on grace with love surpassing.

To the ones who hear His voice

He grants the grace to make a choice,

To follow Him in ways unknown

Until we find our final home.

1/6/19 Through 1/12/19

1/6/19 Through 1/12/19

Sunday

If answered well when ere He calls

The grace of wisdom then befalls

The docile and the pliant one

Who comes to greet the newborn Son.

But wicked and defiant men

Who plot their evil once again

Are filled with pow'r and yet afraid

Of just a little newborn babe.

Monday

In darkest valley light has dawned

And all are called now to respond

Repent!, for now is close at hand

The day, at last, the Father planned.

The love unlike we ever knew

Would cure the blind and crippled too.

The call went out to all the land,

Behold redemption near at hand!

Tuesday

Love is not mere tolerance,

Or spoken words of elegance

Not dutiful endurance

Or gifts of great expense.

All of love that I have known

Is superficial, time has shown.

For self has kept to self the time,

That should be spent in making rhyme.

Wednesday

Imperfect in love because of my fear,

Unable to love the one I hold dear.

Unwilling to give whatever it takes,

Now shown as one of my biggest mistakes.

So where do I go from this awful place,

In hope to again receive the embrace?

Pray for perfection of this sinful soul

In hope, one day, that it be made whole.

Thursday

Love so little understood

By one purporting to be good.

The stamina found lacking where

Reciprocation is quite rare.

The holy ones could pass the test,

But what about the average rest,

Who long for consolation known,

But only find indifference shown?

If love is truly their desire,

They must accept the holy fire

To burn away the sinful dross,

And count such gain as only loss.

For love is not conditioned on

 The pleasure once, that now is gone.

True satisfaction only comes

To persevering, holy ones.

Friday

A sickness fills the body now,

That must be cleansed and purged somehow.

So bowing low, and bending knee

I ask if He would set me free.

A weak and weary man am I,

Whose looks for other folks belie,

A man of appetites untamed, 

Who begs the Lord to be unchained.

Saturday

Be on guard against the idol.

Know the One whose word is true.

Make His love, your passion's bridle.

Let His love increase in you.

When no longer I am needed

As a prophet for the King

When the ground is firmly seeded,

Christ will come and healing bring.

He must increase, I must decrease,

So the world can plainly see,

I am but a simple mouthpiece,

He, the King to set you free.

12/30/18 Through 1/5/19

12/30/18 Through 1/5/19

Sunday

The family forms the basic cell

Of culture and the world as well.

Societies are said to be

Reflections of the family.

So look around and see its true,

There's quite a lot of work to do,

If we would like a culture free

Of evil and iniquity.

So turn again and start today

To change the world in some small way

A well-completed daily chore

Could be the key we're looking for.

Monday

Before there was, there was I AM.

He came not for, the world to damn.

But came for life, that it be filled,

As first the Father's thought had willed.

Along with John we testify

He's not some prophet passing by,

But light, true light, that shows to all

The wonderous nature of their call.

Tuesday

A heart that ponders all He does

The heart of Mary always was.

And so she found the Father's will

Whose every wish she follows still.

We too could glimpse the Father's mind

If we became the pond'ring kind

And ruminated on the Word

Then acted on the voice we heard.

The key to hearing well His word

Is acting on each one we've heard.

For each is like a stair that brings

Us closer to the King of kings.

But if we hear and don't obey

It's like we stop along the way.

Then back again begin to slide

As we again succumb to pride.

Wednesday

We he comes, the Savior named

How could I help, but not be shamed,

To see the One who died for me

That came in such humility?

Our God who took on human form,

When in the lowly stable born.

The maker of the universe,

In flesh, took on the human curse.

And broke the chains that bind us in

Our lives of selfishness and sin,

To set us free in love to know

What God intended long ago.

Thursday

If John had testified so clear

Why is it then, they did not hear?

Why listen and then circumvent

The clear and simple call, repent?

Our hope lies not in righteousness

But in our will to now confess

Our wickedness and haughty crimes,

Committed now so many times.

No hope is found in hanging on

To that in me that should be gone,

But hope is found in One who came

To shoulder all our sinful blame.

Friday

Behold the Lamb of God

Corrects in us what's flawed

So you must come and see

The gifts He has for thee.

No sinner can enjoy

The gifts that we employ

But come, and you will see

The gifts he has for thee

And bring the ones you know,

To them, Messiah show

For they must also see

The gifts He has for thee.

Saturday

The way to know love is to look at the cross

Creator of all, counting all as but loss.

Esteem of the soul far surpassing all things

Through passion and death, to salvation, He brings.

What are we to know, but to love all we can,

And to humble ourselves to fulfill His great plan.

He works through the lowly, with love as their goal,

To guide, and to teach us just how to be whole.

12/23/18 Through 12/29/18

12/23/18 Through 12/29/18

Sunday
Fourth Sunday of Advent - Mary visits Elizabeth

There within the waters warm

Before I saw the light of morn

I heard the voice of one so sweet

Who traveled to my mother greet.

And then a presence strong and bold

I felt within my heart take hold.

For there within the womb I leapt

As all through me the Spirit swept.

Monday
Christmas Eve

The chains of sin, on earth, once loosed

Have every man, in time, seduced,

And bound him with their lust and greed

Creating such a Savior's need.

A helpless babe in stable born

To Mary on that Christmas morn.

Warmed by breath of ox and ass,

As starry hours of night would pass.

Our Savior humbly came to be,

That man might come to plainly see,

What satisfies the empty heart,

Is love that freely we impart.

Such love that every eye could see,

Reflecting pure humility,

That God should love each wretched one,

By sending us His precious Son.

Tuesday - Christmas Day

(This can be sung to the tune of  "Lo How a Rose Ere Blooming"

Amidst the cold of winter, 

The warmth of love arrives.

Our selfishness to splinter,

And change our sinful lives.

Humility unknown.

Before our blessed Savior,

Took manger as His throne.

There shepherds came to worship,

This King the angels hailed.

Before the swaddled baby,

All other lights are paled.

Our God in flesh behold.

With ox and ass to warm Him,

And save Him from the cold.

Wednesday
Feast of St. Stephen

Confound the enemy with love

And draw your strength from God above.

No weapon here on earth can stand

If we would love as God had planned.

Each act of love will blaze a path

Away from selfishness and wrath

And toward a place of peace and joy

If we, this strategy, employ.

Thursday
Feast of St. John the evangelist

Incarnate in flesh, yet incredibly true,

Our God came for people like me and like you.

He dwelt on the earth, and we heard and we saw,

Great wonders that filled us with love and with awe.

He ate and He drank, and He taught us each day,

Of loving each other, and just how to pray.

We touched Him and felt in the warmth of His heart,

Each beat a new burst of His love would impart.

You too have encountered this fountain of love

Who set aside glory with Father above,

To teach us and show us the path to His peace,

So share it with all that the joy may increase.

Friday
Feast of the Holy Innocents

In love and innocence are born

The faces of the coming morn,

But many never see the day

For wicked men have had their way.

To innocence no thought they give

Though little ones all want to live.

Convenience!, their battle cry,

As babe is torn from mom to die.

How have we let such wickedness,

Our hearts and souls and minds possess?

In shame we must repent and see

What God intended us to be.

Saturday
Prophecy of Simeon - Sorrows of Mary

And you, a sword shall pierce your heart,

The prophet spoke that day.

For soon, with child, you must depart,

To Egypt, on your way.

For three days lost, a foretaste of

His time within the tomb.

A call to ever greater love,

That you may fully bloom.

His passiontide, a grief beyond

What mind could ere conceive.

But graces won when morning dawned

You children now receive.

A mother's sorrows long endured

That we could plainly see,

And all her children be assured

Of love she has for thee.

12/16/18 Through 12/22/18

12/16/18 Through 12/22/18

Sunday

The only Son of God most high

To sinful men on earth draws nigh

If you would just repent you'd see 

The difference Christ would make for thee.

So do your duty and be sure

If motive and intent are pure,

The holy fire will come to you 

And sanctify the things you do.

Monday

With saints and sinners in the line,

We see the roots of One divine.

Akin to every man on earth,

Our blessed savior comes to birth.

The ones remembered most of all

Are those who answered to the call,

And trusted to the bitter end

To good and righteousness defend.

Each generation takes a stand

To do as God, or they have planned.

With action as their loudest voice

Each generation makes their choice.

To serve, or not to serve, the poll.

Eternal happiness the goal.

In plain humility we find

The heart becomes, with Him aligned.

So take a stand and don't look back.

He'll give you strength for each attack,

And pick you up when e're you fall,

If you but hearken to the call.

Tuesday

To live according to His plan,

And not the ways of sinful man

Will bring contentment, peace and joy

That trial and trouble can't destroy.

For God has chosen every man

To play a part within His plan

To carry forth a life of grace

In every time and every place.

Lord, help me answer well the call

With You the large, and me the small.

Help me turn my back on sin,

And make me with the saints akin.

Wednesday

The life of many children proves

That age is not why Spirit moves, 

But to the willing heart He comes,

And saint or prophet it becomes.

For Samson, John and David too

Were all obedient to You

And if they fell would e're repent,

Then on another task be sent.

For Samuel and Mary too

The both, in youth, were called by You.

Their greatness found in being small

And answering when e're You call.

At Fatima the children three

Were chosen as the ones to see.

Their littleness would breed despite,

Yet none would cower in the fright.

Let many young now answer well,

And see the ranks of faithful swell

To turn the tide of sinfulness

Into a tide of righteousness

Thursday

Put not the Lord to any test

Or else your land will not be blest.

But when He bids you, ask a sign,

Be sure your will and His align.

Friday

Blest who heeds the spoken word

By others, in the noise, not heard,

Who takes the time to speak to You,

And follow what You ask to do.

For graces flow within Your will,

Your voice be heard in quiet still.

Like Mary may I straightened be,

That grace would freely flow through me.

Saturday

What a wasted emptiness

Before the Savior came

A sad and dreary hollowness

With only me to blame.

Without a hope, and in despair

Mere pleasure as the goal

A wanderer yet unaware

Of what would make me whole.

But lo, beyond the darkness came

A morn with brighter skies

One who shouldered all my shame

And opened up my eyes.