Catholic Meditations

Let me never forget how you gave yourself, O Lord, to the soldier's whip,
three thongs of leather braided together, each thong capped with a biting tip.
How they gathered together,the soldiers there, with blows of anger and mocking,
Twisted together the wreath of thorns in jest for a brutal crowning.
How unfairly condemned you were that day with two thieves at your side --
Yet by all of this, the blood you shed, and the hard death that you died,
you wrought our salvation.


Still today we hold the soldier's whip so tightly in our grasp,
Hearing the leather hit your back and your breath's quick choking gasp,
the flagellum with its biting teeth flailing through the air
The blood from the crown we weave anew dripping down in your hair
each time we choose to hurt, to have the final say,
each time we chose to have by force, intent on just our way,
each time we ignore the need, and choose to gloat instead,
each time that we laugh at good, and wish another dead
instead of longing for your salvation.

Have mercy, Lord, on the hardness of our heart,
The many many sins and darknesses that tear this world apart,
Warm us in spite of our coldness, so that we might heal instead of harm,
to bless instead of curse with your strength in our strong arm,
to love instead of hate, when anger fills our life,
to be your word of peace instead of tools of strife,
to be the the tools of your salvation.

Instead of the whip, O Lord of life, give us hands of peace,
Give us true repentance to make that harsh whip cease.
Forgive us all our hardness that beats you more and more,
O with your grace, O Lord of Love, may we may go and sin no more,
rescued by your salvation.

Susan E. Stone

Labels: Man's Sinfulness, Passion of Christ, Penitence

Like the beat of a heart,
pounding, pounding,
like the beat of a drum
as an army moves out,
like the pain of a wound
throbbing, throbbing,
The whole weight of sin
on the wood of one cross.

How high we pile it,
higher and higher,
the guilt load, the sorrow
on the weight of His head,
Each act of darkness,
blacker and blacker,
The whole weight of sin
on the wood of one cross.

Each wrong against brother,
the anger, the anger,
The coldhearted choosing
the wrong over right,
Each trust we've betrayed,
how bitter, how bitter,
The whole weight of sin
on the wood of one cross.

He carried it all,
Each wrongness, each wrongness
He bore it for us,
God With Us, for love,
Each black-hearted deed,
To save us, to save us,
The whole weight of sin
on the wood of one cross.

O help us to love,
O Jesus, O Jesus,
To end the great weight
we pour on your head,
To see the great love
Poured on us, poured on us,
From the gift that you gave
on the wood of one cross.

Susan E. Stone, 2007

Labels: Man's Sinfulness, Need for God, Passion of Christ

A world gone mad when light is dark
when dark is renamed light,
and aching hearts weep bitterly
for their lost ones in the night.
Their cries reach up to Heaven's gate,
Never out of sight
While those in power twiddle.

When the weak and the bitter rule
And nothing new is done
Except to keep on plowing through
The same old futile run,
Aching hearts weep bitterly
As injustice is all that is done
While those in power twiddle.

Good is called bad these days
Out of some weird sense of fair,
And evil demands we tolerate,
With an angry, bitter stare,
Madonna weeps in church and shrine,
Though others seem not to care,
While those in power twiddle.

The world goes mad with Cain's old sin,
Brother against brother,
God watches as we use his name
To hammer one another,
The time to reap the whirlwind nears
For the tears hate cannot smother
While those in power twiddle.

Susan E. Stone, 2007

Labels: man's inhumanity, Man's Sinfulness

I
Here lies the dust, dry soil, longing for rain,
Blowing dust that makes the mouth grow dry
Now touches the barren heart with that longing pain
For green vistas, so soft, to rest the eye.
This, the dust of our days misspent, and lost
Trickles like sand through fingers, caught by the wind --
How little we realized at first what the cost
Of making that dust would be, the coin we'd spend
In this turning our lives into deserts of sand,
Longing for hope's water in this barren land.

II
Once upon a time, it is whispered that man
Knew a time of walking along with God,
In the blessed cool of the evening, but then he ran
Into that desert, there heavy-hearted to trod
The wasteland of dust he created by hand --
A drought of separation, that loss of grace,
Parching his spirit like an unwatered land,
A unwanted gift left to all of his race.
From parent to child hear it echoing still,
The keening hot thirst only God's love can fill.

III

God took on the dust of his creation one day
To bring down the waters to break the long drought,
He came born as a child, in the dust and the hay,
Few saw his coming, few sought him out.
One cool of the evening he knelt down to pray,
His sweat fell like blood drops, the start of the rain,
His blood then was given the very next day,
Flood waters from Heaven released in his pain.
In his dying, forgiveness for what once was wrought,
The drought can be ended when his presence is sought.

IV

Here lies the dust, God gives the rain,
Ending the dust that makes the mouth grow dry
He touches the contrite heart to ease the pain
Gives green vistas, so soft, to rest the eye.
This, the dust of our days misspent, and lost
Are healed by his love, given back by the wind --
For those who will listen, he has paid the cost
Through love alone, the coin he chose to spend
In this turning our lives into gardens, not sand,
Bringing hope's water to a once barren land.

Susan E. Stone, 2007

Labels: Jesus' Love, Man's Sinfulness

I

When all the darkness of a world gone mad with "me" and "mine"
presses against your heart with its dark futility,
watch the world and see what happens
when self becomes the measure of the truth,
no one way better or worse than another,
with no standard to give it value.
Relativism – a place with no verities.
What type of world is it
when millions of selves become the arbiters of what is right,
of what is holy,
what is worth believing,
each competing,
the child molester no less worthy of admiration
than the hero who rescues the dying,
where killing the sick and old seeming as good a deed as healing,
and children seem a futility of expense.

Listen to that cacophony of competing voices
drowning out a truth they do not want to face,
the fact that without family,
there is an empty hole in life,
where self-loathing shadows over the death of hope,
the fact that chasing sex and intoxication
will never sustain,
that things break,
heroes fail,
that isms are imperfect answers for that hole in their lives,
and that no matter how they veil the reality,
their choices are leading them to a nightmare world,
where they try to make shifting desires the center of all,
turning the old granite of truth into quicksand,
unable to sustain a purposeless life.

Listen, and ask yourself,
have we not created the tower of Babel anew,
confusing our hearts, our spirits, our future
in our hubris to say Man, and not God is the center?

Where then, is the firm land
that will let you stand while the chaos grows,
as the center cannot hold,
and things fall apart?

The answer was given to you in the life of a single person
sent here with one purpose,
to bring you home.
Even now, he calls through the bitter waters of modern life,
and offers that transformation
that creates a sanctuary against the storm.
Look upon his cross,
his tomb,
his resurrection and know
one greater than any man
has touched the world,
leaving a cross-shaped beacon pointing the way
to the place where heaven and earth come crashing together,
an island of meaning against the midnight,
bought with blood,
sustained by love.

Laugh at him as old fashioned as you cry against the dark,
or listen to what he has to say,
and find the purpose you were missing.


II

Lord,
You offer so many graces to us,
your poor benighted children here on Earth,
graces that fall to the ground too often unwanted, ignored, unseen.

How often we turn to run to the dark when you offer us
that purifying light that will heal the aching in our hearts
as if it were some bitter tonic
instead of the Living Water,
perfect tonic for all that ails us.

Forgive us, Lord,
for the ingratitude of our wayward hearts,
for the cold determination to do what we want,
no matter what the cost.

Soften our hearts, O Lord, and open our eyes,
scaled over by sin and and willfullness and lack of trust,
until we see you standing there,
waiting patiently with outstretched hands,
ready to transform us step by step,
grace by grace
until you have made us into the child of light
you would have us be.

III

You gave me a dream one day, O Lord,
of midnight on a storming sea,
Hurricane winds blowing free,
washing up on an unprepared shore.

I watched as the waters swirled and rose,
huge swells washing all away
there in the darkness far from day,
The works of hands shattered in the water flows.

I watched how puny are the works we prize
The works of hands and sweat and dreams
Falling there beneath the streams
Nothing of man stopped the water's rise.

And yet, there on the water's face
Bobbing lightly as the waves moved on,
Survivors surfacing towards the dawn
Rafts and boats and planks and boards in place.

Even though wind tossed, and frightened there
even though battered in the night
they escaped into the light,
By the hand of loving care.

"My mercy," said the Lord to me
"I gave them refuge in my heart,
As the darkness took their world apart
Because they put their trust in me.
.
"Take care to understand and know
When darkness seems too dark to see
That I will hold you close to me
In darkest night, when storm winds blow

"If you will give your heart to me
To keep within my heart of love
You will always float above
The darkness of that midnight sea.

"Cling to my mercy now, this day,
The storm clouds gather, the darkness grows,
The seas are rising, the dark wind blows,
Come into my heart or wash away."

Labels: current evils, Jesus' Love, Man's Sinfulness

The drum is sounding in the night,
O listen to it beating,
a dark foreboding heart it throbs
Without a moment's ceasing.

When Eve chose dark instead of light
The first stroke hit the skin,
When Adam joined his choice with her,
The rhythm then began.

The choice was made, the beat began
To echo to the ending
The world was torn with sin of man
The dark beat never ceasing.

Abel's blood cries in the night,
Listen to it moaning,
Violence at another's hands
Without a word of warning.

Lust and pride and greed march on,
like some perverted treasure,
And anger hurls them all along
Its army without measure.

But a whispered hope came with the fall
Of someone who would come
And heal the breach and make things whole
And still the beating drum.

He came to us as babe in arms
crying in the night,
The answer to our spirit's woe
the one to make things right.

His own heart's blood he made the cure,
The salve to make men whole,
To bind up all the wounds of sin
That terrify the soul.

The time of healing nears each day
that passes through our hand,
The drumbeat grows more frenzied now -
The glass runs out of sand.

And when the last grain passes through,
with throbbing cacophony,
Abel's blood will moan no more,
And the drumbeat cease to be.

And when the last beat of that drum
echos in the night,
He will bring the morning sun
Renewed, and clear and bright.

Susan E. Stone, 2006

Labels: Jesus' Love, Man's Sinfulness, Need for God

Lord,
You offer so many graces to us,
your poor benighted children here on Earth,
graces that fall to the ground too often unwanted, ignored, unseen.

How often we turn to run to the dark when you offer us
that purifying light that will heal the aching in our hearts
as if it were some bitter tonic
instead of the Living Water,
perfect tonic for all that ails us.

Forgive us, Lord,
for the ingratitude of our wayward hearts,
for the cold determination to do what we want,
no matter what the cost.

Soften our hearts, O Lord, and open our eyes,
scaled over by sin and and willfullness and lack of trust,
until we see you standing there,
waiting patiently with outstretched hands,
ready to transform us step by step,
grace by grace
until you have made us into the child of light
you would have us be.

Susan E. Stone, 2006

Labels: Jesus' Love, Man's Sinfulness, Mercy on Mankind, Prayer for Mercy

(Tune)
http://www.contemplator.com/midimusic/maidwho.mid

Remember man, that thou are dust,
to dust you shall return
When God shall call your spirit home
to soar with him or burn.
He has told you what is good O man,
what matters most of all --
So choose you wisely while you may
To walk with him or fall.

Some do think when they are young
That what they want is right.
Power, love, or frenzied games,
While they are young and bright.
But like the flowers of the field
That bloom so bright in May
The time will come as days run by
That brightness fades away.

When darkness comes crashing down
and lovers lose their charms,
And power leaves a bitter taste,
Hope crumble in your arms,
O what will fill the aching gap
That burns within your soul?
What can fill your emptiness
And make your spirit whole?

Remember Man, that thou art dust,
But Jesus wore that dust too,
To open wide the doors of grace,
Healing, cleansing and true.
If you listen to his voice,
and follow where he leads you,
Living waters there will quench your thirst
And the Bread of life will feed you.

Listen, Man, he calls you now
To make your wounded life whole.
To heal the pain in your aching heart,
To fill that gap in your soul.
He calls to you with gentle voice
Gives light to show you the way,
Love divine from Heaven's door
To fill your heart today.

(Tune)
http://www.contemplator.com/midimusic/maidwho.mid

Susan E. Stone, 2006

Labels: Jesus' Love, Last things, Man's Sinfulness, Need for God, Song

Think, O Man, of that craving that has echoed down through the ages,
Like a bitter poison burning through so many lives.
It shimmers like a jewel to catch the eye, a brass ring just out of human reach,
But is instead a burning deceit that brings only grief in its wake.
Like a curse, this longing for control, for power, for might -
The dark desire to be our own god, and to deny the God who brought us to life.

Mother Eve, beguiled with a longing for more than she had been given
Contemplated the dark glowing light of that craving,
Power to know, power to do was the twisted promise in the Serpent’s lie,
“Be like God,” he said, and the whisper slithered into her mind,
There to be fanned by her own heart into a full blown lust,
Control promised in the form of a fruit stolen from the Owner.
And in reaching for what was not hers, what control she had
Wrapped in the delight of living in the friendship of God on an uncursed earth
Was wrenched out of her hand and the hands of her descendants
By the One who was far stronger than she.

O Man, how often you forget in your longing for that which is not yours,
That like your father Adam, you are naked in the eyes of your Creator,
For He sees the dark seed planted in your heart since the Fall
And how you turn away from His offer of healing as you chase after phantoms.
How the old Serpent smiles as the seed blooms anew,
As you burn hot for the trappings of mastery, forgetting your Maker.
But you will find that all the tools and trinkets meant to enhance your control
Cannot protect you from the pain of that separation,
Or from the reality of just who you are.

When life comes crashing down upon your head,
When the earth quakes and the mud slides and the waters rise,
You will realize, O Man, that you are frail, mortal, and not at all God.
Look! Your illusion of power is nothing more than a shadow,
A dark miasma, a fog that evaporates like smoke
If seen in the light of Him who has the true control.
In that bitter awakening will you admit
That the stories of human grandeur you have told yourself,
All those tales of your power, strength, and might are not enough
To calm the raging pain in your heart, your mind, your soul,
Or will you let your pride take you down all the way into the pit?

O Man, naked you came into this world, and naked you will leave,
and your works will eventually turn to dust, for you are not the Master.
And yet the God whom you challenge in your hubris and pride
Still holds out a hand in love for his creation.
Instead of that black darkness he offers you the light.
Choose before it is too late - He stands at the door and offers you his heart.

Susan E. Stone, 2006

Labels: Man's Sinfulness, Need for God

Lord,
the pain wraps around us,
throbbing,
throbbing,
like the rhythm
of the hammer fall
piercing,
deeper,
lodging in the wood.

The pain,
oh the pain,
a woman crying out
as her loved one is slain,
a child shocked
at the blood
falling from a beheaded parent,
the armwrenching agony
as they hauled you,
nailed to the crossbeam
up up to the drop,
white pain electric
through your arms
as the beam found the mortise,
like the pain of the tortured
screaming beneath their captor's hands,
screaming as the electricity
screams through their bodies,
throbbing,
screaming,
the pain of being stripped
of everything but the paim
and the stares
as they gambled,
waiting for the blood to fall
for the breath to end
like guards at a starvation ward
waiting for thirst to end his praying,
like nurses piling blankets high
in the name of mercy killing,
the pain,
throbbing,
with each beat of your heart,
each hard sought breath,
like the pain of the deserted,
lost in the wilderness,
aching,
bereft,
afraid of the hand of man,
victim of terror,
victim of rape,
victim of starvation,
scurrying by night
seeing her child die,
like your mother,
watching each last breath,
dying inside
watching your death.

O Lord,
the pain,
you wrapped yourself around it,
accepted it,
tasted it,
drank it
down to the bitter dregs,
and bore all the burden
of man's evil,
of man's inhumanity
down to the pit of death,
walking each step with us,
walking each step along with us,
and accepting that last, lone breath,
shattered the chain.

Lord, in our grief,
hold us,
and tell us
as we unite with you,
as we live for you
you live for us,
and when the pain,
the last ache,
the last throb
is over and done,
you will take us
to where
pain is banished.

Amen.

Susan E. Stone
2005

Labels: Jesus' Love, Man's Sinfulness, Passion of Christ

O Lord,
Please pierce the heart
of those who would use you,
body and blood, soul and divinity,
there in the form of bread,
food of the poor,
symbol and reality
of your love for us,
as a political statement
of their determination
to act in sin
pierce their hearts
with the reality of their wrongdoing,
and may they realize the enormity
of the wrong they do
and return in penance.

O Lord,
pierce the hearts of the priests,
the bishops,
and those entrusted
to lead us
with the reality of the wrong
that others do for political statement,
and may they be given wisdom
to act rightly,
the strength of heart
to stand up for the truth,
wisdom to recognize the right action,
and the fire of courage
that comes from the touch of your Holy Spirit.

O Lord,
help us, just the regular men and women
who love you,
to be willing to stand up and say,
This is wrong,
the wisdom to know how to act,
and the joy of being your witness.

Amen.

Susan E. Stone, 2004

Labels: Discipleship, Eucharist, Forgiveness, Man's Sinfulness

I

Hear my prayer, O Lord,
and let my cry come unto thee,
and hear the voice of your children,
all those burdened
with death unexpected,
the dead, the dying, the survivors,
the blood of victims
here,
then,
throughout time
since Abel's blood first cried to you.

II
The Day

For some it was
a day to celebrate,
a day that a little David
brought down
a mighty Goliath.
that symbol of sin and oppression,
who would strip them of God
and truth and opportunity
and tear their world apart
and try to keep them
ground under it's thumb forever.

For some it was
the day life turned to ashes,
drifting in white dusty smoke
coating the survivors
as they groped,
ghostlike,
trying to find the light.

For some it was
children searching for fathers
now pulverized
beneath an unbelievable wreakage.
wives looking for husband
husbands crying for their wives,
voicemail messages played over and over,
the last quick message,
a final goodbye,
the last connection
before the unthinkable.

III

Lord have mercy.
Christ have mercy.
Lord have mercy.

For the hardness of our heart
Forgive us, O Lord.

For the passing of our wrongs down to our children,
Forgive us, O Lord.

For the celebration of the death of our enemies,
Forgive us, O Lord.

For choosing to nurse our hate rather than be reconciled with our neighbor,
Forgive us O Lord.

IV


Words.
Words were spoken,
and soon,
reality is warped into the image
cast by words.

The words were spoken
twisting peace into hate,
twisting plowshares into swords,
twisting buildings of people into rubble and ruin.

Where are the words
to ease the pain
of a woman who has lost her child?
In the anger of hate,
is she real
or just a counter?


Where are the words
to fill the heart
of a husband who lost his wife?
Is his loss
justified
by the blow against the enemy?



Where are the words
to fill the lives
of the newly orphaned?
Are their shattered lives
able to heal
the twisting of others' hearts?

V

Dear Lord,
This day, let me commend to you
all those killed
in hatred,
whether by sword,
stone,
scapel,
poison,
bullet,
bomb.
This day I commend to you
victims chosen
to terrorize the surviving,
children,
beloveds,
friends,
coworkers,
strangers.

And on this anniversary
of the evil that man willingly does to others,
teach us not to hate,
but to break the chains
that try to drag us down into the pit
one word at a time
one refusal to hate at a time,
one reaching out to those in need at a time,
one willingness to walk in your steps at a time.

Amen.



Susan E. Stone, 2004

Labels: current evils, Grief, man's inhumanity, Man's Sinfulness, Prayer for Mercy