Catholic Meditations

Do you walk across the shards and rubble, O Mary my mother,
Seeing the dark that man will do in the Father's name,
Listening to the grieving voices adding heat to the flame
That seems to be a never ending pyre of hate for one another,
And shed tears for all those who will not listen to your Son,
And shed tears for those who die, one by one,
Cain's endless slaughter of his brother?

Holy Mother of God, Immaculate and true
You who listen to our cries and pleas of desperation
You who work to aid in the darkest situation,
You, whose heart reaches out endlessly anew,
Forgive us for the tears we in our anger have caused,
May your prayers lead us, our anger paused,
To that place your Son will show us what to do.

Susan E. Stone, 2006

Labels: Mary, Mother of Sorrows, Need for God

My Jesus, I trust in thee,
even as the darkness gathers.
My Jesus, I trust in thee,
even as the storm clouds deepen.
My Jesus, I trust in thee,
even when the lightning threatens.

My Jesus, help me trust in thee,
even though my heart quakes.
My Jesus, help me trust in thee
even though you may seem far way.
My Jesus, help me trust in thee,
even though evil seems near.

My Jesus, may I trust in thee,
even when sorrow breaks my heart.
My Jesus, may I trust in thee,
even in the darkness of my grief.
My Jesus, may I trust in thee,
even when I don't understand why.

Susan E. Stone, 2003

Labels: Divine Mercy, Help, Trust

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