week 45: C.S. Lewis

From all my lame defeats and oh! much more
From all the victories that I seemed to score;
From cleverness shot forth on thy behalf,
At which, while angels weep, the audience laugh;
From all my proofs of thy divinity,
Thou, who wouldst give no sign, deliver me.
Thoughts are but coins.  Let me not trust, instead
Of thee, their thin-worn image of thy head.
From all my thoughts, even from my thoughts of thee,
O thou fair silence, fall, and set me free.
Lord of the narrow gate and the needle's eye,
Take from me all my trumpery lest I die.

week 44: Mechthild of Magdeburg

Greetings to you, living God.
You are mine before all things.
I am endlessly glad
That I can speak to you without guile.
When my enemies pursue me,
I flee to your arms
Where I can complain about my suffering
While you incline yourself to me.
You well know how you can pluck
The strings of my soul.
Ah, begin at once
That you may be ever blessed.
I am a low-born bride;
And yet you are my lawful husband.
I shall ever rejoice about this.
Remember how well you can caress
The pure soul on your lap
And do it, Lord, to me now,
Even though I am not worthy of you.
Ah, Lord, draw me up to you.
Then I shall be pure and radiant.
If you abandon me to myself,
I shall remain dark and sluggish.

week 43: Meister Eckhart

Truly, it is in darkness that one finds the light, so when we are in sorrow, then this light is nearest of all to us.

week 42: Frank Laubach

Christ Jesus, we thank You that at last the nations begin to see that every unfortunate one is a neighbor. We see it, Lord; help us to do it. Save us from self-firstness–and begin in me. We pray in Your name. Amen.

week 41: Evelyn Underhill

Prayer is our soul's response to God's immense attraction, and this response begins in the activity of the will.  Will and desire are the heart of the mental life turned to God.  This is not mere pious reverie.  As Saint Teresa says, at the beginning of our prayer life, we have to draw the living water out of the well.  It is hard work.  We can't leave it to chance.  God requires our communion with Him to be an act, an effort, and to cost something.  Think of the trouble we give ourselves to get time to be with those whom we love.  Is it not ever so much more important to make a way to commune with God?

week 40: Therese of Lisieux

My life is an instant
an hour which passes by;
My life is a moment
which I have no power to stay.
You know, O my God,
That to love you here on earth,
I have only today.

week 39: Gerard Manley Hopkins

GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.