My First Poem: Offered Back

(Other poems)

Offered Back

Love began the flame within the fragile cells.
Love, too, completed the Love began, in nourishing womb.
Husband and wife, united, made into the perfect body of one,
An image of the Perfect Triune Body of One
Presented with the new creation--the new born babe.

In this Love, I AM embraces this chalice
Freshly fashioned, radiating being.
The molded golden handle bulb--its heart
Living to be held...by Him.
The reflecting receiving concave belly--its mind, its soul
Living to be filled...with HIm.

Like an eagle fledgling floundering in cliff-hung nest
Pushed out to fly, to live
Tumbling, follows not its guardinas in flight
Looking away, follows the pull
Insatiably darkly driven insensible.

Thirsting chalice, numb, leaves home, prostitutes itself
Corrupt hands unable to hold, to draw near
Dry tasteless drink unable to fill, to satisfy and sustain
Clang! Happening hard upon frozen stone, violated and broken.

Shattering into its world the Shepherd finds this chalice,
Holding it close to the Loving Pierced Heart,
Reality penetrating eyes know its every construction.

Deep, dirty, disjointed dings destroy the dance
Gouges and scrapes scathingly show sustaining
Deathly emptiness, stark cold lonely nakedness
Once poured over, twice poured over, thrice poured over
Washed in pure water, cleansed by the bath.

Grime regrasps its gauche grip, holding to fester
Particles hiding, hibernating in the caves.
Mercy Infinite, Love Exploding, hands of light drudge deep
Polishing till perfection, holy and without blemish.

Rest is given, new wine poured in.
Both united--Him holding its heart with Pierrced Palms
Living within each other--it holding the Bleeding Wine
Chalice breathing Blood, Blood breathing Life.
This lost chalice is now His chalice.

Through Him, With Him, In Him, offered back to I AM.


I began this poem while in pain on my bed as a freshman at the Franciscan University of Steubenville after a serious ankle sprain playing basketball. I worked on it for some time and turned it in for my poetry class. The next year, I took it out again and worked on it some more. I revised it and published it in the university's literary magazine, which, for that year, was entitled "Offered Back" after this poem.

Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.

I Got a Comment!

Since this comment is buried in an old post, and since I am so long-winded in my answer, I thought it best to use it as my post tonight so others could read it and in case others had a similar question. Let me know what you think.

Mary Anne asked: "Who creates one's soul, then? Is is a mere natural entity? or one that springs from Satan?"

I responded:

Hello Mary Anne,

God is the Creator, and He still is the one to create us, both body and soul. Satan has no part in creation, nor is he capable of creating anything, other than a mess. He is a powerful and potent creature, but he is still only a creature and a twisted and, in the true sense, impotent one, too.

What I am saying is that God creates the soul, and the soul is meant to be a home for Him. The original plan was virginal conception wherein God would provide the fruit; thus, the children would be born His true children and endowed with sanctifying grace. Sanctifying grace is not made to be passed on through physical generation, so once Adam and Eve chose the route of having children through physical generation, children were born without grace. Because they trusted in the wisdom of the serpent to achieve this new life of a son in direct disobedience to the one command, they somehow covenanted themselves to satan. Satan, thus, steals God's spouse and takes us to himself, in some sense. Humanity, then, is stuck in a deed-end relationship with an evil master bent on destroying us without any human hope for escape; this is symbolized when the Israelites were trapped up against the Red Sea with the Egyptian army bearing down upon them to slaughter them...and God saved them through the water of the Red Sea. The passage to a new life, the destruction of the enemy, is what happens in baptism wherein we are born again, born from above, and made God's actual children.

Baptism frees us from our bondage from sin and satan so that we can belong to our new spouse, Jesus. Then we spend the rest of our time in the desert on our way to the Promised Land being fed by the bread from heaven, the Eucharist.

I am not sure I have answered your question.

What I am saying is that the soul is created by God, but it is empty. It is made to house God's life, but we are born without that sanctifying grace. Satan doesn't do any creating; all he does is steal God's spouse, and as such, he has some claim against us so we are not free to go to heaven. Since in baptism we are born again, our old self dies thus breaking the bond we had with the serpent. Baptism frees us to be united to our One True Spouse.

Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.

We Keep His Commandments

The end of today’s reading from the first Letter of Saint John struck me: “For the love of God is this, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whoever is begotten by God conquers the world. And the victory that conquers the world is our faith” (5:3-4). If we replace “keep his commandments” with “obedience,” it would say, “The love of God is shown in our obedience to Him.” Jesus said the same thing: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). We show our love through our obedience.

Love gurgles up from a faithful heart that obeys; therefore, God’s laws are not difficult because we have conquered the world through our faith and become His children. When we love God above all things, then we want to please Him above all else, even over all the allurements of the world. In seeking His will only, we conquer the world and faithfully obey our Heavenly Father’s every command.

The united and interwoven themes today are love, obedience, faith, and God’s children. It is the “obedience of faith” (Romans 1:5 & 16:26) that reveals and proves our love, the love of a child for His father. Jesus came to make us children of God and a new creation and to give us a new heart, a new tree of life that loves and trusts in Him and so obeys Him. Now we can draw close to God and give ourselves entirely to Him; He gives us the grace to become one with Him. That union is a foretaste of heaven. That union, when it comes to complete fruition, is the mystical marriage when our heart and will and life are totally taken up into God. Therein is pure peace and joy. That is the goal of life.

Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.

We are God's True Children

Tomorrow’s first reading is a mighty one, and again it is from the first Letter of Saint John. I will provide it here in its entirety:
“If you consider that God is righteous, you also know that everyone who acts in righteousness is begotten by him. See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope based on him makes himself pure, as he is pure. Everyone who commits sin commits lawlessness, for sin is lawlessness. You know that he was revealed to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who remains in him sins; no one who sins has seen him or known him” (2:29-3:6).

God actually makes us His children; we are not just called His children. God is pure, and there is no sin in Him. We become like Him when we grow in purity and righteousness; those who remain in sin are not really his children. His children make themselves pure and are not attached to serious sin. A good tree bears good fruit. The gospel is that with God’s grace, we become His children, are made a new creation, and actually become inwardly and outwardly good. Salvation is not just getting into heaven. Salvation is being transformed into another Christ and becoming partakers of the divine nature as Saint Peter said:

“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:3-4).

God’s power makes us His children and frees us from the slavery of sin and death and transforms us into Himself. We share in His divine nature and become pure as He is pure. His heart and mind we take on, and it changes everything we do. Now we live for Him and love and think as He loves and thinks. The law is written upon our new heart of flesh, and we actually desire to do what pleases Him. We don’t just worry about getting into trouble or going to hell like a slave would do; we actually love Him and are careful not to hurt the one we love more than life. We are God’s children now, and if we give ourselves more and more to Him and grow in our prayer life and ability to truly love, God will perfect us and make us into His bride. Then we will fully become one flesh with Him.

Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.

Our Rescued Soul: Psalm 124

In today’s Mass (December 28), the responsorial came from Psalm 124 with the refrain: “Our soul has been rescued like a bird from the fowler’s snare.” This short psalm ends with this sentence: “Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth” (Psalm 124: 8).

The one snare that really matters in life is the snare of sin. On our own, we have no hope, and there is no escape from its insidious grip. With God, we have hope. During this Christmas season we celebrate and remember that God became one of us, and He did so to set us free from sin and unite us to Himself to have abundant life. When we give ourselves fully to Jesus and open wide our heart, He pours His life into us to make us more like Himself.

Jesus’ message isn’t just about salvation. Of course, nothing really matters without salvation, but God wants so much more than merely to save us. He makes us a new creation, fills us with His life, and makes us partakers of the divine nature as Saint Peter said: “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:3-4).

God doesn’t just save us from the power of the evil one, He saves us to make us His spouse. We leave the evil one, the false, hateful spouse to be united to the one true Spouse of our soul. Jesus doesn’t want His bride to be stained and corrupted with sin, He wants His bride to be pure and holy and madly in love with Him. God certainly wants to set us free from our bondage, and He wants even more to set us truly free; true freedom is doing what we were made to do. We are made to be God’s house, His temple, and His bride, and we will only be fulfilled and at peace when our help is in Him and He reigns in our hearts.

Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.

Bear Fruit For God

Paul says in his letter to the Romans: "Likewise, my brethren, you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God" (7:4). The context for this quote is marriage and how one is bound to one's spouse as long as the spouse is alive. If one's spouse dies, he is free to marry. In a similar manner, we have died to our old spouse so we may now belong to another, Christ.

How did we die? In baptism as it says a chapter earlier in Romans: "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life" (6:3-4).

The situation is this: we were married and it wasn't to God. God made us to be married to Him, but with sin we ended up in bondage to sin and satan and the law which was added due to sin. The only way to escape that bondage is for either one of us to die, but that seems impossible. There is no way out with our adversary ready to devour us. A symbol of this in the Old Testament is when the Israelites were up against the Red Sea unarmed and loaded down with goods and little ones while Pharaoh's highly trained and highly agitated army readied itself to revenge the death of all their first-born. All hope was lost. Yet God broke in and saved Israel through the water while at the same time destroying their enemy. This is a symbol of baptism.

We are married to a tyrannical murderer who hates us with a complete hatred and only wants to destroy us; he is not going to die, and if we die, well then we are dead. So God becomes one of us, dies on the cross, and is raised from the dead. In a spiritual and real way, we are united to Jesus in both His death and resurrection through baptism. Jesus provides us a way to die so that we are no longer bound to sin and satan as spouse, and then we are free to marry another and have Him as our spouse.

We walk in newness of life because we have become a new creation in baptism and have been married to a new spouse. United to our new husband, Jesus, we are now able to bear fruit for God. "Thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart ... having been set free from sin..." (Romans 6:17-18). The place we bear good fruit is in our tree of life which is our heart. Our old stony heart has died, and with our new creation we have been given a new, living, loving, obedient heart of flesh with God's law written upon it; now we desire and seek to please God, our spouse, since we love Him and want to make Him happy.

One of the main points of the entire Old Testament is that man was entrapped by sin and that his heart was hard and unbelieving; the point is that we needed a new heart. Jesus responds to that problem by giving us a new heart, His very heart, so that we can eat of the tree of life once again and love and trust God no matter what test we have to undergo. Now we are given the heart, the courage, to lay down our life for another and be faithful to God to the point of shedding our blood in love of Him. With Him and His heart beating within us, we may bear fruit for God.

Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.

Children of God

Yesterday I discussed how we need to be born again since our first birth didn't work, so to speak. This point is a major theme in the Gospel of John where he introduces it in the middle of the prologue or introduction to his gospel: "He came to his own home, and his own people received him not. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:11-13).

By receiving Jesus into our hearts and making it a fit home for Him, we become children of God. This process of receiving Jesus is formally begun when we enter into His death and then rise with Him in our baptism, and we deepen that union with Him at every worthy reception of Him in the eucharist. Each reception of Jesus in holy communion is made more fruitful the more we open our hearts to Him through a life of daily, continual prayer and deeds of charity to our neighbor. And the more we receive Him well in that most powerful event of this life, the better we pray and life out our faith. True children of God live the life of God, live a life in union with and imitation of our crucified Savior.

Before being reborn as God's children, we were originally born as children of men. John says we were born by the bloods of man, the will of the flesh of man, and the will of man; what do each of these mean? Our translations say "blood," but the Greek is the plural "bloods" which refers to the bodily fluids that result in conception. Jesus the Son of God was not born by any sexual union and exchange of bodily fluids, nor are we born again by any sexual union or by bloods. The will of the flesh refers to the sexual desire for union; again, being born of God involves no such sexual union. The will of man refers to the desire to have a baby, and so the couple comes together to accomplish that goal; when we are born from above, however, it is God who wills that we are made a new creation, and He is the one who gives us new life.

We are born, the first time, because of the abilities and desires of a man and woman. This birth makes us a "son of man" (to use the biblical phrase). A son of man has lost his inheritance as Esau sold and despised his inheritance to his younger brother, Jacob. Our ultimate inheritance is heaven; thus, the gates of heaven are closed until Jesus opens them through his death and resurrection. As a son of man, we have no hope for full union with God.

God's solution for his wayward, adulterous bride is to send His Son, who called Himself the Son of Man, to save us sons of men. As Saint Athanasius said, "The Son of God became the Son of Man so that the sons of men might become the sons of God."

The next question I would like to venture into is to discuss exactly how Jesus makes us God's children; it is related to why Jesus dies as He does and what baptism actually does for us; it is also related to what exactly our problem was to begin with and how Jesus' acts and works are the precise antidote to our ailments. Tomorrow I will venture further down this path.

Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.