The moving moon

“The moving moon went up the sky,

And nowhere did abide:

Softly she was going up,

And a star or two beside.”

--Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Little thorn

The air was frigid tonight as I walked by moonlight to the chapel to spend an hour with the King of Heaven and Earth. The waning moon shone brightly, lighting my path so well that I easily made my way across the frosty grass. The stars were as clear as crystals in the cold night sky-- they're always clearer when it's colder-- twinkling in their places in the dark canopy far above me. How many times have I come this way? So many memories flooded my senses as I walked along carrying my little thorn to offer to Our Lord.

So many more memories crowded around me when I entered the chapel and saw Him there, in the Blessed Sacrament, in the monstrance. The little thorn pricked at me as I held it more tightly, and I swallowed hard against the narrowing in my throat. Hot tears began to well up in my eyes as I whispered a prayer that they would not fall: and they stopped. I thanked God and offered the thorn to Our Blessed Lord, even as I told Him how small it was compared to even the tiniest from His spiny crown. Even so, this thorn is the one which continues to cost me the most, so I know that it has value in His eyes. Oh dear little thorn, I love you because you remind me that there is joy even in the midst of sorrow. One day, perhaps not too long from now, you will be a beautiful rose. Our Blessed Mother is tending you, dear flower in my heart, and I can almost smell your fragrance already...

Souls

“Our souls sit close and silently within,

And their own webs from their own entrails spin;

And when eyes meet far off, our sense is such,

That, spider-like, we feel the tenderest touch.”

--John Dryden

Words

“Words, like nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within.”

--Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Cold

"Break, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones, O sea!

And I would that my tongue could utter

The thoughts that arise in me.”

--Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Full moon

"I suppose there were moonless nights and dark ones with but a silver shaving of pale stars in the sky, but I remember them all as flooded with the rich indolence of a full moon."

--Willa Cather

Always

"'Tis the human touch in the world that counts-

the touch of your hand and mine-

Which means far more to the sinking heart

than shelter or bread or wine.

For shelter is gone when the night is o'er,

and bread lasts only a day.

But the touch of the hand

and the sound of the voice

live on in the soul always."

--Spencer M. Free