Grade-A Grace

Is this, O God, another arid day,
when praying every normal prayer I choke,
finding it dry to listen to what You say,
with all my good intentions just a joke?

Where are Your inspirations and Your hope,
where is Your spring for tear ducts running dry,
where is Your Holy Spirit to help me cope,
Your strength and sustenance before I die?

I know Your line--a dry day is a test,
to us a mess is Your wise foolishness,
in arid times You love our prayers the best,
the prayers we cough up then You specially bless.

Let me not, Lord, scorn Your aridity,
passing this test earns grade-A grace for me.

                   by Pete Voelz      9/12/13

Crucifix

Each time I sign the cross, I think of You,
You on Your cross and Your Blest Trinity,
Your image on that cross a powerful clue
of all Your love, and how You died for me.

A crossroads--just a symbol I project,
You on Your cross leaves no doubt what I see,
Your face compels my dull mind to reflect,
You there before my eyes Who died for me.

Your crucifix is more than just a shape,
You on Your cross make clear the mystery,
I’m forced to face what I cannot escape--
how You hung there and gave Your life for me.

Your death, Your gift, Yourself--we face-to-face,
Christ, like the cross, my sinful soul You grace.

                           by Pete Voelz      9/11/13

Sense the Unseens

So why should I desert my senses clear,
and fly to try to see the all unseen?
Yet sure I know there’s more than now and here
of things unseen and seen and in between.

I trust who knows the unseens of my cell,
some unseens influence me from history,
I see who lives inside my memory well,
why not the saints who send unseens to me?

And then there’s You Who brings my soul alive,
Your Church makes sense of everything in range,
these needs that help me spiritually survive,
the unseen of my heart’s to me least strange.

I’d rather desert the seen out there so true
than ever give up, Lord, my seeing You.

                 by Pete Voelz      9/10/13

No Small God

To God Who makes a thing, there is no small,
God even loves someone before they’re made,
His ever watchful eye can see it all,
for eyes of faith, He says, “Be not afraid.”

The blind say they must see, then they’ll believe,
small things unseen, to them do not exist,
before a soul is born, they can’t conceive,
no wonder they scorn God in Eucharist.

Blind too they are to big things spiritual,
murder’s okay if who they kill’s unseen,
they’ll even scorn a proven miracle,
most simply will not listen to what you mean.

Blind to small things, they still say, “I can see,”
yet then disdain God’s great big mystery.

                 -- by Pete Voelz       8/2/13

Turn Not

Turn, Father, not Your face from me, I pray,
remember me when mercy is Your claim,
before Your gentle visage let me stay,
help me do justice to Your holy name.

From my petition, Christ, turn not Your eyes,
do not avert Your gaze from humble pleas,
and in Your ear hear clear my heartfelt cries
I send in sorrow on my humble knees.

Turn not from me, O Spirit, Your tender heart,
beneath Your wing make everything forgiven,
help me sincerely my contrition start,
and let my sins deter me not from heaven.

O Trinity, turn not from me, Your child,
that with You Three I may be reconciled.

             by Pete Voelz      9/8/13

Happy Birthday, Mary!

I light a candle as a birthday gift,
September 8th, the day that you were born,
I add a simple prayer sent far and swift,
a dewdrop as you bloom this early morn.

Nine months ago we saw you as conceived,
December 8th’s Immaculate Conception,
a doctrine we’d for centuries believed,
our tainted nature’s boastful sole exception.*

That date’s a Holy Day of Obligation,
your birthday’s mere celebratory feast,
you show our view, by this clear designation,
of life’s conception over birth increased.

Should not our joy at Christmastime bow to
the day Christ was conceived and born in you?

* Refering to a line in Wordsworth’s The Virgin:
“Our tainted nature’s solitary boast.”

                        by Pete Voelz      9/7/13

Trust Love

Trust is a form of love, and love is trust.
(Does not each virtue show some form of love?)
To form relationships trust is a must.
(Relationships require some kind of love.)

Trustworthy’s Him Who made the universe.
(Is not Creation some great form of love?)
Trust One Who brings the better from the worse.
(How much God’s goodness goes along with love.)

Should I not trust the trust that made me free?
(Is freedom not a form of trusting love?)
God trusts I’ll free give back His love for me.
(Such trust of freedom is the heart of love.)

You trust me, Lord, that I will trust You too,
I cannot  trust myself not trusting You.

                        by Pete Voelz      9/6/13