Exhaling

Peace and blessings on the beautiful Solemnity of Our Mother!
Busy with family, but I’ll share this:

Twice United

Annunciation
The unexpected light of Gabriel’s pure spirit
brightens the grace-lit eyes of one,
ardent and expectant,
who will bear the Light of the world,
who will conceive the inconceivable,
who will contain the boundless power of Adonai.
The purity of these virgin eyes
drives Gabriel himself,
pure Gabriel, messenger of the Most High,
to bow low before this hidden maiden,
as he solemnly entrusts to her
the unutterable gift of bringing forth in flesh
the Word she has ever embraced in spirit;
the Word that has ever born Its fullest fruit in this
vibrant, fertile, unencumbered soul,
now comes to fruition in this body
which He has prepared and protected.
This immaculate flame is found worthy
to feed the Fire of Love at her breast.
to nourish the very Bread of Life,
to cradle and sustain the beating Heart of God.
She alone can
introduce her Creator to the things He made,
teach Truth Himself to love the law He wrote,
prepare Israel’s Messiah to proclaim
the Kingdom long-promised and
instill into the world’s Redeemer
the radical self-sacrifice
that will ripen to the scandal of the cross.
She so loves the world
that she will give her only Son,
and the blood that saves the world first came
from her own heart.

Assumption
She assented to be separated from her Love for a time,
for love of her children,
until at last, her soul is loosened from its clay
by her conflagration of desire to be one with Him again.
Oh! That same burning love that once enfleshed the Word
now gracefully frees this fragrant flame from flesh.
She sleeps, is mourned
(pity John, now bereft of this rich inheritance!),
and interred for a time;
the body that provided the Blood that poured from God
and the Heart that animated Mercy
cannot be allowed to defervesce to its
numbered and unrecognizable elements.
Her body is then lifted by the very hand
of the God who formed it,
taken up to the Father,
ravished by the Spirit,
joined again with her Son!
Earth is impoverished
but Heaven enriched
as she is lifted high to her rightful place
and arrayed in gleaming billows of unspeakable light,
adorned with the very stars,
enthroned next to the Son she bore for us;
Heaven’s crown Jewel,
enrapturing the saints forever.
As every angel looks in awe
at God’s exquisite handiwork.
Gabriel himself,
pure Gabriel, messenger of the Most High,
bows low before his Queen.

~from To Sing You Must Exhale