We Awaken in Christ's Body

We awaken in Christ’s body, even as Christ

awakens our languishing bodies. And look!
My poor hand is Christ, the very hand of Christ.
And look! He enters my foot, and becomes
without conclusion, me. I reach out my hand and, full
of wonder, my hand becomes Christ, becomes
all of him—for he remains indivisibly whole,
without separation from his eternal holiness.
I take one step, my foot advancing, and look!
He is revealed as a flash of lightning, there
proceeding with my lowly foot.
Do you think I blaspheme? Then open
your heart to him, and receive the one who is ever
opening to you, and opening ever so deeply.
If we love him as we say, we wake up
in his body, even here, where our own bodies, entire,
every lash and atom, the honored and the dishonored,
are realized as his, are realized as him. And look!
He makes us—at long last—utterly real, and everything
that is hurt, all that has appeared to us as dark, as broken,
diseased, shameful, ugly, irreparably torn
is in him transfigured, and is revealed as whole,
lovely, illumined with and by and in his light.
And look, we rise from our long sleep, bearing the beloved
with our every step.


--Saint Simeon the New Theologian, 10th century

Expands His Being

All beings

are words of God,

His music, His

art.

Sacred books we are, for the infinite camps in our souls.

Every act reveals God and expands His being.

I know that may be hard

to comprehend.

All creatures are doing their best

to help God in His birth

of Himself.

Enough talk for the night.

He is laboring in me;

I need to be silent

for a while,

worlds are forming

in my heart.

--Meister Eckhart (ca 1260-ca 1328) German mystic, poet, theologian, and philosopher, from Love Poems From God: Twelve Sacred Voices from East and West, ed. by Daniel Ladinsky

We awaken in Christ's Body

We awaken in Christ’s body
as Christ awakens our bodies,
and my poor hand is Christ, He enters
my foot, and is infinitely me.

I move my hand, and wonderfully
my hand becomes Christ, becomes all of Him
(for God is indivisibly
whole, seamless in His Godhood).

I move my foot, and at once
He appears like a flash of lightning.
Do my words seem blasphemous? — Then
open your heart to Him

and let yourself receive the one
who is opening to you so deeply.
For if we genuinely love Him,
we wake up inside Christ’s body

where all our body, all over,
every most hidden part of it,
is realized in joy as Him,
and He makes us, utterly, real,

and everything that is hurt, everything
that seemed to us dark, harsh, shameful,
maimed, ugly, irreparably
damaged, is in Him transformed

and recognized as whole, as lovely,
and radiant in His light
he awakens as the Beloved
in every last part of our body.


--Symeon the New Theologian (949-1032 CE), translated by Stephen Mitchell, from The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry, 1991. Information about Symeon can be found here.

See John 2:21, for the 3rd Sunday in Lent, Year B.

Photo: detail from Marc Chagall's White Crucifixion, taken at the Art Institute of Chicago, 2016.

Invocation at Eucharist

Heart of Jesus, think of me.
Eyes of Jesus, look on me.
Face of Jesus, comfort me.
Hands of Jesus, bless me.
Feet of Jesus, guide me.
Arms of Jesus, hold me.
Body of Jesus, feed me.
Blood of Jesus, wash me.
Jesus, make me thus your own.
Here and in the world to come.

Amen.

-- from St. Augustine's Prayer Book

Embodying Jesus

Lord Jesus Christ,
I give you my hands, to do your work,
my feet to follow in your way,
my eyes to see as you see,
my tongue to speak your words;
take my mind and let my thoughts dwell always on you
and in my spirit, pray always within me.
Above all, I give you my heart;
that in me you may love your Father
and all people.
I give you myself,
that you may grow in me,
so that it is you, Lord Jesus,
who lives
and works
and prays in me.


-- attributed to Lancelot Andrewes, from St. Augustine's Prayer Book

Photo: Icon of the Emmaus encounter

The Second Jesus

O Lord, it’s me: blanked out in divine light
and become a horizon of rays flashing from the Essence.

My every atom yearned for vision
till I fell drunk on the manifestations of lordship.

Love polished the rust from my heart’s mirror
till I began to see the mysteries;

I emerged from the darkness of my existence
and became what I am (you know me) from the Light of Being:

blackened like charcoal dark soul’s smoke
but mixed with love fires and illumined.

Some say the path is difficult;
God forgive them! I went so easily:

The Holy Spirit breathes his every breath into Mo’in–
who knows? Maybe I’m the second Jesus.

--Gharib Nawaz (ca 1142- 1236), Persian Sufi poet and mystic, from The Drunken Universe: An Anthology of Persian Sufi Poetry