Eucharist

I give thanksgiving for every second I have known my fellow man... whether in rejoicing or sorrow, in love or in anger; I have learned from the communion of our souls. Together sometimes only in the breath of a second... but we are one, you and I. We are never alone in this world... when I am holding you, God is holding you... we are not alone. You and I, my neighbor, are meant to be together, gathered around the feast of our hearts, in union with one another. This is the Eucharistic self we bring to the table of the LORD. He feeds us gathered there in love from the Bread of Life. We are never hungry if we remember He waits for us there.

Purity of Heart

Monastics strive to cultivate purity of heart to allow the Spirit of the LORD to descend and capture us silently, allowing His love to cover us as a vapor, sanctifying our humanity with His presence. It is a moment of pure joy and woundedness both, as we are slayed by the light that envelops us. O to be in this state always! But for most of us, the path to purity of heart resides in one thing. To love God with all our heart and all our mind and all our self and to love our neighbor as ourselves. May we always love...

Unmoving
by Lynn O’Gorman Latchford

Can I move out of your path
and never lose
this core of love?

Can I welcome you back
in my life
away from this place,
and hold still – not holding you?

Can I remain in the silence
of my soul
and let go into the vastness?

Can you step into my love
And not move away?

Can you stand there
with fingers reaching
and touch a soul on fire?

Can you wait in the stillness
and accept
a gift freely given?

I am lost in this place of love,
unmoving.

In Dietrick Bonhoffer's Words

'...the restoration of the church will surely come only from a new type of monasticism which has nothing in common with the old but a complete lack of compromise in a life lived in accordance with the Sermon on the Mount in the discipleship of Christ. I think it is time to gather people together to do this...'

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Extract of a letter written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer to his brother Karl-Friedrick on the 14th of January, 1935. (Source: John Skinner, Northumbria Community).

Sentences of Love

Finding myself here,
again, in this place
of footsteps past, my God.

Who am I to say what
happens here in Your
place of love, O Lord?

Standing and waiting, it
is patience that
makes us Divine.

A Son of God waits… to
be spoken to in
sentences of love.

Quietly waiting, until
the Glory of the Lord
descends in this place.

How could I tell You
I love You, O Lord?
when every crevice
asks me to deny You?

Strong in my love, I
wait to embrace You
here in this place.

Can it truly be You
that captures me unawares
in the quiet of my soul?

Waiting to hold You…
tell You… of the
love that waits for You here.

The Purity of Love

And in this time to speak, the purity of love accepts all in another. All. Everything. The past, the present, the future, accepting all patiently, bearing it all without judgment, without expectation. Seeking nothing in return. Nothing. Asking nothing but to allow the beloved to step into the core of love and be surrounded by its beauty, sometimes painfully accepting its newness, stepping into its vastness, as it if stepping off a cliff into free fall opening up to just accept it. Accept its light, pushing darkness away. Only pure humility accepts the purity of love as a gift. A gift. Freely given. Asking the beloved not to deviate from journeys that are necessary. Steps that have to be taken. All will happen that needs to happen in God's time. His will. In the core of love, God exists, it is where He dwells in the silence of our souls. This place where all should dwell but few find it. And that is where we need to start to look and seek. This place of light within ourselves, where God speaks to us. When we are there, darkness vanishes.