For Fear Apart

 

 

Why apart?

From the in-gathering,

All embracing Mother Church you flee,

To remain apart all the while,

Calling and yearning for your God.

You flee and I run after you,

Pursuing you at every turn,

And twist, and fall.

I reach, and you pull your hand away.

Why not stay?

My Body yearns for you.

My members long to know you.

 

I wait upon your prayers,

With angels, ready to dispatch.

O, Pardoned Soul,

You seek your God in myriad ways,

I am here, wedded to My Bride,

Always at her side.

Promised never to depart.

You hold yourself apart.

 

You’ve built a chapel in your heart

For others that play God,

I call and draw you by Love

Within the chapel of your heart.

You sigh as I tug

At heart strings tight and taunt.

You resist Me for fear they’ll break.

I woo, I’m told to wait.

You say you are not ready

For Love’s music.

 

“Measure me Your Love,” you say.

“Give comfort, strength and sure supply,

But do not on my ‘Yes’ rely.”

 

Perhaps the Bride, the Church,

Who bears My Word forth

Unto all centuries,

Has words you n’er obey,

In dread fear of the “ought”

You can not bear.

You will your will be done on earth

And choose to judge all heaven.

You want only love’s first glance,

The sweet embrace, and kiss upon the cheek,

Nothing, too dear, nothing too deep.

It seems a bitter end,

To lose yourself in giving all,

O Measured One.

 

You know Love comes with a Cross,

A Cross, you fear to carry.

You choose to stay apart

And skirt the Cross.

Alas, the world without has crosses, too.

They may come disguised

In promised delight,

But soon you’ll drag that empty dream uphill.

 

How long one longs,

And labors longingly and all alone

Beneath the weight of vanities profane, I do not say.

I only await a cry, a plea,

Glance of recognition.

When our eyes meet,

Then our hearts meet;

At long last you leap into the arms

Of One Who grasps you in your fall.

 

Be mine as Church joined to Husband.

At last the Lord of All

Can leap the walls you’ve built about yourself

To know you now within His Sacred Heart,

Bearing your cross in His,

Making all things new

And all your burdens light.

 

Count now as joy life without measure.

Fear not my Church.

She is My Spouse, My very Body;

I, the Head.

I woo and wait, now,

As Groom upon the altar.

You must give yourself away.