Category: Faith

Alleluia: Be Mercy

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, Mercy, spiritualityLeave a comment

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
July 10, 2022

Today’s Readings

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/071022.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings take us on a centuries-long journey from Sinai nearly to the foot of Calvary. 

Our guideline for the pilgrimage is the Word:

  • given first to Moses
  • cherished in Psalms
  • and finally revealed in the full glory of the Incarnated Christ.

Throughout the ages, each of us receives the same direction to holiness as that given by Moses thousands of years ago:

If only you would
heed the voice of the LORD, your God…

The young man in today’s Gospel requests such direction straight from the mouth of Jesus. And he receives it in the form of an iconic story which holds in simplicity all the ponderous theology of the ages:

Which of these three, in your opinion,
was neighbor to the robbers’ victim?”
He answered, “The one who treated him with mercy.”
Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

With this story, Jesus translates into action that age-old Biblical Word:

  • Hear Mercy
  • Love Mercy
  • Do Mercy
  • Become Mercy

Poetry: Ramadan –  Erik K. Taylor

It was the month of Ramadan, 
the month when Muslims fast. 
From the day’s first light, 
when they could tell a white thread from a black one, 
until evening hid the difference again, 
they did not eat, did not drink, and 
– here in rural Liberia – 
did not even swallow their own spit.

We were three thousand miles from home 
when the telegram came. 
My mother’s father had died. 

From Gbapa, three miles away, 
five dark-skinned Mandingo men 
came walking to our house. 
Students from her English class, 
a class in a building with mud-brick walls 
and a tin roof that pinged in the rain. 
She drove to them several nights each week, 
teaching them to write “hut” and “mat” and “cat,” 
drawing little pictures beside the words. 

But this day, they came to her, 
walking over dusty, rust-colored roads, 
under the African sun. 
They came to sit with her, 
to offer what comfort they could.

We could not offer them water or coke or tea. 
For a few hours they sat, talking in soft voices, 
stepping out occasionally to spit. 
Then home again… 
waiting for black and white to merge back into one.

Someone once asked Jesus 
what it meant to love our neighbor. 
He said it was to be those men.

Music: Kyrie ( Lord, have Mercy) – Robert Gass

Alleluia: Insulted Yet Blessed

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Courage, Faith, Gospel, spirituality3 Comments

Saturday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 9, 2022

Today’s Readings

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/070922.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our Alleluia Verse captures the mixed and even contradictory conditions awaiting a dedicated disciple of Christ:

Alleluia, alleluia.
If you are insulted for the name of Christ,
blessed are you,
for the Spirit of God rests upon you.

This brief verse immediately brought to my mind the image of Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof. He had wonderful, faith-filled dialogues with God about his seemingly contradictory “blessings”.

So here’s a snapshot of how I prayed with our verse today:

God: You’re going to be insulted for your faith, but consider it a blessing. 
Me: What! Wait a minute! Maybe I’d prefer some more obvious blessings!
God: No, you’re going to be insulted for your faith, but it’s a sign that my Spirit rests upon you.
Me: ….. Crickets

I have been insulted and harassed for my faith, but not too often. Usually that occasional insult has come from a sad or dysfunctional source who caused more harm to themselves than to me.

The greatest insult to my faith has come from within the Church itself. The clerical sex abuse scandals and cover-ups of recent years deeply shook the investment I had made in service of the Church. The revelations mocked the innocent trust I had unquestioningly placed in the institutional Church. They invited public insult toward me and toward all of us associated with that now exposed institution.

Although my pain cannot be compared to the trauma of survivors of abuse, it has been a seismic insult and has forced me to a deeper discernment of my faith. While profoundly painful, this “insult” has, indeed, been a blessing which has helped me to separate my true Catholic faith from any misplaced institutional devotion.

The closing verses of today’s Gospel are both a warning and a pledge for those who commit themselves to Christ:

And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul;
rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy
both soul and body in Gehenna.
Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin?
Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge.
Even all the hairs of your head are counted.
So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
Everyone who acknowledges me before others
I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father.
But whoever denies me before others,
I will deny before my heavenly Father.

Poetry: The Break of Faith – Renee Yann, RSM

My father walked with me each day in Lent
past neighbors’ homes with names
and histories like mine,
to church, where laborers in solid faith,
received a Host before the Mass began
and left to be at work on time.

Some days, my father left but I remained
secure among the faithful whose
religion was a sure as rock.
I trusted and believed their saying
salvation was reserved for those
within the Church, praying
at ten or twelve to be like
the elite who held the ancient definitions
of the God I longed to know.  
Those devoted people were 
the heroes of my youth.
I beat my breast with secret joy and knelt
beside them in the unexamined truth.

Some were robed in black and wafted
scents of incense and of candle wax
that were to me like fine, intoxicant perfume.
Through them, I chose the worship of a God
who was the slim abstraction of my mind
the mute extension of my whim.

But my mind is not the tender thing it was.
The years have passed and I have hardened 
to them, like a lone, maturing tree.
The deeply venerated guides I loved
have journeyed with my father to the pale,
expanded universe of memory.

That I stand questioning them now is jeopardy
against the very pegs that ground my life.
I am outside the Church they held for me
because it seems a box remote from God,
who, with the years, assumed Creation’s face,
became a fire in my heart, consuming
those securities I designated once as faith.

The theologian says we walk in footsteps of a God
who comes to us from futures we cannot define.
That God of paradox is breaking in my mind
like lava breaks from stolid earth 
to recreate the world. But,
with an utterly profound regret,
I leave the heroes and the saints of youth behind.

Music: Renouncement – Michael Hoppé

Alleluia: The Amazing Promise

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Faith, Hope, Jesus, spiritualityLeave a comment

Friday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 8, 2022

Today’s Readings

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/070822.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our Alleluia Verse makes an amazing promise.

Alleluia, alleluia.
When the Spirit of truth comes,
you will be guided to all truth
and reminded of all I told you.

John 16:13-14

We will be guided and re-minded by the Spirit of God! We will have a refreshed mind and sense of sacred purpose!

Perhaps like Hosea’s community, we have been exhausted, “collapsed” from a lack of grace and spiritual vitality. The lack may be within or around us, from our own negligence or from a world too heavy with evil. But Hosea proclaims that, if we turn to God with our “words” – our prayer – God will respond:

I will be like the dew for my beloved:
who shall blossom like the lily;
who shall strike root like the Lebanon cedar,
and put forth abundant shoots.
My dear one’s splendor shall be like the olive tree
with a fragrance like the Lebanon cedar.

Hosea 14: 6-7

Jesus continues and fulfills that promise in his own time and in ours. We live in a world still plagued by the sinfulness Jesus describes for his disciples in today’s Gospel. It is an overwhelming darkness at times and we can become heavy with it. We may feel we have no strength to stand against it, nor words to speak for change.

Jesus assures us that the refreshing “dew” of Hosea is abundantly available to us through our life in the Holy Spirit.

Do not worry about how you are to speak
or what you are to say.
You will be given at that moment what you are to say.
For it will not be you who speak
but the Spirit of your God speaking through you.

Matthew 10:19-20

Let’s not take that amazing gift and promise for granted. Let’s not fail to believe that the Spirit of Truth is with us to guide and remind us of our immense power for good.

Poetry: The World Is Too Much With Us – William Wordsworth

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

Music: Like the Dewfall – Mike Stanley

Alleluia: Turn toward God’s Face

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Faith, spirituality1 Comment

Thursday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 7, 2022

Today’s Readings

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/070722.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, the Alleluia Verse repeats yesterday’s declaration with an added encouragement 

Alleluia, alleluia.
The Kingdom of God is at hand:
repent and believe in the Gospel.

In the tender passage from Hosea, we imagine God as a tender, grieving mother whose child has turned away from Her Love:

Thus says the LORD:
When Israel was a child I loved him, 
out of Egypt I called my son.
The more I called them,
the farther they went from me,
Sacrificing to the Baals
and burning incense to idols.
Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
who took them in my arms;
I drew them with human cords,
with bands of love;
I fostered them like one
who raises an infant to her cheeks;
Yet, though I stooped to feed my child,
they did not know that I was their healer.

Our Responsorial Psalm is a plea from that “child” to be welcomed back by God:

Once again, O LORD of hosts,
look down from heaven, and see:
Take care of this vine,
and protect what your right hand has planted,
the beloved creature whom you yourself made strong.

And in our Gospel, we receive the announcement and the urgent invitation telling us WHY it is time to turn toward God:

Jesus said to his Apostles:
“As you go, make this proclamation:
‘The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.’

I think it’s safe to say that in most lives there are elements that jeopardize, or at least inhibit, our relationship with God. We have both responsibilities and distractions that divert our intention from a deep spiritual life.

With today’s readings God is asking us to turn around from these distractions and look into the eyes of Infinite Love. We can begin by praying this simple and powerful verse from our Psalm – for ourselves and for our world.

Let us see your face, Lord, and we shall be saved.

Poetry: ― Rabindranath Tagore from Gitanjali

Day after day, O Lord of my life, 
shall I stand before thee face to face. 
With folded hands, O Lord of all worlds, 
shall I stand before thee face to face. 

Under thy great sky in solitude and silence, 
with humble heart 
shall I stand before thee face to face. 

In this laborious world of thine, 
tumultuous with toil and with struggle, 
among hurrying crowds 
shall I stand before thee face to face. 

And when my work shall be done in this world, 
O King of kings, 
alone and speechless 
shall I stand before thee face to face.

Music: Show Me Your Face, Lord – Steffany Gretzinger

Alleluia: Heaven’s at Hand

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, Poetry, spirituality2 Comments

Wednesday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 6, 2022

Today’s Readings 

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/070622.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our first reading and Responsorial Psalm encourage us to seek God. 

Sow for yourselves justice,
reap the fruit of piety;
break up for yourselves a new field,
for it is time to seek the LORD …

And our Gospel proclaims that we have already found God through Jesus Christ.

Jesus sent out these Twelve
after instructing them thus,
…. “As you go, make this proclamation:
‘The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.’”

The word “seek” is one we don’t use frequently, except to describe games that hide things from us – “Seek and Find”, “Hide and Seek”. In these games, someone is trying to fool us or outwit us.

But God is not trying to hide from us. Our scriptures are about a whole different kind of seeking. We might think of it like this:

Have you ever opened a kitchen drawer looking for a particular utensil but been unable to find it? You might exclaim aloud, “Where’s that darn corkscrew???!!!”, just as your sister leans in and picks it out of the drawer for you.

It was right there in front of you all the time. You just couldn’t see it — couldn’t put your hand on it.

Jesus tells us it is like that with the Kingdom of Heaven. We may be seeking it with all our effort while all the while it is right at hand. We sometimes fail to see the “touchable grace” in our lives because we throw a camouflage of unawareness or ingratitude over it.

Alleluia, alleluia.
The Kingdom of God is at hand:
repent and believe in the Gospel.

The poet Mary Oliver offers the antidote to that kind of blindness:

Instructions for living a life.
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

Mary Oliver

Today, let’s pay attention to the wonder of our lives. Let’s seek God’s face in our ordinary circumstances. God is not hiding – we just have to look with the insightful eyes of faith, love, and hope.

Poetry: Rumi

Your task is not 
to seek for love, 
but merely 
to seek and find 
all the barriers 
within yourself 
that you have built 
against it. 

Music: Seek God’s Face – Jules Riding

Alleluia: Unmuted!

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Eternal Life, Faith, Jesus, spiritualityLeave a comment

Tuesday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 5, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/070522.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, a double-sided theme runs through our readings

Our first reading references idols of silver and gold, “the work of artisans, no god at all”. 

The Responsorial Psalm describes in detail how the power of God’s creative Word  contrasts to these mute and powerless idols.

Our God is in heaven;
whatever God wills, God does.
Their idols are silver and gold,
the handiwork of men.
R. Alleluia.

They have mouths but speak not;
they have eyes but see not;
They have ears but hear not;
they have noses but smell not.
R. Alleluia.

They have hands but feel not;
they have feet but walk not.
Their makers shall be like them,
everyone that trusts in them.
R. Alleluia

In today’s Gospel, we see the power of the Living Word, Jesus, to release the mute man from his demons. As we pray with this Gospel, we can think of the word “mute” in many ways.

Wherever truth, integrity, kindness and respect are stifled – whether in us or in others – God’s desire to speak to and through us is muted. 

Sometimes we mute ourselves by burying our true voice under a blanket of pretenses, frivolities, excuses, or useless ambitions. We can mute others by our prejudices, judgements and indifference. And we can do it all so easily, like flipping a button on the TV remote!

Let’s pray to be amazed today, as were the Gospel crowds, at the power of Jesus to free the Word in us!

Poetry: In Silence by Thomas Merton

Be still.
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try
to speak your

name.
Listen
to the living walls.

Who are you?
Who
are you? Whose
silence are you?

Who (be quiet)
are you (as these stones
are quiet). Do not
think of what you are
still less of
what you may one day be.

Rather
be what you are (but who?)
be the unthinkable one
you do not know.

O be still, while
you are still alive,
and all things live around you

speaking (I do not hear)
to your own being,
speaking by the unknown
that is in you and in themselves.

“I will try, like them
to be my own silence:
and this is difficult. The whole
world is secretly on fire. The stones
burn, even the stones they burn me.
How can a man be still or
listen to all things burning?
How can he dare to sit with them
when all their silence is on fire?”

Music: Echo of Our Souls – Kerani

Some lovely instrumental music to unmute the Word as we pray.

Alleluia: Arise

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, healing, Jesus, Prayer, spiritualityLeave a comment

Monday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 4, 2022

Today’s Readings 

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/070422.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, the power of eternal life flows in an Almighty Current through our readings.

Hosea imagines an amorous God who allures the beloved to full and faithful relationship.

Beautiful Psalm 145 might be read as the grateful response of that redeemed beloved … of us as we are continually gathered back into God’s heart.

The Alleluia Verse assures us that the ultimate “gathering back” has occurred through the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are forever allured, redeemed, arisen in Christ!

Alleluia, alleluia.
Our Savior Jesus Christ has destroyed death
and brought life to light through the Gospel.

Today’s Gospel, tells the miraculous stories of two women – one young, one old – touched to new life by Jesus. Each of us could linger in these stories at the thousand places where our own lives might mirror the needs of that breathless little girl or that exhausted woman. We pause with one or the other of them today, have a little talk in our prayer, see how the power of Jesus covered them.

In our scriptures today, all kinds of death are destroyed through the infinite gift of God’s love and mercy. What deathly threats might we bring to God’s touch as we pray today?

Poetry: WOMAN UN-BENT (LUKE 13:10–17) – Irene Zimmerman, OSF

That Sabbath day as always
she went to the synagogue
and took the place assigned her
right behind the grill where,
the elders had concurred,
she would block no one’s view,
she could lean her heavy head,
and (though this was not said)
she’d give a good example to
the ones who stood behind her. 

That day, intent as always
on the Word (for eighteen years
she’d listened thus), she heard
Authority when Jesus spoke. 

Though long stripped
of forwardness,
she came forward, nonetheless,
when Jesus summoned her.
“Woman, you are free
of your infirmity,” he said. 

The leader of the synagogue
worked himself into a sweat
as he tried to bend the Sabbath
and the woman back in place. 

But she stood up straight and let
God’s glory touch her face.

Music: He Touched Me – Gaithersburg Brothers 

This extremely popular American Gospel song was written by Bill Gaithers in 1963. It has been recorded and released over 10 times by artists such as Jimmy Durante, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Lawrence Welk and Elvis Presley.

Alleluia: Hear; Know; Follow

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Poetry, spirituality2 Comments

Saturday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 2, 2022

Today’s Readings

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/070222.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our Alleluia Verse paints the dynamic picture of Christ’s relationship with those who follow him. With due respect to the ancient “shepherd” image, the verse might speak to us better like this:

Alleluia, alleluia.
My beloved hear my voice, says the Lord;
I know them, and they follow me.

In our readings today, we see the cycle of grace and resistance worked out in the lives of the ancients. Our passage from Amos talks about the full restoration of Israel to a place in God’s favor. Our Gospel shows that those with closed hearts cannot receive the lavish mercy of God given to us in the gift of Jesus.

What about us? Can we open ourselves to that powerful grace? Can we respond in reciprocity to this Divine invitation:

I am the Beloved. 
And my own beloved hear Me.
I know them.
And they follow me.

Poetry: TO LIVE WITH THE SPIRIT – Jessica Powers

To live with the Spirit of God is to be a listener.
It is to keep the vigil of mystery,
earthless and still.
One leans to catch the stirring of the Spirit,
strange as the wind’s will.

The soul that walks where the wind of the Spirit blows
turns like a wandering weather-vane toward love.
It may lament like Job or Jeremiah,
echo the wounded hart, the mateless dove.
It may rejoice in spaciousness of meadow
that emulates the freedom of the sky.

Always it walks in waylessness, unknowing;
it has cast down forever from its hand
the compass of the whither and the why.

To live with the Spirit of God is to be a lover.
It is becoming love, and like to Him
toward Whom we strain with metaphors of creatures:
fire-sweep and water-rush and the wind’s whim.
The soul is all activity, all silence;
and though it surges Godward to its goal,
it holds, as moving earth holds sleeping noonday,
the peace that is the listening of the soul.

Music: Path of Joy – Daniel Kobialka

Alleluia: Come to Me

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Gospel, Jesus, peace, Poetry, spiritualityLeave a comment

Friday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 1, 2022

Today’s Readings: 

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/070122.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings revolve around a theme of taxes, measures, weights, scales – those instruments that may be misused to unduly burden others.

We will diminish the containers for measuring,
add to the weights,
and fix our scales for cheating!

Amos 8:5

Our Gospel illustrates the mental instruments we use to measure, and sometimes condemn others – judgement, prejudice, stereotyping.

The Pharisees said to Jesus’s disciples,
“Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

Matthew 9:11

There are all kinds of ways we can lay heavy burdens on ourselves and others. Our Alleluia Verse invites us to freedom from such burdens:

Alleluia, alleluia.
Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,
and I will give you rest, says the Lord.

Does this mean that God will remove such burdens from our lives? No. We know better than that don’t we. 🙂

Trusting our lives to God does not change our burdens. It changes us. 

That change – that unburdening grace – allows us spiritual freedom even in the midst of challenges and trials.

Our hope, confidence, freedom and peace rests in God. Nothing can shake that foundation.

Poetry: Edwina Gateley – Let Your God Love You

Be silent.
Be still.
Alone.
Empty
Before your God.
Say nothing.
Ask nothing.
Be silent.
Be still.
Let your God look upon you.
That is all.
God knows.
God understands.
God loves you
With an enormous love,
And only wants
To look upon you
With that love.
Quiet.
Still.
Be.

Let your God—
Love you.

Music: Come to Me – Gregory Norbet

Lyrics

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy burdened
And I shall give you rest
Take up my yoke and learn from me
For I am meek and humble of heart
And you'll find rest for your souls
Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

You, God, are my shepherd, I shall never be in need
Fresh and green are the meadows where you give me rest

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy burdened
And I shall give you rest
Take up my yoke and learn from me
For I am meek and humble of heart
And you'll find rest for your souls
Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden is light

Pursue me, o God, with your fathomless love
In your tent let me dwell all the days of my life

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy burdened
And I shall give you rest
Take up my yoke and learn from me
For I am meek and humble of heart
And you'll find rest for your souls
Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden is light

Alleluia: Grafted to God

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Eternal Life, Faith, holiness, Jesus, Psalms, spiritualityLeave a comment

Thursday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time
June 30, 2022

Today’s readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/063022.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we move from Amos’s angry God to the gentle Jesus of our Gospel who gently lifts a broken man out of both his paralysis and sin.

These readings offer quite a leap as we try to image our invisible God! And, once again, our Alleluia Verse is the bridge that helps us do so.

The verse assures us that, in all circumstances, God in restoring us to a share in Divine Life.

Alleluia, alleluia.
God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ
and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

2 Corinthians 5:19

The image that comes to my mind is that of an expert gardener grafting a broken shoot on to a vibrant tree.

That “grafting” occurs within the context of our life stories. In Amos’s time, it was a story fraught with political struggles crippling the community’s moral life. The crowd gathered around Jesus are challenged by the crippling effects of their lack of faith. His cure of the paralytic demonstrates how God wishes to restore their spiritual freedom.

God continues to reconcile the world in Christ
even in our own time.
How am I a recipient
and how am I an agent
of that merciful, conciliatory grace? 

Praying with the elements of Responsorial Psalm 19 today suggests a guide for us. When our lives are reconciled with God, we should experience these gifts:

  • truth
  • justice
  • wholeness
  • refreshment
  • trustworthiness
  • wisdom
  • simplicity
  • right balance
  • joy
  • clarity
  • enlightenment
  • purity
  • steadfastness
  • and spiritual sweetness

Poetry: from Rumi

Find the sweetness 
in your own heart, 
then you may find the sweetness 
in every heart.

Music: Sweet Will of God – by Lelia Naylor Morris (1862 – 1929) an American Methodist hymn writer. In the 1890s, she began to write hymns and gospel songs; it has been said that she wrote more than 1,000 songs and tunes, and that she did so while doing her housework. In 1913, her eyesight began to fail; her son thereupon constructed for her a blackboard 28 feet (8.5 m) long with oversized staff lines, so that she could continue to compose.

In 1900, she published Sweet Will of God, about  the true “sweetness” of a deep spiritual life.

Two versions today. The first is the entire hymn sung by Amy Grant. The second is just the interlude so beautifully sung by Junior W. Smith that I had to share it. (Lyrics below)

Amy Grant

Junior W. Smith

My stubborn will at last hath yielded;
I would be Thine, and Thine alone;
And this the prayer my lips are bringing,
“Lord, let in me Thy will be done.”

Sweet will of God, still fold me closer;
Till I am wholly lost in Thee;
Sweet will of God, still fold me closer,
Till I am wholly lost in Thee.

Thy precious will, O conquering Saviour,
Doth now embrace and compass me;
All discords hushed, my peace a river,
My soul, a prisoned bird, set free.

Shut in with Thee, O Lord, forever,
My wayward feet no more to roam;
What power from Thee my soul can sever?
The centre of God’s will my home.