Skip to main content

Song of the Tendency by Raissa Maritain

Song of the Tendency

In the infinite longing
Through which I come to Thee
I know Thee
As the eternal love that breathes me in
And draws my soul to Thee.

Thou dividest me from me
My soul strives to quit me
I am lost in Thy charity
I am but nothingness which loves.

In the heart, the captive of Thy invisible hand,
Thy flaming secrets seem to part half-open;
All our senses – useless outpaced servants –
Seek after sleep to be more thoroughly Thine.
And yet I wake – watching for Thee to pass,
My spirit tends to Thee who can alone fill it,
To seize Thee I have only the touch of the soul
And this love, this love which binds me.

Sometimes to bear the weight of Thy presence,
My wailing breath breaks into a chant
A strange melody, song of the tendency
To Thee of whom I have a mysterious cognition
More certain than my life.

– Raissa Maritain
Labels:

Comments

  1. WatcherOfTheSky11 August, 2012 13:44

    David,
    Thanks for sharing the poem by Raissa. She is one of my favorite spiritual authors. On another note...I just left New Melleray Abbey for good. I actually met you back in January. If you could, I would like to "speak" with you about faith, the spiritual life, and monasticism. Please send me an e-mail (undertheheavens@gmail.com). Keep writing! Nate

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Introducing The Good Reverend Pudgemuffin

My favorite gentleman in the blogosphere is currently the Good Reverend Pudgemuffin at Are You There God? It's me, Atheist. He is a wonderful and impassioned seeker of Truth with regards to the existence of God, and from his blog's title, you can guess what side of the fence he falls. He is a fellow Ashevillain, and I highly regard his thinking and enjoy his irreverent skepticism which is humorous and critical without being snarkily polemical. Inspired, I wrote a lengthy reply to one of his entries, and he in turn devoted a whole entry in response to my response . Not to be outdone, I composed a response to the response's response, which I planned to keep hidden within his comments, but it far exceeded (more than double) the character limits. So thus ....
2 comments
Read more

But now ...

Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit the Kingdom of God? ...   That is what some of you used to be; but now you have had yourselves washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. —St Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians 6:11 "But now ..." what words of comfort to us sinners. St. Paul reminds us that before we were plunged into the death of Christ by Baptism, we were defined by our sins. "That is what some of you used to be ." But now, though sinners we remain and continue to sin the face of grace, we are no longer defined by them. Rather than conforming to an image of death, we have been restored to the image of Christ in which we were made.
Post a Comment
Read more

in persona christi | on priestly celibacy

[Christ] is seated  at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister in the sanctuary and the true tent which is set up not by man but by the Lord. For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; hence it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law. They serve a copy and shadow of he heavenly sanctuary. — Heb 8:1-5 In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. — Mat 22:30 There seems to me a powerful link here between the reading from Hebrews in today's Office of Readings and Matthew 22 that speaks to priestly celibacy, and I offer a few off the cuff reflections.
Post a Comment
Read more