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

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

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

Exploring Tolkien's Theology: The Battle for Middle-earth by Fleming Rutledge

Thematically, Fleming Rutledge's The Battle for Middle-earth: Tolkien's Divine Design in The Lord of the Rings  (Eerdmans Publishing, 2004) makes an excellent companion piece to Stratford Caldecott's The Power of the Ring   (Crossroad Publishing, 2005) which I read earlier this year and inspired the formation of The Servants of the Secret Fire. Both books unveil Christian themes in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings —Caldecott also explores Tolkien's other writings—what makes Rutledge's work unique from other Christian explorations of Tolkien is that Rutledge follows the narrative as it is written of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to follow a deeper narrative, beneath the surface of the text, of the hidden battle between The Powers of Evil, Sin and Death, and God in the interior spirit and will of the characters. Rutledge has done more to make real the supernatural drama of LotR , and frankly the Christian life, than I've previously encounte...
Post a Comment
Read more