[This is a wonderful meditation during times of distress, agony, and difficulty]
PERSECUTION and PERSEVERANCE
By John Janaro
Lord Jesus,
I am struck dumb,
immobile,
inside and outside.
My heart is shrouded by this misery;
my eyes, which look upon your holy
face,
are stricken, assaulted by the light,
aching red, longing to be shut
beneath their lids.
I have no voice
except an inner cry,
a mute, distressed animal whimper
that cannot even summon itself to ask
for mercy.
My fingers drift
away from my hands,
and the tokens of your love
are beyond their reach.
How do I pray?
O Lord, where is the longing of my
prayer?
Jesus, Mercy,
hear the struggle of breath;
Jesus, Mercy,
hear the scream inside
the shaken contours of this skull,
with brain pierced
by some fiery blade.
O God, Love!
Hear the endless noise,
the pounding,
the howling of skin and nerve,
muscle and joint:
this cacophony of pain
that groans all through the place
where I once felt that I had a body.
Jesus, Mercy, forgive me.
Jesus, Love.
Jesus, I offer.
I long for these to be my words to
you,
but lips are speechless quiver,
and thought and heart are frozen in
exhaustion.
Prayer is ice that does not flow.
Prayer is a voice of distant memory;
it feels like a still corpse
beneath my soul’s total turmoil.
In the end there is nothing
but the hollowness that holds a thing
called me
wanting you.
I want you, Jesus.
[John Janaro is the author of Never Give Up: My Life and God’s Mercy]
