The Guide to Weekly Prayer from Creighton University articulates the grace of this week thus: “Yes, we are all sinners. But, we are loved sinners. We are being invited to be grateful, not to beat our breasts. We are invited, in this spirit to feel all that we can feel this week. Yes, we will feel some discomfort -- after all, we feel discomfort when anyone puts themselves through some sacrifice for us. And, the sacrifice here is the gift of his very self -- so that we might always know how completely Jesus entered into the reality of our human existence -- "even death, death on a cross" (Phil. 2:6-9).

This grace is also present in the initial days of an Ignatian retreat; a retreatant is asked to recall God’s profound love in her life. Praying on God’s love in my life during my recent retreat, I was moved to write the following poem. Reading it again these past two days reminds me of God's ever faithful love, always already present, in my life even as I find myself engulfed in pain and darkness.

At a windowpane: examen

Curtained by virgin blue,
the blazing crotons in noon light
beckon my prayer-wearied gaze
to this framed prettiness:

an incandescent riot striking the offset verdant foliage
is this room’s frail buttress against the promised swelter.
In the ash blue distance, there
is a cloudy Saturday sky over the Marikina Valley.

But, in an unexpected inward turn,
the painful scars of a shattered pane draw me to its gaping wound:
its pristine clarity disfigured.

The frightful mise-en-scene of that long ago “smash”
cracks me open to the outside and the beyond:
this truly is –-
then, as now, light peers through,
and You are here, clearly.

photo by verhandojo /dreamstime.com