For more information or for further material for meditation and prayer, you may visit the website:

atthewellspring.com

The Scripture quotations in italics which precede certain meditations in Abiding in Belovedness are taken from the New American Bible, Revised Edition (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC), 2011.

Copyright © 2019 Joshua Elzner

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 9781795588775

DEDICATION

This collection of poetry is dedicated,

in gratitude and heartfelt love,

to all those person who have

allowed me to receive and to love them

in their vulnerability.

You have given me a great gift

in allowing me to glimpse,

in some tiny way,

the unspeakable beauty

that God himself sees in you.

When I sense this mystery

—this sacred truth of your inner heart

in its solitude before the Father

and before Christ who yearns for you—

I truly feel that,

when God looks upon you,

he feels, sees, and loves

no other but you...

since for him you are, indeed,

the only one.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION TO THE COLLECTION

"Y ou are precious in my eyes, and beautiful, and I love you" (Is 43:4).

In these words I touch upon the central theme of all that follows. What I have tried to express, from many different angles and in contact with many different struggles, desires, and sorrows of the human heart, is the encounter with God’s loving and healing gaze. Indeed, the deepest desire of each one of us, which lies at the root of every other desire, is the thirst for intimacy. It is this thirst to which I have tried to speak in these poems.

We bear deep within us an insatiable yearning to be seen, known, and loved as we really are—and in being seen in this way, also to be held, to be gently and lovingly cradled in the arms of another.

In the poems that follow, I bring to expression in prayer my own journey deeper into the perfect loving gaze and the most tender embrace of God, and also my experience of seeing, receiving, and holding others from within this place of his own Love.

My hope is that in my words you may find points of access, touches of gentle love, which awaken in you the desire and the confidence to open your heart vulnerably to God, so that, gazing upon him in faith, you may experience his loving gaze upon you, and may feel the sheltering embrace of his Love from which nothing, nothing can separate you.

+ + +

The poetry contained in this book has been gathered from my other published works and bound together here in a single place. It contains the content from four books: At the Wellspring of Childhood, The Blossoming of Love, In the Arms of the Father, and Abiding in Belovedness. The collection is unabridged (I have only removed repeats, when a poem appears in multiple places). Also, the poems are given mostly in the order in which they were written—though there is some overlap between Blossoming and In the Arms, since both were written more or less simultaneously, though the latter continues for a few months after the former leaves off. Therefore, this collection shows with spontaneity the development and deepening of my thought and prayer over the last few years; and indeed it bears in itself the flowering of the many seeds of grace which were planted in the soil of my heart and my life before the writing of all that is contained here.

The first and third books contained here, At the Wellspring of Childhood and In the Arms of the Father, are much more autobiographical than the others. They follow the flow of my own prayer and reflection over the period of about nine months. Because of this some of the earlier poems will be darker, and indeed the first sections of this collection

are also perhaps simply more difficult to read, as my writing style has become more fluid, simple, and clear over time. But I have decided to retain all of the poems because they express honestly the progress of my thought and prayer, and even the difficult moments through which the human heart passes. Hopefully they also therefore witness to the undying presence of God’s enveloping grace...to the gentle light cast from his loving eyes that illumines even the darkest places and brings to birth in the human heart an enduring joy and peace which can only be his gift.

You will derive the most fruit from these works, therefore, by praying your way through their poems in the order in which they are given (though feel free to jump in and read at any place too!), so you can see how earlier struggles are eased and released under the touch of God’s healing love, and how his light gradually breaks through into an ever deeper restfulness, peace, and childlike playfulness within his embrace. Abiding in Belovedness, published a year after In the Arms, perhaps shows this deepening even more explicitly, from a different angle. Finally, The Blossoming of Love, is centered especially around the beauty of human intimacy as a reflection of God’s own life (i.e. the Theology of the Body), and around they way we are to trace our way back, in and beyond this, into union with God himself.

In all of the books contained here, there is a profound interlocking of my own personal prayer and the prayer of compassion, in which I take up the struggles, sufferings, joys, and desires of others and pray with them as if they were my own. Because of this, I expect that it will be difficult or impossible for you to entirely extricate my own personal prayer from that of others. But in a way this is the point, since I want to stand in God’s presence, not alone, but inseparably united to all those entrusted to me by him, to all of his beloved children. On the other hand, it is precisely in this intimate place, where we are profoundly united within his loving Heart, that our most beautiful, unrepeatable personal uniqueness is experienced. And here it is not threatened by the presence of others, but rather blossoms out freely to welcome, embrace, and hold them, as each human heart is uniquely held and cradled by God himself.

My prayer is that you may experience his tender gaze while you read and reflect upon my words—that in some small way they may help you to encounter the immensity of God’s love for you. This is a love that is unique, unrepeatable, and unspeakably close, a love through which he yearns ardently to enfold you in his embrace and to unite you to himself in an intimacy that surpasses all hope and imagination, and which endures throughout life until it finds its consummation in eternity.

AT THE WELLSPRING OF CHILDHOOD:

MEDITATIONS FOR THE THIRSTY HEART

INTRODUCTION

This book is intended to function something like an icon. As an icon is a painted image which evokes the presence and the mystery of God in the life of the one who views and prays with it, so these written words, and the many images and emotions which they express, seek to elicit an encounter between the reader and the God who ceaselessly comes close to us. This is the beautiful truth: that all the mysteries of God are contemporary with us; they are here-and-now. The great acts of God in our world, such as the liberation from slavery in Egypt and the Exodus through the wilderness, and especially the Incarnation of Jesus and his birth into our world, his life on this earth, and his Passion and Resurrection, are not merely past events. Rather they are events which transcend time and space and so become present in every time and in every space. In the life of each one of us the mystery of Jesus is being continually played out, perpetuated until the end of time. Just as he is the beloved Son of the heavenly Father, so the Father looks upon each one of us and says the same that he said of Christ: You are my beloved child, in whom my soul delights.

In the radiant light pouring forth from the Heart of Jesus—this light shining from the little infant lying in the manger, this light radiating out from the poor man walking the dusty roads of Palestine, this light breaking forth in his Transfiguration, this light penetrating and transforming the darkness in his Passion and dawning definitively in the glory of his Resurrection—this same light shines deep in the heart of every person. Its radiance enfolds us all as one, in a mystery so great that we can lose ourselves in it like drops of water in a boundless ocean; and yet this mystery is so humble, so loving, so compassionate and tender, that it bestows and affirms the unique and unrepeatable personal mystery of each one of us. It is the light of love, the light of the Most Holy Trinity, who from all eternity is a perfect exchange of love between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and their most intimate and joy-filled communion.

And this love overflows, so to speak, in the creation of our world and in all the things that God has done and continues to do throughout time. It seeks to penetrate the particular story of every life, to draw us to the sacred place of our own encounter and communion with him—in the Church and in the depths of our own hearts. Finally, it seeks to draw us at last to the definitive union that awaits us at the end of time. Here all things will be made new; all the beautiful but incomplete realities of our present world will be transfigured and brought to their fulfillment, and the longings of every heart will be perfectly satisfied: in the One who is Love, as we are caught up in the midst of the loving embrace between the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit.

+ + +

With some exceptions, these meditations are presented in the order in which they were written. After considering rearranging them according to topic or theme, I decided that the flow of prayer and life that we all experience is more naturally and organically expressed by simply presenting them as they flowed from the heart and pen of the author. But this means also that their unity and harmony is more internal than external or artificial, and therefore may require a greater effort to perceive and experience. Nevertheless, I believe that it is also much better this way, precisely since it expresses therefore the harmony of life, of beauty and personal existence. These two things have always been the most profound ways in which the truth is encountered and communicated: beauty and personal witness. Beauty has a way of transcending our rational need to categorize and control, touching the heart directly by its power. The same is true of the presence of another person. It is easy to dismiss an idea or a concept, but it is much more difficult to ignore the presence of someone who approaches us in love, with a heart completely given and open to receive us, if we are willing to reciprocate their love. Both are expressions, manifestations in our world, of the reality of Love, and therefore summon forth the eye of the heart to perceive what the mind alone cannot, to be touched deep within by a truly life-giving mystery.

I hope that I have allowed a glimpse of this mystery in the following pages, however small it may be. All of these meditations were born spontaneously out of and within my own prayer and relationship with God, yet not all of them reflect my own experience alone. Many of them are expressions of praying with and about the experiences of others, carrying them into my own solitude before God. I feel called to share them simply because here I find God speaking, and this mystery that I encounter belongs not just to myself but also to others, just as my brothers and sisters belong also to me and are entrusted to me by him. Take whatever God may say to you through my fragile words, but don’t be preoccupied with the rest. It is obvious that a lot could have been said much better, and if you disagree with something you are probably right. I’m not concerned with mapping out the path of Christian life or laying down abstract standards. Rather, as you will see, all of these meditations are written in the poetic form (though very loosely). Why is this? Because the mathematician writes a textbook, but the lover sings.

These meditations (it would be more accurate simply to call them prayers or dialogues), follow the rising and falling movement of the human heart, with its ups and downs, its times of darkness and times of clarity, its moments of radiant joy and its periods of subtle and almost hidden joy buried in the mundane realities of daily life. Indeed, I suppose it will be obvious that there is a progression in the whole, which begins in light and descends gradually through darkness in order to rediscover light in a deeper way at the end. More profoundly, it would be right to say that light is discovered within the darkness, piercing through it and transforming it; the wellspring of love and joy is discovered in the midst of thirst. Or even better, I come to know more deeply, through God’s grace, that the darkness is entirely enfolded within an infinitely greater Light, and that darkness is not the true and enduring reality, but rather is like a thin mist in the early morning, dissipating before the light and warmth of the rising sun.

To understand them more accurately, context is helpful. First of all, it is important to know that during the time of their writing I have been living a life of solitude and prayer, the life of a hermit, yet integrated to a degree within the community and seeking to belong to the community. Indeed, this has been the path I have been discerning, and walking insofar as possible, for the last seven or so years. You will see more deeply how I understand the eremitic (hermit) life below, for example in the meditation entitled Littleness. A few months before beginning to write these meditations (with the exception of the first, which was written in the Spring of 2012) I experienced a deep inner reconciliation regarding my own vocational journey and a kind of definite conviction that I was indeed called to live as a hermit for the rest of my life.

Even more profoundly, I am convinced that the discovery of one’s own particular vocation is never the ultimate and most life-giving discovery in one’s life, as profound and joyful as it is. There is an even more primary and profound truth, which abides deep within us always, deeper even than all the external details of our life, yet manifested and alive within them all. I am referring to the mystery of childhood, of the unique and unrepeatable sonship or daughterhood before God that is proper to each of us. The deepening discovery of this immensely more important and primary reality is charted in the following pages.

Second, these meditations also coincide with and in part were born from my own experience of progressing chronic pain and illness, as well as an intense time of anxiety and depression. They chart an interior movement of spiritual journeying, but the physical and physiological aspect played a certain role. It is a very mysterious experience to be filled with profound and abiding joy in the depths of the heart—born of faith—yet also to experience anxiety and sadness on the outer levels of one’s being. It is clear to me that God used these aspects of my life also to serve the purposes of his love for me, as I believe he does for all of us in our own particular journey. I would nonetheless emphasize that, while these physical aspects were a part of my experience, they were by no means the entirety of it, nor should every meditation be read as if it were merely a result of this. While it is important to know about them for the sake of context, the realities with which I am grappling in these meditations are deeper than certain particular aspects of illness from which they at times arose.[1] I hope that my words speak a truth that is relevant for all of us who progress in this journey of life together.

With growth in accepting my particular abilities and limitations I have come to a joyful stability regarding my physical condition, and indeed to understand and live it as a particular (if paradoxical) grace of intimacy with God and others. God has truly used every moment and circumstance of my life in his providence to fashion me more deeply in his love—to mature my vocation and especially to lead me more deeply into the truth of my childhood before him.

I am deeply grateful to God for allowing me to experience my weakness and the vulnerability of suffering, because in them he has granted me an immense grace: that of encountering Christ more deeply in my pain and of finding myself also in solidarity with those who suffer, in a deeper empathy and compassion. What Saint Paul wrote of finding power made perfect in weakness definitely holds true here. There is great joy in finding myself, so to speak, one of the littlest and the least.

I have shared these personal details regarding myself because I know that there are very many others who carry similar burdens, perhaps without knowing the liberating power of God’s love. I hope, in some way, to reach out to them from the fullness of my own graced experience of the love of God, for which I will be forever grateful.

Drinking from the wellspring of his love, I hope in some way to channel this to those who need it the most.

Prefatory Note: I would ask that you read these meditations slowly and prayerfully. Do not try to take in more than you can absorb at one time, but feel free to stop at any point and return later to continue reading where you left off. Indeed, it would be very helpful to pause whenever you find a word or a phrase particularly speaking to you, to reflect upon it and try to understand it more deeply, to dialogue with the Lord about it. This is what is most important, that you hear the unique word of God addressed to you, a word that you alone can hear and receive, a word of love and tenderness.

I have tried to provide stopping-places in the division of the poems or the sections of the poems, marked by numerals such as I, II, III. But you can stop at any other point as well. What matters is that you have the silence and receptivity of heart to hear the voice of God speaking, and his gentle touch reaching out to you, within and beyond these words.

Throughout I have used words in bold type to signify the voice of the Father, words in italics to signify the voice of Mary, and words in normal type for my own/the narrative voice and also for that of Jesus.

PART I:

TWILIGHT

THIS REST I BURN TO GIVE YOU

Christ/Bridegroom:

You beget me in the ineffable silence of eternity;

Father, from you I am and in you I subsist,

finding in you all my joy and delight

enraptured in the beauty which I see

in your face—the beauty which you give me.

All I am is from you, all I am is yours.

All you are you bestow on me

to possess as my own,

truly mine but only as your gift.

This loving donation reveals to me

the very depth of your love,

the love which passes between you and I

as a silent breath or a gently dancing flame,

or a kiss of two in love.

This breath, this amorous fire,

as he flows, leaps, dances between us,

uniting us in mutual embrace,

nothing other than our shared love,

is loved by us both and

loves us both in return,

a single flowing of the divine substance

united as a single charity

in threefold act, Father, Son and Spirit.

Begetter, Begotten, two together

breathing-forth the One between us as

reality and very act of unity.

Forth from us Three this love flows

in superabundant plenitude,

forth from the floodgates of Godhead

most pure and sublime, radiating,

reflecting, emitting into the abyss of

what was once the darkness of naught

the luminous and lightsome glory of love.

Numerous glimmering stars, singing of our

mutual beauty in which they share;

planets spinning in reverential harmony,

singing their share of the divine music

which is ours; on earth, made for our

especially beloved one, a copious profusion

of grace and loveliness in plants, animals,

earth and sky, seasons, days and nights.

In the gentle fall of the summer rain,

the sky flashing with the glory of lightning beams,

thunder telling of our majesty and power,

and in the hush of freshly fallen snow,

blessing through its pallor the purity of Truth,

in the hopping, playing, the singing of sparrows

on the branch, none of which falls to the ground

without you, Father, seeing.

In each glory which we have made

is seen the Glory of the Unmade Maker.

In each image is placed the magnetism

which urges the mind to rise to the Imageless,

to return once again to the One from whom

the many flow in ceaseless and glorious array;

as armies set for battle leave and return again

to the home they are sent to defend,

or as the waves flowing up from the deep

to return once again

to the place from whence they came.

All these things we made, my Love,

to ravish the heart of her, the Bride

whom we hold most dear, the Bride

who through her loveliness

ravishes our Heart.

We furnish her with beauty

through the very splendor of our gaze,

and, wounded, captured by this beauty in her,

which is our very gift,

we are thus moved to give,

to pour out further beauty,

indeed, to wed her to ourself.

In calling her to return,

to share in the very mutual self-gift,

the self-emptying donation,

the loving and joyful acceptance,

which I share with you and you with me,

and the Spirit between us equally,

at first we were frustrated by the pride

which, setting itself against humble love,

chooses the abyss of nothing rather than

the Abyss of Life.

And yet, in movement sublime

we willed that I pass into the world

which we have made,

that Creator become creature,

that all power take on the weakness of the weak

to bestow the strength of the Strong.

This one, our beloved, most lovely in our eyes,

yes, most lovely;

she moved me from my throne

to wed her to myself, to raise her in my arms,

to share with her my kiss,

to bring her to yourself

so that she may share with us

the single breath of love,

the Spirit of us both.

To do this I became a child, exchanging glory

for humiliation, riches for poverty, and bliss

for suffering—yet a suffering suffused by joy,

Light penetrating the darkness deep within.

This descending love, Father, reached its

height on the wood of that tree which,

mirroring the tree of sin,

becomes the Tree of Love and Life.

On this, my throne,

our marriage bed, our nuptial mystery,

I give to her myself

and eternity enters time

while time steps into the eternal.

I open to her my Heart, broken by her

sins and lack of love, yet moved by my

love which stirs me to mourn for her.

In this mourning she discovers true joy,

mourning in contrition her own sin and

turning to be healed in the very salve and

water which flow from this opened Heart.

She enters in and my Heart becomes hers.

I press her to my Heart, pulsing, beating,

loving, bleeding, that hers too may love,

and, wounded by the wound of love,

alone, find true health.

Health in the love, which,

wounding, alone leads to life.

Oh, my beloved bride whom I love,

the love of my Heart is yours;

you have ravished me, my love,

my sister, my bride; you have ravished me.

Now I want, as the very purpose of

my love, to ravish you in myself,

in the Embrace which is shared between

my Father and myself.  I take you as my

own that you may say Father as I say it,

that you may experience his goodness

as I know it to the full,

that inebriated with the drink

which I drink, which he drinks,

and the Flame of our loving Breath,

you will find your joy in loving.

For to love is to drink and to

drink is to love.  So, in this life,

my bride, drink of my Blood,

that I may abide in you and you in me,

that as the Father and I are one

so you too may be.

I await only, my dearest one,

I await only your yes, your

I do which to my ears will

fall so sweet.

Withhold not from me,

will you, that which I most desire?

But in that loving surrender which you

once refused, say now to me,

those sweet utterances for which I yearn.

Bride:

O my Love, my divine Bridegroom,

you have given yourself to me,

in such ardent love, the vehemence

of which enfolds me in such majesty,

that my heart, moved so deeply,

almost bursts with the words you want.

I desire with every fiber which

constitutes this being of mine,

to return to you that love which

from you first radiates.

Yes, to become through my love

a perfect radiance of your light,

a perfect image of your love,

a mirror of your splendor,

transformed through this sweet

contemplation of your face,

from glory unto glory even to

the Glory which is divine.

Lost in you as a drop of water,

falling into the ocean, is lost,

or consumed as a speck of dust,

dropped into flame is turned to flame,

—yet not at all lost or consumed,

but simply awakened thus to fullness of life—

so taken into yourself, I desire,

more than anything, all my shame burned

away in the Furnace of your love,

pure and luminous as your true bride,

fitting to share with you the nuptials

of eternity, to become one through

this union in the unity of the Father,

the Son and the Spirit blessed.

From you I came and to you,

O holy Trinity sublime, I desire

to return.

Humbled thus through love,

exalted in you I shall be,

with the exaltation and glory

which is nothing other than

the radiating immensity of

overwhelming love.

O Love, most desired,

Love which is my Love,

in loving you I desire,

made wholly love, to live

the life of love and with love alone

my joy, in you to find my rest.

Christ/Bridegroom:

Beloved, this rest I burn to give you,

this rest I proffer to your hands.

Stretch them out to receive it,

in the love that stretched me out

upon the Cross.

Arms thus out in that loving gesture,

true love will be your own.

Yours, yes, but only as my gift,

so no longer living alone, I will live in you.

Through this abiding of my life in you,

in turn you will live in me the very

life I live, this eternal donation of

complete Love passing between

my Father and I in the gentle,

yet fervent, ineffable silence of eternity.

SANCTUARY LAMP

Burn gently,

little flame.

Lit from the Furnace of eternal Love,

kindled from the warmth

which you touch in this Bread of Life,

inflamed by the sparks

which touch you in the sanctuary of the heart.

Enfolded in the Word

which is all aflame with love and joy.

Burn gently,

in this fire so intimate, so pure,

that you can no longer feel it,

cannot see, cannot touch.

It penetrates so deeply to the core

that it imprints itself upon the heart,

beyond the reach of your senses, your mind;

and yet it overflows here too

to transform and illumine these.

Yet the light of this fire

is so deep in you,

that it often hides in the darkness.

The warmth of this love

is so far within,

that it leaves the exterior exposed to chill.

Do not worry, little child.

Simply abide,

and a deeper light will begin to shine;

remain still in hope and longing,

and you will discover the warmth

of a deeper joy.

It surges up from deep within,

it inundates all you are, so delicate.

This mystery is like a woman

bearing a child in her womb.

All her energy is directed here,

such that she is cold

so that all warmth may enfold the child.

And yet from her womb she feels,

radiating out, a deeper warmth,

the warmth of love, intimacy.

So too, bear this mystery within—

shelter, revere, adore,

my eternal Son, begotten in your flesh;

allow him to be in you still,

a child, a spouse, an image of my perfect love.

And let him shine,

through the transparency of pure and clear glass

—which is the poverty of your loving heart—

upon each and all.

The poverty of empty hands,

littleness, dependency, need—

you see, child? This is all that I require,

in order to reflect in you the light of eternal Love.

A candle burning without ceasing

in the presence of the Holy One

—silent, still.

A sanctuary lamp,

witness to Emmanuel,

God-with-us.

THE EYES OF LOVE

I.

My Father, those eyes of love

gaze upon me so intensely,

eyes of goodness and of grace,

eyes that, looking,

bestow the beauty that they see.

I am—because you see me,

and I am exactly as you see.

The goodness you desire,

you yourself beget in me;

the radiance of my countenance

is only a reflection of your own—

of that face, which, shining brightly,

always gazes out: upon your Son.

Son, my only-begotten One,

the radiance of your countenance

wounds my deepest Heart:

for in the face, I gaze deep within,

in the eyes, I read the Heart.

And in your Heart, my Son,

I see indeed only one,

your Heart and mine.

One Heart, for mine flows from you,

an effusion of Love,

like water flowing down

from the heights, cascading,

dancing, upon the depths of water below—

yet how can words express how this water

flows up again to you, united with the Source,

in the very act by which it comes forth?

Acceptance, reciprocal surrender,

these are one, Father, between you and I.

Ah, yes, you give me beauty,

so that I may be Beautiful—

—Ah, yes, I am captured by your Beauty,

to give myself to you!

My Heart is drawn by Love’s magnetism

to communicate all to you, my Son.

And mine, by receiving,

cannot but pour itself out again to you.

A glance, a single moment’s look,

communicates all, my Love.

Seeing once, I see through and through,

and this moment lasts forever—

an eternity of love.

Seen once, I am seen forever,

known, I am known entirely,

and I know you, Father,

even as I am known.

Known, my Son, in this Love,

this Look, this Gaze,

exchanged between you and I,

in our Communication of self,

where, given, received,

we are, and will be,

in the single moment of eternity, one:

in the Spirit of Love who belongs to us both,

in whom, together, we belong.

II.

My Father, these eyes of love,

mine and yours, gaze out—

upon a world—and, looking,

they create.

In gazing, in a single glance,

which is never-ending contemplation

and radiant, unceasing delight,

we clothe in beauty the creatures

whom we have lovingly made.

Clothe, yet not from without alone,

for eyes of love always look within.

My Son, you see that the most precious

of my creatures,

the children made to share

in our own image and likeness,

in the radiance of that Beauty, given—

have not seen in what lies true love:

ah, look, my Son, they desire not to receive!

They think they must grasp,

must make beauty, goodness,

as if it were their own,

as if—ah!—as if it were not pure gift.

I look, Father, but in them

I still see beauty, hidden,

but enduring and true.

Who can take it away?

Beauty, but buried deep within

the shame of the fallen heart.

Come, Father, let us go to them,

you and I, and our Spirit too.

Let us seek them out,

let us dwell within,

after making them again our own,