Quote of the day, 7 March: Jessica Powers

Worse than the poorest mendicant alive,
the pencil man, the blind man with his breath
of music shaming all who do not give,
are You to me, Jesus of Nazareth.

Must You take up Your post on every block
of every street? Do I have no release?
Is there no room of earth that I can lock
to Your sad face, Your pitiful whisper “Please”?

I seek the counters of time’s gleaming store
but make no purchases, for You are there.
How can I waste one coin while you implore
with tear-soiled cheeks and dark blood-matted hair?

And when I offer You in charity
pennies minted by love, still, still You stand
fixing Your sorrowful wide eyes on me.
Must all my purse be emptied in Your hand?

Jesus, my beggar, what would You have of me?
Father and mother? the lover I longed to know?
The child I would have cherished tenderly?
Even the blood that through my heart’s valves flow?

I too would be a beggar. Long tormented,
I dream to grant You all and stand apart
with You on some bleak corner, tear-frequented,
and trouble mankind for its human heart.

Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit, O.C.D. (Jessica Powers)

The Master Beggar (1937)

Powers, J 1999, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: A small child sleeps on the streets of a small rural town in India. She’s forced by her parents to beg to help support them. Image credit: restless_mind / Flickr (Some rights reserved)

#charity #generosity #JessicaPowers #Jesus #mercy #poetry #poverty #selfGiving

I had been home for several weeks when I received a telephone call; a lady from the Red Cross wished to speak to me. She told me there was still no opening for nurses in Germany, but there was a great demand for them in Austria. Were I willing to go there, I should be ready to report to Mährisch-Weisskirchen at the beginning of April. My mind was made up immediately. … I left on the seventh of April, 1915, at six o’clock in the morning.

Saint Edith Stein
Life in a Jewish Family, Chapter VIII

Edith Stein had only one love: Knowledge. She had only one passion: Books to deepen her knowledge.

Her library had expanded so much in the course of years that, even after everything unsuitable to the Carmel had been eliminated, she entered the convent with six huge boxes of books as her “dowry.” But for now, any such thought of monastic life was still a long way off for her.

The world war broke out [World War I, July 28, 1914]. The lecture halls grew empty. Professors and students hurried to enlist.

While Erna, who had begun her medical residency in Breslau early in 1914, merely transferred to another clinic, Edith felt compelled by sheer patriotism to discontinue her studies and volunteer for the Red Cross.

After the required training she was sent to the contagious diseases ward of the military hospital in Mährisch-Weisskirchen. There, as everywhere, she threw herself into her work with her whole soul and her unique selflessness and was popular with the sick and wounded as she had been with her fellow students and teachers.

Sister Teresia Renata Posselt, O.C.D.

Chapter 5, Assistant to Husserl

Posselt, T 2005, Edith Stein: The Life of a Philosopher and Carmelite, translated from the German by Batzdorff S, Koeppel J, and Sullivan J, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Stein, E, Gelber, L, Leuven R, & Koeppel J 1986, Life in a Jewish Family: her unfinished autobiographical account, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Antique pharmacy containers written in French are captured in this photo of an old pharmacy. Image credit: elfrock / Adobe Stock (Stock photo)

https://carmelitequotes.blog/2024/11/10/edith-7apr15/

#Austria #nurse #sacrifice #selfGiving #selflessness #sick #StEdithStein #WorldWarI #wounded