Category: Marian Poetry

O Mary, I give thanks to thee,
     A second to your Son,
As your assumed humanity
    Stands next to Three-in-One.

Thank you for your own human choice–
     Welcomed Emmanuel;
You spoke those words in human voice,
    And heaven to earth fell.

Thank you for gentle mother’s lap–
     Held God in human love—
A lap in which was closed the gap
     ‘Tween earth and heav’n above.

To garden does your own word come—
     Finds echo in your Son:
“The Handmaid of the Lord” becomes
     “Not mine but thine be done.”

I thank you for your open arms
     For John at Jesus’ feet;
You offer all a mother’s charms
     As ‘round Christ’s throne we meet.

I stand with Mary, and above I see
Her arms outstretched in love nailed to those beams,
As mercy from forgiving heart now streams
To call all to herself in her arms be.

On earth we all with Eve’s same nature long
For our first mother’s arms to us enfold
But in her sin has taken to grave cold
Those arms in which we know we all belong.

But now her nature raised with open arms–
Through Mary, given to God’s only Son,
Embraces all with new life that’s begun
On Easter Morn—is now beyond death’s harm.

Our Mother Mary’s arms are from grave raised–
Hold us in New Eve’s arms for endless days.

Through Mary come and purify my past–
Those mem’ries are so distant yet so now–
And o’er me shadows long their dark still cast
To lead me to that serpent, once more bow.

Come, Second Adam, crush that serpent’s head
In me where he has lodged in one dark night,
And raise in me Yourself to kill the dread
That sinful mem’ries are a perm’nent blight.

Make kairos time arise in me anew,
That Resurrection darkness will dispel;
Reveal again those mem’ries are of You,
Not shadows but are real, your truth to tell.

Come, Spirit, from our Father through the Son;
Bring Mary’s light in mem’ries for Him won. 

Our yesterdays are sealed behind a stone,
Are dead to life through Him in grave is laid–|
Came to His people for their sin atone
And rescue them from death’s foreboding shade.
Then raised, our yesterdays are bathed in light
Whose Resurrection ends our Eastern night
In Son who’s spoken–is our Father’s Word.
Our Eden’s East breathes in the Spirit’s dawn
Of day in heaven will eternal last
To exile end–now fruit for us is grown,
And death and sin forever for us past.
With Mary’s “Yes” are yesterdays redeemed,
And Eden’s East is not what it had seemed. 

You are a chalice, Mary, by God formed
To stand at cross and catch the Blood Christ spills
And bear it there for many yet unborn
Who from it His New Life will drink their fill.

For His full life is human nature new
From you, joined in your womb with Life Divine;
When from your cup we drink His heaven’s dew,
We also drink your blood from Eve’s new vine.

The first to drink from you is your son, John,
Whose mother through God’s Word you now become,
And all who drink the Blood of your blessed Son
Are by you, as our Mother, welcomed home.

Forever, your Son’s life for us you bear
As He gives you to us for all to share.

O Lord, please come to us: release
And save us all from Devil’s lair,
Restore us to in You believe
Who comes to hearts through Mary fair.

She comes to take our hearts to You—
Together you’re a saving pair—
And with her Mother’s eyes we view
To see with You there’s no compare.

For who but You can truth tell us
And captivate our hearts and minds
So we with faith can reason trust
To picture whole, a view sublime.

You two, good advocates, reveal
Our Father–sends His Spirit wise
Through You and her to our souls heal
And make us fit for Paradise. 

Can God be born in human time,
The Maker by His creature made,
To place our prose in His great rhyme
And lighten dark of our sin’s shade?

It all depends on Mary’s word
When angel visits Nazareth,
To bear God’s Son, who is her Lord,|
Who comes to us through her to bless.

All heaven’s hosts are waiting, still,
As listen they for Mary’s voice.
Salvation rests on Maiden’s will;
To bear God’s Son will be her choice.

And when Young Woman speaks her “yes,”
All angels leap in heaven’s joy
As God in our world comes as guest
In person of a baby boy!

The songs of His adoring crowd have died,
Their palms crushed under conquering Roman feet,
As Mother watches all with heavy sigh
And knows that Jesus soon will His death meet.

Close to her heart she holds the promise made
That of His Kingdom there will be no end,
And she will not let her commitment fade
For she has faith her son will live again.

So, silently she keeps her mother’s watch
With other women who like her have faith–
Expose their pain to Him who’ll each heart search–
And shares with them their tears at Jesus’ fate.

She waits with Him so near His suffering hour;
With love, she’ll know His Resurrected power.

Those evil spirits of that fallen one,
Exiled to earth, our human sphere, now seek
To human hearts inhabit that are weak
And seek to stand apart from God, alone.
For human strength is found upon those knees
That bow before the One who said, “Don’t eat;
You learn the truth while sitting at My feet,
For good and evil are my choice you see.”
But we, like Eve, here bow instead to hear
The one incarnate in that serpent’s life,
Who seeks to enter us with Devil’s strife
And rob us of our own good human cheer.
O Jesus, now incarnate and awake
Our conscience in us, Mary’s choice to make. 

St. Joseph, pray each husband will to wife
Give honor, for through wife he honors Christ
Who for His Church surrendered His own life
And paid to honor her with heavy price.

For you, in Mary, Church unblemished saw—
In faithfulness took her into your house;
By angel you had glimpsed a higher law—
Were unafraid to take her as your spouse.

Now, husbands all our Lord’s handmaid will serve
When they in their blessed wives see Mary’s heart
Then give themselves to her without reserve,
While grace through wives to them God does impart.

St. Joseph, pray His grace for husbands all,
That they for their blessed wives hear angel’s call.