Prayer made a castle;Watch,Lord;St Michael

A straight and perfect way, the way of love:

Forgetting friend and kin, young love, past life.

The detail of the plaster of my cell,

The wide and gaping cracks of cloister step,

The slabs of stone that floored each corridor,

Became the map that contoured my new home.

And then the pain of loss was gone. My home

Was here and nowhere as I followed love.

I asked for grace to help me to adore

The lover of my soul, the King of life.

I climbed the spiral stairway step by step

Exploring solitude within my cell.

Prayer made a castle of my lowly cell,

A castle strong yet intimate as home.

So many ways now led my cautious step

To seek for God down passageways of love.

This Father’s house held sacraments of life:

A room of peace behind each hopeful door.

With Christ as guide I found not every door

Would open on a good and joyful cell.

Dark space, bleak emptiness of life,

Sad sigh that whispered ‘This is your real home.’

In time I learned to hold the cross of love

Before my eyes, and turn away my step.

Old age brings pain with every stumbling step

But in my prayer I turn towards that door

With increased confidence to face with love

The terror waiting in the shadowed cell.

As death approaches me – my final home –

Mortality redeems the fears of life.

Come, gentle step, to bear me from my cell,

To open wide the door and take me home

Where love expands to greet eternal life.

© Frances Ward

For your love’s sake keep in your tender sight

the ones whose bitter hearts in silence weep.

Watch, Lord, with those who wake and watch this night.

Watch, Lord, and soothe your suffering ones, who fight

to stay alive against the drowning deep;

for your love’s sake, bring in the dawning light.

For your love’s sake, tend with gentle might

the sick, afflicted ones who cannot sleep;

watch, Lord, with those who wake and watch this night.

Watch, Lord, those weary ones whose tired plight

elusive sleep avoids; give rest and keep

for your love’s sake; bring in the dawning light.

We pray, beneath the angels’ shielding flight

for those who die tonight; and those who weep.

Watch, Lord, with those who wake and watch this night;

for your love’s sake, bring in the dawning light.

© Frances Ward

Exiled, bereft, at war, the people wage

A struggle of despair, for human worth:

Fierce war, wage fiercer love to claim the age.

In time when death is born of deadly damage,

Find angels’ strength to bring new things to birth

So tenderly against devouring rage.

Cold angels’ passion, intense and clear, engage

Against the greed, deceiver of the earth:

Fierce war, wage fiercer love to claim the age.

With angels’ gentle love transform the stage

Of war that all may know of peace, its worth,

So tenderly against devouring rage.

Silence in heaven amidst eternal homage

To hear the cry of mother, child in birth.

Fierce war, wage fiercer love to claim the age

So tenderly against devouring rage.

© Frances Ward