The Peace of Wild Things

Wendell Berry

When despair of the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of sill water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free

Radiating Christ

Mother Teresa prayed this daily with her Sisters.

Dear Jesus,
help me to spread Thy fragrance everywhere I go.
Flood my soul with Thy spirit and life.
Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly
that all my life may only be a radiance of Thine.
Shine through me, and be so in me
that every should I come in contact with
may feel Thy presence in my soul.
Let them look up and see no longer me
but only Jesus!

— Blessed John Henry Newman