The Soil of the Cross

In the soil of the Cross
The tree of life was planted
it spread its branches of salvation
extending to the wearied hearts of men.

In the soil of the Cross
mans sins are forgiven
as the saviors blood is drawn
for all our indignation

In the soil of the Cross
a new foundation is fertile
as the water from His side
brings forth the fruit of trial 

In the soil of the Cross
now must our hearts be buried
so that the roots of his great sacrifice
may restore our true paradise


By Father Jacob Bertrand

The Triumph of the Cross is in My Heart

When first thing in the morning I turn to prayer
Where my soul is torn open by the beauty of Your love
While Your presence is impressed on my wounded being
The triumph of the Cross is in my heart

When celebrating Your mysteries at Mass
Where your death and Resurrection is made present
While I receive you Body and Blood
The triumph of the Cross is in my heart

When I pray to the pierced soul of my Mother
Where the Word of God was conceived
While your will and hers became one
The triumph of the Cross is in my heart

When I read the stories about Your Martyr’s
Where a sprout of Your well spring of love is born
While they laid down their life for love of You
The triumph of the Cross is in my heart

When I face my struggles and hardships
Where my heart is tested as though through fire
While unto Your likeness my whole being is made
The triumph of the Cross is in my heart 


By Father Jacob Bertrand

Walking Through the Rain

I take this journey walking through the rain
Each step I take makes my heart grow humble
Can I bear this path, ripe with sacred pain?

It’s time to start on this dangerous campaign
Clouds start to form and skies sound their rumble
I take this journey walking through the rain

I know not, what lies past this rough terrain
Struggles I suffer, cause me to stumble
Can I bear this path, ripe with sacred pain?

The storms build up, what shall my soul obtain?
Eternal bliss or is God just mumble
I take this journey walking through the rain

For enduring this strife may God ordain
My life to saint-hood, my heart will tremble
Can I bear this path, ripe with sacred pain?

For one Easter ago, Christ did unchain
His great example, my heart resemble
I take this journey walking through the rain
I will bear this path, ripe with sacred pain.


By Father Jacob Bertrand

Journal Entry 9-26-10

Prayer should never begin with our requests. The Lord already knows our needs when we enter into prayer and rarely do we truly know our needs. We know our desires, but how difficult it is for even the most advanced person of prayer to sift through and find their true needs and separate them out from their desires.

The Lord is like an expert jeweler who can tell when a diamond is really a diamond and when it is fake with just a glance. So let the expert gaze on you in prayer and pick out the diamonds so that he can use them to make a beautiful arrangement of that which most truly identifies you in the depths of your soul. 

For to our Lord and savior your needs are more valuable to him than the most precious of diamonds. They are what the Lord longs to adorn himself with. Thus, he places them on his crown of thorns and becomes the king of your heart, which he yearns to be.

The Cold Winter Night

The Cold Winter Night

Cool air whisps through the silence
Far off lights speckle in the distance
But cannot penetrate the thickness of the dark
Here in this cold winter night

The human eye cannot pick up shadows
The voice shouts to the heavens
But is only a muted whisper
Here in this cold winter night

Numb fingers reach shakingly through the dark
Wanting to find what is about
But all you can feel is yourself alone
Here in this cold winter night

A small flame flickers with haste
It’s warmth seemingly overcome by the chill of the wind
But, stay close, for it’s all that you have and all that you can trust
Here in this cold winter night


By Father Jacob Bertrand

3, If you seek Amy, and Sometimes ...

I came across this new music video by Britney Spears '3' and I had to stop watching and just listen to the lyrics for obvious reasons, but anyways, the lyrics blew me away and it made me think back to her son 'Sometimes' from much earlier on. 

And I just wondered how a person could produce a song like 'sometimes', which is a decent song about love, and then now produce this song called '3'. Sometimes I think the artists more often nowadays aren't really portraying how they feel in their music as much as they did before, but just what the producers want them to portray and unfortunately their lack of self-esteem maybe, I don't pretend to know what motivates these decisions (but something does), or maybe their drive to just make as much money as they can, or whatever, they just go along with it. 

Listen to the lyrics and notice the difference in how they talk about love, sex, and relationships comparatively. I'm not commenting on Britney Spears specifically but just in general intrigued by how drastically different love is portrayed in these two songs from the same artist within 5 or 6 years of each other ... I think. Then also listen to "If you seek Amy". Particularly notice the contrast of the portrayal of the double life at the end. No one really wants to live like that. 

It seems like you can tell that the person who sings the song 'sometimes' is not the same person that sings these other songs. Something is hurt there, something is off, not right, broken, and needs healing. And again this is something more characteristic of the culture and is not an attempt to make a specific judgment on Britney.

Early Christians tried for celebrating Sunday Eucharist

This text is from the "Acta Saturnini" and is a copy of a trial against two Christians named Emeritus and Felix for celebrating Sunday Eucharist ... have you been to Sunday Eucharist lately? 

Turning towards Emeritus, the Proconsul asked: “Were meetings, forbidden by the decrees of the Emperor, held in your house?" 

Emeritus, full of the Holy Spirit, said: “In my house we celebrated the Sunday Eucharist.” 

And the other asked: “Why did you allow them to enter?” 

He replied: “Because they are my brothers and I cannot stop them.” 

The Proconsul replied: “You had the responsibility to stop them” 

And he said: “I could not because we are Christians and we cannot be without the Sunday Eucharist." 

The Proconsul then turned to Felix: “Do not tell us if you are a Christian. Respond only if you participated in that meeting.” 

But Felix responded: “As if the Christian can exist without the Sunday Eucharist or the Sunday Eucharist can be celebrated without the Christian! Don’t you know that the Christian finds his foundation in the Sunday Eucharist and the Sunday Eucharist in the Christian such that one cannot exist without the other? When you hear the name Christian, you know that he joins his brother before the Lord and, when you hear one speaking about a gathering, you recognize in that the name Christian. We have celebrated the gathering with great solemnity and we will always gather for the Sunday Eucharist and for reading the Scriptures of the Lord.”

While Reaching Through the Dark

My hand hovers in the air
Slightly shaking from left to right
Hoping to find something to grasp onto
While reaching through the dark

Light from lamp’s help me to see
My eyes can pick up all the details
Yet all is black in a place where light does not shine
While reaching through the dark

But I cannot see light itself
I seek and strive and scrunch my eyes
This is the darkness of the light
While reaching through the dark

All my senses fail me now
Nothing remains to set my feet upon
Except the comfort of muttering “I trust”
While reaching through the dark


By Father Jacob Bertrand

Whispering Silently

The silence grows thick inside
Outside the noise clamors it’s messy tune
But inside a sweet hum lulls me to sleep
Whispering silently, tenderly, I am your rest

Faithfully I wonder at the dark
Unable to know what taps in the night
But inside a sweet hum tells me to trust
Whispering silently, tenderly, I am your rest

I spend myself fully through service
I’m drained of energy and lacking desire
But inside a sweet hum urges me on
Whispering silently, tenderly, I am your rest

A wound of sweet love purges me deep
No knowledge if its source, have I, to trust
But inside a sweet hum directs my course
Whispering silently, tenderly, I am you rest


-Father Jacob Bertrand

Journal Entry 10-13-2009 (Part II)

When we receive the Eucharist there is a soul sized tunnel that leads to the other side of the veil, which connects us to the shadowed realities. So although our physical senses cannot perceive it we are tasting heaven. 

Our tongues taste bread, but our souls taste heaven. The more in-tune we are with our souls the more we will perceive the shadows of heaven veiled by earth. 

Those of us who want to see heaven expect God to take us up high into some alternate reality. What we don't realize, as the we search the skies for a sign, is that God has already come down to earth and he is inviting us to dig down into the earthly realm, deep enough into our own bodies to our souls, to find the spiritual seeds of his Kingdom, the kingdom of Heaven. 

If only we recognized how many seeds lay below the soil of our earthly existence we would excavate our earthly experiences, we would search the caverns of soul, everyday and be in complete awe of how present God's grace is in our lives and as Benedict XVI says, "God's grace is God himself". 

Journal Entry - 10-13-2009 (Part I)

The Eucharist is a veil, through which our bodily senses cannot pierce or get through. It is a veil, which separates heaven and earth and only the spirit illumined by faith can shine on the veil to see clearly the shadowed realities behind it. 

When our bodies, when our flesh, becomes one with our spirit, that is, when all our longings and desires are united to that deep thirst of our souls for God's love we further yearn to see this veil ripped down so that the passively perceptible shadows of heaven dancing behind the veil become actively engaged by our whole person, body, soul, and mind. 

The spiritual shadows veiled by the Eucharist are the images, or the image, of ourselves that was never lost by original sin, but once the veil is torn our likeness to God, which was lost by original sin, will be revealed, that is to say, our likeness to the body and blood of Jesus Christ, or our likeness to the Eucharist. 

This means, as many have noted before, when we receive the Eucharist, we are becoming Eucharist, becoming 'like' Jesus Christ. 

You become what you receive.

From the Hill

From the hill, through the valley, to the mountain … 
A message of peace comes to the earth;
Make room for your King in your hearts, my children
For from here His kingdom of peace will reign forever. 

From the hill, through the valley, to the mountain … 
A message of prayer reaches to the heart;
The cornerstone of your holiness is your prayer life
And from this foundation the Lord will build you up

From the hill, through the valley, to the mountain … 
A message of providence strikes the mind;
Do not trust in yourself, but in the providence of my Son
For he can accomplish more than you even know how to ask for

From the hill, through the valley, to the mountain … 
A message of love beckons to the will;
It is time to change your life, so pick up His cross of love
And walk from my humble hill, through your violent valley to his majestic mountain


-Father Jacob Bertrand

Homily - 24th Weekend in Ordinary Time

My dear friends God is essentially mysterious, His ways are not our ways, what he does, how he behaves, how he acts, when we get down to it truly confounds us. His whole way of thinking is on an entirely different level, which, often times, strikes a dissonant chord in our hearts and can kind of rub against the grain of how we think it is appropriate to behave or act.

When it comes down to it, put rather simply, according to our thoughts God is out of His mind. According to our way of thinking God does not understand the importance of being practical. When compared to our logic God is, so to speak, out of his mind. We see this on perfect display in our Gospel reading today. Jesus has decided to tell a trio of parables to the crowd that has gathered to listen to Him. These parables teach us through analogy about how God acts and thinks. In the first one we hear of this good shepherd figure whom leaves the 99 in search of the one. Well, hold on a second, really think this through, is that necessarily the best way to approach the situation? To put at risk the other 99 for the sake of this one disobedient, wandering sheep? In the second parable our Lord tells us about a woman who frantically turns over her house looking for one coin. Note, that the Greek word used for coin here denotes a very small coin. So she spends hours looking through the house for a penny. Is that practical? Does that really jive with how we would approach a lost coin? And then after finding the coin she wants to throw a party? Could you imagine receiving a phone call to come over to party, sure yea what’s the celebration for? Well my penny was lost but now it’s found, come on over. You’d think she’s nuts! Then we have the third parable, that of the Prodigal Son. The father in the story upon seeing his son return from, who first insulted him by asking for his inheritance before his dad dies, and then squandered it all on a life of dissipation, the father runs out to meet him, embraces him, gives him a ring and a robe symbols that denote that he still belongs to this family and then proceeds to slaughter the fatted calf for a party. What? No punishment? No giving him what is due for his actions? Where’s the justice in that? You see my friends what we have here is full blown proof that according to our way of thinking God is simply out of his mind.

This means then that we need to figure out how to appreciate God’s ways in our lives and in order to do so we have to kind of re-wire ourselves. Because His thoughts are so far above our thoughts we have to reconfigure our own processes in order for this to make sense. Our interior way of thinking needs to be re-wired. Picture a bunch of wires making up a circuit that is trying to bring electricity to a light bulb. Unless and until the current passes through them no light will get to that bulb. We are those wires and God is the current trying to pass through. We have the power to let the current pass through us, use us, and produce the Light of the World. But if we are not configured in accordance with the current we will never be able to transmit the light in its proper way and so sometimes we give up and refuse to be used and allow darkness to spread. Time passes the wires get crusty, older, and tangled. Now it’s a confusing mess and a life with God and the Church can see near impossible. St. Paul would have felt the same way when he said: “I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and arrogant, but (he continues) I have been mercifully treated.” The Psalmist today shares the same desire as he prays: “A clean heart create for me, O God, and a steadfast spirit renew within me.” Renewal, re-wire, re-configure, clean heart, receive God’s mercy, however you want to put it we need to surrender more readily to God’s logic in order to appreciate how deeply he loves us.

Like the good shepherd chasing one lonely sheep, the crazy lady turning over furniture for a penny, the father running down the hill to meet his Son so too does the compassion of God the Father go to such extremes for each and everyone of us.

God’s love mysteriously for some reason seeks out us sinners and desires to encounter us. In the moment when we come to our senses like the prodigal son and initiate a return to our Heavenly Father he shows us a compassion that is both radically immediate and radically intimate.

Notice how in the parable of the Prodigal Son the father ‘caught sight of the son’ while he was still far off. The moment we turn just the tiniest bit towards God the Father; he catches sight of us. Every Sunday when we walk through the doors of the Church to come and worship Him; he catches sight of us. When our knees hit the pew; he catches sight of us. When we pray, when we stop, take a second to think of him, when we do anything at any moment that puts God first in our lives; immediately he catches sight of us and is filled with intimate compassion. Why does the Lord catch sight of us?  … Because He never stops looking!

In the parable the father catches sight of his son while he’s still a long way off precisely because everyday he would sit at the window and wait, looking out on the horizon for the smallest sign that his son was coming home. So too does God the Father wait, wait, and wait, for the smallest sign that you his daughter or you his son is coming towards him.

In a few moments God will catch sight of you as you approach His sanctuary to receive the Eucharist. His gaze will fix upon you with gratitude that you have accepted his invitation to come to the Eucharistic feast for which the Lamb of God was slaughtered on your behalf. As you receive his Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Eucharist, the God who is essentially mysterious, beyond all our ways and our thoughts, will pour his mercy and love over your heart renewing it and giving it the strength to be steadfast in faith. In this encounter with the compassion of God the Father you will be empowered to bring the same love that has won you over to all those you come into contact with this week.