Judases

For Good Friday:

I dipped my hand into the dish
and took the bread you gave.
I pledged my faith to you in this,
and still I turned away.

I took your name upon my tongue
and knew it was divine.
I meant to make it ceaseless song,
then spilled it like sour wine.

But now your bread to acid turns;
my silver coins corrode;
the very bones within me burn:
I must pay what is owed.

They say that alms atone for sin,
but coins will not suffice.
O Master, may I mercy win?
Is there some sacrifice?

And if there is no grace for me,
if I must melt like wax
let pity drown me in its deeps:
Oblivion I ask.

Have mercy on the treacherous,
if such a thing can be.
If there's no hope for Judases,
then there is none for me.

Das Gewissen von Nikolai Nikolajewitsch Ge (1891) By Nikolai Ge – The Yorck Project (2002) 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN: 3936122202., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=151431

End

For Good Friday:

The kiss that is love's mockery;
men in a garden, armed;
the night-crow of the cockerel;
the rending of the heart:

The road that starts from Eden
and opens up the sea
to still the heart's red beating
will end on Calvary.

And we will stand there watching,
full drunk on our own tears,
while “Lema sabachthani?”
falls only on deaf ears.

The sky has turned to midnight
while yet the sun's at noon,
and mothers swaddle infants
to lay them in the tomb,

for life itself is dying
and light itself burns out.
The Word of God is silenced,
and oh, the stones cry out!

Icon of the Crucifixion, 16th century, by Theophanes the Cretan (Stavronikita Monastery, Mount Athos) By Theophanes the Cretan – Holy Monastery of Stavronikita, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1288231

Sing

For Holy Thursday, to the PANGE LINGUA:

Sing, my tongue, the saving wonders,
mysteries too great for words.
Sing, through all your stops and blunders,
though the most remains unheard.
Though your voice is drowned in thunders,
sing like any spring-struck bird.

Sing through all your earthly sorrows,
through the shadows that appall.
Christ's own earthly singing borrow:
Loudly on the Father call,
though you know you die tomorrow,
though your words will silent fall.

Though he knew what he would suffer,
Christ at supper sang the hymns.
Knowlingly himself he offered
for the flock that fled from him.
Every word of law and prophet
in his song new voice is giv'n.

Then, my tongue, through notes that falter,
sing a love too great to tell.
Sing the joys that fill the psalter;
sing the sorrows of the knell.
Christ is laid upon the altar:
Ring creation as his bell!

A Kremikovtsi Monastery fresco (15th century) depicting the Last Supper celebrated by Jesus and his disciples. The early Christians too would have celebrated this meal to commemorate Jesus’ death and subsequent resurrection. By Edal Anton Lefterov – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15129262

Cast Out From Every Eden

For Holy Thursday:

Cast out from every Eden,
adrift on every flood,
sold into our own Egypts,
we cried out to our God
who came to share it with us,
to dwell in flesh and blood:
The bread of our affliction
becomes the feast of love.

Our bodies fail and falter:
His own is just as weak.
We die, as we were born to:
He watches us and weeps.
Eternal and immortal,
he joins us in our death,
but on the night before it
he shares our broken bread.

So hunger turns to fullness,
and peace transforms our strife;
our darkness is refulgent,
and death becomes our life.
And we can be as God is,
who fills us, flesh and soul:
Mere bread becomes the body
that makes our being whole.

The Last Supper by Dieric Bouts – Web Gallery of Art: Image Info about artwork, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15451860

Passion Play

The silver coins are clinking as he counts them;
they're winking as he lines them up in stacks.
They slide down when he piles them as a mountain
while Judas twirls his villainous mustache.

But Christ has laid himself upon these traintracks
and doesn't call for Dudley Do-Right's help,
for he who holds the trolley on those same tracks
will lie there still, abandoning himself.

He will not keep the train from its appointment,
but silently he waits before the wheels.
When peace and justice end their long disjointment,
they crush his flesh.  There will be no appeals.

And we will shatter in that great collision,
while all we thought we knew has flown away.
When power bends its neck in meek submission,
the lights come up and end the matinée.

We come out of the dim, sepulchral theater
and stand there blinking in the day made bright
to shed our costumes, wash away our greasepaint,
and greet each other in the brand-new light.

Then Christ himself shall lead us in our revels,
while Judas weeps for joy to see him rise,
and Peter tells his master's name forever,
and we will see ourselves with open eyes.

This elaborate image, Representation of a Pageant Vehicle at the time of Performance, was commissioned as the frontispiece to A Dissertation on the Pageants or Dramatic Mysteries Anciently Performed at Coventry by the Trading Companies of that City, (1825) by Thomas Sharp, (1770-1841). The image was designed and executed in copper engraving by David Gee (1793-1872). It recreates a 15th-century Passion play (The Trial and Crucifixion of Christ) by the Smiths’ Company of Coventry. Many of the details are based on written accounts, including pageant wagon design itself and the people in the street. The scene on stage depicts Christ, with hands bound, before an enthroned Pilate. Annas and Caiaphas are shown in mitred hats, and a boy carries a bowl of water for Pilate to wash his hands. Although somewhat speculative, the image has been influential and is often reproduced. By David Gee – Image scanned from first edition of the Chambers Book of Days (1864) by Robert Chambers (died 1871)., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=235897

Pilate’s Wife

While [Pilate] was still seated on the bench,
his wife sent him a message,
“Have nothing to do with that righteous man.
I suffered much in a dream today because of him.”
Matthew 27:19

Lately in a dream I saw him
riding on the coming storm.
Harnessed lightning drew him onward
like a son of Saturn born.

Mother Earth with dread was shaking
at the thunder of his touch;
Atlas' mighty shoulders shaking
fumbled heaven's every torch.

So they fell like sparks in shadows,
briefest flashes in the dark—
darkness deepened past all fathoms,
swallowing my stricken heart.

There I saw the son of Saturn
binding Pluto in his chains,
turning back the ship of Charon,
emptying death's great domains.

Then he turned on me his notice:
Jupiter shed his disguise,
spoke of love in words I knew not,
drowned me in his mortal eyes.

So was I Semele burning
in the glory I was shown.
Now I send you urgent warning:
Leave the righteous man alone.

The Message of Pilate’s Wife (1886–94) by James Tissot (Brooklyn Museum) – Online Collection of Brooklyn Museum; Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2008, 00.159.260a_PS2.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10957662

Hosanna!

For Palm Sunday:

When horse and chariot sink into the sea
while shattered armies scatter on the run,
he rides a beast of burden in the street.
Hosanna to the king, to David's son!

While idols crack beneath the people's gaze
and watch their nations crumble, blind and dumb,
he enters on the noise of children's praise:
Hosanna!  Blessèd is the king who comes!

When holiness is bought and sold for alms,
salvation is a reckoning of sums,
he rides on borrowed robes and foraged palms:
Hosanna!  In the name of God he comes!

And we shall crown him as a victor king
and see him lifted up in all his might
as from his fullness we take everything.
Hosanna!  Oh, hosanna in the height!

He comes to found a kingdom of the poor,
to show the face of God to all the world,
to cancel every debt.  Lift up, you doors!
Hosanna!  Oh, hosanna to the Lord!

Palmesel (figure of Christ on a donkey, mounted on a wheeled platform). Art from Southern Germany, perhaps Swabia. By Marie-Lan Nguyen (2012), CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18285774

Words

When I have lost the words
that tell me who I am,
then visit me in silence, Lord,
and write for me my name.

And when I cannot speak 
to call you in my fear,
look down and see me in my need;
without a sound, draw near.

For you know all my thoughts
before I have the words
as I have known my children's wants:
Come mother me, my Lord,

and hold me to your breast
when all I held is lost.
So wordlessly croon me to rest,
your arms about me crossed.

O Christ, the Word of God,
if I should speak no more,
then be me for me the sounding word 
that praises and implores.

And if my heart is stone,
oh, give it voice to cry:
Let it be just your name alone
resounding to the sky.

Created 1408 by Andrej Rublëv. By Anonymous Russian icon painter (before 1917)Public domain image (according to PD-RusEmpire) – http://www.icon-art.info/masterpiece.php?lng=ru&mst_id=136, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1579041

Pietà

Did Eve hold Abel thus,
ev'n as she ached for Cain?
Was it for this she came of dust,
for this bore them of pain?

So Mary holds her son,
a swordpoint in her heart.
All prophecies are clanging gongs,
and silent stone cries out!

Yet even to this end,
our second-oldest tale,
even to this does God descend,
where weeping mothers wail.

So shall he fill the first,
our coming from the dust.
So shall he raise us from the dirt
who has lain there with us.

And tears shall turn to floods
that make the deserts bloom.
There will be no more Niles of blood,
when death has been entombed.

But, oh, how long, how long
shall Eve for Abel weep,
shall Mary hold her lifeless son,
and God his silence keep?

Michelangelo Buonarroti’s La Madonna della Pietà in Saint Peter’s Basilica, 1498–1499. Pontifically crowned by Pope Urban VIII in 1637. By Stanislav Traykov – Edited version of (cloned object out of background) Image:Michelangelo’s Pieta 5450 cropncleaned.jpg), CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3653602

As We Look On Death

Martha said to Jesus,
“Lord, if you had been here,
my brother would not have died.
But even now I know that whatever you ask of God,
God will give you.”
Jesus said to her,
“Your brother will rise.”
Martha said to him,
“I know he will rise,
in the resurrection on the last day.”
Jesus told her,
“I am the resurrection and the life;
whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live,
and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.
Do you believe this?”
She said to him, “Yes, Lord.
I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God,
the one who is coming into the world.”
John 11:1-45

You ask us, as we look on death,
to trust in resurrection;
to hope, beyond the end of breath,
that all our sighs are reckoned;
to love, though there is nothing left,
and say someone still beckons.

You stand with us outside the tomb
to mourn the one within it—
O, call him out again to you!
O'erturn the grave and spill it!
For we shall all go that way soon,
and you yourself shall fill it.

Here where the ground gapes open wide
and swallows all in shadow,
you come with us.  You step inside,
descend into death's furrow;
a seed stripped bare of pow'r or pride
is buried by the harrow.

You who had shaped us out of dust
as brief and weak as grass is,
who breathed your life into our mud,
are with us as it passes.
It fades, but you are still with us:
Breathe life into these ashes.

The Raising of Lazarus, 1310–11, By Duccio di Buoninsegna – Kimbell Art Museum, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7125641