Mother

From Grace Hamman’s Jesus Through Medieval Eyes, the chapter on Christ as Mother. For Holy Week:

As Eve cried out in labor,
who bore the curse and Cain,
and wept again for Abel,
so you bear us in pain.

The body gaping open,
the wound of our first sin,
brings healing through the broken—
and new life enters in.

You walked the earth our brother,
formed with us of the dirt.
Now on the cross as mother,
your labor gives us birth

of water and the Spirit,
of holiness and blood.
The sin that we inherit
is drowned out in your flood.

Your body is out birthplace;
your sorrow is our hope.
O firstfruits of our dead race,
your life becomes our hope.

Your wounds O Lord, our shelter:
the shadow of your wings.
The cleft rock is our refuge,
O mother of all things!

The Birth of Ecclesia, fol. 2v (detail), ONB Han. Cod. 2554, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna. Made in Paris, 1225–49.

Mary, Mother of God

Includes a detail from Nicholas Love’s Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ (as recounted in Grace Hamman’s Jesus Through Medieval Eyes): that Mary took off her kerchief and used it to swaddle the infant Christ.

You took your veil to swaddle him—

no shame before your God

but, Eden-like in Bethlehem,

held him against your heart.



So we, against the winter wind

prideless, defenseless stand.

Oh, wrap us up as you did him

who rested in your hands.



The night is long and bitter cold;

we wait to see his face,

Mary, who did the savior hold,

teach us to feel his grace.



In any warmth that wraps us 'round,

in any comfort's touch,

we hope his mercy may abound

who needed you so much.



And if we cannot feel his love,

then pray we can feel yours,

that earthly love maybe enough

to show us heaven's doors.



Mary, we are your children now,

as helpless as was Christ.

Come swaddle us as in that hour

you cradled paradise.

Madonna Advocata (Hagiosoritissa) aus dem 7. Jahrhundert By Asia – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61627017

Unheard

Based on Jesus Through Medieval Eyes (the chapter on Christ as Word) and the O antiphons:

The Father's gathered syllables,

one long, unbroken Word

has lain these months invisible,

unspeaking and unheard.



E'er since the angel said it last,

the silent Word is cloaked

within the woman who said yes,

beneath her heart invoked.



To weave a word's embodiment—

eyes, hands, and lips and breath—

his mother is the sacred tent

of birth and life and death.



Unheard, yet he is not unknown;

unseen, yet still in mind,

a secret held by her alone

until the hours unwind.



Until he's born into the world,

no treatise but a child:

God's plan in him in her arms curled;

God's wisdom in her smile.



And how our silence aches to hear

his echoes in the dark,

for when he cries out, loud and clear,

the sky fills up with sparks.

Verso of folio 30 from The Poissy Antiphonal, a certified Dominican antiphonal of 428 folios from Poissy, written 1335-1345, with a complete annual cycle of chants for the Divine Office (Temporal, Sanctoral and Commons) and a hymnal. By Unknown author – La Trobe University Library, Medieval Music Database, The Poissy Antiphonal, folio 30v., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8660919

Christ the Soldier

Another one based on Jesus Through Medieval Eyes, though I take this in a little different direction, a Soldier instead of a Knight:

The strife is o'er, the battle done;

our victor weeps for all he's won

who suffer still beneath the sun. Lord, have mercy!



Lord, have mercy!

Christ, have mercy!

Lord, have mercy!



Bravely he triumphed in our wars,

his glory brighter than the stars.

Yet he will ever bear the scars of his mercy.



All you embattled, come to him;

beneath his banner's shadow dim

respite for weary hearts and limbs.  Feel his mercy.



For he knows well your struggles here;

he feels your anguish and your fear.

Through all your pain, he still draws near in his mercy.



Soldiers, we follow in his steps,

loyal until our dying breath.

Our only enemy is death. Lord, have mercy!



And as we battle on once more,

let us remember Christ our Lord,

who triumphs yet.  The strife is o'er in his mercy.

Knight illustration from the Westminster Psalter, Westminster, second quarter of the 13th century; BL Royal MS 2.A.xxii, f. 220r.

The Lover

My love is mine and I am his
who kneels to bathe my feet,
who stoops with heaven in his kiss,
and oh, his kiss is sweet.

I am my love's and he is mine,
for he has given all
to let his love about me twine
when in the dark I fall.

There where the sun has turned away
and gone are all the stars,
my only light is in his gaze,
my only hope his arms.

And so I cling about his heart;
he sets me like a seal
upon his breast, upon his arm,
and clings to me as well.

Thuswise, until the morning comes,
he is my heart itself,
my courage 'til the break of dawn,
my comfort and my rest.

Then let that darkness fall again,
a veil upon the world;
within his arms, my refuge then,
ever shall I lie curled.

Józef Mehoffer – Serce Jezusa 1930 By Józef Mehoffer – http://www.polswissart.pl, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=126863843

The Judge

Come, O Lord; come quickly:
Tear the skies apart.
Shadows here lie thickly:
Drive away the dark.
Come in all your glory;
come ascend your throne.
Finish now the story
whose end is yours alone.

Come, O Lord, with judgment:
Come to set things right.
Bring at last your justice;
end oppression's might.
Come and show us clearly
where we must atone.
Make your wounds a mirror
of all we've done and known.

Come, O Lord, with mercy:
Let its rivers run
through our desert thristing,
gleaming as the sun.
Let our barrens blossom
as once Eden bloomed.
Come, restore your garden,
and oh, come soon!  Come soon!

Day of Judgment By Gherardo Starnina – 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=2978136