Gethsemane

The word you wanted doesn't come:
the moment of abandonment.
“But, Father, let your will be done.”
You'll bend the way the world is bent.

The weight of our mortality,
the desperate comfort Judas takes,
fall on you in Gethsemane.
You'll bend beneath it 'til you break.

We cut ourselves away from God—
it was another garden, then—
and it was then we pierced your heart.
Oh, we will pierce it once again,

but first your kneel to wash our feet,
to give yourself as covenant,
and when the Passover's complete
we'll look upon the one we've rent.

Your eyes, O Jesus, will not see
that looked upon creation's birth.
The dark not dark to you will be,
and you'll be laid, alone, in earth.

All those who're born are doomed to die,
O Son of Man from mankind torn,
but you alone have cause to cry,
“My God, why leave me here forlorn?”

Brooklyn Museum – The Grotto of the Agony (La Grotte de l’agonie) – James Tissot – Online Collection of Brooklyn Museum; Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2006, 00.159.231_PS1.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10957579

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

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

Day After Day

For Triduum, to the tune FINLANDIA:

Day unto day cries out the heavens' message;
night unto night makes every teaching known.
Creation's gifts, the wonders that they presage:
the words rise up from every stock and stone.
The works of God are still God's self professing
while God's own Son stands naked and alone.

Day after day, he stood before the Temple,
night after night, unfolding heaven's plan:
what all seeds know and every stone remembers,
a mercy more than all the heavens' span.
They see him now, and all Creation trembles:
He breathes his last, the Son of God made man.

Day darkens day, and all the world is weeping.
Night cries to night a sorrow without end.
The stones will shout if we are silent, sleeping,
as Abel's blood cried out when he was rent.
For he is dead, Creation in his keeping:
the Word made flesh, God's love from heaven sent.

Day after day, gone where we cannot follow;
night after night, descending to the dead,
he leads them out 'til hell is wracked and hollowed.
The stones roll back; Creation lifts its head
to see its fall in victory is swallowed!
Christ has returned, and death itself has fled!

Christ in Limbo, By Follower of Hieronymus Bosch – monsterbrains.blogspot.comhttp://collection.imamuseum.org/artwork/79340/index.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6700385

The Gift

Through you, my Christ, all things were made:
You caused the very dust,
paved it with grasses' fragile blades,
and out of it dug us.

We came to be at your command,
set stirring by your breath.
All that we have is from your hand,
all things except our death.

All else is yours already, Lord;
we've nothing of our own
except the keen edge of the sword,
the blunt force of the stone.

The bitten apple taught us these,
and on their wings we fly.
The makers of mortalities,
we tempted you to try:

“If you would claim us for yourself
and truly rule in all,
come down, O God, to taste our death
and plummet through our fall.”

So, wonder of all worlds, you did.
You stooped, as falcons dive:
in mortal flesh your godhead hid,
your spirit bound in gyves.

You took the gift we offered you—
no mortal can say how.
You made our only making new,
and at your name we bow

for you, O Son of God, you died
and broke what we had graved.
The sword has keened; the stones have cried,
for you our death have braved.