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Holy Week, 2023

The last few years have wearied many of us, with political unrest, a cruel and unsparing pandemic, violence, loss, and worries too many to mention. On this Good Friday, 2023, we may be too bogged down by lack of hope and energy to enter into the saving mystery of the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) was a British poet who describes so well that sense of distance from the experience of Christ during his death on the cross, an alienation that can emerge when we’ve been weighed down by more stress than we have strength to bear.

The poet has been “been there”, observing others responding with emotion and heartfelt grief to the suffering of Jesus, while she recognizes nothing but a cold and stony feeling within herself. How often have we blamed ourselves for our discouragement and apathy, wondering what blocks us from knowing the joy of those who proclaim the words of the Gospel hymn “It is well with my soul”?

Let this poem, which describes this state of emptiness so well, assure us that we are not alone, and that our Shepherd will continue to search for us in our dark and shadowy spaces to lead us into warmth and light.

Good Friday by Christina Rossetti (1866).

Am I a stone, and not a sheep,
That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy cross,
To number drop by drop Thy blood’s slow loss,
And yet not weep?

Not so those women loved
Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;
Not so fallen Peter, weeping bitterly;
Not so the thief was moved;

Not so the Sun and Moon
Which hid their faces in a starless sky,
A horror of great darkness at broad noon –
I, only I.

Yet give not o’er,
But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;
Greater than Moses, turn and look once more
And smite a rock.

Our dear Anna Helen offered these encouraging words to the Community that I would like to share with all our readers:

“When the Washington turmoil and scandals in the Church and elsewhere get to be too much, I turn to this quote from Beatrix Potter: Believe there is a great power silently working all things for good, behave yourself, and never mind the rest. And we have Biblical reassurance that “this too shall pass.”

Thank you, Anna Helen, for reminding us of these everlasting truths.