Station I “Take up your cross and follow me,” you said. We couldn’t know then exactly what you meant, But then they placed the thorns upon your head, And mocked you for their mirthless merriment. Condemned you did not fight their condemnation, While they passed you back and forth like a child’s game. [...]
The taking up of our own individual crosses is the debt we owe, not merely for the gift of life we’ve been given but for the gift of life which Christ gives us in His act of love upon the cross. Life is lent to us, but the reality of the debt is accepted and [...]
The season of Lent is superimposed upon the life of work that we already lead, but here, more than ever, the pressing need is for silence, renunciation, and the leisure of deep work in prayer and spiritual reflection, achieved without deadlines or anxiety. Back before the students returned to Wyoming Catholic College this semester, I [...]
The lack of any serious communal ascetical practices during Lent and throughout the year is one of the defining weaknesses of modern Christians. What the Catholic Church and various Protestants need is a return to real fasting that is accompanied by both almsgiving and attention to prayer. What are you giving up for Lent? This [...]
Within Thy wounds hide me. Anima Christi Anonymous, 14th century Lo: Gethsemane; as well, its vintage consecrated by His transformative Passion’s dramaturgy—abrogative, not regenerative, for the mintage of stigmata imprints Caesar’s coinage indelibly. But what is God’s to give […]
Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not over me; but weep for yourselves, and for your children. Luke 23:28 All gardens have now become Gethsemane: forsaken shadowscapes of sterile blight where no solace may be found, nor any light. Branches cruciate dominate cruelly. […]
The victory of Christ on the Cross was not a victory of sunshine, happy thoughts, and rainbows. Nay, it was a victory of sublime splendor. It was horrifying. It was total. It was—and remains—through the eyes of faith, also beautiful. St. Paul says that he is determined to know, and preach, nothing but “Christ and [...]
Of all the wounds Jesus felt physically on that Friday, probably none hurt Him as much as those inflicted by His friends, deserting Him in His greatest hour of need and comfort. The entire course of history changed on a Friday afternoon at 3. At that moment, when Jesus “gave up the ghost,” (Luke 24: [...]
While many artists and composers have depicted the Passion of Christ, Beethoven carried an especially weighty cross in the form of his privation of hearing, which isolated him from society and forced him to compose music from his “inner ear.” Like Christ in the Garden, he found himself alone and forsaken, wrestling with a tribulation [...]
The way to preach the greatness of what Christians call Lent is to preach the demanding side of it. Tell those around you to give things up until it hurts a bit, till they feel an ache inside that they now can’t pretend to fill with double-stuffed Oreos and beers and binge-watched television series. Then [...]
Here are three sonnets on the three temptations of Christ in the wilderness. You can read my commentary on these in The Word in the Wilderness. […]
Those who embrace their crosses selflessly are liberated from their slavery to themselves. This is the only freedom worth living for or dying for. Those who hate their crosses are nailing themselves more painfully to them, enslaving themselves to their own selfishness. It is said quite truly that the path of least resistance leads to [...]
I have a small and secret desire, well-hid. Secret from whom, you ask? Secret from me, I suspect, Or maybe I am a suspect, secretly, Quietly desiring. This is the week to bring a secret forth Not by telling, no "big reveal" But quietly, like the secret itself Into the ashes of Wednesday morning. Ashes [...]