{"id":3160,"date":"2015-04-03T12:00:09","date_gmt":"2015-04-03T11:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/2013\/03\/verbum-crucis\/"},"modified":"2015-04-03T12:19:41","modified_gmt":"2015-04-03T11:19:41","slug":"verbum-crucis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/2015\/04\/verbum-crucis\/","title":{"rendered":"Verbum Crucis"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Carceri,<\/a>Struck by the expression on the faces of Christ and of the Angel holding the chalice to His pierced side, I took this photograph of a fresco at the Carceri in Assisi some years ago.<\/small><\/em><\/p>\n

Friday of the Passion of the Lord<\/strong><\/p>\n

Last night He sat with us at table.
\nHis Face illumined the Upper Room
\nand there, just above the bread and behind the chalice,
\nbeat His Heart of flesh.<\/p>\n

John inclined his head;
\nhe closed his eyes like a child secure on his mother\u2019s breast,
\nand listened there to the rhythm of the Love
\nthat, mightily and sweetly, orders the sun and stars;
\nto the rhythm of the Love that, with every beat,
\nstretches upward and spirals inward to the Father;
\nto the rhythm of Love that meets
\nthe pulse of every of other beating heart.<\/p>\n

Last night, He lifted up His eyes to heaven
\nand, all shining with the glory of His priesthood,
\nsaid: \u201cFather, the hour has come;
\nglorify thy Son that the Son may glorify thee\u201d (Jn 17:1).<\/p>\n

And to His disciples He said:
\nDesiderio desideravi . . .<\/em>
\n\u201cWith desire I have desired
\nto eat this pasch with you before I suffer\u201d (Lk 22:15).
\n\u201cAnd taking bread, He gave thanks and broke,
\nand gave to them, saying:
\n‘This is my body which is given for you:
\ndo this for a commemoration of me.\u2019
\nIn like manner, the chalice also, after He had supped, saying:
\n‘This is the chalice, the New Testament in my blood
\nwhich shall be shed for you\u2019\u201d (Lk 22:19-20).<\/p>\n

In that moment, the Sacrifice was already accomplished.
\nThe wood of the supper table fused with the wood of the Cross.
\nThe Cross became His altar,
\nand He became the Lamb
\nfulfilling Abraham\u2019s prophecy on the mountain:
\n\u201cGod will provide himself the lamb for a holocaust, my son\u201d (Gen 22:8).<\/p>\n

After that moment, there was no going back.
\nBefore it the entire cosmos held its breath
\nin fearful anticipation.
\nAfter it, the angels themselves sighed,
\nand began to breathe again their breathless praises.<\/p>\n

Had He not said, \u201cI came to cast fire upon the earth;
\nand would that it were already kindled!
\nI have a baptism to be baptized with;
\nand how I am constrained until it is accomplished\u201d (Lk 12:49-50).
\nAnd they, paying attention to His Face
\n\u201cas to a lamp shining in a dark place\u201d (2 P 1:19),
\nremembered that He had said,
\n\u201cNow is my soul troubled.
\nAnd what shall I say?
\n‘Father, save me from this hour\u2019?
\nNo, for this purpose I have come to this hour.
\nFather, glorify thy name.\u201d (Jn 12:27).<\/p>\n

\u201cThen a voice came from heaven,
\n‘I have glorified it,
\nand I will glorify it again.\u2019
\nThe crowd standing by heard it
\nand said that it had thundered\u201d (Jn 12:28).<\/p>\n

But last night in the Cenacle,
\nwith shadows winding about them like a shroud,
\nthere was no thunder, no voice,
\nbut only the immensity of a silence
\nthat He — and those closest to His Heart —
\nknew to be the Father\u2019s sorrowful assent.
\nAnd the betrayer, quick to do
\nwhat could no longer be delayed,
\nslipped out.
\n\u201cAnd it was night\u201d (Jn 13:30).<\/p>\n

In the garden,
\nHis Face was unseen,
\nfor the eyes of His friends had grown heavy with sleep,
\nand there was none to meet the gaze of the Sorrowing Son
\nother than the Sorrowing Father
\nand the Consoling Angel whom He had sent
\nto wipe His brow,
\nto caress His head
\nand, for a moment, to hold His hand.<\/p>\n

This the Sorrowing Mother would have done
\nhad she been there,
\nbut even that was denied her.
\nThe Mother was replaced by an Angel!
\nThe consolation that only she could have given
\nwas given by another,
\nand yet He knew the difference:
\nthough sweet, it was an angel\u2019s, not a mother\u2019s.
\nWeeping like Eve outside the garden,
\nshe consented to the bitter Chalice:
\n\u201cBe it done unto me as to your Word!\u201d
\nChosen for this, she elected to remain
\ncloistered in the Father\u2019s Will,
\nhidden and veiled in grief,
\nto drink there of the Chalice of her Son, the Priest,
\nand savour it, bitter against the palate of her soul,
\nfor nought can taste a child\u2019s suffering
\nlike a mother\u2019s palate.<\/p>\n

Then the Angel too was gone
\nand the Father hid behind the veil of blood and of tears,
\nleaving the Son alone with His sorrow
\nand with His fear,
\nto proceed with the Sacrifice:
\nthe priest stopping on the way to the altar
\nwith the chalice already in his hands.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy heart expected reproach and misery;
\nand I looked for one that would grieve together with me,
\nand there was none!
\nI sought for one to comfort me, and I found none\u201d (Ps 68:21-22).<\/p>\n

There began the disfiguration of His Face,
\nthe humiliation of Beauty,
\nthe descent deep into abjection.
\nBlood oozing from His pores
\nmingled with tears streaming from His eyes,
\nand blood and tears alike
\nprecious in the Father\u2019s eyes,
\nsoaked the earth beneath Him
\nfilling the underworld and all the just there waiting
\nwith a strange anticipation.<\/p>\n

There followed the kiss of betrayal;
\nthe grieving over one loved even in his sin;
\nthe denial by Peter, His chosen rock, here soft as lead;
\nand that desolate liturgy crafted by iniquity:
\na round of rude processions
\nfirst to Annas, and then from Annas to Caiaphas,
\nand then from Caiaphas to Pilate.<\/p>\n

Pilate, unwittingly, summons the world
\nto gaze upon His Face:
\n\u201cSo Jesus came forth bearing the crown of thorns,
\nand the purple garment.
\nAnd he said to them, ‘Behold the man\u2019\u201d (Jn 19:5).<\/p>\n

The Seraphim above, hearing this utterance from far below,
\nturn their eyes of fire to behold the Man.
\nFor a moment
\n— if moments there be in eternity —
\nthe ceaseless beating of their ruby wings is stilled
\nand all of heaven\u2019s eyes
\nmeet the gaze of the Son of Man
\nand rest riveted to His Holy Face.<\/p>\n

Hidden in the crowd is the Mother.
\nNow from her grief-stricken heart there rises over Pilate\u2019s words
\nthat prayer of the psalmist
\nentrusted to Israel, and to her, the Daughter of Sion,
\nfor this day, and for this hour:
\n\u201cBehold, O God, our protector;
\nlook upon the Face of your Christ!\u201d (Ps 83:9).<\/p>\n

Charged with the terrible timber of that chosen tree,
\nall the weight of the sin of the ages
\npresses into His flesh that He, the Lamb, might bear it away:
\nthe crushing cruelty of my sins and yours:
\npride, avarice, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony, and sloth.<\/p>\n

Upon Him lies the burden of every betrayal, every refusal,
\nevery indifference, every defilement,
\nevery blasphemy, every hardness of heart.
\nThis is the heaviness that pushes Him three times to the ground,
\ngrinding His Face into the dust,
\nthat dust out of which, in the beginning, He fashioned man,
\nHis masterpiece, His image, His joy.<\/p>\n

Having arrived at the place of a skull
\n\u201cwhich is called in Hebrew Golgotha\u201d (Jn 19:17),
\nHe stretches out His hands
\nto receive the nails
\nthat will hold Him on the wood
\nin the position of one waiting to embrace and to be embraced,
\nin the gesture of the priest standing before the altar
\nfor the Great Thanksgiving.
\nHis feet are nailed
\nfixing Him to this one place at the centre of the earth,
\nthat all who approach the Cross
\nmight find Him there,
\nthe One who, immobilized,
\ncan say only, \u201cCome to me.\u201d
\n\u201cCome to me all you who labour and are heavy laden,
\nand I will refresh you\u201d (Mt 11:27).<\/p>\n

Here the Bridegroom finds His marriage bed,
\nhere Priest and Victim find the altar,
\nhere the King of Glory finds His throne.
\nHere the Oblation is lifted high;
\nhere the covenant is ratified,
\nhere the Spirit is outpoured
\nin the Breath of His mouth.<\/p>\n

Those who approach His pierced feet,
\nHe raises, by a word, to His pierced side,
\nrepeating from the Cross
\nwhat He said last night at table:
\n\u201cDrink of it, all of you;
\nfor this is my blood of the covenant,
\nwhich is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins\u201d (Mt 26:28).
\nThe Mother assisting at this,
\nthe solemn once-and-for-all Mass of her Son, her Priest,
\nfollows the bloody liturgy
\nwith the absolute adhesion of her heart
\nto every gesture, every word.<\/p>\n

The Mother sees,
\nthe Mother understands
\nthat the Cross is the new language of new liturgy
\nfor a new temple.
\nEvery alphabet devised by men
\nis subsumed into the Verbum Crucis<\/em>,
\nthe language of the Cross,
\nthe one language devised by God
\nto say all that He would say to man
\nthrough Christ, His mediating Priest;
\nthe one language
\nby which man, speaking through the same Eternal Priest,
\ncan say all that he would ever need to say to God.<\/p>\n

For this is the Woman given to John,
\nto every priest of Jesus
\nto every disciple of Jesus:
\nthat at the school of the Mother of Sorrows,
\nall might learn the language of the Cross,
\nthe pure liturgy of sacrificial love.<\/p>\n

\u201c’Woman, behold thy son!\u2019
\nAfter that He said to the disciple:
\n‘Behold thy mother!\u2019
\nAnd from that hour the disciple took her to his own\u201d (Jn 19: 26-27).<\/p>\n

The language of the Cross,
\ntranscending the Hebrew, the Latin, and the Greek
\nof the inscription affixed to the tree
\nwill be the mother tongue of the Church,
\nthe language of the saints of every age,
\nthe language of the one Holy Sacrifice
\noffered in every place
\nfrom the rising of the sun to its setting (Mal 1:11).<\/p>\n

If you would hear the Word of the Cross (1 Cor 1:18),
\nremain silent before it and adore.
\nApproach it not with many words,
\nbut with tears,
\nand with one burning kiss of reparation and of love.
\nPlant your kiss upon His feet,
\npress your mouth against that wound
\nand wait,
\nwait in the stillness of the Great Sabbath,
\nto drink in the brightness of Pascha
\nfrom the river of life
\nthat even now gushes from His open Heart.
\n<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Struck by the expression on the faces of Christ and of the Angel holding the chalice to His pierced side, I took this photograph of a fresco at the Carceri in Assisi some years ago. Friday of the Passion of the Lord Last night He sat with us at table. His Face illumined the Upper <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,54,192],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sacred-paschal-triduum-2008","category-sacred-paschal-triduum-2013","category-sacred-paschal-triduum-2015"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paVypq-OY","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3160"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3160"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9813,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3160\/revisions\/9813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}