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Eighth Day
This poem has eight stanzas to emphasize the sense in which the Resurrection created a new day – an eighth day which was also the first. Whereas the Jewish Sabbath took Saturday to be the ‘seventh day’ that echoes God’s day of rest after He created the world, Christians adopted Sunday as the Eighth Day Sabbath of the Resurrection.
The poem moves from the agony in the garden of Gethsemane, His scourging, the crown of thorns, and the carrying of the Cross to the Crucifixion at its ‘peak,’ or center point.
His prayer for unity in His Church contrasts with the fractured, broken Church that continues to wound Him. The movement toward the full coming of His kingdom proceeds through His death, through the revival of His Bride, and through the Sacraments. From the moment of the Resurrection, all that He spent to save us began to refill the world with hope, and to be fulfilled in that movement toward His final victory over death.
EIGHTH DAY
Hour by lonely hour
He prayed
the poisonous cup be taken from His lips,
until at last He drank for us –
allowing fools to seize the Slaughter Lamb.
Stripe by stinging stripe
He healed.
Flesh flayed and torn to bandage flesh abused,
ravaged and violently exposed –
the soul’s Pavilion, Covering and Shield.
Thorn by piercing thorn
He bore
the shame of all transgressions, every point
by pride His sacred head punctured –
defiant power relieved by glory defiled.
Step by aching step
He marked
the way of pain for all to come, who following
would by small compassions claim
a share in His desire and in His pain.
Nail by vicious nail
He dared
to multiply the fountains of His love
by five sustaining wounds refill
the emptied sense of man unmade by lies.
Age by endless age
He hung
forsaken, spent, forgiving, patiently
waiting with each heartbeat a prayer
for unity within the Body belov’d.
Drop by precious drop
transfused
creation – craving, craven, bled
so near to death and wan with loss His bride
suffered to spring from suffering revived.
Day by mounting day
He comes!
Lord Sabbaoth, the Dawn of Rest
filling the newborn world with sign
and sacraments of victory over death.
All the poems are now in one volume, and I’d love for you to have a copy! Click on the cover to buy it, and click here for the recordings of all the poems.
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