A Face of Love
The dusty path stretches out before You
Filled with jeering, angry crowds.
Your knees give way under the weight of Your Cross.
That precious face, still so soft with love,
Hits the hard stones of the walkway.
There, face down in the street,
You feel the full weight of Your humanity.
You whisper Your Father’s Name
As this earth You created holds You to it
In its magnetic, uncompromising grasp.
Closing Your eyes, You think of Home with Your Father.
The crowds roar turns to angelic songs of praise
As Your head spins from Your ordeal.
Just a little further, Your tearful Father beckons.
It is almost finished.
Prodded, kicked, spit at, tossed around,
Once again You lift up from this earth;
You offer Yourself again to His Plan of Love.
You look at the unforgiving crowd
Searching for eyes of love and compassion,
Wanting comfort that this is not all in vain,
That there will be someone who will be saved
By Your Sacrifice of Love.
Each face is memorized in Your Heart
And is like another scourging upon this Sacred Heart.
There, in the crowd, You see one!
Eyes full of tears, reaching out to You!
“Jesus!” the panicked voice cries.
“Jesus!” again in desperation and desire.
Your eyes meet in tearful, loving union.
The Flames of Your Heart leap,
Your graces pour out like a river.
The face of love is pushed away and lost in the crowd,
But the memory remains in Your Heart
Inspiring the strength to draw the Cross to You once again,
To lift it to Your bruised and torn shoulder
And walk that dusty path again.
O Sacred Heart of Love and Longing,
Draw me to You, keep me in Your Heart.
Help me to be for You that face of love
That Your thoughts of me
Will be like a caress, not a scourging;
That Your Sacrifice will save.
O Tears of the Father,
O Sacrifice of the Son,
Bring Your Spirit of Love!
Drawn to Your Cross
As I approach You,
Slowly bringing myself
Into Your Presence,
I see You trembling,
Shaking with pain.
You gasp for breath,
Your brow dripping with Blood,
Your Body a mass of
Bruises and torn flesh.
I want to meet Your eyes
But I am afraid.
How can my human heart endure
The pain I see in Your face?
You are so Holy.
You are so Pure.
Your Sacred Heart bursting with love
Slowly loses its beat
And soon will be still.
Your eyes raise to meet mine
As You are gasping Your last breaths.
How can I look away?
There, as You struggle with Your
Last moments of life,
I meet Your eyes.
Your trembling becomes mine
As I gaze into Your eyes of Eternal Love.
Melting within, I tremble, I fall,
Robbed of strength to resist.
In Your eyes, a landscape of love
Spreads before me leading to
Your Sacred Heart,
The Eternal City,
Full of Light with no shadows,
Flowing with sweetness like honey.
For a moment I forget
The pain and trembling and gasping,
Lost in Your Love and Sweetness.
Then Your eyelids flutter closed.
“No!” I scream. “Not this! Not now! Please!”
Your Sacred Head drops to Your shoulder.
I reach out to You
As Life drains from Your Body.
It slumps, tearing your numb flesh.
My heart bursts at this sight!
“Please let me love You back to life!” I cry.
Darkness gathers, the earth shakes.
Disoriented, I stumble at Your feet.
I reach out to touch Your lifeless Body.
Your Blood on my hands,
I bury myself in You.
Forgive me, Lord, my soul cries out!
Remembering Your promises,
My heart grows still.
Forgive me, Lord, I breathe.
Strengthen me, Lord, I sigh.
Cleanse me, Lord, I weep.
Let me love You, Lord,
Until Your pain is gone.
And then raise me with You
On the Last Day.
Your Blessing Hands
My eyes are drawn to Your hands
Nailed to that Cross
And there, through Your loving hands,
You soften my heart.
My Lord, so full of love You are
That every part of You
Emanates this Precious Love.
Though nailed, hands and feet,
Stripped, scourged, pierced,
Breathless and lifeless,
Your hands still rest
In a gesture of blessing.
Your precious hands that healed us,
That broke Your Bread and blessed Your Cup,
Now are nailed, frozen in pain,
Yet blessing us still.
What kind of love is this
That blesses even in torture, even in death?
Your Sacred Heart, unprotected,
Allows for all we can give
In our darkness and ignorance.
Yet Your hands, those blessed hands
That guide us still,
That Sacred Heart, still open
To our neglect and abuse,
Yet ceaseless in pouring out
Your Love and blessings,
Calls us still and
Draws our hearts to Yours.
Softened by Your pain,
Resistance weakened by Your Love,
I kneel before the majesty of Your Sacred Heart.
My heart, reaching for Yours, begs Your Mercy
Yet is sheltered in the shadow of Your Blessing Hands.
Metal Against Bone
Metal against bone,
Flesh splattered against Cross,
We nail You, dear Lord,
Once again.
Not once, but
Millions of times.
We take Your loving, healing hands
And place them where we want them.
You be this to me,
A mute friend,
As we nail You down
Only where we want You
In our lives.
Not here, but there.
Only there.
Taking the other hand,
We nail You once again.
Don't touch this part of my life.
Only where I let You.
Only here.
Leave the rest alone,
Our hearts speak
As we pierce Your hand again
And nail You where we want You.
We wrap Your Precious head
With the thorns of our discontent.
This one You didn't mean.
My Jesus would not say that, we taunt
As we throw away Your Words,
As we mock Your actions
Once again.
My Jesus, you would not ask
For my discomfort.
Your Words and Your actions
Embarrass me.
Those were for a time not our own
Where pain and despair
Were a common experience.
You could not mean them for now,
We tell ourselves
As we mock and turn our eyes
From Your piercing eyes
Of gentleness and deep desire
For our entire hearts and souls.
We are too intelligent for this.
We wrap the thorns around
Again and again.
You be this to us now,
We pound on those feet.
Stay here, clean and neat,
On this gilded Cross,
With no Blood dripping
And clean, neat Wounds.
We put on our Sunday best
And go off to our clean churches
To be entertained
By Your gilded Cross,
Throwing one final spear
To make sure You are dead.
Your Ripping Heart
Like a rack,
The nails,
Your Cross,
Stretching You to where it feels
You will rip in two,
Centered on Your Sacred Heart.
At the center of the torture,
As at the center of our lives,
Your Heart would like to burst
From a Love too great,
From a desire too strong
For our hearts too small and cold
To contain You.
I gaze into Your face
In Your agony
To find Your glazed stare
Centered on me.
Your look of pain,
More torture than the rack,
Rips my heart to the center.
Your eyes contain
Such softness,
Such love,
Such longing,
Such absence of bitterness
That only love pours forth
From those gentle eyes,
Breaking any resistance
To Your Love
I may foolishly still hold.
You take my heart in that glazed stare,
Holding it captive to Your Love,
Binding it willingly to Your Sacrifice,
As two hearts become as one,
Suspended
In that glazed stare.
All fades but this,
O Sunrise of my soul,
Casting out the darkness,
Bathing with Your Light.
Let me embrace Your ripping Heart,
My Sweet Savior,
And make it my own, burst for You,
Poured out at Your feet.
In my smallness You enter in,
Dissolving the borders of my heart.
Locked in pain, yet bathed in joy,
Our hearts mingle in the sweet Fire
Of Your Love that pours forth
From Your Wounds and
Your glazed eyes, immovable in Love.
You pierce me with Your eyes on my soul.
But the Blood of that piercing
Is the Blood of the Lamb.
Abandonment in You
From Your Cross,
Eyes full of sorrow,
You gaze down upon me
From where I stand, seeking You,
Seeking the answers only You can give.
My heart breaks looking
Into Your loving eyes.
How can you not trust Me? they say.
Pulling, ripping at my heart.
You, my Precious Lord, I see,
Face of surrender,
Eyes sunken with sorrow,
Hands and feet nailed down,
Side gushing Your Precious Blood,
And all for me that I may choose
To love You for eternity.
How can you not trust Me? You ask,
Humiliated, abandoned, poured out.
You remain there alone,
Amidst my confusion,
Amidst my questioning,
Surrounded by my fears.
How can you not trust Me? You ask again
With Your silence, Your surrender,
Looking into my tearful eyes,
Gazing into my broken heart and soul,
As I crumble at Your feet.
How can you not trust Me?
Like an earthquake moves me,
Baring my soul,
Shattering my heart.
Like the sinful woman,
I kiss Your feet,
Begging for Your Mercy.
At the foot of Your Cross,
That gate to Your Heart,
I offer my heart again.
Take it from me, I beg!
Give me just an empty shell
To be filled by You!
I will not stop Your advance in my heart,
Though it may slay me with Your Love.
When I am nothing or less and You are All,
Will You take me once again,
My Lord of the Cross, into Your abandonment,
Into Your Sacred Heart of Love?
Will You embrace my complete emptiness
Into Your complete Love?
Will You plant my fallen grain
Deep in Your Sacred Heart
That I may grow in You?
Will You trust me Lord that
Though I am frail, I am Yours?
That though I may walk in the darkness,
I seek Your Light?
That though my heart is small,
It comes to You
Ready to grow,
Ready to die,
Ready to trust
In whatever You say and
Wherever You take me;
For this heart, though frail, is Yours.
I give it to You, all of it.
Taking my heart,
You place it in a dark mine field
With only the Fire of Your Heart
To guide my way.
Complete abandonment, You ask.
Complete abandonment is all I can give
To survive in You, my Beloved.