The rich accounts grow, treasure abundant in words and meaning. We have so much on which to feed in these downhill days of Lent, it seems a brash conceit to add more text or lines. To explain, to explain! Vain pursuit.
Rather this week, an image in words. It is time for us to train our eyes to see all that unfolds in the Scriptures and the prayers and the gestures that change in these days of waiting for the great change. Spend a while with Hillaire Belloc’s The Prophet Lost in the Hills of Evening to sharpen your vision in low light.
Blessed Lent.
Monsignor Smith
Strong God which made the topmost stars
To circulate and keep their course,
Remember me; whom all the bars
Of sense and dreadful fate enforce.
Above me in your heights and tall,
Impassable the summits freeze,
Below the haunted waters call
Impassable beyond the trees.
I hunger and I have no bread.
My gourd is empty of the wine.
Surely the footsteps of the dead
Are shuffling softly close to mine!
It darkens. I have lost the ford.
There is a change on all things made.
The rocks have evil faces, Lord,
And I am awfully afraid.
Remember me: the Voids of Hell
Expand enormous all around.
Strong friend of souls, Emmanuel,
Redeem me from accursed ground.
The long descent of wasted days,
To these at last have led me down;
Remember that I filled with praise
The meaningless and doubtful ways
That lead to an eternal town.
I challenged and I kept the Faith,
The bleeding path alone I trod;
It darkens. Stand about my wraith,
And harbor me – almighty God.
