A Lenten Reflection

The author of this piece of English poetry  is unknown. The pieces of the poem below offer a flavor of its theme. Although we are now in the Easter season it is good to remind ourselves of why we are so elated. The full version can be found online.

exerpts from "The Dream of the Rood", translated by Craig Williamson

Lo, I will tell the dearest of dreams

the sweetest vision that crossed my sleep in the middle of the night

when speech-bearers lay in silent rest.

I seemed to see a wondrous tree

Lifting up in the air wound in light,

The brightest of beams.

…

I was seized with sorrow

tormented by the sight of that beautiful cross.

…

I heard the best of woods begin to speak:

“Many years ago – I still remember the day – I was cut down

at the edge of a forest, severed from my trunk,

removed from my roots.

…

Then I saw the Lord of mankind hasten to me, eager to climb up.

…

With a keen heart and firm purpose.

climbed up on the cross, the tree of shame,

bold in the eyes of many, to redeem mankind.

…

I was seized with sorrow, humbling myself to men’s hands

bowing down with bold courage.

They lifted up almighty God,

raising his body from its burden of woe.

…

A sorrow-song at evening, as they began to depart,

drained by the death of their glorious Prince.

He rested in the tomb with few friends.

But we stood by weeping, unquiet crosses,

when the cries of men had drifted off.

…

Now you have heard, my dear dreamer,

How I have endured such sorrow and strife.

The time is come for all men on earth and throughout creation

to honor me and offer me prayers to the sign of the cross.

The son of God suffered on me for a while –

Now I rise up in heaven a tower of glory,

And I can heal any man who holds me in awe.

…

Now I command you, my dear friend,

to reveal this dream to other men,

disclose to them that the tree of glory was Christ’s cross

where he suffered sorely for the sins of man

and the old deeds of Adam….”

 …

Then I prayed to the cross with an eager heart and a zealous spirit ….

…

Now my life’s great hope is to see again Christ’s cross

And honor it more keenly than other men.

The cross is my hope and my protection.

…

I live each day, longing for the time that I saw before in a wonderous dream

will come back again to carry me to the joys of heaven,

to an everlasting bliss, to the Lord’s table

where the company of Christ feasts together forever and ever,

where I can dwell in glory with the holy saints, sustained in joy.

I pry for God to be my friend, the Savior who suffered sorely

on the gallows tree for the sins of men;

who rose and redeemed us

with everlasting life and a heavenly home.

….

Balthasar - A Dialectic Between Sin and the Cross

In the previous post Balthasar speaks of  our participation in the cross of Christ, "Such participation, as the Lord wishes, can go to the extremes of powerlessness, spiritual darkness, forsakeness and rejection; since these things are sharing in the cross ..." He here indicates the Ignatian roots of his spirituality. He goes on in the following to further delve into St. Ignatius' exercises as we contemplate our own sin and the sin of the world.

from pp. 298-300

But there is a dialectic in our contemplation of sin in the light of the cross: only by looking at my Redeemer can I understand the extent of what I have done. In the face of redeeming love I am pierced through by a nameless terror: I might be, indeed I am a murderer of Eternal Love; no excuses are of any avail; I deserve unconditional damnation. Beholding the handiwork of ultimate love between Father, Son and Spirit, performed for me, loveless as I am, I begin to understand that I do not belong among them, that I do not have love and thus I'm deserving of eternal wrath. Indeed, I merit destruction and banishment from the whole divine order:

"A shout of astonishment and profound love, as I think how every created thing has not refused to keep me alive. The angels, the sword of God's justice, have put up with me, protected me, prayed for me: the saints have gone on praying and interceding on my behalf: the sky, the sun, the moon, the stars, the natural elements, the fruits of the earth, birds, fish, the whole animal kingdom…; Why is not the very earth opened to swallow me, creating new hells for my eternal torment?" (Exercises, 60)  [St. Ignatius]… does not neglect to put the contemplation of general and personal sinfulness in the theological context of the redemption. Each individual reflection leads up to the Colloquies with the merciful Lord "hanging on the Cross before me", whose love shows me what I have (not) done for Christ, what I am (not) doing for Christ, and what I shall (not) do for Christ. And it is within this “kind of talk friends have with one another, or perhaps like the way a servant speaks to his master" (Exercises, 54) that I become aware that I have thoroughly deserved hell. Unless it acquires a profile by being contrasted with redeeming love, the idea of hell will remain fantastic and imaginary, impossible for us to take absolutely seriously in our prayer. But, once it has this firm outline, it is what "stops the mouth" (Rom. 3:10) of the sinner who is always trying to find some reason why God cannot really abandon a man.

"Prayer", Hans Urs von Balthasar

When searching my small library for a book, I cannot help but pass by my shelf of von Balthsar's writings. His seventeen volume Trilogy, The Glory of the Lord, Theo Drama, and Theo Logic are neatly lined up in a row. I've only made it to Volume 7 of The Glory of the Lord. Yet, each time I pass my eyes over this shelf I invariably grab a small paperback volume entitled Prayer. 
This most recent time I pulled it off the shelf, fully forgetting my reason for scanning my book shelves, and I began to reread some of the book. Now, someone told me once, (my spiritual director I think) that it is not the number of books that you read that is a most important thing, but, the number of books that you re-read. I have not re-read the entire book. Each time I pick it up I go to certain sections that struck me as particularly meaningful or especially beautifully phrased.

I offer here a brief snippet from the very last chapter in the book, Cross and Resurrection
.

But “God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us … while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son” (Rom.5:8,10) … The sentence which in principle determined our fate was performed upon Jesus Christ on behalf of sinners: in him we were crucified and condemned to death; in him we were made the recipients of grace and adopted as children. In him and without any activity on our part, God’s anger toward us has changed into tender, caring love. All this has become a reality, in and through Christ, in the Father’s heaven: our task is to let it come true in all its fullness in our temporal existence on earth.

In the New Covenant “what we ought to do” follows from “what we are”. We are justified and should act accordingly. We have died with Christ, we have been buried and raised with him, and this should determine our behavior: we should no longer live in sin; the “old man” is dead and we should actually regard him as such, daily encountering his resistance to the death sentence served upon him, making him die daily (Rom 6). pp. 295-296