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Prayer thread - Meditation on the Fourth Station of the Cross
12/15/05 | Knitting a Conundrum

Posted on 01/15/2005 12:27:03 PM PST by Knitting A Conundrum

Did you feel your heart
beating in your throat
as the crowd closed in,
the swolen passover crowd,
some jeering,
some just strangers trying to see
what was happening,
blocking your access,
blocking your view,
blocking you.

Did you struggle through the backways
to catch up,
the need to be there
like panic
burning in your heart,
pulling you and the others
like a magnet,
your son,
your light
your life.

And when you finally caught up,
and saw him,
sprawled out on the road,
rough hands trying
to yank him upright,
bloody,
beaten,
exhausted,
muscles trembling in their fatigue,
and your hands were unable
to soothe the wounds,
and ease the pain,
did your voice dry up
in your grief
and shock
and longing to do
what you knew you couldn't,
to stop it all -
this thing God asked for
this thing you knew your son wanted?

Birthpangs
bitterer than any childbirth
this sword piercing your heart
as in your silent, grieving yes,
you became mother to the church.

Revelations 12: 1,2

And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery.


TOPICS: Catholic; Prayer
KEYWORDS: blessedmother; catholicmeditation; catholicprayer; marianprayer
Please join me in thinking about our Lord's passion and willing gift of himself. I find this particular sorrow, Mary meeting with Jesus on his was to Golgotha the most poignent moment in her long willingness to say Yes to God, no matter what the cost.

Like her, may we learn to say yes, in the good moments, and even the most sorrowful.

1 posted on 01/15/2005 12:27:03 PM PST by Knitting A Conundrum
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To: sinkspur; GirlShortstop; Salvation; Maeve; Siobhan; tiki; SuziQ; Mr. Thorne; Tribune7; Jaded; ...

Prayer ping!

Please let me know if you would like off or on this list. Thank you and God bless.


2 posted on 01/15/2005 12:28:30 PM PST by Knitting A Conundrum (Act Justly, Love Mercy, and Walk Humbly With God Micah 6:8)
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To: sinkspur; GirlShortstop; Salvation; Maeve; Siobhan; tiki; SuziQ; Mr. Thorne; Tribune7; Jaded; ...



O Mother Mary,
as Pilate tried your son,
were you in the courtyard
to hear those hateful voices
tear at your heart -
Kill Him!
Crucify Him!
This was your child
they were focusing all their hate on,
your child,
the child of promise
who you had watched grow,
saw bloom into the gift of God
to an undeserving mankind,
the healer,
the teacher,
the sign to be contradicted.

O Mother Mary,
did you see what they had done to him
as they led him out,
beaten and bloody,
crowned with a mockery of a crown,
almost unrecognisable
from the blood and from the bruising.
This was your child,
the child angels announced,
the child who loved his Father so much
he tarried behind at the temple
and almost broke your heart in fear,
the child who healed the wounded
now wounded in so many ways.

O Mother Mary,
did you at that moment pray,
like your son had, the night before,
"O my God, not my will, but yours?"


3 posted on 01/15/2005 5:18:39 PM PST by Knitting A Conundrum (Act Justly, Love Mercy, and Walk Humbly With God Micah 6:8)
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To: Knitting A Conundrum

The Nailing

Did those who stood by you that awful day
tell you not to look,
O Lady of Sorrows,
As he was thrown to the ground,
naked, battered, bloody,
stretched out upon that dreadful crossbeam?
Did you cling to the Magdalene, O Sorrowful Mother,
as the Roman guards,
methodical and professional,
put those large square nails against his wrists,
hit hammer against nail?

Could anything prepare you
for the cries
ripped from his throat
as they finished their task?


4 posted on 01/15/2005 6:55:29 PM PST by Knitting A Conundrum (Act Justly, Love Mercy, and Walk Humbly With God Micah 6:8)
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To: sinkspur; GirlShortstop; Salvation; Maeve; Siobhan; tiki; SuziQ; Mr. Thorne; Tribune7; Jaded; ...

The Nailing

Did those who stood by you that awful day
tell you not to look,
O Lady of Sorrows,
As he was thrown to the ground,
naked, battered, bloody,
stretched out upon that dreadful crossbeam?
Did you cling to the Magdalene, O Sorrowful Mother,
as the Roman guards,
methodical and professional,
put those large square nails against his wrists,
hit hammer against nail?

Could anything prepare you
for the cries
ripped from his throat
as they finished their task?


5 posted on 01/15/2005 6:56:32 PM PST by Knitting A Conundrum (Act Justly, Love Mercy, and Walk Humbly With God Micah 6:8)
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To: Knitting A Conundrum

Good post, strong emotional , heart-touching moment.
Good meditation.


6 posted on 01/17/2005 4:31:01 PM PST by Rosary (Pray the Rosary daily)
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To: Knitting A Conundrum

7 posted on 01/17/2005 5:31:41 PM PST by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
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