Fifth Sunday of Lent

My throat is dried up like baked clay, my tongue cleaves to my jaws; to the dust of death you have brought me down.--Psalm 22:16

QUARTADECIMA die ad vesperum Pascha Domini est: et in quintadecima solemnitatem celebrabitis altissimo Domino.
Fourteen days from now the Pasch of the Lord will begin, and on the fifteenth you will celebrate the great solemnity in honor of God Most High.--Monastic Liturgy

YOU, neighbor God, if sometimes in the night
I rouse you with loud knocking, I do so
only because I seldom hear you breathe;
I know: you are alone.
And should you need a drink, no one is there
to reach it to you, groping in the dark.
Always I hearken. Give but a small sign.
I am quite near.
Between us there is but a narrow wall,
and by sheer chance; for it would take
merely a call from your lips or from mine
to break it down,
and that without a sound.

The wall is built of your images.

They stand before you hiding you like names,
and when the light within me blazes high
that in my inmost soul I know you by,
the radiance is squandered on their frames.

And then my senses, which too soon grow lame,
exiled from you, must go their homeless ways.--Rainer Maria Rilke

FOR a brief moment I abandoned you,
but with great compassion I will gather you.
In overflowing wrath for a moment
I hid my face from you,
but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you,
says the LORD, your Redeemer.--Isaiah 54:7-8

WITHOUT the sense of God's will we narrow down our lives to the material world. We are like misers crouching over their hoards and never seeing the skies; indeed we may narrow our prison still further, seeing in everything only the image of ourselves.
But once we are made aware of the greatness of events as expressions of God's love, once we see and live their sacra-mental value, then we are liberated into a greater life; the winds of eternity blow about us, and the infinite skies are our home, and we too walk the eternal hills.--Gerald Vann

I look at the hills, and wonder
From where will my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
The maker of earth and sky.
May God not let you stumble;
May God your protector not sleep!
Truly God never rests or sleeps,
Protecting Israel.
The Lord is your protector,
The shade at your right hand.
The sun will not strike you by day,
Nor the moon at night.
The Lord protects you from every evil;
God protects your life.
The Lord will protect you, coming and going,
Now, and forevermore.--Psalm 121

To each one of us Christ is saying: If you want your life and mission to be fruitful like mine, do as I. Be converted into a seed that lets itself be buried. Let yourself be killed. Do not be afraid. Those who shun suffering will remain alone. No one is more alone than the selfish. But if you give your life out of love for others, as I give mine for all, you will reap a great harvest.--Oscar Arnulfo Romero

WE plough the fields and scatter
The good seed on the land,
But it is fed and watered
By God's almighty hand;
God sends the snow in winter,
The warmth to swell the grain,
The breezes and the sunshine, ~
And soft refreshing rain:
All good gifts around us,
Are sent from heav'n above,
Then thank the Lord,
O thank the Lord
For such great love.--M. Claudius

PERISH the sword,
Perish the angry judgment,
Perish the bombs and hunger,
Perish the fight for gain;
Hallow our love,
Hallow the deaths of martyrs,
Hallow their holy freedom,
Hallowed be your name.--Frances W. Davis