Redemptorist News

GETHSEMANE:

Who was it said that ‘Yes’?-

‘Not my will but yours be done!‘?

A man, a truly man,

a truly God within

the Trinity.

A God said human Yes

to God,-

A man who took us to himself,

one flesh with us,

one body now with him,-

When He said Yes, We said it too

with him;

we did not know it,

but we know it now.

Will I now say what once I said in Him?

This Man, this God,

this Me that now I am

in Him-

together, now all one, we

kneel on self-same ground and say

that self-same Yes

IN HIM.’

(Reflection on Cantalamessa  ‘The Mystery of Easter’   re Gethsemane: Who is this who obeys?)

Seamus Devitt C.Ss.R. (from www.emptifulvessels.com)

Darkening

Sorrow clouds now gather,

Days of Sin’s great gloom,

The Holy One prepares himself

for utter abandonment

experienced.

His head, his whole self

pressed down and down and down

beneath the ever-darkening

waters of

sin.

He entered it, it entered into

his entrails,

his churning nauseated

stomach.

He swallowed it for us

and felt defiled by

the appallingness of it.

He let himself be cut away from

Him

Whom he so loved,

Who so loved him.

He became lost with those who have lost themselves,

felt the speechless anguish of being

alone, alone, alone…

No words, no mind can grasp what he has done,

what has been done to him

by sin.

It gave its all to him, but didn’t win.

It never crushed him for he took it all,

its every all,

then stood again and we with him.

Praise him in silent ways, these days.

Seamus Devitt C.Ss.R. (from www.emptifulvessels.com)  

(Tuesday of Holy Week.)

BRILLIANCE FROM DARKNESS:

He faced the cave of darkness,

utterly,

for this is why he came:

his heart was filled with terror,

with disgust,-

for this was why he came:

He chose to enter in

to Sin,

utterly

for this is why he came.

He walked

into that cave-

he walked and walked

until he then became the

Dark of it,

utterly,

for this is why he came:

and walking in the Garden of that Dark,

he took it into him,-absorbed it all,

became a human sponge

that gathered every shred of

ever-dark into his being,-

he took, absorbed, became

the dark of us

(for this is why he came)-

and then, because he did,

the darkness went from us,

and then we stood,-we stand-

in brilliant light, set free,

for darkness crushed in him

-by entering in-

became the Light,

the Brilliant light of his and our

obedience.

‘For this I came into the world…’        (John 12:46)

(Seamus Devitt C.Ss.R., from www.emptifulvessels.com)

What is the meaning

of these Holy Days,

this Festival which now

we enter on?

What ‘Passing Over’ are we witness to,

that once took place

and here is present, now?

We are the people walking through

the sea of Calvary, forgiven people who

are here set free.

We are the ones in whom He

passes, now,

from separation /’No !’

to union /’Yes !’

For all our gathered SIN of

all our gathered world

is passing over him

in waves of death,

until,  emerging, he accomplishes

his exodus, and ours, to unity

where all can breathe new breath

of life in Him,- can be again.

We pass with him, from our ‘world’ to the Father’s.

—–

Seamus Devitt C.Ss.R.

(on reading Cantalamessa: ‘The Mystery of Easter’.)

(Find also in www.emptifulvessels.com, under title ‘Mystagogia’, meaning The Teaching of the Mysteries’,- a Greek word used in the early Christian communities when new believers were introduced to the mysteries of faith, after their Baptism.)

WHO IS THIS FLESH

upon a

cross,

spattered and injected,

scourged now with promises of

ecstasy

that follow through with

maddenings of the

heart ?

Whose is this sacred flesh,

guttered?

This is the chosen one,

perfumed with favour,

sent

to call out all the

Simons of

serene piosities

untroubled by the flesh that’s

all about them,

Christ

nailed by needles now

and crying out

‘Why are you forsaking me?’

Seamus Devitt C.Ss.R.

Wednesday March 28th:  ’Exchange’

He swapped my shirt of sin                                       

for his

of grace,

of holiness.

My disobedient number He now wears

with pride,

while I

wear his (occasionally

or not);
I stain it, muddy it,

but it is

His,-

Pure Grace

that scored and scored again

against my pride.

I played to Dis-Obey,-

scored goals against my Self, my Team,-

but He

is on our side,

Full Forward to

New Life.

Olé is now my cry,

not tears.

He wears my shirt

with joy

and I wear His.

—————

(Reflection on 2 Corinthians 5:21)

Seamus Devitt C.Ss.R.

(Photo: The US’s Claudio Reyna and the Czech Republic’s Pavel Nedved exchange shirts at last summer’s World Cup.)

“COME TO ME.”

Three words he said and by them

he invites:

Just ‘Come to me’-

-

all else will follow

surely

if I come, and stay

and more than stay,-

if I will make my home

in Him.

‘Come to me’-

abide, abide, abide.

Live in me, he says

and I will live in you.

Who

will live?

He who is the Son of He Who Is,-

the Most High God.

In tattered cloak of me

he lives, he makes his home,

if I say Yes, Full Yes, to

‘Come to Me!’

I come.

——–

Seamus Devitt C.Ss.R.

THE CROSS WAS NOT SOME HICCUP:

His passion and his dying

were not some hiccup

on the way to glory:

His hour of

Glory

is

upon the Cross.

One wheat-grain dies

and from that falling down,

-that earthing of divine,-

the fields are white with harvest

of new birth.

When He is lifted up,

the Prince of Glory on a wooden cross

                                          draws all to him                  (John 12:32)

                                  who want to see the Man,          (John 12:21)

the Son, the Sent;

Rivers of people come

and Rivers

                                                     flow.             (cf. Revelations 22:1,2)

————————–

“They will look upon the One whom they have pierced” (John 19:7)

 (Reflection on John 12:21,23,32  and Revelations 22,vv 1,2)

Seamus Devitt  C.Ss.R.

THIS MAN IS WILD,-

This man turned

more than tables on his

enemies,

Turned the world

on its head, others on their heel.

The Lost -  are not !

The Last -  are not !

The Least he could do with

as his friends.

Dying brings living,

Sorrow Joy:

Suffering heals.

A wild journey for the brave

who will

let go and follow him.

The Rich go hollow away.

He makes Little of Large

and Lots of the Lowly.                                                            (Luke 1:52)

His wild Word told of One

Abba, wonder Father

who turns Lack to Lavish

Hunger to Heaped

Hearts,

Empty to full

tide

of Grace flowing

to dried up beaches.

Waves of constant

rushing waves-

‘It is the LORD!’

We do not wait,

We dive for Him                                                                        (John 21:7)

with Simon,

another Wild One.

Seamus Devitt C.Ss.R.

THE SACREDNESS OF SECULARITY

 (“The whole earth is full of His Glory”-  Isaiah 6)

I cannot go to the Creator,

-mine-

unless I steep my body

in Creation.

Come to my Senses is

my path to Him to Her,-

Come dance, come see,

come touch a stone,

come smell the breeze,

come taste the subtleties, the sauces,

feel my skin alive

to touch, to breath.

Rejoice with wide-eyed wonder

at each

thing

each

one,-

at the each and every all of every

Thing.

Slow down, begin the sensuous dance,

and come to

life,-

and in the dancing find

your dancing God;

 be dizzily delighting in the truth of

things, – of Him.

——

Seamus Devitt C.Ss.R.