The Passion of Mary

Not sure about you all, but I could use a reminder that it is Holy Week, the holiest of weeks. Here is a rare excerpt by Charles Peguy that I came across:

The Passion of Mary

"She wept, she had become dreadful.
Here eyelashes stuck together.
Her eyelids, the upper one and the nether one.
Swollen, bruised, tinged with blood.
Her cheeks devastated by grief.
Her furrowed cheeks.
Here cheeks all seamed.
Her tears had as it were ploughed her cheeks.
Tears on either side had worn a furrow in her cheeks.

Her eyes smarted and burned.
Never had anyone wept so much.
And yet it was a relief for her to weep.
Her skin smarted and burned.
And during that time, on the cross, his Five Wounds burned.
And he had fever.
She too had fever.
And thus shared his Passion.

She wept, she looked so strange, so dreadful.
So dreadful.
That you could certainly have laughed.
And you would have made fun of her.
Certainly.
Had she not been the mother of the condemned.
Even the street urchins looked away.
When they saw her.
Turned their heads away.
Turned their eyes away.
So as not to laugh.
So as not to laugh in her face.

And they had set him on his way to death.
To that death.

They had a firm hold on him.
This time.
And they would not let him go.
They would never let him go anymore.
And he no longer shone among doctors.
Seated among the doctors.
He did not shine.
And yet he shone forever.
More than he ever shone.
More than he ever shone anywhere.

And such was his reward.
You are sometimes strangely rewarded in life.
You sometimes get strange rewards.
And they got along so well together.
The boy and his mother.

They had been so happy in those days.
The mother and her boy.

Such was her reward.

Thus was she rewarded.

For having borne.

Given birth to.
Fed at the breast.
Carried.
In her arms.
Him who died for the sins of the world.
For having borne.
Given birth to.
Fed at the breast.
Carried.
In her arms.
Him who died for the salvation of the world.

For having borne.
Given birth to.
Fed at the breast.
Carried.
In her arms.
Him though whom all the sins of the world would be forgiven."