GOOD FRIDAY; THE PENITENT SPEAKS
by Fr. Daniel Berrigan, S.J.
You come toward me
prestigious in your wounds
the grand inquisitor’s rants
coping those frail and speechless bones
Your credentials;
dying somberly for others.
What a burden! –
fake and true vows,
crucifixes grislier
than the event –
And the glory gap –
larger than life
begetting less than life,
the faith that strikes healthy eyes
blind; Believe! Believe!
Christians
tapping down a street
in harness to their seeing-eye god.
Only in solitude
Or in a passing tic of insight
(gone soon as granted) –
You come toward me,
Free of accretive
thousands of dead egos
Can one befriend his God?
The question is inadmissible, I know.
Nevertheless, a fiery recognition
lights us
broken by life
making our comeback
+ + +
From The Sign of Peace, The Journal of the Catholic Peace Fellowship, Vol. 9.1