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wipes the face of Jesus |
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"All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads:"
Psalms, 22:7 |
Cornelius Floris
Yet, in such innocent movement bravery earned a restless mob's derision. In fact, to a world volunteering its slavery to power through a self-indulgent pact with greed, your purposeful fabric's sav'ry movement across a sweat beading brow lacked an egotist's motive and risked mock'ry. Did a guard laugh you back? Did you delay the executioner's gay procession? Did the crowd dance past you to glimpse the play of death's insatiable final passion? Yet, quivering, you held in worn homespun, the thorn pricked blood of the soon slaughtered Son.
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| "and also the cloth that had been
over his head; this was not with the linen clothes but rolled up in a place by itself." St. John, 20:7 |
in my proximity, would I touch it? Or dare a glimpse? Veiled contents which erased hopelessness from a hapless world might sit unviewed in front of me, to be embraced by blind hope only. How could I submit the Holy relic to senses encased by this sin–filled soul, worthless and unfit? Yet, Veronica, when that victim passed and you saw the suffering of the doomed and you unworthily offered one last kindness to the one to be soon entombed, did you know to whom your compassion led and that he, for you, would rise from the dead?
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| "But now in Christ Jesus,
you that used to be so far off have been brought close, by the blood of Christ." Ephesians, 2:13 |
But how could this be, I was yet unborn? What knowledge had this beaten and forlorn son of man of me? But Truth did unfold, with guidance from a virgin, the too bold belief that what to this world is a thorn is The Rising on that glorious morn which freed the world from death's eternal cold. And so Veronica, my saint so sweet, that cloth of blood, should it be shown to me, trembling I'd hold it, then bring it to meet fervent lips kissing Sanguis Domini. This blood that brought my soul to bitter strife, too, gives me hope's peace, faith's joy, and love's life.
© E. David
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