Penitent - Good Friday

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

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From The Sign of Peace, The Journal of the Catholic Peace Fellowship, Vol. 9.1