Bright Week Blog Break

Hi dear ones -

I loved finding and reading and posting poems all last week. Thanks so much for going on that journey with me!

I'm taking Bright Week off of blogging, but I'll be back here next week.

I hope you all had and have a wonderful celebration of the Lord's resurrection!


Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

A poem for Easter Sunday

I'm posting a poem and a picture for each day of Holy Week this year. 

Today's poem always starts sneakily singing through my head as soon as Holy Week begins, getting stronger and stronger as we go through the Triduum. And today? It's shouting.  Here it is, our song of joy, the joy of the redeemed, the rescued, the ransomed. 

from "Easter"

by George Herbert

I got me flowers to straw thy way:

I got me boughs off many a tree:

But thou wast up by break of day,

And brought’st thy sweets along with thee.

The Sun arising in the East,

Though he give light, and th’East perfume;

If they should offer to contest

With thy arising, they presume.

Can there be any day but this,

Though many suns to shine endeavour?

We count three hundred, but we miss:

There is but one, and that one ever.

A Poem for Holy Saturday

I'm posting a poem and a picture for each day of Holy Week this year. Today's poem isn't strictly related to the day, but Holy Saturday has always been a day of quiet reflection, of waiting, of vulnerability and patience, of longing for the presence of God. And so I thought this poem fit.

Heaven--Haven by Gerard Manley Hopkins A nun takes the veil I have desired to go Where springs not fail, To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail, And a few lilies blow. And I have asked to be Where no storms come, Where the green swell is in the havens dumb, And out of the swing of the sea.

Poem for Good Friday

I'm posting a poem and a picture for each day of Holy Week this year. Today Good Friday falls on the Feast of the Annunciation, when Gabriel appeared to Mary. Today's poem was written on a similar Good Friday, and I've heard many people talking about it already today. If you're full-up on this poem already, let me direct you to Donne's other (maybe better) Good Friday poem, here.  

But if not, please direct your attention to this beauty. (As my priest pointed out this morning: the gorgeous wording is Donne's, but the amazing content was all put there in the world by God Himself.)

Upon The Annunciation and Passion Falling Upon One Day, 1608

by John Donne

Tamely, frail body, abstain to-day; to-day
My soul eats twice, Christ hither and away.

She sees Him man, so like God made in this,
That of them both a circle emblem is,
Whose first and last concur; this doubtful day
Of feast or fast, Christ came, and went away.

She sees Him nothing, twice at once, who’s all;
She sees a Cedar plant itself, and fall;
Her Maker put to making, and the Head
Of life, at once, not yet alive, yet dead.

She sees at once the Virgin Mother stay
Reclused at home, public at Golgotha;
Sad and rejoiced she’s seen at once, and seen
At almost fifty, and at scarce fifteen.

At once a Son is promised her, and gone;
Gabriell gives Christ to her, He her to John;
Not fully a mother, She’s in orbity;
At once receiver and the legacy.

All this, and all between, this day hath shown,
Th’ abridgement of Christ’s story, which makes one–
As in plain maps, the furthest west is east–
Of th’ angels Ave, and Consummatum est.

How well the Church, God’s Court of Faculties
Deals, in sometimes, and seldom joining these!

As by the self-fix’d Pole we never do
Direct our course, but the next star thereto,
Which shows where th’other is, and which we say
–Because it strays not far–doth never stray;
So God by His Church, nearest to Him, we know
And stand firm, if we by her motion go;
His Spirit, as His fiery pillar, doth
Leade, and His Church, as cloud; to one end both.

This Church, by letting those days join, hath shown
Death and conception in mankind is one;
Or ’twas in Him the same humility,
That He would be a man, and leave to be;
Or as creation He hath made, as God,
With the last judgement, but one period,
His imitating Spouse would join in one
Manhood’s extremes: He shall come, He is gone;
Or as though one blood drop, which thence did fall,
Accepted, would have served, He yet shed all,
So though the least of His pains, deeds, or words,
Would busy a life, she all this day affords;
This treasure then, in gross, my soul, uplay,
And in my life retail it every day.

A Poem for Maundy Thursday

I'm posting a poem and a picture for each day of Holy Week this year. (Except for yesterday. Because...because it was just one of those days.) Today's poem might look more fit for tomorrow, but...well, there are many, many poems about Good Friday, and so we'll spread the goodness over two days.

Good Friday

by Christina Rossetti

Am I a stone and not a sheep That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy Cross, To number drop by drop Thy Blood's slow loss, And yet not weep? Not so those women loved Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee; Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly; Not so the thief was moved; Not so the Sun and Moon Which hid their faces in a starless sky, A horror of great darkness at broad noon— I, only I. Yet give not o'er, But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock; Greater than Moses, turn and look once more And smite a rock.

A Poem for Tuesday in Holy Week

I'm posting a poem and a picture for each day of Holy Week this year. Today's poem is very long, so I'm posting only a selection of the stanzas. You can read the whole thing here.


from The Sacrifice
by George Herbert

Oh all ye, who pass by, whose eyes and mind
To worldly things are sharp, but to me blind;
To me, who took eyes that I might you find:
                                             Was ever grief like mine?




...Arise, arise, they come. Look how they run.

Alas! what haste they make to be undone!
How with their lanterns do they seek the sun!
                                             Was ever grief like mine?

With clubs and staves they seek me, as a thief,
Who am the way of truth, the true relief;
Most true to those, who are my greatest grief:
                                            Was ever grief like mine?

Judas, dost thou betray me with a kiss?
Canst thou find hell about my lips? and miss
Of life, just at the gates of life and bliss?
                                          Was ever grief like mine?

...Then they accuse me of great blasphemy,

That I did thrust into the Deity,
Who never thought that any robbery:
                                          Was ever grief like mine?

Some said, that I the Temple to the floor
In three days raz’d, and raised as before.
Why, he that built the world can do much more:
                                         Was ever grief like mine?

Then they condemn me all with that same breath,
Which I do give them daily, unto death.
Thus Adam my first breathing rendereth:
                                        Was ever grief like mine?

....They buffet me, and box me as they list,
Who grasp the earth and heaven with my fist,
And never yet, whom I would punish, miss’d:
                                       Was ever grief like mine?

Behold, they spit on me in scornful wise,
Who by my spittle gave the blind man eyes,
Leaving his blindness to mine enemies:
                                        Was ever grief like mine?

My face they cover, though it be divine.
As Moses’ face was veiled, so is mine,
Lest on their double-dark souls either shine:
                                       Was ever grief like mine?

....O all ye who pass by, behold and see;

Man stole the fruit, but I must climb the tree;

The tree of life to all, but only me:

                                      Was ever grief like mine?

Lo, here I hang, charg’d with a world of sin,

The greater world o’ th’ two; for that came in

By words, but this by sorrow I must win:

                                    Was ever grief like mine?

Such sorrow, as if sinful man could feel,

Or feel his part, he would not cease to kneel,

Till all were melted, though he were all steel:

                                     Was ever grief like mine?

But, O my God, my God! why leav’st thou me,

The son, in whom thou dost delight to be?

My God, my God –---

                                       Never was grief like mine.

....

A Poem for Monday in Holy Week

I'm posting a poem and a picture for each day of Holy Week this year. Here's the poem for Monday in Holy Week. If you can only read a bit of it, make it the last stanza.

The Incarnation and Passion
by Henry Vaughan

Lord! when thou didst thy selfe undresse 
Laying by thy robes of glory, 
To make us more, thou wouldst be lesse, 
And becam'st a wofull story. 

To put on Clouds instead of light, 
And cloath the morning-starre with dust, 
Was a translation of such height 
As, but in thee, was ne'r exprest; 

Brave wormes, and Earth! that thus could have 
A God Enclos'd within your Cell, 
Your maker pent up in a grave, 
Life lockt in death, heav'n in a shell; 

Ah, my deare Lord! what couldst thou spye 
In this impure, rebellious clay, 
That made thee thus resolve to dye 
For those that kill thee every day? 

O what strange wonders could thee move 
To slight thy precious bloud, and breath! 
Sure it was Love, my Lord; for Love 
Is only stronger far than death.