Kneel here and what do you look at
but the cross that she not only looked at
but truly saw;
upon which she gazed with unveiled eyes
and a mind which made of it
not a devotional icon merely
but the heart, the nub, the drive,
the sense:
of all the world’s pained and deprived ingathered into
the solidarity of the suffering God;
of compassion transfigured beyond human exchange
into the mystery of the needy God;
of grief not denied but given hope beyond today,
of loss not escaped but released beyond its own definitions
by the life of the God-man who died on the Friday
and was alive on the Sunday.
Teach me Catherine the truth of the cross,
guide me always to stand by it in faith.
* the large wooden crucifix before which you kneel is thought to have been a gift to Catherine from her good friend Fr. Armstrong, and came originally from France.
