April 3

Good Friday

BEFORE A CRUCIFIX

Who is this who waits

With arms extended

And wide open hands?

It is Christ, Our Lord.

For ages and ages,

He has been waiting here,

Generations have passed,

He has not folded His wings

Or closed His eyes.

For whom does He wait,

 for whom the invitation,

for whom the inexhaustible patience

of infinite love?

It is for one,

who comes slowly,

hesitating, afraid,

trusting more to chance,

 to perishable things

and the frailties of men,

than to the everlasting arms.

It is for me,

that for two thousand years,

Love has waited here,

with wide wings spread.

It is for me, the courtesy

that will not be importunate,

will not constrain my love

or force the suit.

It is for me,

the silence of the word

wherein the beating heart

alone is audible.

It is for me that God awaits,

with open hands,

a beggar at the locked gates of my soul.

It is for one who doubts,

mistrusts and fears,

who sees the tears

upon the human face of God,

through her own tears, and is not moved.

Of all the world unworthiest to be loved,

driven at last

from self-inflicted harms,

reluctantly, to the Eternal Arms.

-Caryll Houselander

© All Rights Reserved, Living His Life Abundantly®/Women of Grace®  http://www.womenofgrace.com