A Pandemic Poem of Faith and Hope

The Stations of the Cross 

(for Fr Phillip Lemon,

Our Lady of The Assumption, Bethnal Green, London)

By Mike Parsons

“After the first death, there is no other.”  Dylan Thomas

1.Jesus Is Condemned To Death

We adore thee O Christ and we praise you, because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.

                      “ after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors”

                                 Luke 2. 41-52

Death. Do I fear it?  I am terrified, but  there are moments, when in giving, you gain the incalculable.

So much is wrong, so much unnecessary.

Let me give.

 

We live lives dedicated to change.

“Ce petit monde est a refaire”  says Emmanuelle Billoteaux

(This little world must be remade).

 

Who is to blame?  

We can talk of specifics.

We should not talk of blame, but of understanding, 

Evaluation.  

We must identify the problems.

 

I take a walk with Christine's children in Umoja, Nairobi.

Flowers grow along the path; purple and yellow.

The corn has been harvested though there are still some ripening.

The whole field has been cultivated since I was here lst October,

Women were preparing the ground then, and planting.

They have worked well.

 

Some people are secure with their money and posessions.

Do they care only for themselves?

 

What Impels?

 

Please, help us with our lives.

Help us overcome our faults,

understand and change.

Forgive us our trespasses.

 

Lord Jesus, you are condemned to death a million times by greed and self-interest.

By power compounded with fear

in this vicious cycle of survival.

 

Condemned to death

and yet going beyond death.

Unstoppable.

 

You will not die,

“I will not die”.

 

We are left with the question, “Why does life destroy life

                         Why destroy that which will take the fear away?”

But their fear is not our fear.

We are not our bodies,

We are more than our minds, 

more that our sense of “I”, Tyranical, fragile, fearful…