Tomorrow, March 25, we recognize the confluence of two major feasts of the Church: The Annunciation and Good Friday.  Christ in the womb of the Virgin Mary, taking on our flesh to save us from our sins and Christ dying in that same flesh on the Cross to accomplish His mission. This joining of dates will not happen again until the year 2157, and here is an amazing must-read about the significance.

In the meantime it is Maundy Thursday, feast of the priesthood and the Eucharist.

Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart,
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art;
Thou my best thought by day and by night,
both waking and sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Be Thou my wisdom, and Thou my true word,
Thou ever with me, and I with thee Lord;
Thou my great Father, and I thy true son;
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.

Be thou my breastplate, my sword for the fight;
Thou my whole armor, and Thou my true might;
Be Thou my soul’s shelter, be Thou my strong tower:
O raise Thou me Heavenward, great Power of my power.

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise:
Thou mine inheritance now and always;
Be Thou and Thou only the first in my heart;
Great Sovereign of Heaven, my treasure Thou art.

High King of heaven, Thy victory won
May I reach Heaven’s joys, O bright Heaven’s Sun;
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be Thou my vision, O Ruler of all.

Image courtesy of Catholicvote.org

A victory in the battle over sin and death.

Today we remember the day He died for all of us.

The day He bore such suffering as none of us, even the bravest, could have stood.

I’m going to repeat a quote from C.S. Lewis that I like to recall on this day. Each of us has a choice when faced with the Man on the Cross. We can either stand with the skeptics, the tongue waggers, and ask why He doesn’t just save Himself–and us–and just get off the thing, or, we can stand in the humility of the centurion, and proclaim Him for Who He Is.

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell.

You must make your choice.

Either this man was, and is, the Son of God or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God.

But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” –Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis

Godhead here in hiding, whom I do adore,
Masked by these bare shadows, shape and nothing more,
See, Lord, at thy service low lies here a heart
Lost, all lost in wonder at the God thou art.

Seeing, touching, tasting are in thee deceived:
How says trusty hearing? that shall be believed;
What God’s Son has told me, take for truth I do;
Truth himself speaks truly or there’s nothing true.

On the cross thy godhead made no sign to men,
Here thy very manhood steals from human ken:
Both are my confession, both are my belief,
And I pray the prayer of the dying thief.