Good Friday: What Abides


Good Friday II © Jan L. Richardson

Reading from the Gospels, Good Friday (April 22): John 18.1-19.42

Blessing for Good Friday

You will know
this blessing
by how it
does not stay still,
by the way it
refuses to rest
in one place.

You will recognize it
by how it takes
first one form,
then another:

now running down
the face of the mother
who watches the breaking
of the child
she had borne,

now in the stance
of the woman
who followed him here
and will not leave him
bereft.

Now it twists in anguish
on the mouth of the friend
whom he loved;

now it bares itself
in the wound,
the cry,
the finishing and
final breath.

This blessing
is not in any one
of these alone.

It is what
binds them
together.

It is what dwells
in the space
between them,
though it be torn
and gaping.

It is what abides
in the tear
the rending makes.

P.S. For a previous reflection on Good Friday, see Good Friday: In Which We Get Nailed. And blogging daily throughout Holy Week at the Sanctuary of Women blog.

[To use the “Good Friday II” image, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!]

4 Responses to “Good Friday: What Abides”

  1. Maureen Says:

    Beautiful, Jan.

  2. Carolyn Says:

    ….and just in case there are folks who have not read ‘In Which We get Nailed’, it’s a remarkable post….

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