Holy Week Art Exhibit
THE ENTRY
Luke 19: 28-40
Plush in Mary’s guarded womb
with scent of heaven recent in his brain,
he rocked along the roughhewn road to birth.
But Mary felt it all, the jolt of every up
and downward mile by the Jordan’s forest,
hills and flatlands, threat of thieves and lions.
She so young to bear the weight,
fullness of the God-child wanting out—
Oh, but he would out and ride again, though not
on that threadbare road. This road’s laden
with cloaks and fronds. Clamor of songs
and shouts disrupt the air, but the donkey
bears her load without complaint
and all of it heavy: She hears that other strain
in the fugue of hosannas, the devil’s interval
no one else can hear except perhaps
the innocent one on her back laboring
toward a hill, a skull on this day of adoration
-Suzanne Rhodes
THE ALLEGORY
Luke 19:41-48
Daughter, I’ve brought you a dove.
True, it’s neither gold nor gown
such as you’re used to, and I’m sorry.
Don’t be afraid, come near. Her body
is a boat that sails in skies near God.
Feel her trembling heart, the silky feathers.
With this gift, I pass the peace to you.
My child, who left the way and wears
harlot’s rings: May she not see
her father’s helpless tears as I remember
her small hands flying high among the lilies.
I long to see her true face and cry to You,
my Adoration. Return her gaze to You
and quench this chilling fire in my bones.
-Suzanne Rhodes
THE BETRAYAL
Luke 22:14-23
From the beginning he loved the man,
though his nature was kin to the goat,
and said, “Come, I’ve saved a place for you,”
and there, smiling at his friend beside,
he blessed the wine, the bread, the bitter herbs
and all the men reclining.
The friend leaned in, as if moved like the rest
at the Master’s weighted words spoken over his last
Pesach, feast of his body and blood in perpetuity
“until I drink with you again in my Father’s kingdom.”
Then with a knowing hand Jesus fed his friend
the dripping sop, sorrow of garum, the fish sauce
THE PASSION
Luke 23:26-56
Won't somebody feed me,
find me in the dark:
my head, stone-heavy on my chest,
my bones brittle as winter.
In my dreams I always see the kingdom of God.
In my heart I hear the white peals summoning past
all pity, past the bruised brow where sadness never sleeps
and the hunted creature slips into thorny nightfall.
In my dreams, in my long-ago life you strode with me
over the high hills, free as the capering goats
and with me down into quarantined towns
where a single word was enough to break the bars
of incurables and thieves. I thought so then, but now
my tongue has swelled to woolen thickness and my skin
is ablaze from a thousand stings and I confess, with tears,
I don't believe the light.
The Affront of the Cross
The Cross compels explicit confrontation!
Will you, O man, diminish what He paid?
Uncouple this from gauzy incarnation!
When God-Man summons, you should be afraid!
Straight-on, your image fuses to the glass.
Are you the one, the Judas? Fix the kiss
To seal betrayal. Lurch to Hell’s crevasse
As one who reverences the Serpent’s hiss . . .
. . . Or in obeisance, humbly take a knee.
Acknowledge blood-drenched crown of thorns and nails
Piercing flesh! He set aside divinity
To bear the Cross – most selfless of travails.
The Cross of Christ will not coerce, it woos
In silence. Let the keen observer choose.
Renée Oelschlaeger
Response to The Confrontation of the Cross
ASCENSION FRUIT
Luke 24:1-12
I caught the fruit before they pinned me in harlequin time
and ate it whole: a small, ripe sun, a joy inside my ribs
as the pitch-black storm riddled my heart
and made a riddle of souls I sheltered there.
But even as I rose and sank on the bleeding tree,
as the wind shrieked denials to my fraying will
and the howling hills drew close to savage their spoil,
I felt a current escorting me up from the fret of flesh,
the faces of scorn and desire, from the wrecked
earth full of bones I know will live, O Glory!
How strong the ladder of Your arms to raise me
shivering, newborn, into jubilation bursting forever.
-Suzanne Rhodes