September 15, 2023

My Journey to God

Mater dolorosa

The sight of him
Was salt in open wounds,
But she held his gaze fixedly,
As tenderly as once she laid
His infant body to her breast.

Almost drowning in his pain,
Her fingers bit into the skin
Of J ohn’s arm and she choked
As her son’s breath
Strangled in his throat

He spoke to her just once, then,
Pulling against the nails, crying out,
He exhaled and sagged upon the wood.
The sword old Simeon had promised
Plunged deep into her heart.

Holding her son at last,
His head cradled in her arms,
She watched John, weeping,
Gently pull away the hideous crown.
Bending over her son,

She touched the places
Where the thorns had pierced him.
Her many kisses could not warm his skin
And though she tried to think of him
As he had been, memory quailed before
The sleeping face death closed to her.

She who had borne him without pain,
Ravaged by this second birthing,
Became mother of us all,
Mother of our many sorrows,
None, ah none, like hers.

By Sandra Marek Behringer
 

(Sandra Marek Behringer is a member St. Luke the Evangelist Parish in Indianapolis.) †

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