Annual visit

After Luke 2:41-52 

It was something they did

every year, a journey

from Nazareth to Jerusalem,

to celebrate the Passover,

the remembrance of God’s

salvation of the people,

deliverance from Egypt,

deliverance from slavery,

the passing over the houses

marked with the blood

of the lamb over the doorway,

protected from the angel

of death. Jerusalem was

crowded, as it always was

at Passover, people crowding

into the city, packed throngs

around the temple, noise and

chaos and the bleating of lambs

to be sacrificed, food vendors

shouting, confusing to those

who did it every year. This year,

the couple from Nazareth brought 

their oldest, a 12-year-old boy,

a boy coming to visit

his father’s house.

 

Photograph by Toa Heftiba via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

“The Wish to Be Generous,” poem by Wendell Berry – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

 

“Lord of A Hopefulness,” poem by Joyce Anstruther – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

The Illustration – poem by Seth Lewis.

Remembrance and betrayal

After Luke 22:12-23 

It is here, the final 

Passover meal he

knows they will

share together. His

words confuse; he

speaks of imminent

suffering. He takes

a cup, calling

the wine his blood,

telling them to divide

it among themselves

and drink it. He takes

the unleavened bread,

breaking it, and calls

it his body. And they

are to drink the wine

and eat the bread

in remembrance. And

there’s more: He tells

them that the one who

betrays him sits 

at the table, one

who has eaten

the bread and

drunk the cup.

 

Photograph by Valentina Fischer at Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings 

 

The Colosseum – Br. Roland Wakefield at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Sin – two poems by Gwenallt at Kingdom Poets (D.S. Martin).

 

America’s professor: the afterlife of C.S. Lewis – David Davis at The Spectator.

 

Glorifying War? Reflections on Hollywood’s 1951 Adaptation of The Red Badge of Courage – Heath Anderson at Emerging Civil War.

 

Fogs & Smogs of Old London – Spitalfields Life.

 

My Old Friend is Ripping Down Posters of Kidnapped Children – Candace Mittel Kahn at The Free Press.

A supper of bread, wine

After Luke 22:14-23 

It’s set before them,

this simple meal of bread

and wine, a familiar rite

performed each year, 

a rite of remembrance.

 

This meal is a rite

of remembrance, but

remembrance forward,

a meal of passing over

becoming a meal

of passed over, named

for the one whose blood

is splashed on the door,

the sign given to save

those within.

 

They take bread,

break it.

They drink wine,

share it.

Forever.

 

Photograph by Sandro Gonzalez via Unsplash. Used with permission.