He has not much time, maybe minutes.
Maybe minutes.
Yet he catches her eye. She sees
the sweat, blood and pus making
tracks in the dirt on his face.
Hers were the first eyes he entered
and now will be his last.
Against rough wood and iron spikes
he shifts up his flesh for air to speak.
She holds her breath to catch
his words, “Woman.”
His beaten aching body—swaddled in blood—
breathes, “Woman
behold your son.”
She watches as he shifts his eyes
to the young man whose strong arms
steady her. “Behold your mother.”
Her knees weaken, but her weight
is secured in the young man’s strength.
In her memory echoes a “yes”
as present and eternal as
the blood that stains her hands,
her face, her clothing.
Woman
The latest from america
Pope Leo said that if the teen “had come all the way to Rome, then (the pope) could come all the way to the hospital to see him.”
A Reflection for Tuesday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time, by Molly Cahill
As emergency workers searched for survivors and tried to recuperate the bodies of the dead, Pope Leo XIV offered his prayers for people impacted by the latest shipwreck of a migrant boat off the coast of Yemen.
The Archdiocese of Miami celebrated the first Mass for detainees at “Alligator Alcatraz,” the Trump administration’s controversial immigrant detention center in the Florida Everglades.
Louis,
You have captured the essence of Good Friday!
God bless you and let him continue to speak through your words!
Liz