Good Friday

Rubens' Deposition

A theme throughout lent is the paradoxical freedom that comes from renunciation. The life in death. It's a theme that runs throughout Christianity, and indeed all contemplative faiths. So for Good Friday, I'd like to dwell upon that, and better than my own words are those of T.S. Elliot in this fragment of "East Coker" from the Four Quartets:

The wounded surgeon plies the steal

That questions the distempered part;

Beneath the bleeding hands we feel

The sharp compassion of the healer's art

Resolving the enigma of the fever chart

Our only health is the disease

If we obey the dying nurse

Whose constant care is not to please

But to remind of our, and Adam's curse,

And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.

...

The dripping blood our only drink,

The bloody flesh our only food:

In spite of what we like to think

That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood

Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.