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Slow Mover @[email protected] · 2026-04-02 · 18:28 UTC

Maundy Night, in Fragments

It was night already—
and the room was close,
low-beamed, breath-warmed,
troubled by the nearness of departure.
The lamp did not so much shine
as shudder.

There are nights
that seem to know.

The basin waited.
The towel waited.
The water, in its shallow little vessel,
held a silence deeper than the sea.

And He—
O strange reversal!—
He whose hands had lifted dust to life,
whose fingers had written mercy
upon the infirm flesh of the world,
stooped.

Stooped.

I cannot loose myself
from that word.

For there are stoopings more terrible than thunder.
There are bendings low
that break the spine of pride
more surely than the sword breaks bone.

And one by one—
sandaled, ashamed, confused—
they drew near Him.
The feet of fishermen,
the feet of zealots,
the feet that had wandered,
the feet still crusted with the stale earth
of empire and fatigue.

And He washed them.

Not as a servant washes, perhaps—
hurriedly, dutifully, with half-averted eye—
but with that unbearable tenderness
which makes the beloved wish to flee.

For who can bear
to be known at the heel,
at the dustiest place,
at the place where the road clings?

Peter recoiled, of course—
dear violent Peter—
as men recoil from love
when it approaches too nearly
the wound.

“No—”

Ah, but all our souls are fashioned of that syllable.
No, not there.
No, not this filth.
No, not the part of me
that has walked where I ought not.

Yet still the water spoke
in its soft and ruinous language.

If I wash thee not—

And then the air itself seemed to splinter,
for one may resist majesty,
but to be excluded from such sorrowful intimacy—
that is a horror no disciple can endure.

So the feet were given.
So the heart, for a moment, trembled open.

And somewhere in the room
sat the other one.

He too had feet.
He too received bread.
He too was near enough
to hear the pulse in the Master’s throat,
to see the shadows gather
beneath His eyes
like birds before a storm.

How dreadful,
that one may sit so near the Holy
and yet prefer the kiss of silver.

Thirty pieces—
thin moons of metal,
cold as the underside of a grave-stone,
small little hosts of another kingdom.

I think they rang already
in the secret chambers of his mind.

The bread was broken.
No—more than broken.
Offered.
Which is the crueler word.

Take, eat—

And all the centuries leaned inward.

The cup passed.
Darkness trembled in it
like an omen,
like a red remembering,
like the heart’s own interior
made visible.

Drink ye all—

All.

Even now the word accuses me.

For the table was long,
and the shadows longer,
and love, longest of all,
stretching even toward betrayal,
even toward denial,
even toward scattering.

Outside, the city breathed
with the heavy lungs of feast and politics.
Inside, eternity had knelt upon the floor
and wrapped itself in linen.

What church can bear this memory?
What soul can keep it
without cracking?

The clink of cup.
The rustle of garment.
A hand withdrawing too quickly.
A glance no one could quite endure.
And beneath all things,
like a distant drumbeat under the earth:

going,
going,
going.

To the garden.
To the dark.
To the lanterns and the cudgels.
To the mouths of false witnesses.
To the rooster’s cry.
To the nails.
To the forsakenness immense and measureless.

Yet here—
here first—
before the torches,
before the thorns,
before the torn veil and the opened side—
here was the kingdom:

A basin.
A towel.
Bread in broken hands.
A cup not refused.
Love stooping lower
than any disciple could imagine,
lower perhaps than hell itself,
that it might fill even the lowest place
with the rumor of God.

And I, remembering it,
can scarcely speak except in shards.

A splash of water.
A morsel of bread.
A traitor’s mouth.
A beloved breast leaning near.
The night at the window, listening.
The floorboards aching under the tread of doom.
And Christ—
dear Christ—
moving among them still
with the calm of One
who has already entered death
and found it, too,
washable.

Then out they went.

Into olives.
Into moon-pallor.
Into that hour which still has not ended.

And the towel lay folded.
And the basin held
the last disturbed water.
And somewhere, perhaps,
one drop remained upon the floor—
bright, unnoticed,
like a tear
or like the first small glimmer
of the strange and terrible mercy
by which the world
shall yet be undone.

#basinAndTowel #Betrayal #breadAndCup #candlelight #ChristianSymbolism #churchArt #Communion #contemplativeFaith #FootWashing #Gethsemane #HolyThursday #holyWeek #Judas #lastSupper #LiturgicalArt #maundyThursday #passionOfChrist #sacredStillLife #servantLove #SilverCoins #symbolicPhotography #Tenebrae

#basinandtowel #betrayal #breadandcup #candlelight #christiansymbolism #churchart

Young Catholics @[email protected] · 2025-04-04 · 23:04 UTC

Reflecting on the Passion of Jesus during Holy Week deepens our faith. It's a time to slow down and truly connect with His love and sacrifice. He suffered not just for humanity but for each of us individually. By imagining ourselves in the story, we can appreciate His immense sacrifice, growing in gratitude and faith. Let's take this opportunity to feel closer to Jesus and understand the depths of His love. #HolyWeek #PassionOfChrist #Faith #Reflection https://young-catholics.com/986/prayerfully-read-the-passion-of-our-lord/

#holyweek #passionofchrist #faith #reflection

Rev Peter W Nimmo @[email protected] · 2025-04-03 · 19:49 UTC

Opening Prayers for Palm/Passion Sunday Year C (April 13 2025)

These opening prayers for Sunday worship take their inspiration from the Scripture readings of the Revised Common Lectionary. Worship leaders are welcome to use them for worship, but if you print or display any part of them, please credit the author. Comments welcome.

The following prayers are for based on the readings for the Sixth Sunday in Lent, April 13, 2025: The Liturgy of the Palms and The Liturgy of the Passion. These prayers reflect my practice when in parish ministry in the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian). At the start of the service we concentrated on the Palm Sunday themes, reading an account of the entry into Jerusalem at the start of the service, followed by selected verses of Psalm 118 as a responsive Call to Worship. We would hear some or all of the Gospel account of the Passion just before the sermon.

Call to Worship

Open to me the gates of righteousness,
that I may enter through them and give thanks to the LORD.
This is the gate of the LORD;
the righteous shall enter through it.
The stone that the builders rejected
has become the chief cornerstone.
This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvellous in our eyes.
This is the day that the LORD has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the LORD.
O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,
for his steadfast love endures forever.

Psalm 118.19-20, 22-24, 26, 29 (NRSV)

Let us worship God.

Prayer of Approach and Confession

Let us pray.

Blessed are you, Jesus of Nazareth.
You are the king who comes in peace,
riding on a donkey.
You have done deeds of power
and brought the message of God’s love
into the world.
Who can stop us from praising you?

Hosanna in the highest!
Hosanna in the highest!

Blessed are you, God the Father of all creation.
You have sent Jesus into our world
to share our joys and sorrows,
bringing healing and forgiveness.
Who can stop us from praising you?

Hosanna in the highest!
Hosanna in the highest!

Blessed are you, Holy Spirit of God.
You are the wisdom which lets us see in Jesus
a new kind of King-
a king who brings peace, joy, love, forgiveness and hope.
And so, we sing songs of praise to him-
for if we did not, the stones of the earth would shout out:

Hosanna in the highest!
Hosanna in the highest!

Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord.
You bring peace on earth
from the glory of heaven.
Father, Son and Spirit,
we praise you today!

Yet we confess that our praise on Sunday
can turn to cynicism during the week,
and that our faith is often challenged
by the sort of darkness we see in the Cross-
the darkness of inhumanity and injustice
the darkness of death and despair.

Do not count our sins against us,
but for the sake of the Carpenter who won our salvation
through the wood and nails of the cross
forgive us our personal failings,
and strengthen us for the fight against evil.

silence

It is the Lord GOD who helps us; who will declare us guilty?

Isaiah 50:9a (alt)

Give us, O God, the mind that was in Jesus Christ-
help us to be humble servants of one another,
and obedient in all things to his law of love;
for now we confess
that the carpenter’s son who rode a donkey
is exalted above all kings and powers of this world
and we confess that Jesus is Christ is Lord
to the glory of God. Amen.

NOTE ‘Hosanna’ does not appear in Luke’s Gospel account of Palm Sunday, but tradition especially associates the word with this day (see Matthew 21.9, Mark 11.9f, John 12.13). Nor do palms feature in Luke!

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Featured image: Peter Koenig, Palm Sunday (20th century (United Kingdom).
from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=58531 [retrieved April 1, 2025]. Original source: Peter Winfried (Canisius) Koenig, https://www.pwkoenig.co.uk/

#LectionaryPrayers #Lent #PalmSunday #PassionOfChrist

#lectionaryprayers #lent #palmsunday #passionofchrist