Lenten Sonnets - Week 2

As we begin the second week of Lent, we ponder the second station of the Via Dolorosa, where Our Lord, weakened by the severe beating he has received, can no longer struggle on. The Roman police escort dragoons a passerby to take up the burden. We know two things about Simon of Cyrene: Mark and Luke record that he was "coming in from the country," perhaps indicating that he was just arriving for a once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage from his home in modern-day Syria to celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem. Touching a cross, especially one smeared with blood from the flayed back of its victim, would render Simon unclean and thus unable to enter the Temple for the Passover. Second, Mark tells us the names of his two sons, indicating that his family was known to the early church. These facts, taken together, seem to indicate that Simon became a Christian, most likely as a result of his unplanned encounter with the Lamb of God as he was on his way to sacrifice the Passover lamb.

This sonnet is part of a series of meditations on seven of the Stations of the Cross that is, in turn, included in my book, Nothing There Is Not More: Poems of Faith Through Doubt" which is due out later this month. You can order it here.

2. Christ Falls the Second Time

He falls again to find he cannot rise,

Though inclination be as sharp as will.

This body no mere seeming, no disguise,

The God-Man truly man, for good or ill.

A Roman sword athwart a pilgrim’s way

Derails devotion, unslays sacrifice.

A passerby who longs his lamb to slay

Must now by-pass that plan to pay this price.

Though from the temple courts now balked by blood

Of man from shedding blood of goat or bull,

He leads a truer lamb behind this rood,

Enters a truer temple at the Skull.

Diverted from the way he would have trod,

A human hand here helps a human God.