Christ our King

From the desk of Fr. Ignatius Waters, cp

Sunday, 25th November 2018

I saw a man nailed to a tree,

His red blood running down.

A scroll proclaimed he was a king

But he looked more like a clown.

His face was white, with parched black lips, agape as if to grin.

His hands and feet twitched on the tree,   

Where nails had gone right in.

He had a crown upon his head

But it was made of thorn,

And he was naked as he’d been

The day that he was born.

The blood ran down from that poor clown

And made the green tree red.

 My God, he cried, eyes open wide,

 I’m only broken bread.

 I’m only broken bread, he said,

And red wine running down.

And so beside himself he died,

My King who was a clown.

I have always loved the drawing above by Fr. Herman Nolan which manages to combine the Crucifixion and the Eucharist within our Passionist sign. The prayer poem is by Robert Bly. The ‘clown’ theme may offend at first, but it captures what was done to Jesus and the extravagance of his loving and giving.