This short personal reflection is offered on Good Friday 2012 as a foil to the crass commercialisation and diversionary spirit that has overtaken the time of Easter throughout much of the Western world. It offers an Ignatian remembrance - an act of conscious imagining and visualisation - of the events that took place in Palestine some 2,000 years ago when Jesus of Nazareth suffered the fate of a common criminal in the act of execution by crucifixion ordered by the Roman governor at that time.
Yet the time of Easter bespeaks more than a Paschal sacrifice. It heralds the regeneration and renewal that emanates endlessly through the opened heart of love and mercy.
The music that accompanies this piece was composed and performed by Nico Di Stefano.
The Centurion's Prayer can be streamed using the media player above. A CD quality mp3 audio file is available for download here.
The Poem
The Centurion's Prayer. An Ignatian Remembrance
The thorny crown thrust hard
The cheering, the jeering,
Hot gushes from the lashes
And the gashes in torn flesh
But this was not enough.
Seamless garment rent and sundered
Golden skin now flayed and opened
Rubies glisten in the desert
Water drying in the dust
And this was not enough.
The beam that tore your bloodied shoulder
The nails that fixed your earthly fate
Your mercy call on those before you
Mercy call on those to come
And these were not enough.The well run dry, the sap drawn thin
The bitter gall, the final call
The trembling and the darkening
Your greater garment rent again
Beyond the pillars of the temple.
Empty now of blood and water
Empty now of fire and air
Descend again to she who formed you
To scent of earth, to breath of wind
Renew again our ground of being.
