Supreme Sacrificer
What have we done to You
By abysmal oblivion
Ill will to Your Saving Law?
Meek Master, ill-treated by us all...
Clothed in the garb of hellcats,
Forcing with rage and fury satanic blows -
O bitter savage scourging: great welts
And livid tumors concealing Heavenly Flesh;
Blood Divine running down in streams...
Pristine, Virginal Flesh scattered
In pieces about the pavement...
Bones laid bare larger
Than a palm of the hand!
Sacred... disfigured Countenance,
Wounded, swollen, blinded, spat at...
O unwounded not a single spot!
Heart most merciful enduring sore insults...
Tender Mother bearing every single throe
O aggrieved Mother, pierced, riveted
With the sword of relentless and undying woe...
In obedience unmovable to Supreme Might
Detached from riches and clothing... sight
For His garments were divided
By inmates of pitchy night...
To evade fading honors
For He endured words ruthless,
Torturing by bloodthirsty donors,
Triumphing over the heaviness
Of "high standing worms"!
For the King of Kings was wearing
A crown of thorns...
To be detached from
"The delectable and pleasurable"
For in His Thirst...
Was given vinegar to drink...
To think...
The Absolute Sacrificer...
The Supreme Exemplifier...
The worldlings' Deifier...
Copyrighted 2008 Dorothy K. Kardas, Psy.D. Th.D.
"Jesus chooses souls for himself and among these, in spite of my unworthiness, he has chosen me to assist him in the great work of salvation. And the more these souls suffer without consolation, the more they lighten the sufferings of Jesus. In this I find my joy."
- Saint Padre Pio: one of the well-known stigmatics -
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Our hearts can't ever be grateful enough!!!
Thank you Dr. Kardas for this powerful portrayal of Christ's martyrdom and His extruciating agony undertaken to save our souls. We know nothing of His Perfect Love! What pains us the most is the prevalent ingratitude and oblivion to His ultimate sacrifice of love. It is our duty to pray in order to grow in deeper understanding and gratitude for His Ultimate Gift of Himself on the Cross. God could not have gone to greater extent to show His perfect love for us. If the agony of the cross had not happened, the truth that God is love would have been unfounded. Thank you again for this superb work and most crucial reminder what we are here for!!!
We wish you and your family God's countless blessings for Easter.
Keep up the great work!
God's Salvific Will
Thank you for characteristically perceptive and carefully reasoned responses and remarks. Indeed, we need to be guardians of accuracy and use perspicuity especially when we speak of the most sacred soteriological matters and their meaning; when we address the sanctuary at the foot of the Cross. The greatest evil is sin; salvation is predominantly liberation from sin and its consequences; it is deliverance from oppression by sin and evil to a state of true freedom and spiritual security. The Passion of Christ was sufficient and superabundant satisfaction for human guilt and the consequent debt of punishment.
May the foot of the Cross be always our place of refuge... D.K.
Cross -the most eloquent answer and solution to the sinister
disorder in souls and societies!
The greatest Love... the greatest Example from Our Saviour, yet sadly there are those who remain in unredeemed darkness because of unrepentance and sin. What a frightening loss and indeed diabolical ingratitude! Brilliant idea of depicting the gruesome reality of scourging and connecting it with the great moral requirement for our souls to be detached from honors, successes and all worldly pleasures in order to fully unite with our Saviour here and in the hereafter. His Cross must be planted permanently in our hearts to live virtuous life and thus live up to the dignity of children of God.
Dr. true followers of Christ abound in profusion of grace and therefore have abundance of joy, so I wish you the best of health to continue His missions!
A Crucified God...
Your keen insight, and reflectively written messages are always greatly valued. Sadly, there are indeed quite a few individuals who are unable to connect with their Redeemer. The victory of Christ over sin, death and the devil is an unmistakable invitation to choose the path of conversion from worldly service to the service of God.
"God became man so that men might become gods" - St. Athanasius, so that we can be drawn into the process of personal deification - have share in God's nature and divinity. A virtuous life is necessary in order to understand the truth about God, and to recognize that holiness is inseparably connected with devotion to the Passion. "How do we know that God hates sin? By the fact that Christ loves sinners. They are the poorest of all... needing protection" - H. Balthasar. God's self-revelation reached its pinnacle in God humbling Himself and becoming a man to die in order to deliver humanity from radical evil, and lifting up all with redemptive love infinitely greater than all sins. Thus, what is most significant comes always from the Death and Resurrection of Christ. The Crucified God is also an unambiguous testimony of God's unity and indivisibility with human beings in their sufferings, and a most compelling confirmation that life is meaningful to the extent that it comes to be a free gift for others (e.g. John Paul II). As John Paul II stated: "...in a certain sense God is silent because He has already revealed everything."
May God guide our steps to the fullness of Truth and Love... D.K.
~Into Your Hands Lord~
We live in a world that has difficulty discerning real and unreal pain. The greatest pain is to walk 'without' God.
The terror of a world 'without' God, is Hell.
Conversely, the greatest joy is to walk 'with' God. The joy of a world 'with' God, is heaven.
Jesus gave us His life. His humanity was not profanity, it was not insanity, it was not vanity; it was completeness in God the Father. His suffering magnified God's children.
We are the fruit of God's Spirit. In Him, through Him, and with Him, we are His forever and ever.
There is no greater gift. Because He lives we can face tomorrow.
Jesus is with us today.
Thank you Dorothy for the imagery and love to help us find our grace in His suffering and the suffering hearts of those that follow Christ.
Peace be with you,
Kathy
In Your Hands, Lord
This is a wonderful piece, well done and from the heart. I am trying to improve my walk with Our Lord and be a much better Christian. I thank you for this lovely work, that's all. Jack.
To kill the conscience through pervasive or habitual grave sin
is to kill the soul.
Kathy, your first two paragraphs remain sober thoughts that tersely and fittingly outlined what determines the inner significance of earthly life. A state of separation from God, Who is Truth and Love is a place of evil, discord, destruction and utter misery. Any defection from the Immutable or Highest Good - God in itself is evil (St. Augustine). Falsehood therefore consists in not living in the way for which we were created; when we are away from God, we are away from ourselves, and to rob the world of God is to rob ourselves of grace and valid hope. This is insanity of human sinful acts and darkened conscience that pierced His Sacred Heart. Unrepentant sinner is traveling in an impassable maze of darkness. Hell, also as an actual place, in a certain sense, must be seen in serving as the ultimate protection or a guard of a person's moral conscience.
God, Who is Love judges through love... our ability to be charitable and compassionate, and it is invariably love that requires purification from sin and evil... and it is also love that covers a multitude of sins.
May the Author of Love purify our intentions... D.K.
Heights of imagery worthy of the great poetmaster that you are!
Thank you Dr. K. for posting this extraordinarily moving poem here on Showcase. Having read this piece several times before, it still sends shivers up my spine.
Congrats on your books "The Gaping Door..." and "Voice of Thunder..." which we just finished reading. "The Gaping Door" took us a bit longer to digest because of its highly scholarly content. Every page you write is compacted with profound insights and absolutely convincing arguments in confronting moral evils in society, especially the essays on political corruption and the solutions you provide. We are just blown away by your extensive erudition in theology, philosophy, science, and psychology. It's amazing how you can combine all this knowledge in a few sentences. Some people write whole books around one idea and still miss the mark.
Wishing you and your family a very blessed Easter.
We will communicate more via e-mail very soon!
Love, Chris & family
May we be forgetful of self...
Chris, many thanks for your courteous act of commenting on "my" publications, and ever so invaluable supportive remarks.
As you probably know, I enjoyed immensely our last exchange!
May we always have the desire to win souls for Christ... D.K.
WHAT GREATER GIFT...THAN TO LIE DOWN ONE'S LIFE FOR A FRIEND?
SO SENTENTIOUSLY AND VIVIDLY CONVEYED.
A SWEEPING VISTA OF THE PASSION OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, THAT VIVIFIES THE BLOOD STAINED JOURNEY TO CALVARY AND HIS SUPREME SACRIFICE UPON THE CROSS.
WREAKS FOR THE WRETCHED TO WRITHE, WRESTLE, AND WEEP FOR THEIR WOEFUL WICKEDNESS.
WROUGHTY WOVEN WRITING, OUR WORD WEILDING WIZARD!
POETRY CIRCLE OF FRIENDS
May we be participants in His Treasures!
Axiom, your cleverly delivered - written with resoluteness responses are enduringly charming and very much appreciated! Undeniably, you are the "word weilding wizard"! I am just a scribbler trying to deliver and affirm His Undying Messages...
May the Holy Spirit be our trainer... D.K.
KLESHA....PRISTINE!!!
A HUNDRED THOUSAND THANKS FROM ALL FOR YOUR BENIGNITY & HUMILITY OF SPIRIT.
LOOKING FORWARD TO HEARING FROM YOU... AXIOM & THE PCF
Darkness of ignorance and the Light of Love!
Doc, as always your piece is very stirring and powerfully expressed. Just wanted to add that my most favorite stanza is the first. You are really gifted in provoking strong emotions. Your words and phrases are glued to my soul and engraved on my brain! Praise be Jesus for His Ultimate Sacrifice!!!
Can't thank you enough!
Richie & the gang!
"By Whom all things live and breathe."
Thank you for encouraging words and always voicing your approval...
May we be uncompromisingly loyal followers and adorers of our Redeemer, and may He be a constant and abundant source of hope and consolation for all of us... D.K.
A HAPPY & HOLY DAY!
The Prof & the Poetry Circle apprectiate your thoughtful and kind response.
We all want to wish you a Very Happy & Holy Ascension Thursday.
May Our Lord and Savior bless and keep you well, until we hopefully all meet on that "Beautiful Shore".
Also, Today we send our best wishes and prayers on Our Holy Mother of Fatima's Feast Day...May Her prayers and Helpful Hands guide you always to do the Divine will of Her Dearest Son.
Axiom's PCF.
Hi, D. Kardas, I find that
Hi, D. Kardas,
I find that in you like to use difficult words in your poems, so i need to check them in my dictionary, sometimes they seemed wrong, but finally are passed and all are correct, you have described a lot the petient's pain mostly beared by the mom, feeling more serious than her child. It's most of the motherr' love upon their children,unless she were not the child's mom! Very high writing skill, with a lot of high quality words.
I learned from a lot too for myself!
Thank your for your supreme standard of a piece.
sfiawaong
albert wong.
want to be buddy.
================================
A tree wants quiet, but the wind is blowing.
To establish my poetry place for memory parents!
"A Clarification of God's Project"
Thank you Albert for your kind, generous and warm-hearted words. In this poem, I wrote about the Crucifixion of Christ - specifically of the suffering He endured during scourging, and the Mother of Christ's pain she shared... with the Redeemer of Humankind, but above all, of the most significant truth about God's infinite love and mercy revealed in Christ Crucified...
May we too, "be servants of love"... DKK