A Homily for the Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion
Readings: Isaiah 52:13—53:12 Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9 John 18:1—19:42
Robert Frost wrote a poem comparing thought to love. Of course, we cannot choose between the two. We must both think and love. Sometimes we do each of them well; often we do not. Yet Frost suggests that, between the two, love has the greater claim.
His poem is called “Bond and Free” because thought gets to go where it wills on “dauntless wings,” while poor love remains bonded to the earth.
In extolling thought, the poem nicely expresses the hubris that accompanies our thinking, which “cleaves the interstellar gloom.” Yet even the immense intelligence we call “artificial” still bears our smudge and smell. In short, our sin.
Love has earth to which she clings
With hills and circling arms about—
Wall within wall to shut fear out.
But Thought has need of no such things,
For Thought has a pair of dauntless wings.
On snow and sand and turf, I see
Where Love has left a printed trace
With straining in the world’s embrace.
And such is Love and glad to be.
But Thought has shaken his ankles free.
“With hills and circling arms about,” love clings to the earth. “And simply staying possesses all in several beauty.” People in love do not wander. They are in thrall, staying in one small spot, leaving their trace only in the paltry place that has become their world: a child’s face, a lover’s limbs, a family, a hometown. And though we may indeed strain to embrace our worlds, “such is love and glad to be.”
Thought, however, “has shaken his ankles free.”
Thought cleaves the interstellar gloom
And sits in Sirius’ disc all night,
Till day makes him retrace his flight,
With smell of burning on every plume,
Back past the sun to an earthly room.
We are so proud of our minds! But Frost slyly reminds great intellects that dreams of what they will someday do always exceed their grasp and often fade come morning. Thought promises to be grand and glorious. Like Icarus, it searches out the stars themselves.
Till day makes him retrace his flight,
With smell of burning on every plume,
Back past the sun to an earthly room.
His gains in heaven are what they are.
Yet some say Love by being thrall
And simply staying possesses all
In several beauty that Thought fares far
To find fused in another star.
A wise old monsignor once told me that, if you go looking for happiness, you will search forever, while if you stay still and do what you should, happiness will come and tap you on the shoulder. Frost is of a similar mind. Thought flies to the ends of the galaxies but never finds its goal. Yet even when love limps, it leaves something lasting.
On snow and sand and turf, I see
Where Love has left a printed trace
With straining in the world’s embrace.
And such is Love and glad to be.
Why this musing upon love and thought, bond and free, on Good Friday?
There is no contest between the mind of God and our own intellects. Yet in our ongoing dual with God, Christ, who has the choice of weapons, chooses love. The mind that built the mountains and hung the stars freely selects one small hill called Calvary. Not much of a stake in the scope of the cosmos, but from this little mound love calls out to us. It grows until it claims all as its own. In Calvary, God has wrought a terrible, eternal beauty. It is love’s “printed trace.”
In choosing to embrace even death itself for the sake of love, Christ
by being thrall
And simply staying possesses all
