If it is true (and it is)

That there is no real love without real suffering,

Then it must also be true 

That the greatest Love

Must contain the greatest suffering.

As we look upon the One who suffers,
The One who is pierced,

Broken, even crushed for our sins,

We gaze upon the very face of Love.

Love bears all things…

And that bearing, by the Holy One,

Means the bearing of our greatest and deepest burden,

Our sinfully stained hearts.

Love suffers long…

And those six hours one Friday

Are not the limit of His suffering,

But encompass pain’s most vivid and central display.

Love endures all things…

And in Him, the Crucified God,

Endurance without limit

Is held aloft for all to see.

Love never fails…

But can truest Love be known, or seen, or tasted,

Without the Love of Christ taking into Himself

The depths of my own failure?

Here is Love

Vast as the ocean.

Not written in poetic verse

Or sloppy sentiment,

But etched eternally

On tear-stained cheeks

And thorn-pierced brow,

On blood-soaked limbs

Through anguished sighs

As the Beloved Son’s pulsing life

Slowly ebbs away

On a gruesome cross

Suspended in darkness

Between heaven and earth.

Here is love

Vast as the ocean

Displayed in suffering 

equal to Love’s measure.

May we look upon Him now,

The wounded and anguished One

And find in His tear-filled eyes

The gaze of truest and deepest love.

For without suffering,

Love is incomplete and insufficient to the need.

So let us not avert our gaze or glance away

From this holiest of moments

When vivid violence is enacted upon

Innocent flesh

And the purest of all hearts

Ruptures and drains away

The blood of the spotless lamb of God.

Look upon Him now, for

Here indeed 

is Love.