Now you are lifted up and alone, O Sacred Friend. You are every person who has ever been condemned, battered, betrayed, or abandoned. You bear all our suffering and every consequence for the suffering we caused.
“Father, forgive them; they don’t know what they’re doing.”
Forgive us, you say. Me too, you mean. Even now you see the spark of the kingdom in my intentions without justifying the outcome.
You know full well what I have done, yet when I reach my hand across time and space to touch your face, you do not flinch. I caress your hair, your cheek, your beard as you slip into death. I lay my open palm over your heart.
And all that is you flows into me, into us, into every living thing on earth.
What language shall I borrow
to thank thee, dearest friend,
for this thy dying sorrow,
thy pity without end?
— “O Sacred Head Now Wounded”
An Everyday Pilgrim 