Category Archives: prayer

For all the alleluias

Posted on April 18, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

For all the alleluias that fall into the empty grave before the earth is cast down; alleluias that burst like a disappointed balloon upon the tongue; alleluias that took a wrong turn and never came home; for all of the alleluias that become ululations for the still dead and dying; alleluias gasping; … Continue reading →

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Blessed

Posted on April 15, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

He breathed on them the scent of grave-clothes, myrrh, and aloes, the stench of forgiveness; I imagine that smells of olive oil pressed from the groves in the Garden of Gethsemane, drowning out with unction the fetor of betrayal and blood.  All day long they shed … Continue reading →

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A special place

Posted on April 8, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

To celebrate the day of its harrowing, and because the phrase came up again just the other day … Continue reading →

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Good Friday

Posted on April 7, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

The cross is a mirror. It shows us what we are not, as well as what we are; the embodiment of God, the epitome of humanity: images mundane and immortal in one body.The cross is a mirror.  The cross is a mirror.  The hammer falls and innocent flesh … Continue reading →

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Thursday

Posted on April 4, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

We pray in awkward whispers against the reredos of white towels fumbling over nervous feet held in stumbling hands, certain of nothing but betrayal, the cross to come, and sunset’s pale inversion in the water

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Preaching from the shadows

Posted on March 28, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

The sound of mallet on metal
wood and splintered flesh
ricochets around the city walls
shivering the fabric of
the crowd that clothes the alleyways
too often lost in thought and prayers
we fall without an echo
into the open grave Continue reading →

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How I got up this morning

Posted on March 26, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

Because I thought
I am Lazarus
and you are calling me
out of my stupor
and unbinding
unwinding me
toward you Continue reading →

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Afterwards

Posted on March 21, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

It was the following day that sealed it for him waking with the rooster an hour before dawn the darkness of the room unfamiliar tangled in bedsheets he shivered still straining his hope to conjure up that sun light and … Continue reading →

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Secret

Posted on March 15, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

Today’s little Lenten story is a secret so I can’t tell it to you, but you can whisper it so that only your body and your breath and God and the cat can hear it.

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A meditation on the Cross

Posted on March 8, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

I imagine they made it of living wood; the tree itself shared your fate,cut down in service of hateful violence,its beauty overlooked, its sacrifice, turning our exhaust into air, sweet bitterness of fruit and pollen, its praise of heaven, limbs raised high, razed to the ground with you. They did not … Continue reading →

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