216
PARTISAN
R'EVIEW
bowing down His head, He gave up the ghost. And then (Richard
could remember in advance) the stunned and strange peacefulness,
throughout that afternoon and night and through all the next day,
and the quiet, almost secret lighting of the tremendous candle in the
beginning' of the dusk of Holy Saturday, everything still going as
if
on
tiptoe, and then in the first light of morning, the stillest and most
wonderful moment of the year, the quietly spoken and simple Mass:
"He is risen." And then the rich midmorning and the blinding blaze of
Easter.
'Tis the Spring of Souls today, Christ hath burst His. prison, and
from three days' sleep in Death, like a Sun hath risen.
But not yet. That is still not known though at the same time it
is
known. We are all in most solemn sorrow and grief and mourning. We
know a secret far inside ourselves but we don't dare tell it, even to our–
selves. We don't dare to quite believe it will ever really happen again
until it really happens again. Until His coming again. For in the night in
which He was betrayed. It has happened over nineteea hundred times
now and yet it has never happened before. Not yet. And we don't know
if it ever can. Never dreamed it could. Can.
Not yet. Now is just the dead time between and he is waiting.
This is his last night and his last daybreak begins soon now. Before
this day is over he will be dead.
My Jesus, he whispered, clasping his hands strongly; his throat
contracted.
o
Savior of the WorId Who by Thy Cross and' Precious Blood hast
redee--
o
you are dying my dear Lord for me, his soul whispered, wonder–
ing, weeping. For
me,
and I can't do anything for you. I can't even com–
fort you, or speak to you, or thank you. 0 my Lord Jesus I can thank
you. I can think about you. I can try to know what it is you are going
through for me. For me and for all sinners. I can know that every
sin
I
do big or no matter how little is a thorn or a nail or the blow of the
hammer or even just a fly that teases and hurts you in your blood,
crawling and tickling and sipping and eating at you in the hot day on
the Cross with you unable to brush him away or even to move, and
every good thing, or true thankfulness or thought of love must make it
anyway a little
le~s
terrible to suffer. My Lord I Love Thee. My Lord I
grieve for Thee. My dear Lord I adore Thee. My poor Lord I wish I
could suffer for Thee. My Lord I thank Thee. Lord have mercy upon
me. Christ have mercy upon me. Lord have mercy upon me.
He opened his eyes in quiet wonder. It was indeed to
him
the very
day. Not just a day in remembrance, but the day. There stood his con–
secrated Body, veiled among fire and flowers, but also living, in the
