Here's how our chapel has looked most of Lent. The stained glass window is one of seven small vertical ones in the front wall, almost missed by most people, I'm sure. But these days of bright sunshine have their "jewels" just glowing during prayer. This doesn't do them justice, but I tried.
Thirty-five retreatants have arrived for the Triduum and many more "locals" will drift in for each service. Weather promises to be good and it is truly a beautiful time for the annual Paschal Mystery come alive. The retreatants are using The Way of the Cross with text by our Joan C. and art by Janet McKenzie. We have the fifteen prints used in the book framed and they help provide the "atmosphere" in the main retreat room.
"The Poet Thinks about the Donkey"
On the outskirts of Jerusalem
the donkey waited.
Not especially brave, or filled with understanding,
he stood and waited.
How horses, turned out into the meadow,
leap with delight!
How doves, released from their cages,
clatter away, splashed with sunlight!
But the donkey, tied to a tree as usual, waited.
Then he let himself be led away.
Then he let the stranger mount.
Never had he seen such crowds!
And I wonder if he at all imagined what was to happen.
Still, he was what he had always been: small, dark, obedient.
I hope, finally, he felt brave.
I hope, finally, he loved the man who rode so lightly upon him,
as he lifted one dusty hoof and stepped, as he had to, forward.
Mary Oliver
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