We are, of course, Easter People.  We live and move in the joy of the resurrection, which we will celebrate VERY soon. 

According to creed and tradition,  between the crucifixion and the resurrection, Christ descended into hell.  He claimed redeemed those who had been trapped there. 

The Harrowing of Hell

Soul wails

Grovels in torment’s tendrils

Body long worm eaten, soul empty.

             Agonized.

Every small or grand wrong committed (every good omitted) wraps around

             the remains of the heart of soul – cords of iron, forged in pain’s flame. 

Every movement, the slightest motion, clamps the vice of sin another degree. 

             Every day I am drawn more deeply into the yawning maw that is

             Eternal.  Dark.  Despaiar. 

I thought death was finality—that it was total nonexistence. 

             That would have been better.  Far better. 

The empty desolation of all that I ever was sees a something lurking, skulking, stalking.

            A presence that is frigid emptiness.

The dark angel flutters.   It holds me in its chilling burning clench, piercing with empty infusions

that saturate with perpetual, hopeless LOSS.

In the core of my heart’s remains, yet in the remote distance I hear LOVE silently moaning.

 A strong yet beaten voice cries out:   "Father....Why have you forsaken me?"

∞∞∞∞

From beyond wherever I am, a stirring of windy breath and a voice shouting softly.

The cosmos splits with: “It is finished!"

In the center of my desire, yet in the unreachable distance something stirs,

like new life nestled deeply in a womb.

Chains, shackles and weights are loosened, lifted up in life breathing joy.

Eyes long dissolved see Love and hear forgiveness claiming a parched soul.

 I am enfolded.

 Claimed.

Gathered into the ONE who formed every fiber of my flesh in the

                        bowels of the earth long before time began, before there ever was time.

Alpha.  Omega.  Priestly Beloved Companion. 

 My God,  how can it be that
you came here to find me?


by Pamela Czarnota