They Could Come on Friday: Good Friday pregnancy reflection

These words came to me as I have been preparing my heart, mind, and body 

for the pre-term delivery of my twin daughters in the next week or two.

Imaga Christa:
This crucifix was given to me by my spiritual director:
the figure on the cross is woman, holding a baby.

They could come on Friday...

People will gather for vigils at noon

or in dimly lit churches

filled with soft candlelight to hear the story

of long ago.

Of thorns and crowns,

nails and wooden beams.

There will be no tenebrae for me

as I enter a room of strangers,

surrounded by metal instruments yielded

not by the hands of Roman soldiers as

implements of torture

but as tools of

healing.

But the fear is still there.

It won’t be under the noonday sun,

or a sky that suddenly turned black.

Instead it will be under

cold

fluorescent

lights

that betray no sense of time where

my arms will be stretched

wide,

as far as they can reach:

I love you this much.

I may cry that I thirst,

but there is no water,

or wine,

or vinegar

for my parched, dry mouth.

No sword will pierce my side

but

there will be water

and blood.

They will lay his body in the depths of a tomb

and from the dark recesses of my womb,

where only God and modern science can see

they will pull out

new life.

And my daughters will breathe their first breaths,

and cry their first cries,

and I will remember that in him was

LIFE.

That the life was the light of the people,

and the darkness did not overcome it.

Then Friday will be truly,

remarkably,

miraculously

GOOD.