Christ our Passover: the lasting sacrifice

Christ our Lasting Sacrifice
by Mary Harwell Sayler

I have come to do Your Will, O God
for the blood of animals cannot take away
sin forever.
Short-lived sacrifices, short-term offerings
do not cover sin forever,
and so You have prepared for Me
a Body
ready to be sacrificed –
the First to Last –
ready to do Your Will.

I have come to do Your Will, O God
as Holy Scriptures said I would
for You can no longer tolerate
temporary fixes:
interim sacrifices, itinerant offerings, burnt
offerings, sin offerings once accorded by Law.

You Will, O God, I have come to do to
fulfill the first way and establish the second
to sanctify All by offering
Myself –
the Body of Christ
arising – First and Last –
to do Your Will, O God.
I have come to do Your Will.



© Mary Harwell Sayler, all rights reserved; prayer-a-phrase poem from today’s Bible reading in Hebrews 10:4-10

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Christ on Holy Saturday

Re: Deemed
by Mary Harwell Sayler

Consider the lily
of the moon.

Consider how
its spinning
does not toil.

Consider the lily-
shaped flames of hell
where the wretched
walk through water
on Christ’s back:

His face a lily
white with flame,

His tongue an
inferno for our
wrong words,

His eyes alight
with our cured souls,

His Body
our kind Host
of comfort.


© 2013, Mary Sayler, all rights reserved. “Re:Deemed” appeared on the Catholic Exchange website in 2007 and is included in the Kindle e-book, a Christian Poet’s Guide to Writing Poetry, available from Amazon.

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