Blog Post

Portal of the Mystery of Hope - The Conclusion

by Charles Péguy

Feast of St Euthemios the Enlightener of Karelia

Anno Domini 2020, April 18

by Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) c. 1656

Night, you are holy; Night, you are great; Night, you are beautiful.

Night of the great mantle.

Night, I love you and I salute you and I glorify you and you are my great daughter and my creature.

O beautiful night, night of the great mantle, my daughter of the starry mantle

You remind me, myself, you remind me of the great silence that existed

Before I had unlocked the firmament of ingratitude.

And you proclaim, even to me, you herald to me the silence that will exist

After the end of man’s reign, when I will have reclaimed my scepter.

And sometimes I think about it ahead of time, because this man really makes a lot of noise.

But above all, Night, you remind me of that night.

And I will remember it eternally.

The ninth hour had sounded. It was in the country of my people of Israel.

It was all over. That enormous adventure.

From the sixth hour to the ninth hour there had been a darkness covering the entire countryside.

Everything was finished. Let’s not talk about it anymore. It hurts me to think about it.

My son’s incredible descent among men.

Into their midst.

When you think of what they made of Him.

Those thirty years that He was a carpenter among men.

Those three years that He was a sort of preacher among men.

A priest.

Those three days when He fell victim to men.

Among men.

Those three nights when He was dead in the midst of men.

Dead among the dead.

Through the centuries of centuries that He’s been a host among men.

This incredible adventure was finished.

The adventure that has tied my hands, God, for all eternity.

The adventury by which my Son has tied my hands.

Tying the hands of my justice for eternally, untying the hands of my mercy for eternally.

And against my justice, inventing a new justice.

A justice of love. A justice of Hope. Everything was finished.

Everything that was necessary. As it had to be. As my prophets had foretold it. The veil of the sanctuary had been torn in two, from top to bottom.

The earth had shook; rocks had been split.

Tombs had been opened, and many of the bodies of saints that had died rose again.

And around the ninth hour my Son had uttered

The cry that will never fade. Everything was finished. The soldiers had returned to their barracks.

Laughing and joking because another task was finished.

One more guard duty that they’d no longer have to make.

One centurion alone remained, and a few men.

Just a simple little post to guard the insignificant tree.

The gallows where my Son was hanging.

Only a few women had remained.

His Mother was there.

And perhaps a few disciples as well, beyond that we can’t be sure.

Now every man has the right to bury his own son.

Every man on earth, if the great misfortune befalls him

Not to have died before his son. And I alone, God,

My hands tied by this adventure,

I alone, father at that moment like so many fathers,

I alone was unable to bury my son.

It was then, o night, that you arrived.

O my daughter, my most precious among them all, and it is still before my eyes and it will remain before my eyes for all eternity

It was then, o Night, that you came and, in a great shroud, you buried

The Centurion and his Romans,

The Virgin and the holy women,

And that mountain, and that valley, upon which the evening was descending,

And my people of Israel and sinners and, with them, He who was dying, He who had died for them.

And the men sent by Joseph of Arimathea who were already approaching

Bearing the white shroud.

*Full book-length poem in The Portal of the Mystery of Hope translated by David Louis Schindler, Jr., published by Eerdmans (1996), and available at Eighth Day Books

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