Ah, how long the Cross is! How enormous and difficult! How hard it is! How rigid! How heavy the weight of the useless sinner! How long must one carry it step by step until one dies upon it! Is it you who are going to carry it all alone, Lord Jesus? Make me patient in my turn with the wood you want me to bear. For we must bear the Cross before the Cross bears us.

Paul Claudel (1868-1955)
Writer

“Through the curtainless window, I can see, for a while now, a little star shining down on me. I don’t sleep – but, the night between Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday, isn’t made for sleeping! The mountains and forests surround me in a luminous effusion and the full moon, rising inch by inch, casts her pious regard on the world. The full moon, without a single movement, shines out in the midst of eternity. Oh happy night who alone knows the hour of Jesus’s resurrection! Nothing resists this conqueror: the doors are shut, but He passes to the other side of the wall. In the same way, as time marches on, He passes through it without ever breaking its measure. We never know a thing is happening until it has already happened. We learn all of a sudden that the Lord is risen! The silence of the centuries before Me could not go on forever! There was no longer any way we could say of the earth whom we had so oft questioned that she had kept her silence! The stars, one after another all in a commotion, started telling all about what they had seen! The earth broke out of its silence, and suddenly began to say what she knew! The sun hadn’t risen yet: there was still an hour left of this immense solitude! There is no one to guard the tomb but these millions of stars arrayed for battle, vigilant from the North Pole, even to the South! And, suddenly, under the clear light of the moon, the bells began to ring!”

Paul Claudel (1868-1955)
Writer