Harrow My Soul’s Hades

How wondrous and timely a gift, compassionate Master, to give me Your cross at the middle of this wilderness walk. The dark, still unsanctified prison cells of my soul, after You have begun to pry them open throughout this journey, drawing me into the wilderness with bands of love and tenderness,¹ are now bursting open. The putridity of corruption is now seeping out and how I loathe the stench! The sting of death burns Your little turtledove, and I cry to You, “Oh, do not deliver the life of Your turtledove to the wild beast!”²

My Jesus, implant Your cross deeply within my very core. Harrow—yes, harrow—my inner Hades. Plunder these dark rooms that rightfully belong to You, that You have purchased with Your blood. Through Your cross, descend, O Jesus Master, into the lowest pit of my pitiable soul. Crush the gates of bronze, break the bars of iron asunder.³ Deliver the life of Your turtledove from the grasp of the enemy! “Remember this, that the enemy has reproached, O Lord!”⁴ Yes, my enemy has reproached and wagged his head, yet You, my Savior and Redeemer, have put him to eternal shame.⁵

“You broke the heads of Leviathan in pieces, and gave him as food to the people inhabiting the wilderness.”⁶
Yes, You give the enemy as food to the people inhabiting the wilderness!

We worship Thy Passion, O Christ. Show also unto us Thy glorious Resurrection.⁷

1. Hosea 11:4 ↩︎
2. Psalm 74:19 ↩︎
3. Isaiah 45:2; Psalm 107:16 ↩︎
4. Psalm 74:18 ↩︎
5. Psalm 78:66 ↩︎
6. Psalm 74:14 ↩︎
7. Fifteenth Antiphon of the Matins of Great and Holy Friday ↩︎