VI
ECCE HOMO

Your body which is white like the Host
has become the Gospel for men.
The Hellenic Gods in the pink clouds
of Olympus offered their bodies
as a classic example of beauty,
a joy of life that has passed away;
but only You, the flesh which suffers,
the hurting flesh which bleeds,
could give to us mortals, as food
for the heart, the bread of immortality.

You are the Man-God, the Son of Man!
Humanity suffered the painful birth
of a death which was the salvation of life,
bringing your light as the Light of our night;
this is the man of God during our night,
and manhood is His divine humanity.
You are the Man, the Reason, the Norm;
your cross is our staff, the measure
of pain which purifies and is the support
of our righteousness: it lifts up
the heart of the man who has fallen.
You have humanized the universe, Christ.
“Behold the Man!” through whom God is real.
“I have no Man!” we say in moments of John 5:7.
mortal anguish; but you answer:
So great is the Man, the King of those           John 11: 25 & 14: 6.
who are outcast, of the Holy Church,
of those who are homeless, who cross
the mortal desert looking for the true
meaning of the eternal, which is the cross!...