Pieta
by Donavon L Riley
The yearning to be held, as Mary cradled the broken Christ, speaks to the deep ache for a love strong enough to bear both our weight and our wounds. — D.
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There are days I feel hollow as the skies that crouched over Golgotha. The weight of this life presses in, iron-hard, sharp as nails through the thin meat of being. In those moments, I see Him again—Christ drawn down, limp and mottled, flesh purpled by death’s bloom. His mother gathers Him in, her arms steady as he sags into her. Mary, hollowed by grief, cradled Him as though shielding what the world had already broken. And I wonder: is there, anywhere, a lap wide enough to bear the ache I carry, to unburden and enfold the weary ruin I am?
Her arms must have held like sinew, her fingers set as a briar’s grip even as salt fell from her. What a strange strength, this holding of ruin and finding beauty still. I long for that cradling—bone-deep and unyielding, the fierce kindness of an embrace that lets a heart weep itself raw. To be held like that, not mended but met, the shards borne steady in another’s hands, is a balm too wild to hope for. But still, I dream of it. Still, I ache.
I have no Pietà of flesh and breath, no arms waiting to shore me at the foot of this daily cross, but I have Him. He, who bore His breaking not to banish pain but to enter mine. His wounds gash-wide yet redeemed, proofs that what scars remains and yet, somehow, is made whole. In His battered hands is the grace of Mary’s hold, the strength to gather brokenness and believe it can rise. He cradles me as His mother cradled Him, drawing my ruin close until all its sharp edges soften in His touch.
If no arms sweep me into their rest, still He does: lap wide as the heavens, love broad enough for the world’s ruin. He waits where the nails tore and the thorns sank. And when the cross is at last behind me, I too will feel those arms draw me in. I will find rest, weightless, in the hold that bore me from earth’s ache to glory’s threshold, whole at last.
***Artwork: Lamentation of Mary/Pieta by Emilee Verduin