Today we have the third Servant Song of Isaiah, and here is part of it: ‘The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I turned not backward. I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I hid not my face from shame and spitting. For the Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been confounded; therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame; he who vindicates me is near’.

St Gregory Nazianzen wrote: ‘Many indeed are the wondrous happenings of that time: God hanging from a cross, the sun made dark and again flaming out; for it was fitting that creation should mourn with its creator. The temple veil rent, blood and water flowing from his side: the one as from a man, the other as from what was above man; the earth shaken, the rocks shattered because of the rock; the dead risen to bear witness to the final and universal resurrection of the dead. The happenings at the sepulchre and after the sepulchre, who can fittingly recount them? Yet no one of them can be compared to the miracle of my salvation.  A few drops of blood renew the whole world, and do for all men what the rennet does for the milk: joining us and binding us together’.

‘A few drops of blood renew the whole world’ … so much needed in our time. May God bless your keeping of this Holy Week, and draw you ever closer to Himself.