Joseph Kreydt

Tag: suffering

  • The Pain of a Beloved’s Pain

    A handwritten page from a notebook containing a reflective text about dignity, self-worth, and the implications of treating others as divine.
    When someone sees you as a god — a woman degrades herself because she sees you as the one who gives her value — the loving response always involves some sort of crucifixion. For the undignified woman, your own desires and any potential response which does not aim to restore her dignity must be killed, no matter how painfully, in such a way that her own dignity can be restored without shame.

    The pain Christ feels is not because our sins hurt him. It’s because it hurts to see a beloved one degrade or afflict their self. In the crucifixion, he takes our degradation and affliction upon himself. That is the preferable pain when someone you love is hurting.

  • Adoration, Wednesday Night

    On My Knees, In Adoration Wednesday Night

    Show me a miracle,
    One I don’t have to believe,
    One I can see.

    I want to know.
    Then I promise I’ll follow
    Wherever you lead.

    I know I’m not blessed.
    I know I’m not happy.

    I know I am aching
    For something I need.

    I see the pooling blood.
    But I can’t figure out
    What is making me bleed.

    I know this: I am lonely.
    I am lonely, please,
    Come close to me.

    Show me a miracle,
    One I can see.
    Show me a miracle.

    At the End of Adoration Wednesday Night

    After showing him this mess of mud,
    This man who bled water and sweated blood,
    I had no will to leave,

    And so I clung, like a child, on my knees,
    Until I recalled something,
    From where I do not know.

    It said, "I will be with you,
    Whatever happens, trust me.
    Go."

  • The Man Who Just Sat Down

    The man who just sat down,
    You smiled at him.

    He did not smile back.
    He’s a large man.

    You might have been offended
    By his lack of courtesy,
    But you’re wiser now.
    You’ve received the grace of pain.

    And so instead of taking offense,
    You wonder if his age and size
    Have amounted to a painful walk
    That felt, to him, like a marathon.

    And then you see his knee,
    The scar down the middle,
    The oceanic swelling.

    It wasn’t that he didn’t smile,
    This man who just sat down.
    It was that he couldn’t smile.