Hear, my soul, the vision of the night,
which I saw beneath the silence of the moon and the moaning of the winds,
where the broken sky lay open, and the Lamb stood upon the mount of passion,
clothed in glory, yet stained with His own blood,
whose eyes sparkled with eternal mercy,
and His voice resounded like the altar’s organ
amid the chorus of seraphim and the laments of the poor,
who cries: “I am the Lamb without voice, yet full of passion,
whose pierced hands uphold the world of sinners.
I bore the cross not of wood alone but of human sorrow,
descended into darkness to bring light to the mourners,
and rose bloodless, like the sun after storms,
to give life not by merits, but by charity.
And among His words I saw the mirror of my soul,
and in it the face of my solitary mother,
who prepared bread for me with sweat and tears,
while the world despised and left her broken.
O hands of my mother, laborious as palms in the desert,
who without rest endured nights of fasting,
and for me, like Mary beneath the cross, stood silent under life’s burden.
Lamb, I recognized in You her transfigured pain,
and Your voice said to me: “In your mother you can see My cross.
She is the figure of charity, by which she imitated Me.”
And my heart broke in ineffable groaning,
when I saw her tears in the garments of Your glory,
like precious gems hanging on the hem of Your tunic.
Then I wept, not from fear of damnation,
but from reverence for unreturned love.
And the Lamb touched me, not with earthly hand but with light,
and said: “Arise, O son, and walk in My way,
that your faith may become a monument to your mother,
and your life be a temple where her memory rests.”
And I rose, like Lazarus from the tomb,
and began my journey among the thorns of the world,
but my eyes always on the Lamb, and my heart on my mother.
O all you who pass by the way, attend and see
if there is sorrow like the sorrow of a mother who held her son with lonely arms.
And when the Lamb comes again in glory and awe,
at His right hand will stand she who nourished me through tears,
and He will say: “Behold the faithful handmaid, whose love is the crown of her son.”
And there, in the golden city, beneath the tree of life,
I shall rest between the Lamb and my mother,
where there will be no mourning nor toil, but praise without end.
Jesse Chukwuka OKEKE
Class of 2025