PLEAD THOU MY CAUSE!

I

ATTRITION

Plead Thou my cause, else who will plead for me,
My Kingly Advocate before the Throne?
Trembling I stand; guilty, ashamed, alone,
Girt only by my own iniquity,
Cried down by sins that fain would silence Thee,
Some coming after, some to judgment gone.
What I have done, what I have left undone,
Beckon me out to deathless misery.

The Court is set, and will not let me go;
The heavy books are black with blotted shame.
I cannot answer; none can plead but Thou.
I knew not what I did in sinning so;
Hell hungers for me; see, the worm, the flame
Nought but Love’s eloquence can save me now.

PLEAD THOU MY CAUSE!

II

CONTRITION

Plead Thou my cause; yet let me bear the pain,
Lord, Who hast done so much to ransom me,
Now that I know how I have wounded Thee,
And crucified Thee, Prince of Life, again.
Yea, let me suffer; Thou wilt not disdain
To let me hang beside Thee on the Tree
And taste Thy bitter Cup of agony.
Let it not be that Thou hast died in vain.

Ah, awful Face of Love, bruised by my hand,
Turn to me, pierce me with Thine eyes of flame,
And give, me deeper knowledge of my sin.
So let me grieve and, when I understand
How great my guilt, my ruin, and my shame,
Open Thy Sacred Heart and let me in!

Beautiful lyrical poems of being human, surrender and weakness.  Important to note though that Father Benson wrote this poem before 1903, before his conversion to Catholicism.  A son of the Archbishop of Canterbury, leader of the Church of England, and a member of a highly respected academic family, his conversion was widely publicized and discussed.  I wonder if after his conversion to Catholicism, he would have wrote the first line: ‘Plead Thou my cause, else who will plead for me’.  Brought into the teaching and ways of Catholicism, would he have recognized the advocacy of Our Holy Mother?  I am positive a brilliant scholar, one trending more toward prayer and mysticism, would easily become aware of Our Holy Mother’s power in pleading our case to Her Son.

Mary Undoer of Knots

She moves in tumult; round her lies
The silence of the world of grace;
The twilight of our mysteries
Shines like high noonday on her face;
Our piteous guesses, dim with fears,
She touches, handles, sees, and hears.

In her all longings mix and meet;
Dumb souls through her are eloquent;
She feels the world beneath her feet
Thrill in a passionate intent;
Through her our tides and feelings roll
And find their God within her soul.

Her faith and the awful Face of God
Brightens and blinds with utter light;
Her footsteps fall where late He trod;
She sinks in roaring voids of night;
Cries to her Lord in black despair,
And knows, yet knows not, He is there.

A willing sacrifice she takes
The burden of our fall within;
Holy she stands; while on her breaks
The lightning of the wrath of sin;
She drinks her Savior’s cup of pain,
And, one with Jesus, thirsts again.

Robert Hugh Benson

The world depicted in ‘Lord of the World’ (Benson’s novel) is one where creeping secularism and Godless humanism have triumphed over religion and traditional morality. It is a world where philosophical relativism has triumphed over objectivity; a world where, in the name of tolerance, religious doctrine is not tolerated. It is a world where euthanasia is practiced widely and religion hardly practiced at all. The lord of this nightmare world is a benign-looking politician intent on power in the name of “peace,” and intent on the destruction of religion in the name of “truth.” In such a world, only a small and shrinking Church stands resolutely against the demonic “Lord of the World.”  Quote from http://www.catholicauthors.com/benson.html