Christ, my only king

my home's entry way, a couple of reminders that this week is unlike any other week

“Christ is my only King; it is for him that I fight; it is to him that I have given my glove; it is him I would glorify and defend… 

There is only one truth, and that is to love Jesus Christ and to teach others to love him, to give him our poor miserable and lacerated hearts… 

Jesus’ preaching addresses itself not only to the outer man but to the inner. His task is to reach the heart of hearts. It is not just his power that he must display, as when he changes water into wine, multiplies the loaves, calms the sea. There are all those hard hearts, those hearts of stone that he must soften and melt by planting in them the spark of love and ridding them of the scab of habit and the ulcer of sin. 

This is why his whole campaign up to the very end is a profusion of good deeds; it is the suffering flesh that must be won over first. He gives sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf. He straightens the palsied; he purifies the lepers; he drives out unclean spirits; he feeds the starving—if necessary he even raises the dead; but more wonderful still, he forgives sins! He knows that we cannot help loving someone who is good to us, and if it is through God that this good is done, well, perhaps we will begin to love God a little and to obey him, for it is clear and evident that in this way lies salvation.”

~Paul Claudel, 

“I Believe in God: A Meditation on the Apostle’s Creed”