Stephen to Lazarus

But was I the first martyr, who
Gave up no more than life, while you,
Already free among the dead,
Your rags stripped off, your fetters shed,
Surrendered what all other men
Irrevocably keep, and when
Your battered ship at anchor lay
Seemingly safe in the dark bay
No ripple stirs, obediently
Put out a second time to sea
Well knowing that your death (in vain
Died once) must all be died again?


--C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English author, poet, and Christian apologist

The Convert

After one moment when I bowed my head 

And the whole world turned over and came upright, 

 And I came out where the old road shone white, 

 I walked the ways and heard what all men said, 

 Forests of tongues, like autumn leaves unshed, 

 Being not unlovable but strange and light; 

 Old riddles and new creeds, not in despite 

 But softly, as men smile about the dead.

The sages have a hundred maps to give 

 That trace their crawling cosmos like a tree, 

 They rattle reason out through many a sieve 

 That stores the sand and lets the gold go free: 

 And all these things are less than dust to me 

 Because my name is Lazarus and I live.


—G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), English journalist, mystery novelist, and poet, convert to Catholicism at age 48.

Scripture Reference: John 11:1-45, Lent 5A

Image: Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Resurrection of Lazarus