The Bitter Lamentations of Lent: Gorzkie Żale

Angry at the Church? Angry at God?  

I know people who are angry at God because their mother, spouse, child or good friend died. Some others reject the Lord’s Supper Sunday invitation because of priest scandals. At the report of harassing of Black women in Hollywood or abusing silver-screen’s child stars has anyone stopped downloading movies?

Jesus was abused. Jesus was bullied. Jesus was harassed. Jesus was severely victimized to death. People judged Him and murdered Him.  None of the above was right. Did He stop loving? Did He divorce himself from us humans? Did He condemn anyone? He, rather, forgave people as they were tormenting Him.  Some flippantly assert, “Well, He was God.” Jesus was also a full, flesh-and-blood human being. He felt every bitter pain and insult.

When was the last time you celebrated His pain? Yes, celebrate God’s wounds. No, not as a vindictive, “make my day” terminator, but as a victor in Jesus.  Celebrating is the opposite of terminiting or blaming others. It means bonding your hurts and painful feelings to Jesus who loves us to death and beyond.  Going through our traumas with Jesus, not around, under, or just getting over it, means Resurrection. Only then are we healed.

Most triumphs come after immense suffering and sacrifice.  After dying to something, falling on our face, the One who fell three times, raises us up. Kids learn with a brush-burned knee, when stung by a wasp, or after getting a black eye: it’s not the end of the world, unless we give our permission. We just need to reach out (of ourselves).

What have you been dying to this Lent? On Easter Sunday, from what will is Jesus be raising you up?

Bitter Tears, Mystical Lamentations of Lent

Polish spirituality celebrates human beings harassing, bullying, abusing, condemning God to execution in the famous Bitter Lenten Lamentations or Gorzkie Żale. Try singing a celebration of God’s pain, which we ourselves inflict upon Him. It’s tough liturgy, and true devotion. Jesus’ immense pain dimmed the noontime sun, the silver moon, as anguishing stars blushed in shame. Distressed angels wept.

A similar scenario appears in Giotto’s Crucifixion scene, the world-renowned masterpiece fresco in the lower basilica of St Francis in Assisi, Italy. Giotto was the first Western artist to depict human emotions.  Prior to his work, religious art was only to depict majesty, glory, and austere divinity even from the Cross.  This innovator painted angels flying around Jesus’s cross weeping, wailing, and crying a cosmic, human lament, along with the darkened sun recounted in the Gospels.

Chanting these enchanting lyrics, penetrates the hard-hearted, shattering obstinate opinions. Singing  stirring  phrases, such as: Why such fright, such desolation overcoming all creation? One short step into your Passion, cools the flames of desperation, or Cleanse and heal my shattered soul, in your blood Lod make me whole. Matchless, emotional melodies interpret the lyrics.  If someone hasn’t felt this, could they really know or have ever met the Lord?

Jesus took on expansive global pain, the festering wounds of all ages, the abuse and harassment of every living creature. Harder than execution itself, was betrayal by His close companion, the apostolic treasurer.  Being clueless about human suffering, how can we boast of knowing the Lord? Does this not point out ignorance of God’s first prayer book, 150 Psalms?

LISTEN:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVlhETsIi20

God’s Biblical hymnal is replete with all the emotions, hurts, verbal and physical abuse humanity ever experienced. Such an explosion of pain lead Jesus to the brink of despair and doubt. From memory He then cried out Psalm 22: O God, my God why have you forsaken me? Jesus moaned loudly, hanging from the heights of the tree to which we fastened Him. No one raised a finger, only a vinegar-soaked sponge. God did not even answer His Son’s question. The Father left Him silent. Humans jeered, pointed fingers and tongues.  What incomprehensible psychological trauma, stress, anguish. These same tones reverberate in Polish Lenten Lamentations.

ENTER THE CONVERSATIONS WITH JESUS' SORROWFUL MOTHER
                 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuhVLw0Zx5U

I cannot envision a Lent, a life, a year without entering the “Conversation with His Sorrowful Mother.’ In this third section of the Bitter Lamentations people ask Mary: Holy Mother let me carry, His Cross, Passion deeply bury, in my soul redeemed by Him, and feelings reach deep beyond the guts to the soul’s root, Jezu mój kochany! Or Jesus my only true love! These words say it all. The love of generations of golden wedding anniversaries, centuries of Poland being betrayed by neighbors, meld my own foolish, sins of pride and are embraced by the only real love which heals our wounds, our abused selves.

This is the only authentic reality show, the drama God was born into, the tragedy conquered by eternal love. As chanting troubadours and knights, this Bitter Lenten celebration, throws us to our knees before God, vested in the power and might of divine mercy and forgiveness. As my father taught me, sharing the blessed egg of Easter Sunday breakfast: “Go through it, don’t spit out the bitterness (horseradish). Swallow it and it will pass. You’ll be nourished, stronger.”

This reflection, “Angry with the Church?” presents my life-long love affair with Bitter Lamentations, Gorzkie Żale, with the hope that, before visiting the East Side Market and reveling at Dyngus Day, you may follow suit.  Bitter Lamentations are sung in English at St Casimir Church, 160 Cable St, Buffalo, NY, 9:30am every Lenten Sunday and on Good Friday at 6pm. Consider attending if you’re angry at your boss, family, spouse, brother, sister, children, your country, or yourself.

Going through our anguishing moments with Christ’s vindicated abuse is spiritual anger management. Can we even find the Easter’s empty Tomb, without going through the Polish Calvary? Yet another reason why we need both Polish parishes and WNY Polonia to discover in them celebrations foreign to the populated suburbs yet so dear to our resilient ancestors.


When all that is familiar, comforting is removed from before us, we are challenged to find the image of Jesus is each other, particularly the abused, harassed, marginalized, and shunned of this world. Herein lies the deeper meaning of the shrouding of images towards the end of Lent. Look for, unveil  the image of Christ in each other.