The Four Quartets - Holy Week

I know it is not yet Good Friday, but I can't help but share a part of my favorite poem, T.S. Eliot's The Four Quartets.  Each read is a spiritual exercise for me, and this Friday I will have these words on my heart: 

The wounded surgeon plies the steel

That questions the distempered part; 

Beneath the bleeding hands we feel

The sharp compassion of the healer's art

Resolving the enigma of the fever chart. 

Our only health is the disease 

If we obey the dying nurse

Whose constant care is not to please

But to remind of our, and Adam's curse, 

And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse. 

The whole earth is our hospital

Endowed by the ruined millionaire, 

Wherein, if we do well, we shall

Die of the absolute paternal care

That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere. 

The chill ascends from feet to knees, 

The fever sings in mental wires.

If to be warmed, then I must freeze

And quake in frigid purgatorial fires

Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars. 

The dripping blood our only drink, 

The bloody flesh our only food: 

In spite of which we like to think 

That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood - 

Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.