Sunday 16 April 2017

Reunion of the Mother and Son: Easter Dawn


It is often asked where the risen Christ was when the women, and later the apostles, got to the garden... Mystics and Mothers (who are often the same thing) have always known the answer.
After all, where would any son go first who had put his mother through so much?
The following lines express this hidden and unknown joy of Mary perfectly...
May it be your meditation this Easter morning.



 Reunion:



The stone rolled off,
And no one saw it.
Her heart was jubilant
And full of ecstasy.
She knew that a sea of joy
Would flow out of the sea of sorrow;
Although it would
Recede to sorrow again

She could remember
Being born in the midst of
God the Father,
And being created
Before creation.
Did She truly watch
Light come out of darkness?
Did she see shores
Come into being?
It seemed you could play
See-saw on a wave!!

She never moved.
Quietly and closed in a room,
She sat behind a door
That no one dared to open,
And looked upon the streets
Of her beloved Jerusalem,
Watching the crowds
Hurrying hither and yon;
Watching, and not seeing at all;
For the sea of sorrow
Was receding
Into the desert
Where seas go;
And she was playing
See-saw on a wave
Made by God.

She knew the Pieta was Piety.
The sorrow in her face
Was sorrow of the past.
Upon it lingered still
The shadow of the cross
And Him upon it;
But when her hands
Had touched His face,
Which the disciples thought was
Dead,
She felt the warmth
Pulsating through it.
How could God die?

He touched death
For an instant –
Abolished it forever,
And it became
An angel of surpassing beauty;
For whom men of faith
Would wait with bated breath;
Death hasn’t icy fingers at all
They are warm –
The fingers of the angel of love.
The ice, the cold, the decay
That is for men of earth to see;
For their eyes are not conditioned
To the resplendent state of the
Soul.

She knew
He was not dead forever;
Not one bone would decay.
He slept, quietly, obediently,
In the tomb;
For He was obedient
Even after death.

But when they rolled
The stone before the tomb
He was free to roam;
To come, to go
To be
Where all those years
He could not be
Or could show Himself.

Out of the tomb
To hell,
To bring joyous news;
Then, like a man
Would visit
In a pilgrimage of love,
The places that made His heart
Beat faster
As a man.

When She had held His cold-warm
Body
She trembled
With the joy of it –
Knowing He would come
To visit Her first
The Magdalene would be the next
To see Him.

So She sat alone
With the door closed –
They thought to grieve
But no! To wait.
Who was there to see
Or hear what passed?
Who was there to know
The glory
Of music born in that room?
The Music of His voice and Hers
Mingling as voices
Never did before.

“Tonight is the night
Of my first unknown joy.”

“It is just as well
That men count them as seven;
For how else could they count
My joys or sorrows?
There are not enough stars
In heaven
To add them up –
Seven will do nicely.”

“Come
Share in one of my unknown joys.”

“He came to Me
In my chamber,
My Son!
My Lover!
And overflowing rapture
Condensed in utter ecstasy
Filled Me again.






“It was as if
I had conceived anew,
For all my being
Felt His coming.
The room pulsated
With the beat
Of angels’ wings
But even the seraph’s eyes
Were sealed.
Not even they
Could look then
Upon the Mother and the Son
And so they chanted
Alleluias.

“Did you know that I,
The first stigmatic,
Had the wounds?
It happened simply,
Perhaps He was two or three,
Perhaps, I am not sure.
It is hard
for one who encompasses
eternity
to think in time.
One day He was playing
At My feet,
And suddenly
Like a little swallow
He kissed each foot.
The wounds began to throb.

“At seven or eight
He kissed each palm,
Lingeringly.
And I knew
The feel of nails.

“He came once
In early spring,
On a shiny sunny day.
His hands were full of flowers.
He sat on a small stool
And wove a crown for Me.
I knew the weight
Of thorns
Upon my head.

“In May, in your land,
Children repeat His gesture.
It brings back the memory
Of thorns, sweet, deep, sharp.

“He was a suckling at My breast.
One night,
Somehow, His face fell
From My nipples;
And His warm mouth touched my side.
Was it a kiss?
Was it a lance?
From that blest night
The pain was there
Never to go.

“So you must know
My unknown joy,
The rendezvous We hels –
My Son and I –
The night they thought
They had sealed His tomb
So tight.
Where do you think
He went?
He went to the place
He loves most in Palestine –
The room of His Mother.

“Wonders will never cease!!
The room was aflame;
For where My Son is,
There is My spouse,
The Crimson Dove
Who holds Me tight.
The angels’ wings
Made melody of strings
As they chanted their
Alleluias
In a circle of bliss,
And He sat at My feet
And I looked into His eyes –
Above to below.

“The Crimson Dove
Brought the flame of love;
And the Father was there
Unseen, jubilant, joyous,
Taking delight in His Son.
And as He did,
The Crimson Dove grew,
And a flame covered the earth.
Alleluia
Alleluia
Alleluia.

“The stone was still tight
On the tomb of My child
Who was with Me.

“I give you the Paschal gift.
Put out your hands
And take it to your heart
This is the night of joy!
Alleluia!
I am an
Alleluia
In the flesh
Tonight.”

(Lines from Catherine deHueck Doherty's epic poem: "Our Lady's Unknown Mysteries.)

Saturday 15 April 2017

Homily for the Easter Vigil 2017



Homily for the Easter Vigil: 


We have kept vigil… we  have waited with hope… we vigil with all of Christianity…with all of the cosmos who since that first Good Friday have entered into the Divine Space where these sacred events always exist, at once both human and divine, in time and in eternity.

We have walked their ancient paths, worn by countless generations of faith-filled ancestors all over the world, and we have arrived at that upper room where the Disciples and Apostles gather to wait… For what they do not know… they are simply called to wait… sustained by a silent Mother in their midst who believes as only a mother can believe that the story of her broken boy is not yet over…cannot yet be over… must not yet be over… She a single, silent point of illumined faith in a world of darkness and pain… a star shining in the night dark in despair…

Let us go to that place now and be with them a while, entering in spirit that room of darkened windows and locked doors… where, since yesterday afternoon, they have descended into that quiet that enters the human heart when, hoping against hope, we wait…
We wait…
We wait… when waiting itself seems a vain act, a hopeless effort of a heart and mind too broken to take in the awful reality of what has just happened…

The world would call it denial… it would see in it a people who are broken by their own betrayal of the One they claimed they loved and who now cannot accept the consequences of that betrayal…and so they leave us alone… their work is done… our work is done…we betrayed Him… they crucified Him… no matter who did what… who held the nails… who held the scourge… who placed the crown of thorns upon His head… He is dead… That is all… And so they leave them at the tomb… leave them to crawl back to the upper room of vigiling… of waiting… of silence…

We look around the room… and remember…Can it really be only a few days since He was here, speaking, teaching, loving? We see the bowl of water, the towel, we see the empty plate and cup, we remember His call to love and we remember his prediction of betrayal and how, just for a moment, almost none of them, none of us, could meet His eyes…

We try and stop remembering…instead we wait with them… not really sure of what we are waiting for… there is simply a silent insistence to be here… to gather… to wait… and sometimes… when we think no-one is watching or listening to weep… to weep for what we saw… those of us who stayed and walked behind Him in the crowd; to weep for what we didn’t see, those of us who fled to rooms and hills and hidden places where, though we did not see it all we felt it all… heard it all…

Sometimes it is harder to feel and to hear than it is to see… especially when the mocking voice arises from the silence of our hearts and sneeringly delivers us to the edge of despair as we look back and watch our brave words crumble into cowardice…

And so we wait… we wait as people have always waited at sickbeds and deathbeds, at moments of birth and moments of breaking, at moments of making and unmaking, we wait with the Earth our mother, and the sun and the stars our elder sisters and brothers; those powers who stopped in their tracks and hid their faces and broke open in horror at what their human brothers and sisters had done… at what we had done…
We wait as armies await the dawn hoping for the cry of a new day and a new hope… and slowly, hesitatingly, we remember…

Did He not say that this would happen? Did He not speak to us of a handing over… of a death that had to be faced… of an hour that had to come… Did He not berate us for not understanding… for not believing… Did He not in this very room…only a few hours ago tell us, as He broke the bread and blessed the Cup, that He would be taken from us but that He would return… and that then He would always be with us…

We hear His words in our hearts…
At first… they are weak sounding… against the so new and so near sight of blood, and nails, and spear, and… blood… so much blood, poured out upon the earth They are weak against the memory of His groans and words in the midst of agony upon the Cross…

But the words sound themselves in our hearts and with each one we shudder at the remembrance…
“Father forgive them they know not what they do”…
“Today you will be with me in paradise”…
“Mother behold your son”…
“Son behold your mother”…
“My God, My God Why have you forsaken me”…
“I thirst”…  
“Father…Into your hands I commend my spirit”…


And as they sound we remember that last groan… that almost silent word… more of a breath… a gasp, fighting its way to the surface to be heard…
“Kaaaah laaahhh”… “It is accomplished!”…
and somewhere deep in our memory awakens the knowing that this is the word the High Priest utters in the temple as the last Passover Lamb is slaughtered… Kahlah… it is accomplished…
and we are stilled…
and we think…
the lamb…
the blood of the Passover Lamb…
the blood daubed on door post and lintel that says in this place death has no power…

And we remember a man… John…worn thin and brown by prayer and desert sun both, and his arm, wiry and long, as it pointed across the river and his voice crying aloud, “Behold the Lamb!”… and we, they, all of us through all time begin to hope…begin to yearn… begin to pray… begin to think… maybe…just maybe…

For yes, He was truly the long-awaited Lamb and the true High Priest and even the Altar of Sacrifice itself and in that whispered moan of Kahlah as He yielded up His spirit He accomplished all that He had been sent to do, all that He had freely chosen…

In emptying Himself of Glory He descended into the darkness of a sin conquered world and became its liberator, its conqueror, its saviour, its light. And we who know that darkness, who know its pull and hear its siren call daily, know also that we are made for that light, long for that light, long for that love, long in the deepest places of our hearts for new beginning and the grace of an inward dawn that never yields to the night of self or death or sin again…
And this is what we vigil for… this is how we can endure the memory of the scourge, the crown, the nails, the cross, the spear… because we know how the story ended! Not in the dark despair of a Friday night, at the sealed dry rock of a tomb, but in the dawn light of a Spring garden on a Sunday morning where resurrection was announced by birds greeting the new day in song…

For in that divine breathing forth, that cry of Kahlah…
Life itself went forth to meet death,
Light itself went forth to meet darkness,
Love itself went forth to meet hate, and…
death was made the door of life,
darkness was dispelled and illumined, and
hate was defeated and cast down by Love
and breath born creation was in-spired again, created anew as in the Saviour’s expiration it received the breath of God…the Divine kiss of life saving a sin drowned cosmos and so could begin to breathe anew…

And this happened…this happened… and it is happening now… here in this place… not again, but always!
For in the eternal now of God this waiting in the darkness of sorrow, always becomes, when transcended with faith, a vigil of light and hope, always becomes a resurrection moment as we touch the power of the Risen One and His grace…

And this is how by Fire, and Story, and Water, and Bread, and Wine we pass through thousands of years of waiting and longing in a single night, and with hearts made new and candles kindled, we become who we really are: the anointed sons and daughters of God who know that the despair of the upper room on that Saturday will surely, surely, yield to Easter joy and light.

This is why we are able to not just tell the story but to become the story for a world that longs to hear it, needs to hear it, was made to hear it… and when we become that story in the Risen One, when we allow Him to once more be the Word made Flesh in us then, only then, does the marvel of Easter take place:

Christ will rise in your heart, in my heart.
Christ will work in us and through us.
Christ will pour out His blood upon us and breathe His Spirit into us and illumine us with His light and with His love…
And, when the moment comes for us to enter into His Kingdom, we will hear Him say, as He looks upon us all, “Kahlah!” “It is accomplished!”, and we will know ourselves to truly be His New Creation, His Victory Song, His Easter People who sing His Alleluia Cry…
This is why we vigil and this will be why we vigil to the end of time…

Yes…we have touched darkness…and will touch it again… earthly and fallible and fallen as we are…
We have seen how quickly our “Hosannas!” turn to cries of “Crucify!” and we know our sin, but we know our Saviour too and know that no darkness, however powerful it seems will stand against His Resurrection light!
No need for shame, or guilt, or fear, this Holiest of Nights, for they are the fruits of Adam’s turning away…now the new Adam appears, and with Him who is both God and Man we are returned not merely to Eden, but to Heaven itself, there to gaze upon the face of God forever and to hear our names called as children of the Most High…

Yesterday we kissed the Cross,
This evening we have vigilled from darkness to light
Tomorrow and forever…we are an Easter people for we know that above all, beyond all, behind all:
Christ has died,
Christ is risen,
Christ will come again!

May the Lord bless you and yours this Easter Night: The Father, The Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen!

Wednesday 12 April 2017

Spy Wednesday: a meditation

Spy Wednesday:

We feel it once again
approach,
the annual reminder,
the telling of the
true tale;
of the betrayal
of love,
of light,
of God
that exists
not just then
but
always;
an option in each
moment.
Beguiled by shadows
of desire,
always appearing
bigger and better
than the that whose
shape
they,
in their smoke selves
flickeringly take
falsely;
we tell ourselves
the story
as old as eden
"It is for our good,
for their good,
for goodness sake,
for eventual good."
But we
know,
always,
deep down we
know,
as inch by inch,
step by step,
we turn our back on
Him,
on Love,
and allow
the callous clinking of
coin
to fall upon the
floor
of a once clean
sanctuary,
our fairy gold that
disappears
in morning light,
yet we,
knowing that good is
hard,
too often
take the eden easy
way,
and
descend the
steps of
desire
until despair
beckons...
Hold!
He is looking at
you,
always,
in this moment,
meet His eyes,
who saw you
first in
eternal
gaze of Love
from everlasting,
and hear Him call
your true
name!
Give Him
your
judas shrunken self,
lost in egoic agony,
and let
His betrayed and bought
blood
purchase for you
instead
Peter's
true tears,
crystalising
into repentant
rock
beneath
Easter's
thrice told
benediction.

Sunday 9 April 2017

Palm Sunday extremes: The dangers of shrinking God...



Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday, a time to reflect on the extremes within us.

The same crowd who greet Jesus as King and Lord and sing “Hosanna!” shout “Crucify Him!” barely a week later. It is a reminder to us all of the potential for both good and evil present within our hearts… just because we are crying out hosanna in this moment does not mean that we may not fall and find ourselves crucifying Him in the next… Palm Sunday in its two Gospel passages sobers us… and gives us a vision of human reality, our reality. Beginning in joy and ending in sorrow it reminds us what happens when we try and shrink God, try and manipulate Him into what we want Him to be, or even worse into what we want Him to want us to be. The crowds shouting Hosanna do exactly this. They are good people, God fearing people even, and that may be their problem; they fear but they do not love. Love expands our understanding, fear shrinks it. In their fear and anger their understanding is limited and so they want God to submit to them, to follow their plan. They want Jesus to be their conquering Messiah, a warlord who raises an army and frees the chosen people from their Roman overlords. They don’t want what God wants to give; not a warlord Messiah but a suffering servant who frees, not just a city or a people from physical domination and slavery, but the whole cosmos from the slavery of sin and evil; They do not want it, but they receive not a king upon a throne, but a lamb upon a cross. 

Yes, “Hosanna!” can turn to “Crucify!” so easily, so quickly. It can do that in my heart, in your heart too. Anytime we try and shrink or constrain God to our plans, our way of thinking, or our agendas, no matter how worthy or good they seem to be, this is what happens… 

So what is our way out of this mess? Jesus shows us… In all of the chaos of palms and processions He is simply Himself, silent, still, present. He submits to the Will of the Father and empties Himself so that we may be filled… In the house of the High Priest, before Pilate and even on the Cross He is simply following the will of the Father and so is serene, secure, still. He is the still-point of pure love around which the world, the cosmos turns and in His stillness He opens for us an ever expanding vision of God, an ever expanding vision of Love. 

Let our Holy Week begin and be blessed by uniting ourselves with the Stillness of the Saviour and allow Him to call us to the simple acceptance of the will of the Father for us whatever it may be, the divine vision for us that never shrinks us to shout “Crucify!” but always gives us an ever-expanding vision of Love that causes us to sing “Hosanna!” We may not even know what it is for us in our lives as yet, but we can be certain that as long as we allow Christ to be the still centre of our being we will pass into the flow of the Divine Will, into the flow of Love.

(Pic is by James Tissot)