A beautiful short Sunday-poem. Using just a few words, Joseph Massey creates an exquisite image of prayer in an empty church. Do sit with it for a moment.
In an empty church in the middle of the day dark but for stained glass flooded with sun, a prayer held in the breath in my hands.
You can find his latest bestselling book of poems here.
This is such an incredibly beautiful piece by Sarah Clarkson, one of my favorite writers. Beautifully written with a piece of wisdom we all need to hear.
My Mind, My Enemy
When mental illness struck, my mind became my enemy. Would I battle it, or learn to love it?
When I was a child my mind was a gift.
Not the practical sort you’re supposed to use diligently but the magical kind, the sort of gift you’d find in the hands of your fairy godmother. My imagination was my secret companion. She was mighty and she was wild, and my first memories shimmer and burn with the beauty she revealed. The ordinary scenes of my outdoorsy, bookish childhood became the stuff of high fantasy. She made dryads of my backyard trees, filled the sky with talking stars, and made a heroine of sunburned little me on the commonest of days. I might return from an afternoon at play with the wistful air of an orphan or the lofty brow of a princess in search of her lost throne.
As I grew older, the scenes in my mind spilled into words that I began to scrawl into half-baked poetry and tentative stories about kindly unicorns, then adventure tales, then yearning, windswept epics. As I stood at the cusp of adulthood, I found that my imagination led me into wide, starlit spaces within my own heart, where I lay hushed and wakeful in the long evenings, reaching toward a mystery I desired with all my being.
She brought me so much goodness, until the day she betrayed me.
You can read the rest here. You can also listen to it here.
I’m not sure where I found this Sunday-poem or who the poet is. There are some very beautiful thoughts expressed here which I pray touches your heart and its desires.
Woman of fire, woman of desire, woman of great passions, Woman of the lavish gesture. Mary of Magdala!
The icons show you robed in red, covered in the blood of the Lamb, a living flame, a soul set afire. You are there at the foot of the cross: kneeling, bending low, crushed by sorrow, your face in the dust.
You love, but in that hour of darkness, dare not look on the disfigured Face of Love. It is enough that you are there, brought low with Him, Enough for you the Blood dripping from the wounded feet Blood seeping into the earth to mingle with your tears.
You seek Him on your bed at night, Him whom your heart loves. David’s song is on your lips: “Of Thee my heart has spoken. Seek his face. It is Thy Face, O Lord, that I seek; hide not Thy face from me” (Ps 26:8-9).
His silence speaks. His absence is a presence. And so you rise to go about the city, drawn out, drawn on by Love’s lingering fragrance. “Draw me, we will run after Thee, in the odor of your ointments” (Song of Songs 1.3).
You seek Him by night in the streets and broadways; you seek Him whom your soul loves, with nought by your heart’s desire for compass. You seek Him but do not find Him.
In this, Mary, you are friend to every seeker. In this, you are a sister to every lover. In this you are close to us who walk in darkness and wait in the shadows, and ask of every watchman, “Have you seen Him whom my soul loves?”
Guide us, Mary, to the garden of new beginnings. Let us follow you in the night. Wake our souls before the rising of the sun. Weep that we may weep and in weeping become penetrable to joy.
The Gardener waits, the earth beneath His feet watered by your tears. Turn, Mary, that with you we may turn and, being converted, behold His Face and hear His voice and, like you, be sent to say only this: “I have seen the Lord” (John 20:18).
I must confess that I have always been bothered by Christ’s words to Mary Magdalene at the tomb, telling her to not hold on to him. I’ve read many commentaries on that passage but still find my heart protesting. How can you ask her–how can you ask me–to not hold on to you? But then I came across this:
“Yes, by all means, hold on to him! Grasp his cloak or grasp his legs, or throw your arms around his body and hold him tight! But you must do this in the right way, for he cannot be held by merely human arms. Rather, it is the love of your heart which alone can hold him, the faith and hope that impel you to surrender yourself trustingly into his embrace. You can hold him when you let yourself first be held.” (Joshua Elner)
I found this prayer somewhere–sorry, I have no memory of where–and since then we have prayed it together in our community every Holy Saturday morning.
Lord Jesus Christ, in the darkness of death; in the abyss of the deepest loneliness abides now and always the powerful protection of Your Love; in the midst of Your hiding we can by now sing the Hallelujah of the saved. Grant us the humble simplicity of faith, which will not be swerved when You call us in the hours of darkness and abandonment, when everything seems difficult: grant us, in this time when a mortal battle is being fought all around You, enough light not to lose sight of You; enough light that we can give it also to those still in need of it. Let the mystery of Your Easter joy shine like the light of dawn on our days; grant us that we may be truly men and women of Easter in the midst of the Holy Saturday of history. Grant us that through the bright and dark days of these times we may always with a light heart find ourselves on the path towards Your future glory. Amen.
I want to share one more thing this Good Friday from almost twenty years ago when I was meditating on this painting by Giotto.
As I prayed with this image, I placed myself at the feet of Jesus, my heart so deeply desiring to venerate his most sacred feet, even in his death, but feeling so extremely unworthy. This is the prayer that I then prayed:
“I will kiss your feet while your Mother kisses your Holy Face–and You will be so wholly taken by her kisses that you will mistake mine for hers and be so perfectly comforted in your Passion that you will not notice those of your betrayers . . . Jesus, I offer you her sweet kisses. Be taken by them. In the company of the myriad of those who kiss your hands, your handmaids who have gone before me, those you have lifted up by your favor. We will cover you with kisses . . . Who am I that I even dare to touch your sacred feet with my sullied lips? Yet I give you my poor little kisses; your sacred flesh will purify them as does a hot burning coal (cf. I 6:6-7)”
Addendum: In the years since then, the Lord has shown me clearly how much he values my kisses. And, to be sure, yours as well.
There’s always hope. We just need to weep and wait for him.
Judas, Peter
because we are all betrayers, taking silver and eating body and blood and asking (guilty) is it I and hearing him say yes it would be simple for us all to rush out and hang ourselves but if we find grace to weep and wait after the voice of morning has crowed in our ears clearly enough to break our hearts he will be there to ask us each again do you love me
“He who is more fair than all the sons of men offered his fair face to be spat upon by sinful men; he allowed those eyes that rule the universe to be blind-folded by wicked men; he bared his back to the scourges; he submitted that head which strikes terror in principalities and powers to the sharpness of the thorns; he gave himself up to be mocked and reviled, and at the end endured the cross, the nails, the lance, the gall, the vinegar, remaining always gentle, meek and full of peace.” (From The Mirror of Love by St. Aelred)