About This Week's Prompts for Personal Meditation
With the raising of Lazarus from death, the religious authorities find reason to begin the final plot against Jesus. Mary understands that Jesus is to die, and annoints him with costly nard, as if for his burial. She wipes his feet with her hair. The extravagant gesture also anticipates the outpouring of the life of the Holy Spirit upon and within us. But hasn't that outpouring already begun (meditation one)? And isn't this outpouring present in nature and wisdom and consciousness (meditation two)? I don't see this most of the time. And so I pray for new life to arise in me (meditation three).
And I pray for this new life to arise in you. -Suzanne
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Meditation One
now it springs forth
His disciples said to him, "When will the rest for the dead take place, and when will the new world come?" He said to them, "What you are looking forward to has come, but you don't know it."
His disciples said to him, "Twenty-four prophets have spoken in Israel, and they all spoke of you." He said to them, "You have disregarded the living one who is in your presence, and have spoken of the dead."
-Gospel of Thomas 51-52
Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
-Isaiah 43:18-19
Those who sowed with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying the seed, will come again with joy, shouldering their sheaves.
Psalm 126:6-7
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| Quentin Massys, Detail, Mary Magdalene |
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Anointing
Mute, she speaks,
I know.
The Word replies in silence,
I know that you know.
Scent of nard pervades the room,
like Spirit's extravagant outpouring.
Now, I know that you know that I know.
-sg
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Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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| Woman Anointing Jesus At The House of Simon, Dieric Bouts, 1440's, Detail |
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Meditation Two
the gift of new life
Together at table are Lazarus and Jesus: one has just returned from the tomb and the other will soon be placed in his tomb.
The pouring and flow of the perfume suggests the gift of new life which passes from one to the other: from Jesus to Lazarus. Again, here on the sixth day, we are beyond the laws of “before and after,” of temporal causality, just as we are beyond the counsels of economic prudence. The gifts of new life which this perfume signifies, however, is not the same mortal life; the quality of this substance speaks of something further: the eternal life which is the life of God and of the new creation.
-Bruno Barnhart The Good Wine: Reading John from the Center p.213
There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness this mysterious Unity and Integrity is Wisdom, the Mother of all, Natura naturans. There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is a fount of action and joy. It rises up in wordless gentleness and flows out to me from the unseen roots of all created being, welcoming me tenderly, saluting me with indescribable humility. This is at once my own being, my own nature, and the Gift of my Creator's Thought and Art within me, speaking as Hagia Sophia, speaking as my sister, Wisdom.
-Bruno Barnhart The Good Wine: Reading John from the Center pp.215-16
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Meditation Three
O Jesus, rise in me
I have no wit, no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numbed too much for hopes or fears;
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
I lift mine eyes, but dimmed with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is in the falling leaf:
O Jesus, quicken me.
My life is like a faded leaf,
My harvest dwindles to a husk;
Truly my life is void and brief
And tedious in the barren dusk;
My life is like a frozen thing,
No bud nor greenness can I see:
Yet rise it shall - the sap of Spring;
O Jesus, rise in me.
-Christina Rossetti 1830-1894
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The Last Word
Where there is no extravagance there is no love, and where there is no love there is no understanding.
-Oscar Wilde 1854-1900
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