...we must learn, not only how to die, but how to turn and turn again, as Mary Magdalene did twice before she saw that it was Jesus right in front of her in the garden. Have you ever wondered about the fact that the first witnesses to the resurrection, supremely here Mary, did not recognize Jesus at all in the first instance, and some - according to the gospel of Matthew - even continued to "doubt" when they were in his risen presence? This is another very strange thought: that the risen Christ, being God's Son, is here all the time but that we have to "turn" and keep "turning" towards his gaze, until our senses and mind and soul and heart are so attuned and magnetized to his presence that we too can say Rabbouni - not to grasp and hold him, not to constrain him within our restricted human categories, but to worship and adore him.
St. Thomas Aquinas, writing in the thirteenth century, rather ruefully acknowledges that the women in the gospels understood this better and first because, as he puts it, of their "greater capacity for love," their resoluteness in not abandoning Christ on the cross and in following him even to his place of burial. To "turn" is to keep longing for and loving him, even in despair, as these women did - to keep discerning the wind of Christ's Spirit and leaning into it, until love and knowledge and sensuality all align and we can know as we are known in him.
Thirdly, and finally, only thus shall we learn to "see the Lord," as Mary saw Him, through tears to be sure, but with absolute conviction and certainty. Many think that this doesn't happen anymore, but let me tell you (as one who was once a hospital chaplain, ministering to the dying) it does
Read it all (emphasis hers).
St. Thomas Aquinas, writing in the thirteenth century, rather ruefully acknowledges that the women in the gospels understood this better and first because, as he puts it, of their "greater capacity for love," their resoluteness in not abandoning Christ on the cross and in following him even to his place of burial. To "turn" is to keep longing for and loving him, even in despair, as these women did - to keep discerning the wind of Christ's Spirit and leaning into it, until love and knowledge and sensuality all align and we can know as we are known in him.
Thirdly, and finally, only thus shall we learn to "see the Lord," as Mary saw Him, through tears to be sure, but with absolute conviction and certainty. Many think that this doesn't happen anymore, but let me tell you (as one who was once a hospital chaplain, ministering to the dying) it does
Read it all (emphasis hers).
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