Tag Archives: Mary

A Mother’s Heart (sword pierced)

Posted on by
2

She had trembled when the elderly priest took her new-born son from her arms.

She had trembled at his words. Words of wonder and fear.

Her heart riven from the moment the angel stepped across her threshold, cracked open, wider still.

‘A sword will pierce your heart also’

As this child of Light kindled a flame of life with her body and her soul, the fire burned. Branded forever, with the name of God seared upon her being.

The Word of God stirring within her.

 

Like every mother before and after her, this daughter of Eve carried both the joy and the pain with the gift of new life. Like many young women down the millennia, she had known scandal and stigma, the sneers of assumption and misunderstanding.

The angel had sent her to Elizabeth’s door.

An older woman hollowed out with longing for a child, now full-bellied with spirited energy. The shame of barrenness had drawn lines upon her face that crinkled now with joy as Mary stepped within her arms.

Mary felt the child leap, as heart met heart, and tummies touched in the embrace.

‘Mother of my Lord’

A gasp of recognition.

A new name that rang in her ears and shivered down her skin. She rested her hand on the tiny child within, and reeled afresh at what this could mean.

His birth had been a journey of fear and joy, and stepping out into the unknown.

No familiar faces, comforting surroundings, no mother’s touch of hand to guide her through. Almost a child herself, she’d birthed him on a squalid floor, an outcast from the start. Shepherds had gathered to gawp in wonder at this baby in the straw.

Strangers from the East had come..

What did they know? What gifts were these they had brought?

Gold for a king… for one whose brow

would only know a twist of scorn and hate

whose proclamation writ upon a cross..

And yet they knew that He was more

than just an earthly king, as low they knelt

before the child, in worship and in awe.

Frankincense, the oil of homage, honour

given with Myrrh, the spice of death and grief;

strange gifts , indeed, to give

a tiny child who lay beneath a star.

 

A flight in the dark, refugees of murderous hate, she’d carried him mile upon weary mile towards an alien land. A place of safety she could rock her child to sleep. She would have walked forever to protect the trusting arms about her neck, the small head lying heavy on her shoulder.

He’d grown as children do, and ran from the shelter of her arms, scraping his knees and bruising his heart and hers. She’d lost him in the crowd. Fear clutched and speared as pushing through the throng, she’d searched for that beloved face. His tousled hair. How could she have failed him, let him slip from her sight? Angry with herself, and wound up with worry, she chanced upon him in the temple courts. A slight figure of a boy, surrounded by aged men. Deep in discourse, he’d not even noticed she was gone, seemed puzzled at her distress. The more she knew this child of her heart, the less she understood. The sword pricks drew blood & smarted.

 

He’d left her home, his father’s trade, an itinerant with nowhere to lay his head.

She worried, even as she witnessed the wonders and the growing crowds.

Worried as she heard rumours and tattles of the marketplace and synagogue.                     The whispers that kept her eyes staring at the dark.

She’d joined the press and push of the multitude that swarmed around her son.

Called to him from outside the close-packed dwelling that separated them.                   Called in vain. Deaf to her pleas, he did not come.                                                                                 Sharp sword that sliced through frail flesh.

All her worst nightmares had come to pass. She’d watched them take her boy and scourge the skin that she’d caressed. Nailed the hands she’d held, the feet she’d kissed to rough-hewn wood. Watched his agony, as her own heart bled.

Dared to stay when others fled. Dared to meet his eyes, although it took all the courage in her soul. Helpless before his pain, his dying breaths.

The sword cleaved her motherhood, her very core.

He spoke. Voice a raspy whisper, but no less beloved, no less familiar than his first stumbled syllables as a tiny tot. His eyes that had held her own, flicked to the man at her side. His closest friend, standing with her in the dark.

“Woman, here is your son”

with fierce intensity beamed his meaning to the disciple that he loved.

“Here is your mother’’

Take care of her, take care of her for me.

Her pain was harder than his own to bear, as his for her.

The old priest had spoken true. As broken bread, her heart was held in God’s nailed pierced hands.

6431516b7b6390e8d25f5c555584288a

 

Holy Gifts.

Taken

Chosen

A life lifted from obscurity

Held in hands that hefted galaxies

Hallowed by an ask

To sustain

The Word

 

Blessed

Given grace

To bear the weight of favour

Daughter of Eve,

Giving God a thankful heart

By holding His, within

Her own

 

Broken

Lanced by sword

That pierced Father, Spirit, Son.

Blood of her blood

Poured out for those

That clamoured for

His death.

 

Given

Her whole life

Offered on the altar

Of surrender

A readiness to be God’s Yes

Shared out to hungry hands

To feed a world

With grace

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bearers of Light

Posted on by
3

Mary didn’t feature much in my evangelical upbringing. She was there, but a two dimensional figure who didn’t impact me. I knew nothing of the controversies that surrounded her in the larger world of the church, and down the centuries.

During my adult years my spiritual journey has led me to travel with Mary more and more. She has so much to teach me. Her Yes to God, changing her life forever and that of the world. Her life after that, as a mother, watching her son grow up, and pondering.. turning all these things over in her heart. As a mother standing at the foot of the cross, watching in agony, the way any mother feels their child’s pain almost more than they do. After the resurrection. I have mused in sermons about the possibility of that undocumented meeting. ‘Mother and Son reunion’, I can’t believe it didn’t happen. Almost certainly unwitnessed by anyone else. We will never know this side of Heaven, but prayerful meditative imagination is a powerful way of experiencing the Word.

I am in the habit of scribbling poems in my Christmas cards (although this has become a much greater challenge amidst the pressures of ordained ministry). I was delighted to discover that a much better poet than I, also started that way. U.A. Fanthorpe.( Look her up, she is well worth discovering.) I have blogged some of my poems (click on the titles for the links to those posts)   I have collected some of the more recent ones, to put together in one post, as I prepare to write a sermon for Advent 4 – on Luke 1: 26-38 Gabriel’s visitation to Mary. Pulling together some of the facets of Mary’s life and particularly THAT moment, which have paralleled my own call to ordination, my experience as a former midwife, and my own musings about reputation and the painful process of letting go of even that.

I will post them in chronological order of Mary’s life, rather than the timing of writing them.

The following was written the first Christmas at Theological college, as I was struck ever deeper by how I could ‘bear the weight of this Light’ that God had asked me to carry in calling me to ordination.

Aftermath of Angels

Who are you and who am I

that you should choose me?

Who am I now

that I have chosen

to say yes?

How can I bear the weight

of this light,

carry the child of your heart;

hold He who is Love

within the limits of my own?

Face down, I lay my head

upon the earth

hide me under the shadow

of your wing.

As you form Him in me,

shape me within your hands.

Knit my soul

to the fabric of your being,

Cradle us both

In your enfolding

and bring us to birth

encircled by grace

Surrender. Trust. Saying Yes. My journey towards ordination has been one of struggle. I put up a gargantuan fight when God started to ask me to consider this possibility. (Moses had nothing on my protestations) Her Yes was instantaneous. I now fully embrace my calling, but it was not always so. This poem reflects this stage of my journey.

She said Yes-

but suppose the answer had been NO?

and Heaven held its breath

as in that startled moment

a teenage lass

looked an angel in the face.

Cascades of questions

in tug of terror and of trust

as wide eyed in wonder

it dawned on her

the choice was hers

and hers alone.

yet the choice was not to choose

to surrender choice itself

taking the gift

God gives with life and breath,

to lay it down.

her Yes was all that she could give

took all she had

To hold the angel’s eye.

‘Let it be

to me as you have said’

and Heaven’s gate swung wide..

Mary’s Yes risked everything. Her engagement, her relationship with her family, her life. She could have been stoned for adultery. How do you begin to explain? How do you hold on to your self esteem and integrity, when you know the truth, but the world does not see it? I have had my own journey with having my reputation smeared and having to keep silent, knowing that God knew the truth, and that was in the end, all that matters. We waste so much precious energy holding onto our reputations when it can, like health or wealth or dear ones, be taken from you in a moment. Letting God guard it for you, is a much better way, that Mary modelled, and I am still in the learning. 

Scandal.

slip of a brown skinned girl

almost a child herself,

with some story about angels ( as if!)

and so the offensive smell of scandal

clung like dust to Mary’s skin.

You were an outcast

from the start.

A wrinkled nose and upturned sneer

barely hid behind hard hands.

Your birth, no less, a squalid mess

a foetid outhouse slum

the scrapings of a nowhere town.

What father this , who watches on-

while child of his, flees in the dark

a refugee from hate?

A Father whose love outstripped

the twisting coils of evil’s curse

and let his Son grow on

into the scandal of a cross.

Written from my experiences as a midwife and a mother, the following tries to explore the wonder and miracle of any birth, and the mind bending miracle of this particular one. Further thoughts on this, and Mary’s life can be found in my post Bringing Love where Love is absent

Upside Down Miracles

 

Exhausted, yet wide awake,

my body spent, yet every nerve alive.

we one have become Two.

He who lately stirred in me, moved

more than limbs, whose spirit sang

with mine, filling my soul with wordless awe:

now like a lamb, lies in the straw.

God’s perfect lamb…that shepherds knelt to see.

my tiny lamb…so vulnerable

that I would hide him from the fears that lurk, and

what the future may require..

Who then is he, whose soft breath on my neck

nuzzles me close, and with his

fingers in mine, I wonder with a kiss

just who is holding who?

This one isn’t specifically about Mary, but follows the theme of wonder, and the things she carried in her heart, as he grew up.

Incarnation

With the first cry of birth

A gasp of foetid stable air,

The Mighty Godhead came to earth

Likes naked in a hovel bare.

Fragile and helpless, he-

Whose incandescence fused the stars.

The humble shepherds kneel to see

Eternity behind Life’s bars.

No throne, no royal crown

Ahead for this celestial king.

To wood and nails he is come down,

Earth’s toil and tears his lot would bring.

A crib, a child, a cross,

Heaven’s mysteries are revealed;

Our gain would mean the Father’s loss,

By his wounds, our world is healed.

Written the Christmas of my second year of Theological college, the following emerged from a deep journey of discovery into the mysteries of the Eucharist. During that exploration I accidentally stumbled upon the notion of the priesthood of Mary, theotokos, the Christ-Bearer, something that wiser folk than I have written much upon, but which was so obvious once I had seen it. More of this can be found in my eponymous blog post, Holy Gifts. Again I am echoing Mary’s life with my own calling as a priest.

Holy Gifts

 

Taken

Chosen

A life lifted from obscurity

Held in hands that hefted galaxies

Hallowed by an ask

To sustain

The Word

 

Blessed

Given grace

To bear the weight of favour

Daughter of Eve,

Giving God a thankful heart

By holding His, within

Her own

 

Broken

Lanced by sword

That pierced Father, Spirit, Son.

Blood of her blood

Poured out for those

That clamoured for

His death.

 

Given

Her whole life

Offered on the altar

Of surrender

A readiness to be God’s Yes

Shared out to hungry hands

To feed a world

With grace

The following poem was written one Christmas when God was asking me to Go. To leave all that I had known and loved, within the church family of which I had been a part for most of my adult life. To step out into the dark. At the time it felt like a deep tearing. Heartbreaking. Looking back, God’s grace transformed that heartbreak into so much blessing, learning and growth. Every time He calls me once again to step out, I remind myself that ‘He who calls you is faithful’ and that His nail pierced feet tread at my side.

Sent

God said GO and He went

from all knowing to unknown

from unbounded horizons

to the confines of a womb.

God said GO and she went

from innocent obscurity to scandal’s

harshest stare. God said GO

and she went- full bellied from all

she knew and loved, to weary road,

that knew no place of welcome or of rest.

God said GO and they went

awed by angels, hearts racing their feet

towards the promise of a child.

God said GO and they went

they knew not where, but the call was all

their hearts could hear, and drew them on

when way was hard, and path unclear.

Bringing the best they had

they came to follow and to kneel.

God said GO and they went

out in the dark in what they stood,

exiles of a jealous king.

God says GO and will you ask

‘How far?’ Or know the route you tread?

Listen for the Child’s cry

to wake your heart to go

but travel with your feet unshod

for the Way is holy ground.

This morning, I discovered a beautiful, fresh angle on Mary’s encounter with Gabriel, and I could not finish this post without including the poem and the  link to the blog in which it can be found. Written by Jan Richardson on her blog The Advent Door.

What must it have been like for the archangel who witnessed Mary’s yes?

Gabriel’s Annunciation

For a moment
I hesitated
on the threshold.
For the space
of a breath
I paused,
unwilling to disturb
her last ordinary moment,
knowing that the next step
would cleave her life:
that this day
would slice her story
in two,
dividing all the days before
from all the ones
to come.

The artists would later
depict the scene:
Mary dazzled
by the archangel,
her head bowed
in humble assent,
awed by the messenger
who condescended
to leave paradise
to bestow such an honor
upon a woman, and mortal.

Yet I tell you
it was I who was dazzled,
I who found myself agape
when I came upon her—
reading, at the loom, in the kitchen,
I cannot now recall;
only that the woman before me—
blessed and full of grace
long before I called her so—
shimmered with how completely
she inhabited herself,
inhabited the space around her,
inhabited the moment
that hung between us.

I wanted to save her
from what I had been sent
to say.

Yet when the time came,
when I had stammered
the invitation
(history would not record
the sweat on my brow,
the pounding of my heart;
would not note
that I said
Do not be afraid
to myself as much as
to her)
it was she
who saved me—
her first deliverance—
her Let it be
not just declaration
to the Divine
but a word of solace,
of soothing,
of benediction

for the angel
in the doorway
who would hesitate
one last time—
just for the space
of a breath
torn from his chest—
before wrenching himself away
from her radiant consent,
her beautiful and
awful yes.

– See more at: http://adventdoor.com/2014/12/19/advent-4-gabriel-and-mary/#sthash.iWh5qIBG.JyHMT2MA.dpuf

Holy Gifts

Posted on by
1
 
 
 
Holy Gifts
 
 
Taken
Chosen
A life lifted from obscurity
Held in hands that hefted galaxies
Hallowed  by an ask
To sustain
The Word
 
 
Blessed
Given grace
To bear the weight of favour
Daughter of Eve,
Giving God a thankful heart
By holding His, within
Her own
 
 
Broken
Lanced by sword
That pierced Father, Spirit, Son.
Blood of her blood
Poured out for those
That clamoured for
His death.
 
Given
Her whole life
Offered on the altar
Of surrender
A readiness  to be God’s Yes
Shared out to hungry hands
To feed  a world
With grace
 
It has been my habit for the last 12 years or so, to write a poem at Christmas to include as a tiny  gift with the cards I send. Most often they come out of my own journey, and its juxtaposition with the wonder of the Christmas Story. It helps me keep it fresh. I never want to lose that awe. On a much smaller scale, when I was a midwife, I was privileged to bring large numbers of babies into the world, and it always was just that. A privilege and a wonder. No two births are alike, and each one is a miracle. 
 
I have been living with these four words for most of this year, in a variety of ways. Taken, blessed, broken, given. 
They are known as the shape of the Eucharist, based on Jesus’ actions as he shared bread with his disciples or the the huge crowds by the Gallilean shore, taking a tiny, seemingly insignificant gift, ( five loaves and two fishes)  blessing it, breaking it and sharing it out to all. Making the miniscule feed the many. 
 
They have come up, time and again, most recently within Henri Nouwen’s book,                  Life of the Beloved, where he brackets them under the larger heading : Becoming the Beloved.  He says “ Becoming the Beloved means letting the truth of our Belovedness become enfleshed in everything we think, say or do.”                                                     A beautifully succinct way of expressing the two great Commandments, and the description of a life’s journey into Love. 
 
I sit several times a day in chapel, facing an icon that depicts Christ looking steadily forwards and holding the words.
“You did not choose me, I chose you.”
It echoes with my own journey on this path to ordination, that began with a gargantuan struggle with the call God was placing on my life, and reminds me daily that this is all about Him, and I am simply an offered loaf in His hands. 
 
Mary’s life  continues to inspire and challenge me. I wrote about her in Bringing Love where Love is absent, earlier in the year, and when thinking about this year’s poem, I looked in a variety of other directions/angles but came back to her, as a whole lot of thoughts over the year seemed to come together and distil. 
 
 
 
 

All in a name

Posted on by
Reply


It was dark in the garden. It was dark in her heart. She had known plenty darkness before. The cold, eclipse of rejection. The pitch black of shame. The midnight of self hatred. But none like this. This was worse than all of those combined. Hope had been hammered out of her with the nails that they had roughly banged into his already broken, feet and hands. Even now, she didn’t know how she had stood there, and watched them do that to Him, except that she couldn’t tear herself away. The excruciating anguish of seeing his agony, and being helpless to do anything to help him, had torn her apart. That was Friday. A blur of pain and fire. Saturday she had been mute with grief, unable to think, or take anything else in. This morning she had forced her exhausted body to move. There was one more thing she could do for him.

This time, no one would see her, and criticize. No mocking words or sneers. She would pour her love  out for him for the last time. She would tenderly anoint his beloved, broken body with precious perfumed oils. This time, however, he would not smile at her. His scarred face would be still. His extraordinary eyes would be dull and closed forever.

She didn’t know how she was going to get past the guards, hadn’t a clue how she would move the stone with which they they had sealed his tomb. Nothing would stop her though. If it was the last thing she did, she would say her goodbye, and prepare his body properly for burial. That was the least she could do. What more had she got to lose?

Finding her way to the place she had seen his body hastily dumped, before the onset of the Sabbath, she was stopped in her tracks. They had taken even this last goodbye. Guards gone, the tomb gaping in yawning emptiness. They couldn’t even leave his body to rest in peace. Anger and confusion spurred her feet as she ran back to tell Peter and John of this final desecration. They ran too, looked and left. Unable to deal with themselves, unable to deal with her. She was left, and like at the foot of his cross, she couldn’t tear herself away, even though there was nothing to stay for. Nothing to live for. The tears flowed, as she wept for all that might have been. She had never known love and acceptance as this Man had showed her. Never experienced forgiveness and heartbreaking mercy that lifted her out of the dust, and breathed new life into her beaten down soul. She had watched him do it for so many others too, but now all that was gone.

The tomb was empty. The beloved body stolen, who knows where. She shuddered to think what they might have done with him. As if they hadn’t done enough. She looked again into the hollowed out space in the rock, wondering if she might at least gather his grave clothes. There were two men sitting in there, where his head and feet would have been. She couldn’t take in who they might be or why they were there. They asked her a stupid question.

“Why are you crying?”

“ WHAT ELSE DO YOU DO AT A GRAVE?!” she wanted to shout at them- “ isn’t it obvious?!”  “They have taken him away, and I have lost- everything”  She turned away – unable and unwilling to engage. Lost in her loss.

The sun was just rising, lifting over the city and bathing her in light. The light hurt almost more than the darkness. Another day. Another day he would never see. She folded in on herself.

There was a sound close by. A footstep. Suddenly concious of another person , who as she looked up, was standing in the brightness of the dawn. She could only see his outline, framed with light, and blurry with her tears.

“ Why are you weeping?”  the same question.

Gently and compassionately asked with a voice that sounded as if it cared about the answer.

“ Who are you looking for?” 

He could only be the gardener, but the question  reached right into her being. Right into the depths of her pain. Somewhere deep inside, in the darkness, there was the faintest glimmer of light.

“ If you know where he is, if you have moved him- tell me”  she pleaded. There was just a whisper of a chance she would find his body, after all.

He didn’t answer and she still couldn’t see his face, or read his expression. Silence. A pause in which the world turned, and her heart lifted towards hope, against herself.

“Mary” 

No one else said it like that. No one else had ever put such unconditional love into the simple saying of her name. That beloved voice called her a second time out of a nightmare     of darkness, bringing her back to life.  It couldn’t possibly be – and yet it was. She had been looking for a corpse, and she had found a living Lord, who knew her, and called her by name.

“Rabbouni!”   was all she had breath to say. She fell at his feet. The feet she had anointed with her tears; the feet she had seen hammered to the rough wood of the cross. Reaching out to hold them – she wanted to stay in this moment forever. Be sure it was real. That he was real. That her teetering mind hadn’t tipped finally, over the edge.

Gentle hands lifted her up. His smile was as wide as the sea, and the eyes she thought had closed for ever, twinkled with life and laughter. A name, a smile. A smile that reached out and found all the shattered pieces of her heart, and drew them together again, into a new whole.

“ Now go– and tell my brothers who you have seen”  he asked of her. Be the one to tell them I am alive. Be the Hope Bearer. Turn their lives upside down, as yours has been.

She didn’t hesitate. Carrying the good news- she ran with joy, in the glory of the rising sun, that was lighting up the world.

“bringing love, where love is absent”

Posted on by
3

Mary, the mother of Jesus, is a person who fascinates me. She scares some, and attracts others, but she rarely fails to have an impact. I have learnt so much by spending time with her, imaginatively. There are so many hidden depths to her character.  As probably a very young teenager, she faced a near impossible ask, and had to face the potential of losing her life, never mind her reputation, by her obedience.

She said Yes-

but suppose the answer had been NO?

and Heaven held it’s breath

as in that startled moment

a teenage lass

looked an angel in the face.

Cascades of questions

in tug of terror and of trust

as wide eyed in wonder

it dawned on her

the choice was hers

and hers alone.

Yet the choice was not to choose

to surrender choice itself

taking the gift

God gives with life and breath,

to lay it down.

Her Yes was all that she could give

took all she had

to hold the angel’s eye.

‘Let it be to

me as you have said’

and Heaven’s gate swung wide..

 

What a journey that nine months must have been!  It is for any woman, expecting a baby, but the emotional roller coaster Mary went on, from that Yes, to the moment she held her son in her arms, is almost beyond imagining. Facing possible stoning , certain divorce, and having to explain  the unexplainable. Spending time with her also-pregnant-in-miraculous-circumstances cousin, Elizabeth, and finally having someone understand, must have been a huge comfort and relief.

A  long, weary journey, at the height of pregnancy, is never recommended.     (trust me, I was a midwife, once upon a long time ago). A long weary journey with no accommodation provision, let alone medical cover- Mary didn’t even have a friendly face to greet her in Bethlehem. The labour and birth itself, scary to almost every first time mum, must have been a lonely, frightening experience. Then the precious, never, forgotten moment of holding her baby for the first time. This son, who had turned her life upside down.

Upside Down Miracles

Exhausted, yet wide awake,

my body spent, yet every nerve alive.

we one have become Two.

He who lately stirred in me, moved

more than limbs, whose spirit sang

with mine, filling my soul with wordless awe:

now like a lamb, lies in the straw.

God’s perfect lamb…that shepherds knelt to see.

my tiny lamb…so vulnerable

that I would hide him from the fears that lurk, and

what the future may require..

Who then is he, whose soft breath on my neck

nuzzles me close, and with his

fingers in mine, I wonder with a kiss

just who is holding who?

The poems above, are mine. Recently, I came across someone else who has spent time with Mary, and expressed their thoughts in poetry. Frances Croak Frank came up with an insight on Mary that took my breath away.

Did the woman say,

When she held him for the first time in the dark of a stable,

After the pain and the bleeding and the crying,

‘This is my body, this is my blood?’

 

Did the woman say,

When she held him for the last time in the dark rain on a hilltop,

After the pain and the bleeding and the dying,

‘This is my body, this is my blood?’

 

Well that she said it to him then,

For dry old men,

Brocaded robes belying barrenness

Ordain that she may not say it for him now.

Allot has been written on the priesthood of Mary, the Christ-Bearer, an angle I had never considered – and yet the association with the words  “This is my body, this is my blood” is so startlingly obvious, that I cannot believe I have never made the connection before.  The poem is about women in the priesthood, but this was not what primarily grabbed me.  Mary’s pain, watching her son die an agonising death, and then holding his lifeless body in her arms is unbearable.  When he was a tiny baby, being presented in the Temple, Simeon had told her that “a sword would pierce her heart” . Those words must have haunted her through the years, and I am sure would have played loudly in her head as they came true, before her heart-broken eyes. How do you begin to deal with something like that?

But deal she did, and her journey continued, round the awesome bend of meeting her resurrected son, come back from the dead. Scripture doesn’t describe that meeting, or even tell us that it happened- but I can’t imagine that it didn’t. That she wasn’t allowed that privilege, along with the disciples. What a moment that would have been! We find her next, with the gathered faithful in the upper room .

“They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.”

She will have received the Holy Spirit, though I imagine that the experience had a feeling of deja-vu, flames alighting on her head, small fry, compared to angels appearing with life- shattering news.

We hear no more of her by name, in Scripture, although tradition has her travelling to Ephesus with John,  ‘the disciple who Jesus loved’ and the one into whose care Jesus had  entrusted her.  Historians, Irenaeus and Eusebius of Caesarea, write of John ‘The Evangelist’ travelling there, which is probably the basis of the association.

When I was licensed an Anglican Reader, the preacher took Mary’s obedient Yes, as her subject and gave us each a postcard of The Walking Madonna – a bronze by Elizabeth Frink, which stands in the grounds of Salisbury Cathedral.  She quoted the words below, which come from a sermon preached by Revd Professor Frances Young at the Easter dawn service in Salisbury.

“In the Cathedral Close is the most potent symbol of resurrection – Elizabeth Frink’s Walking Madonna, striding forth to bring Christ into the world – not as the teenage Virgin, pregnant with the new humanity, but an older Mary, stripped down, thin and ascetic, stomach hollow, face pinched and haggard with suffering – one who has been through the experience of the Pieta and held the dead body of her son across her knee, but now is determined and invigorated with resurrection life – “walking with purposeful compassion as a member of the community of the Risen Christ, to bring love where love is absent.”

May we tread in her steps, filled with light and love and joy, for the Dayspring from on high has visited us, and Christ is risen – Alleluia. Amen.”

This week has been a very  hard one. I have known the heartbreak of Christ’s broken body in a very real way. The broken body of his church, that is.  A situation that was a microcosm of the global picture. It tore my heart to see it, be a part of it, and know how much more God’s heart must be breaking.  I also witnessed very large portions of Grace- shared like the bread broken for the multitudes. More than enough for all.

I experienced too, the most profound Eucharist I have ever had, in my whole life of faith. A simple service, where every line of liturgy and sermon was  imbued with grace, healing and forgiveness. I cried through the whole of it, and could barely swallow the gifts of Grace and undeserved Love, when they were given to me. They were too costly to take in, on any level.

“This is my body, this is my blood” Mary knew the cost, as no one else could. Apart from the Father, that is. My prayer is that I can with her,  walk “with purposeful compassion as a member of the community of the Risen Christ, to bring love where love is absent.”