Exhaling

Her Most Serene Highness Lady Kathryn the Imposing of Lower Wombleshire,

the hippie chick

Here’s a view of Lower Wombleshire, Lady Kathryn presiding over the court of birds and clouds. And one little sister.

(Lest I mislead you, I should make clear that this pic is several decades old)

I have given copies of the Stations to a small handful of trusted editors, and as none of them and no one here has said that I shouldn’t go forward with them, I’m taking that as God’s, “It’s a go.”

An artist friend even offered to sketch them! I had not thought about illustrations, wondering if we would be using photographs of the bas reliefs in our cathedral, but I prefer drawings. I have never seen a detailed drawing of this kind from my friend’s pencil, but I trust that if she is inspired, God is doing the inspring. Let’s keep her in prayer as she searches for the right images within the meditations and within herself.

I’ll need to re-read them myself for clarity and punctuation, as I’ve not looked at them again yet. When someone pointed out my lack of capitalization in some spots, I confessed that I often compose at the keyboard with my eyes closed. My children find it astonishing that I can sit at the laptop in the sunlight, because the screen is so difficult to see. They find it more amazing that Mom can type without looking. Often, I am outside (for solitude and birdsong and blue sky) with my forehead on the table, eyes closed, forehead sometimes knotted up, and my fingers dancing away. What a strange picture.

I will take a look and do some editing, then I will be giving them to the bishop who suggested I write them in the first place to get his feedback. Then we’ll get them printed up.

Now all I need is an agent…

CO has suggested I write these Stations into a new book of poetry, echoing the very thought that I had quietly tucked away in that dark corner of my mind where I fear to look…

And Ann is precariously quiet, though I sense she is reading these meditations. So I will patiently await her honest and clear insights and feedback…

And where is Gabrielle? I know forget me not is busy with the best things.

 I’m working on the children’s book for a while, so these meditations can settle, then I’ll go back over them and make revisions and refinements. So, please, if you have suggestions for improvement, by all means make them. I’d like to know what works and what misses the mark.

When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea named Joseph, who was himself a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus; then Pilate ordered it to be handed over. Taking the body, Joseph wrapped it [in] clean linen and laid it in his new tomb that he had hewn in the rock. Then he rolled a huge stone across the entrance to the tomb and departed.
Matthew 27: 57-60

We pray:
Lord Jesus, Your friends pull the iron from your mangled hands and feet and balance your stiffened body down from the cross. They must look on your closed eyes in bitter confusion, seeing their beloved friend, the one they have come to know as the Messiah, silenced by those who opposed him. Bitter grief and a kind of hopelessness is their only food now; they do not understand that they will soon see You alive again.Your lifeless body is anointed and wrapped in a sheet and then laid in a borrowed tomb, sealed from sight, from those who love You, in darkness. Your friends are grieving and Your enemies are celebrating uneasily. But the stone tomb is like a womb that will give birth to everlasting life. Because You accepted even death, death on a cross, death is never the end. Death is always a new beginning. 

All:

Lord, through the cross You have conquered death, and made it flow into life. You are placed alone in the tomb to show us that the grave’s utter aloneness is not the end for which we are created. You will soon rise, triumphant over death and sin, with the power to draw all of us to You in everlasting joy and unity. You are living eternally, and You created each of us to live forever with You. Help us to remember that only our bodies enter the tomb; our souls are always alive in You. Give us this deep knowledge of salvation, so that we will be moved to offer our lives as a sacrifice of praise and gratitude.

May we see past the cross and past the tomb to the light of the Resurrection, knowing that the silence and darkness of death is only the crossing ground to an eternal song of praise, and the Day that will never end.

[I]n order that the scripture might be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I thirst.” So they put a sponge soaked in wine on a sprig of hyssop and put it up to his mouth. When Jesus had taken the wine, he said, “It is finished.” And bowing his head, he handed over the spirit. Now since it was preparation day, in order that the bodies might not remain on the cross on the sabbath, …the Jews asked Pilate that they be taken down…[W]hen [the soldiers] came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs, but one soldier thrust his lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out. John 19: 28-34

We pray:
Lord Jesus, we can only look with wonder at this moment that changes all of history and changes us, this moment of our salvation. At the sight of Your Body tortured and pierced for us, we see clearly that redemption is not a business transaction (sins in exchange for prayers and penance) but the result of love that, in immolating itself wholly, transforms darkness into light, hate to love, selfishness into gift. The altar of the Cross defines God for us, and redefines Love. In contemplating this moment, we come to understand that You will spare nothing to bring us to the radiance for which we are created. We begin to see more clearly that our own activity must be united to Your one saving action. At every Mass, we are here at this moment anew, and as the drop of water poured into the chalice is completely absorbed into the Blood of Christ and transformed, so our own ordinary offerings are transformed within the Chalice of Your heart by your immense love to become something worthy of the Father.  

All:

Lord, You are always reaching down to us, offering Yourself to us wholly, and these open arms, this love, is only revealed to most people through our own open arms. We must be Christ to others. This is our own inescapable role in the revelation of love. Your heart transformed acts of malice and hate into moments of grace and the victory of love; renew our hearts with Your love, so that we can continue this transformation in the world.

May we come to know through this apparent defeat, as the last drops of blood and water pour out from Your Heart onto the ground, that Love has the final victory. Love gives all.

Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.
John 19: 25-27

We pray:
Lord Jesus, though You seem to have nothing now, you are still giving.You give mercy and forgiveness to all, You give Your promise of salvation to the Good Thief, and now you give Your Mother to us.Mary’s Heart, pierced with the sword of sorrow prophesied by Simeon so many years ago, is now open to the whole world. She stands at the foot of the Cross, consumed with grief, yet looking straight into the face of suffering, strong in hope. She accepts this as she has accepted every detail of her life: as the Father’s perfect will, which she need not understand. She must only trust. She does not waver, does not draw back from her fiat, “Be it done to me as you have said.” (Lk 1:38 ) She places no limits or conditions on her Yes, because she trusts fully that nothing is impossible for God.She is confident that You will reign, that this is necessary, and that Love will conquer all.  

All:

Lord, bring us beyond our woundedness to the place where we know that our peace and our joy are to be found only in doing the will of the Father wholeheartedly. Help us to remember, like Mary, that the Mystery of God does not require our understanding, but rather our trust; we must trust God’s loving plan for His creation, and do all we can to spread the Fire You came to enkindle on earth. 

May this entrusting of Your mother to the beloved disciple, and of Your beloved disciple to Mary, be a sign to us that You do not want us to walk alone, and inspire us to support one another as we journey toward You.