A brief offering, and this one really is about Jesus and his mother:
Sunday's gospel reading ended with Jesus returning to an empty temple at the end of the day to look around.
I imagine the same thing for early this morning.
I've just been out for my own morning walk. It's a beautifully sparkly sunshiny morning, and birds who should not be here for another month are out and about. I thought about how my own son Josh and I used to go out early in the morning together. We had a vacation tradition of a breakfast out, just the two of us. And then my thoughts turned to Jesus, and his mother . . .
I imagine them standing in the temple, early on this spring morning, the light just beginning to spread out from the east. She talks about the day of his dedication; she doesn't have to relate yet again the words of Simeon, which have overshadowed her life as a mother as surely as the Holy Spirit did, and which they both know are about to come true.
He reminisces about favorite teachers, rabbis with whom he spent time in this temple when he was a young man. They laugh over a couple of the more humorous stories, and wonder who might show up later in the day.
She gazes at him, her heart full, brimming with the love of a mother for her son. He looks toward the west, his own heart already full of Friday.
What a lovely tradition you had with your son...
ReplyDeleteAs I write the Stations of the Cross (one version for adults and one version for kids) I'm caught in the emotion - the man facing the end of his life, tortured and burtalized, the mother who stayed near - and yet could do nothing to prevent the suffering. How her heart must have ached, broken open, shattered....
We don't have Staions in the church, I have had to construct them out of photos and ink drawings. And so, images abound.
I think I might like for us to do that next year -- we would have to create our own stations as well.
DeleteAnd, thank you for offering your thoughts....
ReplyDeleteRobin, I think about how painful the Passion and Death of Christ were for his mother; however, you have lived this and I know that this must give you an incredible empathy with Mary. Please know that Mary feels the same for you.
ReplyDeleteMay God give you comfort as you reflect on the sufferings of Christ as well as those of your own son.