Good Friday: Through the t(w)omb.
A Good Friday meditation for seeking hearts.
Welcome, dear fellow pilgrim,
on this Good Friday, a day with Spring breaking through here in MN. The sun is rising and birds are singing of warmer days ahead.
Here is my Good Friday meditation for your seeking heart:
#1 The fire will not consume you
It was a breath taking experience to watch the stream of fire in the kiln at St John’s Abbey, MN. The kiln is as big as a barn and is fired for 10 days around the clock by shifts of volunteers.
The atmosphere is like being close to the elements,
fire and earth, radiant warmth.
A fire too hot to approach creates the most beautiful vessels which have taken weeks of preparation to carefully stack them in the kiln.
One feels like watching creation at its core.
After the 10 days of firing the openings are sealed shut and the kiln left to bake for another 10 days or so. For me the entire experience was like witnessing Christmas and Easter all at once. The kiln, like the eternal womb, creating new beauty --
and also, like the tomb, closed up until renewed life can emerge.
You might have wondered these days if you walk towards the womb or the tomb.
Indeed, the good news about Good Friday is, that the tomb becomes the womb from which new life springs.
So fear not, dear fellow pilgrim, fear not.
Even when we walk through the fire, the fire will not consume us.
#2 A king who dies
“A king who
dies on the cross
must be the king of a rather strange kingdom.
Only those who understand the profound paradox
of the cross
can also understand
the whole meaning
of Jesus’ assertion:
my kingdom is not
of this world. “
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#3 For Love gives herself
Listen to the angelic aria of “Aus Liebe will mein Heiland sterben…” / “Out of love my savior gives his life…”
JS Bach - Aus Liebe from St Matthew Passion BWV 244 | Netherlands Bach Society.
Aus Liebe - Out of Love,
JS Bach, the master of repetitive movement lets the soprano sing again and again.
Follow the tune of the flute and the voice of the soprano.
Listen with the ears of your heart.
Ponder the text with the eyes of your heart.
Begin by simply listening to the flute.
It will move your heart to the place it needs to be today.
Not a place of tradition or theology or oughts. Just an intimate encounter with your self,
and the awe and mystery of the Triduum.
#4
And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying,
“Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?”
that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
#5 Holding Mystery
“The Christ Mystery anoints all physical matter with eternal purpose from the very beginning. (…) All of us take part in the evolving, universe-spanning Christ Mystery. … Christ is the blueprint for all time and space and life itself. Both reveal the universal pattern of self-emptying and infilling (Christ) and death and resurrection (Jesus), which is the process humans have called “holiness,” “salvation,” or “growth.”
*Adapted from Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For, and Believe(Convergent Books: 2019), 5, 20-21.
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