Passion Week Tuesday: Cradling your heart

An invitation to tenderly cradle your heart, and to pick your sign of hope, soothed by JS Bach's Aria "Bleed my dear, beloved heart."

Photo by annie pm on Unsplash

Dear fellow pilgrim,

Every morning I venture out into the backyard to check on the bleeding hearts. Every morning, their heads have grown a bit longer, poking out of the soil. It will still be a while until their filigree hearts begin to form.

I love bleeding hearts.

They are a good symbol for my own heart—some dance between bleeding and beauty.

How are you doing on this journey? Has your heart arrived yet?

On this Holy Tuesday, I want to invite you into a holy pause—to cradle your heart and to pick a sign of hope. The aria I have chosen from the Matthew Passion offers an invitation to self-compassion. To be compassionate even with your own “bleeding heart.”

Cradling your heart. Making way for
self compassion

I tried to feast on the news this week, but I was not successful. There is just so much that makes my heart bleed. The pictures from the El Salvador prison break my heart. How in the world is this even possible?

And though I see resistance rising and hope glimmering, I am also painfully aware that a time may come—sooner than we thought—when we must leave what has become “home” for us.

For an international family, these fears are becoming more palpable with the day.

And so, yesterday, I leaned in and allowed my heart to bleed. To bleed for the cruelty we witness in this world. To bleed for a future that might not be. To bleed for a home that might soon become hostile.

What this week calls us to is compassion. Compassion for all who suffer—and thus, also for my own bleeding heart.

This is exactly how Bach composed his Passion oratorio: as a path to our very own heart.

There is a place for bleeding hearts. And when we tend to our heart’s pain with compassion, it will grow into that beautiful flower—able to hold both our bleeding and our heart.

I love bleeding hearts.

Photo by Dani Adkins on Unsplash

Pick a sign of hope

It is an old tradition to pick a sign of hope at the beginning of Lent or Passion week or when ever you think of it before Easter. I recommend a branch with buds ready enough to bloom on Easter Sunday. It will be a little harder may be in Minnesota (or Florida) but you will find your sign of hope, too. And if they bloom some time later that is just fine. What is important is to watch for the unfolding of “viriditas”, as Hildegard has called this greening life force, permeating all living beings. Passion week is such a strong and earthy metaphor for new growth and new beginnings.

The seed falls in the earth to die – not to die eternally but to be transformed into vivid greening. Our passion journey is such a journey of transformation. We walk towards new life through the tomb.

So if all you do today is to stand at the window taking in some sun or pick a branch of hope and put it into water or simply allow yourself to walk a garden, real or imaginary, where Spring is almost there, that is enough.

The practice is to cradle your heart, to hold it and to care for it.

One might say, “But isn’t Passion Week about Jesus’ passion? His dying at the cross and not about your own pity or self care?” Right. You can crawl to Golgatha. Or you can let your heart be moved by a very little thing today. A twig. A bud. A Bach Aria. Meditate on a bud on a bare branch until your heart leaps and holds the whole gospel.

Listening Practice: “Bleed, my dear beloved heart…”

For our consolation today, I have chosen an Aria about cradling your bleeding heart. On Sunday we started out with the heart wrenching Aria “Erbarme Dich / Have Mercy” in its historic and haunting interpretation by Marian Anderson, yesterday we pondered the entrance choral of the Matthew Passion and its invitation into lamentation.

Today’s Aria sits between those pieces in the Matthew Passion, and anticipates Peter’s betrayal which is to follow.

I have translated today’s Aria myself, as the translations one can find isn’t quite fitting with the German meaning. So instead of “Bleed out, my loving heart” I suggest: “Bleed my dear, beloved heart.”

I invite you to concentrate on this very first line, just as Bach emphasizes it via the wave of the music and his art of repetition: