Thoughts on Mary Magdalene

 

Apostle of the Heart

They say that Mary Magdalene becomes the apostle to the apostles after she encounters Jesus risen. I wonder now if what she might have to teach them is this: the message of a heart that is rejoicing with resurrection joy. Though she is unable to explain what happened or how Christ is here, she explodes with the impetuous and overwhelming joy that it is to recognize the resurrected Christ when he calls your name. I wonder if she was sent out as the apostle of the heart, the one who hurries to where the others, who try to figure it all out with their heads, have gone so she can awaken their hearts.

Mary runs out to the apostles to tell them the good news so that they can stop trying to figure out the tomb and simply rejoice. When she reaches out for Jesus in the garden, he tells her that she cannot hold on to him. As much as I am sure her heart would have liked to stay there in that moment forever, in that cocoon where it was just her and her Lord, her heart awakening to the “alleluia” life of the resurrection, she has a job to do. This joy is not meant only for her. It belongs to all his followers, to the whole world. She is sent to the apostles, who are then sent to the ends of the earth. Mary Magdalene bears the Good News to the Good News bearers. She is the first to know resurrection joy and the first to share it.

—from the book Who Does He Say You Are? Women Transformed by Christ in the Gospels 
by Colleen  Mitchell

Thoughts on God

 

God Is Perfect Love

Often we use the word God. This word can suggest something fascinating as well as horrible, attractive as well as repelling, seductive as well as dangerous, all-absorbing as well as nourishing. It is like the sun. Without the sun, there can be no life, but if we come too close to it, we are burned. The Christian, however, believes that God is no “something,” but rather a person who is Love perfect Love. The Christian knows it is possible to enter into dialogue with this loving God and so work at renewing the earth. Praying, therefore, is the most critical activity we are capable of, for when we pray, we are never satisfied with the world of the here and now and are constantly striving to realize the new world, the first glimmers of which we have already seen. Henri Nouwen

Thoughts on your body

 

Your Body Is a Miracle

Your body is spiritual. There are not two halves of you: soul versus body. You are one whole, made in the image of a God who is integrated and indivisible. Your relationship to your body cannot be separated from the health of your soul, for the two are intertwined to make up all that it means to be you. Your flesh and bones are sacred; they connect you to your soul’s experience of the divine. Science indicates that your body is composed partly of stardust. Faith tells us this was no accident. The presence of your body on this earth today is a miracle—a massive statistical improbability. And yet here you are, held fast in the divine generosity of this body you were given. Here you are, your flesh and bones a product of a perfect, generative, mysterious Love; a Love that holds all things together.

The contemplative tradition centers on an awareness of the reality that all things are interconnected; all things find oneness within one another, and thereby within God. With this contemplative posture in mind, think about the miracle of your body’s existence on the planet, here against all odds. Let yourself be amazed and humbled. As you come to honor your place in the universal life of God, see if you can notice and physically feel the gratitude in your body.

—from Luminous: A 30-Day Journal for Accepting Your Body, Honoring Your Soul, and Finding Your Joy,
by Shannon K. Evans

Thoughts on wisdom

 

True Spiritual Wisdom

Only when inner and outer authority come together do we have true spiritual wisdom. We have for too long insisted on outer authority alone, without any teaching of prayer, inner journey, and maturing consciousness. The results for the world and for religion have been disastrous. I am increasingly convinced that the word prayer, which has become a functional and pious thing for believers to do, is, in fact, a descriptor for inner experience. That is why all spiritual teachers mandate prayer so much. They are saying, “Go inside and know for yourself!” We will understand prayer and inner experience this way throughout this book. As Jesus graphically puts it, prayer is “going to your private room and shutting the door and [acting] in secret” (Matthew 6:6). Once you hear it this way, it becomes pretty obvious.

—from the book Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality
by Richard Rohr, page xv