He is risen

Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.
They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”
“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.
He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him."
Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).
Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.

John chapter 21, vv 11-18, New International Version

Betrayal

This has been my meditation for Holy Week - the subject of betrayal.  At what point did Christ know that Judas would betray him?  Was he even to the last hour hoping that this was not going to happen, that somehow things could be different?  Had he chosen the man in the certain foreknowledge that this would be who gave him up to the shame and the executioners?  Or had Judas free will, and right to the last, could he have chosen differently?

Every branch of the Christian faith would probably give you a different answer.  I think this has been on my mind this week because of some of my own problems in real life - and they seem so petty.  Troubles at work where two groups of people are each blaming the other for something that if it is anyone's fault at all is almost certainly between the two.  A governing body which I fear is going to seize on a convenient scapegoat and either punish one or both simply so they are seen to do something.  At present nobody is blaming me, but I am squarely between the two groups with the feeling that at any moment either group could turn on me to try to shift the blame.

And a prayer I don't like to even think about is nudging its way into my consciousness.

If someone blameless is to carry the blame in the end - why shouldn't it be me?  I call myself the follower of Jesus Christ who was delivered innocent to his tormentors, shamed, scourged and nailed to a tree? 
If it is inevitable that blame will be dealt out, and punishment will follow, and the punishment will be unjust no matter who it falls on - better it should be me?  Better that it should fall on my shoulders than a young vet who would be devastated by it?  If a fine is to be levied, better that it should fall on me than someone who in having to pay it would lose their home?  If public shame is going to follow, better that I should carry that than the other people who would lose jobs if it happened?

I can't ask it.  Not yet.  I pray for the justice I don't expect, and that somehow that justice will indeed prevail and this whole cup may pass.
And I pray for the strength that if justice does not prevail, that I might actually be able to pray that this falls on me, and not someone who will be destroyed. 

Dear Lord, take this cup away.  Let this pass.  But not my will, but thine be done.

Purgatory

Today I caught on Radio 4 a BBC dramatisation of Dante's "Divine Comedy".  The first episode was last week so I missed the Inferno and caught up with Virgil and Dante on the slopes of Mount Purgatory. 

It has been many years since I read the whole of the Divine Comedy and clearly I need to go back and read it again, as there's so much I'd forgotten. 

According to Wikipedia, "Purgatory, according to Catholic Church doctrine is an intermediary state after physical death in which those destined for heaven "undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven".^[1] Only those who die in the state of grace but have not in life reached a sufficient level of holiness can be in Purgatory, and therefore no one in Purgatory will remain forever in that state or go to hell. This theological notion has ancient roots and is well-attested in early Christian literature, but the poetic conception of Purgatory as a geographically existing place is largely the creation of medieval Christian piety and imagination."

Purgatory was always a hard concept for me, and never one that I felt I really understood well.  The "Dream of Gerontius", a poem by John Henry Newman, brought me closest to understanding, the redeemed soul flying in love and desire to the feet of its Creator though the touch brought agony and the desire to be made fit to be in the presence of God.

Angel

…. Praise to His Name!

The eager spirit has darted from my hold,

And, with the intemperate energy of love,

Flies to the dear feet of Emmanuel;

But, ere it reach them, the keen sanctity,

Which with its effluence, like a glory, clothes

And circles round the Crucified, has seized,

And scorch'd, and shrivell'd it; and now it lies

Passive and still before the awful Throne.

O happy, suffering soul! for it is safe,

Consumed, yet quicken'd, by the glance of God.

Soul

Take me away, and in the lowest deep

There let me be,

And there in hope the lone night-watches keep,

Told out for me.

There, motionless and happy in my pain,

Perhaps my best understanding of it came from giving birth to my son.  It was a thirty six hour labour, for various reasons the pain relief I was given was ineffective, and I counted out those hours in love and desire, and fear, and great pain.  And I listened to the monitor that they had rigged to let me hear my son's heartbeat, and somehow bore out the hours of helplessness a heartbeat at a time.  When I heard his loud cry and knew he had been born alive and strong, then all the pain and exhaustion didn't matter any more.  They put him into my arms - and I looked into the face of Heaven.   Heaven had huge eyes and dark hair and soft pale skin and was utterly perfect.  And I finally understood the journey through Purgatory, with Love waiting at the end.