Passion Wednesday: The Blinding Brightness

 In Andrew Rissik’s play, Dionysus, Cadmus is the old King of Thebes, reawakened to the wonder of the gods, and to the union of heaven and earth, and Pentheus is the king who, confronted with the wonder of Dionysus and the new order of hope and joy, wishes to quash this and reassert the status quo. When the women who are worshipping Dionysus call the Princess Agave out to join them she says that she cannot, and she prays: “Let the one who pities our tears receive us at the last with beauty and gentleness and purge us of all fear.”

In those last few weeks, when we were at the store, my mother would suddenly offer to pay for groceries. She would rush in and pay for my pizza when I went in to buy dinner. She had rarely offered to pay for a damn thing, but in those last exhausted weeks she would. what did she knowand what was she trying to say? What would she have been had she lived. It seems there were so many wasted years, so many could have beens. The lament of the Passion is over the quick dead end of a life I have to stop trying to understand. How one Thursday while in the back of my mind I knew that our routine, such as it was could nto last forever, I was loading up groceries into my apartment while my mother held the door open and kissing he on the cheek goodbye. And the next Thursday I was at a funeral home planning her cremation. The head whirs at first thinking of this, and then gives up whirring and sinks to a tired numbness only scarely resemlbing contemplation.

In those last weeks or months of my mother's life I was always worried. She was always sleeping, always distant, always not doing the simplest things I asked, like getting a new phone so i could immediately reach her without calling the landline. Now, more than ever, when I called she did not pick up and I was subjected to my father's long dementia ridden conversations and would have to almost force him to get off his ass and find Mom or wake he up. Accurate thinking about this makes me feel like in the end, sickness or not, they gave me unnencessary stress and both ended up where they belong and two my life is easier now. My mother is gone, but she had been leaving all my life. When my mother died it was an extended lack of conscious lack of life planning, lack of saying goodbye nap that turned into a coma that ended in a very disatisfying death.

I remember hearing about Sister Wendy Beckets death, one of the things that made me consider Christianity and devotion deeply again. A friend came to her and she was radiant. Her friend asked her if she was excited to meet Jesus and her face beamed as she declared, "Oh, yes" that quality of joyfully openly going from this life to the next is always before me.

In the week of the Passion death is always before us along with the choice of how we enter into it. We are not accidentally mortal, but very mortal, My mother hated the idea of death. She dreaded it and so had no life insurance and no funeral plan, no plan whatever, caused me a great deal of trouble. She feared death and so didnt get up and go to a hospital. She feared death and it came for her anyway. This Passion week, we look steadily at our lives and at all around us. We will all leave this world, but will we lieave it gracefully, and we will go joyfually to ah ome for us that is already prepared. 

Omce again I am listening to te Andrew Rissik plasys. I am on the final and first one, Dionysus where the God coems to Thebes and is opposed by King Pentheus.  I imagien Jeruslame under segie by Jesus and those who followed him, children and old people singign in the streets, prhophesying. I aimgien that except for one siingy fig tree,the rest of the fruit ame to life and fountains rean with wine, that little chuldren ang Lauda and the old wer cured of their wounds. A drwosy warmh settled over the city. The good smells of the flowrs filled everthing, but the evil people nd the people dedicted to being dull could nto see thesethings, or did not like what hye saw.

In the midst of this beauty, as children walk by siging Lauda, Mary of Bethany begisn to weep. Her sister Martha says, but you do beat all, weeping at such happy things What's the matter now?"

And Mary turns to Martha and says, ecaue it cannot last. "

And Martha is filled with the shadow as well. 

 “Godlike we came and joyous, out of the womb, not grief bound and jealous, but open, and full of song. Not to pale men do we belong, but to a realm of angelic bliss! To the blinding brightness, will we return at last!”

Passion Tuesday

 Christianity is an historical religion. Most religions are not and the fact that it is historical doesn't make it necessarily better than other faiths. What it does mean is that the basis of it is in very real and recorable history and very real people who gave their lives testifying that what they had witnessed was true? Does this mean we are required to believe in it? No. Does this even mean that there is only one truth all of these people testified to, only one way of seeing it? Not at all. One only has to see that in the various tellings and the various forms of belief, heretical, orthodox and unorthodox that have come from it. What it does mean is that all who live in Christianity are engaged no only in our personal believes, but in grappling with the tradition of these very first witnesses.

In the Passiontide we do not pretend we are back in the last week of Jesus's life, or spectators at his cross. This is the last week of his life, and by the mystery of this witness, everything we are going in our common life is the journey to Jerusalem. But the mystery of this wintess we are not only spectators but becoming Christs.

Palm Sunday and the First Days of the Passion

COMMUNION ANTIPHON           Mt 26: 42
Pater, si non potest hic calix transire, nisi bibam illum, fiat voluntas tua.
Father, if this chalice cannot pass without my drinking it,
your will be done.'

There is much to do, and yet, if I was called to have sex, I would get up and have it. Last night, for my consecration I wrapped me thighs around the naked body of a man I've been longing to have sex with for years. His mouth tasted me lazily and he thumbed my nipples as he sucked me slowly. In the three am darkness I fucked his mouth and the bed creaked. Later I spilled my seed with a grunt. Sex does not make you feel more loved. I already feel loved. It does not make you feel more wanted. You can feel wanted by showing your sexy pics online, by dressing up in pretty clothes. Sex makes you feel pourous, liquid, touched. You are fragile and real again, weak in strength and strong in your vulnerability. It is the perfect consecration to Babalon, and long after it is over you feel the force which is no private force and also no communal force running through you. The descent of the Holy Spirit happens in company. Sexual pleasure happens between two people. To put on the red robes is to state frankly that you have touched and been touched.

This is Palm Week. Holy Week. This is the week of many readings, many services, much preparation, the week when much could go wrong, the week that must find its meaning in the silences between spaces.Friday was the Feast of the Annunciation, the rememberance of the Jesus's Conception. The ancient mind believed people died and were born or conceived on the same date, and so Annunciation happens here, in Lent, often as not near the end of it and sometimes it has been on Good Friday itself. Last night after the drama of the passion, I had sex and was consecrated to Babalon. These two passions are one.

In this week there is so much to do spiritually, so much to do in acts of cookery as well as responsibility, that over and over I must remember I am not the high priest of this show. I am not the chief orchestrator of this Great Work, nor am I the Great Work. I am not now, nor have I ever been, the ultimate Master.

There are other things scheduled to happen, to be meditated over, but it is sex that seems to keep happening and presenting itself, and sex that must be served.

When my mother was alive she used to say she didn't feel like Christmas, or lament every season coming because it didn't feel like it should, which i suppose is a lot like saying didn't feel like it once did. But you must accept things as they are, not as they are supposed to be, and fall into the rhythm of what is not what you wished was.. This is the secret of magic.

There are times when I forget that I am a witch, and that what we are doing here is magic, or do not say it or think what goes on this page is so broad that ti can be printed or shone anywhere, but the act of sacred prostituion, the initatiory rites of Babalon bring back home exactly what I am and what this page is. This page is the liturgy of celebrating union with the lovers who come to me, of remembering the pink candles and strong mouth of Scott and th entangling of bodies, the ejection of seed. This raw sex is the opposite of the sexiness of the society we live in, or the repression of our churches and the heart of what I do, and I practice it in this Holy Week.

And somehow, this story of the red priestess, the offered and experienced sexuality is linked with the passion of the lord who will be crucified before the week is out. One Passion goes to another. The lady in red is the Mary anointing the lord, the descent into sexual pleasure and Inanna's trip to the underworld, frightful as it is, mirrors Christ leaving the city gates to make his own underworld trip. Sex and sensuality are taken from one story completely, but maybe no it must be brought back.

ENTRANCE ANTIPHON          Cf. Ps 27 (26): 12
Ne tradideris me, Domine, in animas presequentium me; quoniam insurrexerunt in me testes iniqui, et mentita est iniquitas sibi.
Do not leave me to the will of my foes, O Lord,
for false witnesses rise up against me
and they breathe out violence.

It is already Tuesday. My glasses are so fiflthy I can barely see this key borad. I am fgiving up al ittle on spring cleaningbecause we had to bring so much int othe apartment today that psring cleaning looks like it may not matter. I spent a large part of the day removign thigns rom my aprents, house, wondering what money left to them ought to be mine, wondering feeling the strange melancholy of digging through what's left of your mother and father's lives before the house things are put up for auction and the house sold. Giving things away, coming home and digging through the past.

Today we went to the restaurant Betsy and I used to go to. This was the restuarant of mourning and delicious food and rejoicing and this makes sense. Mourning changes, but it does not flee without a trace. This day in Jerusalem, we are at the strange palce of half morning. I am thinking, now you could shower and do all the things that lead to bed, or you could go to bed and then get up and do those htings later. There is no wrong way to do these things. Except when we rush and drive ourselves mad. Well, yes, there is a wrong way to do it.

So many fine things I got my mother that she never wore, that I take back to myself to repurpose in the temple and in the temple garments. This is a sad ending to the story, the mother I hoped to spend more time with and grow old with gone, and my father doddering away. The story ended in many ways as I would not have had it, but also me having to end many scenarious, untell certain stories. The time of the passion is all about stories, and all about ones that end in confoundment.We cannot change the ending of the story. We have to find redemption some other way.

Passiontide This Year

 There is noTh finishing this, but there is a beginning. We are at Passiontide again, the last two weeks of Lent. Again the altar is draped in red and the holy images covered over. I have been ill for the last few days. I took too too much upon myself.Now is the time of treating my body gently, not pressing myself and it's well into the night when a wise person should be in bed. Love is here, and so is the Passion of the Christ though the shape of it has changed. Monday morning I sat down to listen to the first reading and it was the story of Susanna and the Elders. The moment I know what it is, this is also the moment that I remember how long it is. Settling down to the length of this reading I settle down into the different feel of these two weeks that lead to Easter, or rather to the Triduum. Passiontide is and always had been, a time of storytelling and through storytelling, of initiation.

 

Laetare Sunday

 

ENTRANCE ANTIPHON          Cf. Is 66: 10-11
Laetare, Ierusalem, et conventum facite, omnes qui diligitis eam; gaudete cum laetitia, qui in tristitia fuistis, ut exsultetis, et satiemini ab uberibus consolationis vestrae.
Rejoice, Jerusalem, and all who love her.
Be joyful, all who were in mourning;
exult and be satisfied at her consoling breast.

This is the third year I've done an article on Laetare Sunday though, usually, I call it Mothering Sunday or Mother Sunday. As this year, it always takes place around the first approach of spring and around the Feast of Saint Patrick. Mothering Sunday used to be, in England, the Sunday where people returned to thier mother church or attended mass at their cathedral, and since I have returned to Christianity in my magical and heretical way, I have attempted to recreate this return to the Mother in my own way, but never quite successfully.

  

Another reason I don't call this Mothering Sunday is because this is the first one where my life is defined by not having a mother anymore.  Having no mother church to return to and no mother to call up or do something special for, Mothering Sunday seems to have lost all meaning. But as I read the antiphon for this Sunday I realized that this wasn't quite true.

The inspiration for Mothering Sunday comes from the very Laetere verse of the introit Jerusalem is called to rejoice on this Sunday (Laetare) along with all who love her. Rather than ignoring the death of my mother, rather than all of us ignoring our many losses, we are also addressed and encouraged to rejoice and, very graphically, be consoled at Her breast. 

The Wikipedia article states that when Mothering Sunday was reinistituted it was to remember not only mother churches and mothers, but Mary the Mother of Jesus and Mother Nature. Now we can grow those images remembering God the Mother, the Great Mother, the Inner Mother, or mothering instincts. By a whole other accident, Mothering Sunday is also called Rose Sunday and the rose colors of the Lady are worn on this day. In the midst of Lent we remember Mother in all of her aspects and not only in the selfish way of wanting to be mothered,

The first weeks of Lent are dark, and then the last three weeks are rose and red. Beginning next Sunday is Passiontide. We cannot enter into either Passiontide or Christmas without becoming Mary, without possessing the heart and passion of the Virgin Mother. Motherhood is made true when allow ourselves to be mothersd despite bad mothering and fear to trust or be weak. Motherhood is made complete in the way in which we become mother. This Laetare Sunday my prayer is make room and room and more room for the Mother in this spiritual life, and in this holy house.  

Quadragesima and Reminiscere: The First Two Sundays of Lent

This is apparently the first time I've been back to this page sense Ash Wednesday and I leanr much to my sheer idocy, that I clearly forgot to write anything for the first Sunday of Lent called Invocabit, or Quadregesima. There is no point in trying to go back and remember what I forgot. We jsut need to think about a few things. I look so forward to Lent and then I'm in it and it's like: so what? The first readying is of the templtaito in the desert, which we celebrate befor on a Sunday of the Epipjany and this Sunday we celebrate hte Trsnfiguration as we did a few Sundays ago,. But between  the Sundays what is the week, and even on the Sunday's exactly what are we doing? We're fasting, true enough, and were wearign drabber clothes and no jewelry, but what are we doing? We're on the road to Jerusalem, true enough. But what is that? what does that mean?

 I actually think that in the same way Holy Thursday is a celebration of the next two days ahead, that the weeks of Lent ate an unfolding celebration of Holy Week. This sounds extraordinary, but one msut thing that Holy Week is happening all the time. It is a mistake to say Jesus suffered mroe than anyone else when he went to the Cross. His trial was for a night and a day, excruciating but many of his saints went through much more. The suffering is not contest and confining Jesus's srory to a week or a night and a day actually misses the point.The suffering of Christ is the suffering of the whole world. The Passion of the Christ is the passion of the whole world. Holy Week is every day we live the life of Jesus and offer what we do to the way of the Cross.

At the beginning of the Gospels, Jesus is asked why he and his disciples do not fast. In the Gospel of Luke it is placed right after Jesus has gone to the house of Levi the Publican. He replies:

“Can you make the guests of the bridegroom fast while He is with them? But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.” 

Luke 5.34, 35

The fasting of Jesus is different from the fasting of John or even from the fasting of Judaism. He says the time of celebration is here, but in Lent our fasting and the discplines we choose to exercise tell a truth that we stay away from much of the year: in some form the Bridegroom is NOT here. In some way the Kingdom of God is NOT present. Our fasting is not only prayer and penitence, but the admission of a loss.  In many ways our lives in Lent are no different from our lives in Christmas and Easter. There we are meant to look deeper into things, explore the joy of life, come into the gratitude and thanksgiving of seein the presence of God even when such a presence seems to be undetectable. There is something restful in the fast of Lent, something that says, no, he is not here.  You cannot seek him here. No, this is not the Kingdom. No, the Bridegroom has departed.. Yes, we await his arrival.

I am tmepted to say this week has been rough. I am not sure it has been rougher than any other week. Here there is no ndeed to detil the bleak half despairs and utter weariensse I felt by Wednesday or go on about the large amount of work on Monday or the doubt on Sunday that I would ever have formal work again. The weeks take a toll and as they come to an end you hope that next week will be different, that the rest you seek at the week's end will carry into the next set of days,

And it is in this Lenten country that we continue. It's here, where we forget to do th things we longed to do and remember what we would like to forget, and are still aggravated by the little griefs that we let God bless this time of living without and sanctify all the many things we have to live with that we wish we did not