For context and in order to fully appreciate the above title, it might be helpful to read the post entitled kissing the face of God from earlier this month first.  

I found a little treasure today… actually, I have stumbled upon a wealth of true Treasure today but that, if shared, is for another time.  Anyway, I found a little prayer book that includes quotes, prayers and devotions from Therese of Lisieux.  She was a Carmelite nun in the 19th century, who entered the convent in Lisieux at just 15 and died only nine years later of tuberculosis at the age of 24.  I love the writings of Therese… I have quoted them here before.  I don’t know… there’s just something about the way she expresses her love for Jesus…it moves my heart in a beautiful way towards a life of Love and Simplicity before God.  The simple life of devotion - what she called the ”little way” of holiness and childlike abandonment to Love Himself - it’s just good for the soul.

Anyway, as I was reading through the poem I quote below, I had the thought that ”these are words that resound from the walls of Mary’s room.”  Again, that’s just my own made up phrase/place from an earlier post talking about an eternal place of deep communion, love and service to Jesus Christ.   

So here is an excerpt from what I was reading tonight:

Beside the tomb wept Magdalen at dawn, -
She sought to find the dead and buried Christ;
Nothing could fill the void now He was gone,
No one to soothe her burning grief sufficed.

Not even you, Archangels heaven-assigned!
To her could bring content that dreary day.
Your buried King, alone, she longed to find,
And bear His lifeless body far away.

Beside His tomb she there the last remained,
And there again was she before the sun;
There, too, to come to her the Saviour deigned, -
He would not be, by her, in love outdone.

Gently He showed her then His blessed Face,
And one word sprang from His deep Heart’s recess:
Mary! His voice she knew, she knew its grace;
It came with perfect peace her heart to bless.    (Therese of Lisieux)

Which took me again to a good place for lingering… John 20.  I love to ponder what took place at the empty tomb between Jesus and Mary Magdalene.   I think about Mary at the tomb weeping at the loss of the One around whom all her life was now centered.  She had watched, she had waited and she had wept… and now she arrives at the garden tomb just before the ever faithful sun is beginning to creep up over the horizon (as if to whisper with creation a secret soon to be revealed).  Yet her mind cannot be consoled even by the dawn, the thought of another day without Him is just too unimaginable to bear.  And something else has been revealed by dawn’s early light… it’s the stone… it’s gone and her Lord too!  Angels spoke and others came and went, but Mary wept… “if you see the One I love, tell Him I am lovesick.”

This woman truly loved much…  for she was loved first, and not by love fleeting and forgotten but by Love Himself.  Mary had met with Mercy in the flesh, she had broken bread with the Bread of Life, she had beheld the Lamb crucified… how could she bear another hour on this earth without Him?   Here, in a garden, as if to remind us where it all began, Mary Magdalene is literally bearing the first fruits of Jesus’ words in Matthew 9, “The attendants of the bridegroom cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they?  But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.“  She is mourning for the Bridegroom.

But He would not be, by her, in love outdone.

Many waters cannot quench Love nor rivers wash it away.   Love is stronger than the grave, burning like a blazing fire, the very flame of Yah.   Death, oh death, where is your sting?   Jesus is alive…

One day, my God! I, too, like Magdalen,
Desired to find Thee, to draw near to Thee;
So, over earth’s immense, wide-stretching plain,
I sought its Master and its King to see.

Then cried I, though I saw the flowers bloom
In beauty ‘neath green trees and azure skies:
O brilliant Nature! thou art one vast tomb,
Unless God’s Face shall greet my longing eyes.”

A heart I need, to soothe me and to bless, -
A strong support that can not pass away, -
To love me wholly, e’en my feebleness,
And never leave me through the night or day.

There is not one created thing below,
Can love me truly, and can never die.
God become man – none else’ my needs can know;
He, He alone, can understand my cry…         (Therese of Lisieux)

O brilliant Nature, highest mountains and rose in bloom, deepest oceans and night’s full moon… thou art one vast and empty tomb, unless mine eyes at last shall see and know as I am known.   There is only One Love that never dies, Whose flower never fades.  Holy, holy… crucified…

Jesus is alive.