– Reflection –
How can a set of created human eyes produce such copious a fount of tears sufficient to wash the feet of Another? From what type of water source could spring up such a superabundant flow? What chasm could bear and ceaselessly renew so plentiful a reservoir of sweetly flowing tears which like a faucet flow down the cheeks, roll off the chin, and pour onto His precious feet?
Where can one find such a reservoir? How can one acquire such a lake? I ask You, whose feet thirst for a washing of tears of love, whose heart yearns for trickles of adoration with which to be soothed, how my heart can be so expanded as to produce waterfalls for the very washing You ache for?!
Beyond the multitudes, Your heart radiates such a fine pulsation of invisible attraction, and those whose hearts are atuned with such a wavelength are drawn in compulsory response, finding an invisible thread so silky soft and stronger than any chain, tugging their hearts to leave all behind, forget all, forsake all, and run to anoint Your body for burial. Run! Run, O daughter of Zion! Run past all the crowds, break forth as the dawn bearing light in the dark! Run to soothe your Jesus! With anguish His heart is laden, for the coming slaughter which He accomplishes on your behalf.
O beloved Bridegroom, when You raised the chalice and offered me Your wine of betrothal—Your very blood—You took captive my heart into a new covenant of love. When You raised Yourself up onto the wood and offered Your Passion for me, You bought me for Yourself to be eternally Yours. Forever indebted I am to You. Hence I offer to You the little that I can—to anoint You with the symbols of my freedom which You granted me by Your redemption of me—the copious fountain of tears of a love stronger than death, more potent than wine, more unfailing than the oceans.
Your flowing blood, O Lamb, is the very fountain that sources my fountain of tears. It is that very reservoir from which spring up my tears. Your blood never dries up nor ceases flowing; hence my fountain of tears ought never to dry up nor cease flowing—bountifully onto Your feet which so graciously indeed led me from the path of straying to the path of peace.
My tears are sourced by Your blood, O Beloved. Each tear I shed onto Your feet, O Love, is sourced by a drop of Your blood which You shed for a sin which You erase from me. Precious is Your blood, O Holy One; and precious is Your redemption! A font of Your blood is my reservoir, from which I draw my fount of tears.
Your font of blood is ever for me and my fount of tears is ever for You.
Beloved, I You are forever mine and I am forever Yours.
The Death of Saint Mary of Egypt by Théodore Chassériau
– A Word on Venerable Mother Mary of Egypt –
On this fifth Sunday of Great Lent, we commemorate the Venerable St. Mary of Egypt, the penitent harlot. Of necessity one must read her biography, with openness of heart, seeking oneself within the lines of this wondrous story of the Lord’s great salvation of a tremendously lost soul.
The gospel read on this occasion is Luke 7:36–50, the account of the penitent sinner woman washing the feet of Jesus with her tears, wiping them with her hair, profusely kissing them, and anointing them with fragrant oil.
Every penitent soul kissed by the Savior’s salvation and washed clean of her filth by His precious blood is compelled to respond in the same way of love and adoration of Him. Yet what soul is there which does not fit this description? What soul is there in existence without sin or without the Savior? Dear ones, we all have sinned and fall short of His glory;1 hence, we all ought to be compelled to run to His precious feet and ever wash them with a copious fount of our tears, to kiss His feet in humble adoration, to anoint His wounded heart with the soothing ointments of our love. This is our Savior and this is our Bridegroom!
His response to the soul who finds her way to His feet in this way is as we see in the life of Mother Mary of Egypt: He draws us upwards in love to transcend nature and ascend to a mystical way of life with Him—and along the way we totally lose ourselves, abandoning ourselves into the streams of His grace.
Draw me after You; let us run!2
Leave a Reply