I find the events of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday the most complex, multi-layered, almost incomprehensible of Holy Days in the Christian Year. It overwhelms me as I experience myself within the Easter context.
Last year I committed to considering the inner experience of each day, one event at a time over however many years it would take. I intended to bring each event into a creative relationship to the awakening self in each of us.
When I began my preparatory contemplations this year, I found no understanding to share. I also admit that I am incredibly busy with important activities that crowd my days and nights and I am certainly feeling the strange cosmic configurations of the stars and the planets…today is the full moon. I just couldn’t imagine producing and delivering four emails, one each day, and the motivating inspirations did not seem to show up in my heart.
Then, this morning before the sun came up, inspiration did arrive in a new form. Each of the four days, I will send a message with a list of most, not all, of the events of each day with a suggestion of how the event can be experienced as a self-reflective, self-developing question living in your inner life.
Choose one of the events (please keep it to just one, so you can go deep) and work with my suggested question, or better yet, feel your own question. Just a few minutes of reflection will waken a feeling for the inner festival.
Maundy Thursday is full of events in the Easter unfolding. The inner experience of the events is quite challenging and can lead your soul into a very troubled state. Even as I wrote them I felt a growing doubt and fear. This troubling of your soul carries you into the darkness of Good Friday. Can you endure your inner suffering today, tomorrow and Saturday knowing the joy of inner resurrection will come on Sunday?
This layer upon layer of dark and cold sadness falling over our souls only appears for this brief period in the inner year. How profound that it comes at the beginning of Spring which fills us with the joy of nature, beauty, and new life.
Let us begin this sacred and profound inner experience with the complexity of Maundy Thursday.
Maundy Thursday’s Unfolding Events
The Preparation of the Upper Room
How do you prepare your body, mind, and spirit for your deep inner work?
The Gathering of the Companions
Who would you gather to share your last meal with? Would you invite even those who shape the dark, frightening aspects of your destiny? Make a list of twelve.
The Washing of the Feet
In your inner life, how do you humbly meet the images of your friends and colleagues? What feelings arise in your heart when you imagine washing the feet of those who have so deeply impacted your life?
The Transubstantiation of the Bread and Wine – Remembrance and Gratitude
If you look back at your life, what have you done or demonstrated that you would ask others to do in remembrance of your incarnation? The bread and wine are the first Eucharist. Eucharist has Greek roots for beautiful gratitude. How do others’ deeds live on in your deeds?
The Walk to the Mount of Olives and the Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane
Imagine slowly walking with your companions to a place of dramatic nature where you will live your last free moments. Are you able to look into the cup of your suffering, pray to be released and then surrender to your destiny? This is so challenging as it is so easy to feel like a powerless victim.
The Sleeping Companions
When have you asked those who love you to stay awake while you suffer only to discover they have fallen asleep? Do you forgive them?
The Betrayal and Arrest
Have you been betrayed? Have you been a betrayer? Keeping yourself settled in your body and in the moment, calmly look at the betrayal with compassion. If betrayed, how did this lead to some powerful fulfillment in your life? If betraying, how did it feel to see the other suffer? Did you make amends or did you fall into despair?
Has a key part of your soul been arrested and taken away from life as you have known it?
The Denial and Abandonment
Imagine knowing that those who were closest to you, were going to denial they knew you and flee from you? This is an inner question that might reveal how parts of you fail to strongly stand beside your gifts or your innocence.
Do you realize how these questions are universal and yet the answers or responses are utterly individual revealing the I dwelling within humanity. Esoterically, this is not about a dogma or a belief system, it is about finding, knowing, and becoming I over a fragile lifetime.
This is precisely what I am looking for Lynn – thank you. I am drawn to the question of community. I tend to experience Lent and then the Holy Week in solitude – on my own Mount of Olives. But the practice of forming my own twelve – the twelve that each bring something to me and to my practice – to my inner experience – seems spot on for this time in my life. I’m not sure if this fits with your intention, but I find myself wanting to use my imagination as well as my memory. I find myself imagining individuals that are coming to me – not just those who have already made their mark on my soul. So with gratitude, I take this up with my whole heart.
Dear Lynn, your emails are a beautiful window into the amazing depths of your being, you have this wonderful gift of a heart with consciousness, you can articulate for us what the heart knows and feels. I feel humble every time I read your messages.
From 2001 to 2008 I spent much time in the Holy Land, exploring my heart in the places where Jesus walked, taught, and suffered. Especially I was there for seven Passover/Easter times, deeply experiencing today’s messages from you.
In 2006 on Easter Thursday, today, I was in St Anne’s Monastery at the beginning of the Via Dolorosa, the path of Jesus from prison to crucifixion, tomorrow’s journey. We held a last supper service, a lead priest and twelve supporting priests, and all the actions of the last supper were lived in the service. The church was packed with pilgrims from all over the world, many from Sri Lanka especially. One of the Nun’s touched the shoulder of my companion and asked if we two would carry the wine to “Jesus” when the time came. This became an extraordinary experience of remembering, some part of my heart’s memory was there then, I knew this feeling of bringing Jesus the wine, it stirred deep feelings of love and beauty to have known this experience before, it still does.
The memories of seven Jerusalem Easter’s merge into one overall experience, with the knowing of Easter Friday too, tomorrow. In my final Easter experience in Jerusalem in 2008 I was first meditating in the Garden of the Tomb, a place of supreme peace and beauty, with humming birds tasting our love too. Then at noon my soul sent me to join the pilgrims at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and of course it is overwhelmingly packed then, tens of thousands of pilgrims come for this personal journey up the Via Dolorosa to share Jesus suffering. The crowds parted for me, I walked through them into the heart of the church, and as I passed a pillar someone rose to leave and I had a seat for prayer and meditation. The voice in my heart was immediate and clear “It is done, the time for suffering is over, the time for love is here” and I was told “walk back along the Via Dolorosa (against the flow of the pilgrims) and radiate this message to all, that the time for suffering is over, and it is time to let it go and remember that Jesus came for love, and he only taught love.” The other part of the message was a reminder that Jesus took all our suffering with him into the crucifixion, past, present and future, so the more we relive his suffering, the more we add to his burden on the cross; so now let us try to heal this suffering of his, to hold him in our hearts in love, to carry him though this horror suspended in our love and free from suffering; then it is truly done.
So I did. At the beginning of the Via Dolorosa is the Lion Gate, quite narrow, and the Muslim prayers were finished in the great mosques, so there were thousands of them in their state of deep holiness, and we all became stuck in the gateway, no movement was possible, Jews, Christians, Muslims, all packed together in deep prayer. A voice chanted a deep, heartfelt “Allah” and others took it up, me too, and everyone relaxed, the pressure eased, and we all moved again, Christians carrying crosses coming in, Muslims and Jews in prayer going out, and we all smiled at each other with love at this unexpected encounter.
Since then I have been trying to write my experiences of the Holy Land, so they live with me always, Passover and Easter especially, and your emails add richly to my experiences. Thank you from my heart, with love from Bill.
Twelve Companions and Washing of the Feet
The 12 companions I gathered happen to fall into 3 categories:
4 are difficult, significant relationships with people who led me smack into my karmic patterns;
4 are fellow travelers that I walk side-by-side with along the transformational journey;
4 are people who serve as my spiritual guides and mentors.
How can I “be” with each of these individuals? (Washing of the Feet).
For the difficult karmic relationships, can I see their individuality? See they are more than the difficult role they played in my life? For the ones who still see me as only the difficult role I played in their lives, can I stand in my “I” against the hook?
With my spiritual guides and mentors, can I behold them as who they are, without idolizing, imitating or walking in blind compliance to their ways? When their human limitations manifest, can I hold them with the same honor and respect that I do when they are sharing the fruits of their spiritual work?
Can I walk side by side with my fellow travelers, honoring and supporting their “becoming I”, holding their shadow without fighting with it? Can I be transparent and vulnerable with them without fear of getting drawn into games of “who‘s up and who’s down – who’s ahead and who’s behind?”
Reflecting on these questions will be my contemplation this evening.
Dear Lynn,
From the minute I began reading your Maundy Thursday reflection, tears rolled down my face. There is enough material in this one reflection and inquiries to last a lifetime of inner work.
I never realized how many different aspect of self are connected to this one monumental event. And it is one that happens every day, if we chose to acknowledge and experience it.
These questions have now found residence in my heart and I will continue to work with them as I move through my own rebirth, reflected in the past, present and future, reflected in those 12 around me, and reflected in the joy of knowing that resurrection and rebirth ARE truly possible.
Many blessings and much gratitude,
Joanne
Thank you, Lynn, for writing and sharing these posts and comments for our inner work especially this Easter weekend. I am especially moved reading the comments from Bill about his experiences in Jerusalem. I had two great aunts who lived and taught in what we used to call “Arabia” — in villages and cities in what are now Iraq and Iran from the 1920s through the early 1960s —before oil and before many of the comforts of today’s life. They were part of a Dutch Reformed medical and education group. Each aunt would make a trip back to the US only once every seven years. Reading Bill’s experience made me recall their telling us that Jews, Muslims, and Christians all went to their school together.
Yesterday, I attended a Maundy Service with communion at my late parents’ 200+ year-old Unitarian Church, one based on a service held 4 times a year in their “sister” church in Translyvania. Yes, unusual for a denomination whose members do not believe in the divinity of Jesus. It was a beautiful and moving service with love at its center. The words, “Do this in remembrance of me” during the communion were the same prayer we say in the Eucharist of my Episcopal Church.
This morning, Good Friday, I am scheduled at 7 am to be part of the vigil which has been going on all night since the washing of the feet, the stripping of the altar in last night’s Episcopal service. Thankful that I woke up early enough to have read these posts, I am printing them out to take with me for my own prayers and meditations during the vigil. I look forward to receiving the ones for the rest of the weekend.
Lynn,
I remember going through the motions of the rituals when I was younger and never fully experiencing the soul-stirring spirituality that has surfaced with reading your Good Friday questions. I can connect to the experience in a more profound way. Thank you for this enlightenment.
Greetings, Lyn! At last I’m putting aside some reflective time for working with your reflective questions which are just brilliant!
The question of betrayal comes up for me with all its ambiguity! For over twenty years I’ve been connected with two choirs in two different parishes. I have always loved the connection of bringing my clarinet to bear to enhance the liturgies on offer. Christmas had been a draining time as I was totally dedicated to working with both groups, one of them being very fragile as we had lost the strong presence of a family who held the group together-they joined Ausaid to work in Jordan. Now it looked as if the Easter cycle was shaping up similarly. It all came to a head after I put the best part of two days into writing out some new music. When I arrived for practice I was told that one of the pieces was to be played in a different key for ease of singing. Something in me snapped and I let it be known I was not happy. The next morning I rang the guitarist /leader and said I was pulling out as I was finding I was over committed with the two groups and I wanted to stay with the fragile group.When told how disappointed everyone was and I saw the hostile expression on the faces of the leader couple joining the group for lunch on Easter Monday, the label betrayal summed it up for me. And I couldn’t be sure if I was betrayed by a lack of consideration for my efforts over a long time, or that I was the betrayer in suddenly pulling out! And yet it was a decision I felt I had to make in order to harness my energies towards our fragile group who, incidentally, performed beautifully at the Easter Vigil.
I have selected my 12 for the last supper and I realise that they are people who are loyal! This is their common virtue. It is also mine. I love it. Michael
Every question is so rich, and so much, too much (?) to be with. How can I choose one?
andrea, often just reading the questions is enough. You will have many Easters, so when you say yes to one, you are not saying no to the others, just telling them to wait for another Easter. although you can also work with one question a day through out Eastertide creating an Easter journal of wisdom-seeking questions and answers full of wonder.