I’ll now conclude these Easter Musings with this contemplation from Mirari: The Way of the Marys.
In the early church, Easter was associated with an expectation that the second advent would occur on Easter Day. In A Course of Love, we heard of the Covenant of the New. Here, in Mirari: The Way of the Marys, we call it the New Advent.
The power of remembrance is to both keep and let go, to hold the truth which has passed, and to let go the time in which it came to pass. Remembrance welcomes The New that always was to return to your awareness. We dwell very briefly here in time long past to bring you to awareness of the New Advent and its coming in grief.
Yes, before the glad rejoicing, the human heart needs to grieve.
This is the difference between the Covenant of the New, and the New Advent, why it comes to be the New Advent, and why Yeshua himself could not speak of it. P.221
As I contemplate the call to grieve, I know that my own experience has shown me that grief, as Elizabeth Lesser wrote, “is a healing elixir.” (see End Note)
Grief is also spoken of in A Course of Love:
You realize that you have no feelings that are bad. You embrace sadness, grief, anger, and all else that you feel because these feelings are part of who you are in the present moment. When you remain in the present moment you remain within Christ-consciousness where all that is exists in harmony. To embrace is the opposite of to escape. To hold all within yourself in the embrace of love is the opposite of holding onto what you have already responded to with fear and made separate. There is no escape for there is only the embrace. The embrace is Christ-consciousness. D:Day16.10
Much is “passing away” in this time. “Grief,” Mary says, “accompanies the letting go of all that is passing. “All” that is passing. The story of Holy Week was the passing of the old way. So is our way of Mary.”
The New Advent is the realm of the forerunners. Like all forerunners of The New, you are called to step beyond what you have learned to what can only be revealed. This is a great incitement to the grief of this time. It is as if all the knowledge one has worked so hard to attain is as dust. To leave learning behind is a greater grief than many can withstand. P.249
We are called to “move through death into new life—“here,” to be here in a “descending rather than an ascending manner, not as a way of barbarism but one of goodness, one that responds creatively to a destiny not yet written.” This way, she told me, “is barely known. It is here but hidden. It is here, but not yet clear.” P. 238-39
From our call to be “forerunners of the new,” we are among the early responders. Jesus first used this expression (forerunners) as he spoke specifically to those who have been teachers and leaders, calling them “the last of the intermediaries” and asking them to step beyond what they have learned to “what can only be revealed.” T4:9.8
In Day 19 of A Course of Love, titled “The Way of Mary,” Jesus kindly reveals that we, of the way of Mary, “may have felt confusion” about our calling.” It is suggested that this is because we are called to become what we want to create. I just love that! In our “being” we become what we want to create. (19.4)
Mary, too, assures us, saying “Grief accompanies the letting go of all that is passing. “All” that is passing. The story of Holy Week was the passing of the old way. So is A Course of Love and our “way of Mary.””
We are called to “move through death into new life—“here,” to be here in a descending rather than an ascending manner, not as a way of barbarism but one of goodness, one that responds creatively to a destiny not yet written.” Mary admits that this way, “is barely known. It is here but hidden. It is here, but not yet clear.” P. 238-39
I imagine rising to descend again and descending to rise again. I feel a desire and a passion to usher in the new time, to invite our Holy Ones to reveal themselves among us, and for us to reveal ourselves to them and each other. I desire to live in their presence, and yours . . . and mine . . . with Love~
End Note
Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow
I shared from Broken Open when I spoke on grief and my experience of ACOL at a conference at the Rocky Mountain Miracles Center in 2010:
Two of my own earlier books explore the depth and transformative power of grief. They have just been republished as e-books:
The Given Self
Click here to order The Given Self
Love: A Story of Connection
Book One of The Grace Trilogy
Click here to order Love: A Story of Connection
Image copyright SWPA.Photography
What a perfect few words to highlight. I’ll highlight yours: “I am ready and willing.”
“To embrace is the opposite of to escape.”
Your works and all that I am being led to, supports me in choosing the embrace and not escape. I am ready and willing.
Me too! And so I imagine, that it is in this way that “the Marys” will come to be.