still as trees in Spring

         

Line engraving by R. Strange, 1773, after himself, 1764, after G.F Barbieri, il Guercino, Guercino, 1591-1666, Date 1773

“Consolation of Mary with Christ Arisen” by Rainer Maria Rilke

What they felt then: is it not 

before all secrets sweet and yet still earthly: 

as he, a little pale still from the grave, 

relieved stepped up to her: 

at every point arisen.

O to her first. How were they then

Inexpressibly being healed.

Yes, they were healing, that was it. They had no need 

firmly to touch each other.

He laid for a second 

scarcely his soon to be 

eternal hand to her womanly shoulder.

And they began, 

still as trees in Spring, 

infinitely together, 

this season of their ultimate communing.

the Lord of History

 

The tomb where Jesus's body is believed to have been laid, inside the Edicule in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem

 (Getty)

    

    "He is risen . . . he is not here. He is going before you to Galilee." (Mark 16:6-7)

    Christ is risen. Christ lives. Christ is the Lord of the living and the dead. He is the Lord of history.

    Christ is the Lord of a history that moves. He not only holds the beginning and the end in his hands, but he is in history with us, walking ahead of us to wherever we are going. He is not always in the same place.

    The cult of the Holy Sepulchre is Christian only insofar as it is the cult of the place where Jesus is no longer found. But such a cult can be valid only on one condition: that we are willing to move on, to follow him to where we are not yet, to seek him where he goes before us -- "to Galilee".

---

Read the rest at the link below ...

Short booklet, "He is Risen", written by Merton in 1967 is HERE. 

He is Risen