This week’s song from “A Paschal Journey”, I call “Mystagogy: With Magdalene In The Garden.”
Of all the post-resurrection stories, the one story I love the most is this story of Mary Magdalene looking for the dead body of Jesus.
“But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; ¹² and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. ¹³ They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” ¹⁴ When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. ¹⁵Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” ¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). ¹⁷ Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” ¹⁸ Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.” (John 20:11-18, NRSV)
I would like to use the musical form of this song to assist in the meditation of this music. The musical form is known as “Variations On A Theme”. In this form of music, a melody is stated. After the melody of theme is played once, it goes through a number of variations, changing the theme with the use of different chords, or a change of rhythm, a change of dynamics (soft/loud), a change of key area (minor key to major key), and so on.
Spiritually, after our resurrection from our Crucible, we begin reexamine the theme of our lives. We, at first, rejoice because we have survived an event of great suffering. Then, we begin the process of examining just how this suffering has changed us, has transformed us. That is why the title of the song includes the word “Mystagogy”. In the Catholic ritual, Rite of Christian Initiation, the last step of the ritual is Mystagogy, when one who has experienced the sacraments, reflects on how those sacraments have change his/her life. After our death and resurrection, the “theme” or essence of who we are has not changed, but many things about our lives, our themes, have changed.
Like the musical variations on a theme, we are now different that we were before the suffering. We discover those things about our lives that we can no longer do anymore, or choose to no longer do. We test the limitations that the suffering has placed on our lives. We, also, discover those gifts in our lives that have been enhanced. We find begin to live that paradox in which lives, perhaps now limited, have expanded in many ways beyond our hopes. As I have heard it from once sighted people who have lost the ability to see, their sense of hearing, touch, smell, taste become more enhanced, way beyond that which they experienced when they had the ability to see. Then, like Mary Magdalene, we begin the spiritual search as to how and where God was present to us in the midst of our suffering.
As you listen to this music, reflect on how the theme of your life has changed. In what way is your life now limited from the suffering? In what way has your life been enhanced or expanded? Has the direction of your life changed? How? What insights have you gained by your suffering and resurrection? Is that which you held high in importance changed? How? What now holds greatest importance in your life?
In this music, the beginning theme is stated as a rather melancholy hymn melody, like something you might hear on Good Friday. Then, that melody begins to get transformed, one moment a fugue, another moment, a fragment of rhythm from the theme gets focused upon, the harmonic rhythm (a fancy word for the progression of chords) starts to change. This transformation continues over a number of variations, similar to the way we reexamine our own life theme after suffering. If you remember in the story, when Jesus speaks her name, the demeanor of Mary Magdalene abruptly changes from grief to joy. So, in this song, listen to the moment in the music where the same abrupt change occurs. At the moment we discover, “hear our name spoken”, that the presence of God has remained with us, our lives turn from grieving to joy.
