Mary Magdalene, Saint of Lebanon

Marriage of Magdalene - 50 x 61 cm - 2006

Now Mary born in Magdalen was to know a second birth
As one who was baptized and now having Christian worth.
With perfumes and her tears she washed the feet divine,
These both she kissed, and with humbleness sublime.
Wiped them with her long and shining hair,
Drying them and treating them with all her loving care.
She had discovered love that was of truest kind,
Love that makes a sacrifice, not just to passion find.
What joy for you, O Magdalen, now to approach your Lord
Who frees you of all sin, Son divine, Eternal Word.
I seek by every means, yes, I most lost in sin,
To know like you that feeling of freedom deep within.
I envy you, O Magdalen, in love and faith so true,
United with your Savior in an act that makes you new.
For the Christian to repent means love self-sacrificing,
And pardon is fraternal, not reproaching or despising.
Christ forgave and Magdalen now through the love she bore
Was many times more beautiful than she had been before.
She lived now for a person celestial and divine,
Leaving all her pride with her silken raiment fine.
She saw the guiding light, no more obscured by sin,
She felt the mystic love illuminate within.
Now I seek you in the flowers and the warm rays of the sun,
The seasons that around the year in a cycle run
With seasons in my soul where Magdalen does sleep.
My breathing makes a bound, my heart takes upward leap.
I see you in the breezes of the morning and the eve,
I see you in the tempests and the ocean’s upward heave,
You are found where time stands still in plunging valleys deep,
In the music of the cosmos and the air I breathe asleep.
You enliven all our being like the blood that keeps us living,
With renewal of our youth and of joy that you are giving.
Faithful to Christ Jesus till he rose up from the dead,
Magdalen and mother shared hours full of dread.
Of Magdalen impassioned and beautified by light,
There not far south of Lebanon along the coastal bight
In this Orient of dreams, where saints and prophets see
Tyre and Sidon, Nazareth, Jerusalem, Galilee,
Villages and cities along the trodden ways
Keep alive the memory born in ancient days.
Before the twelve apostles, Mary gave to her adored
Unflinching faithful love as she followed Christ her Lord.
She followed close behind the Master of Creation,
Sharing with him times both of blackness and elation,
In Peter’s house, at Cana, in the Temple on the Hill,
And when five thousand people of bread and fishes had their fill.
She saw Lazarus breathe the air as the tomb he lift behind
And men who now could see although long they had been blind.
She saw paralytics cured and the sick with health endowed,
She heard her Lord speak parables and the stirrings of the crowd.
Nets when cast were full of fish and the tempest was calmed down
And Christ walked on the waters like a king who wears a crown.
He showed himself the master of every natural force
And won the heart of Magdalen, who shed tears in her remorse.
Her heart was like a fortress where love and joy could shine,
Obstinate, unshakeable, with purity sublime.
When the donkey trod on palms she followed in the wake,
Glorified or suffering, she loved him purely for his sake.
In the grove among the olive trees Christ suffered mortal fear,
So she also made a sacrifice of all that she held as dear.

Magdalen at the feet of our Lord - 61 x 46 cm - 2006

The temptations of the devil he looked on them with scorn
While Mary practiced penance with suffering nobly borne.
Fasting and long prayer became her daily bread
For Jesus’ coming glory in the future she had read.
Now there was to come the greatest happening of all time,
The Holy Week of torture and many events sublime.
The judgment on the Master will be harsh beyond belief
Magdalen will suffer and be buried deep in grief.
She will follow her lord Christ as he bears the heavy Tree
With the other Holy Women who all the passion see.
And of the famous Twelve there is only one remains
Most odious is the man who sought ill-gotten gains.
With the Holy Women the Magdalen stays true
Before the Victim crucified her love gives heavenly force
She shows to him fidelity that comes from higher source.
She promises eternal love and strengthens those around,
Veronica and John, and Mother Mary there are found.
Strong and full of ardor, resolute and brave,
She calls the Twelve around her, for their mission she must save.
Messenger to messengers, ‘tis she who goes before,
This woman fair and gracious, this one whom I adore.
She wishes to anoint with oils the body pure and holy
With the other Holy Women rising in the morning early.
But they find the tomb quite empty, the shroud alone inside,
A brilliant light emitting while the door is gaping wide.
Turning back into the garden, filled with wild alarm,
She wonders if the Pharisees have done the body harm.
But as she runs to find the others, a man she sees in white
Who with unearthly splendor is radiating light.
His voice is reassuring, with tones of joy serene,
He calls her Mary Magdelen, and calms her with her name.
His feet she would embrace, in her hand his tunic take,
But “Touch me not,” he says to her, “for this is mystic shape.”
She was first to see her Lord when the tomb was opened wide,
She was first to spread the news to the men who were outside.
For forty days of thankful joy when Christ kept earth’s dimension,
She saw him walking on the land and witnessed his Ascension.
She saw him rise as in a cloud with kingly face and grave,
Giving all their mission, for the world he had to save.
A hundred friends, a little more, not much but ‘twas the yeast
That would go around the world and spread the Paschal feast.
After two millennia past, Christianity has grown;
Everywhere among mankind the seeds of truth are sown.

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