Why are you weeping?

Why are you weeping?

As I get older, I seem to weep more frequently; maybe you accumulate experiences of grief and loss, so that the tragedy of life is always closer to the surface as you age. Perhaps I have become more compassionate. My son always notices when a tear has escaped my eyes and pounces on it. Mummy you are crying, Mummy have you been crying? For him, I imagine, his Mother’s sadness is frightening and causes him worry. He cannot safely contain my tears within his childhood existence – he must seek to make them go away.

Margery Kempe, a late-Medieval spiritual character, was renowned for her shedding of tears. These tears were despised and sometimes accepted as a spiritual gift. Her spiritual autobiography narrates how her copious crying in front of senior members of church and society caused consternation and disruption. However, she also encounters acceptance and encouragement. The following is one such incidence -Margery visits the Chapter Provincial of the Dominicans, where she meets a worshipful Doctor called Master Custawns. She approaches him and explains why she cried and wept ‘so sor’ and asked him whether he found any fault in her weeping.

‘The worschepful doctowr seyd to hir, ‘Margery, I have red of an holy woman whom God had govyn gret grace of wepying and crying as he hath don onto yow. In the church ther sche dwellyd was a preyste which had no conseyt in her wepying and cawsyd hir thorw hys steryng to gon owte of the cherche. Whan sche was in the church yerd, sche preyd God that the preyst myth have felyng of the grace that sche felt as wistly as it lay not in hir powyr to cryen ne wepyn but what God wolde. And so soddenly owr Lord sent hym devocyon at hys messe that he myth not mesuryn himself, and than wolde he no more despisyn hir aftyr that but rathyr comfortyn hir’. Thus the sayde doctor, confermying hir cying and wepyng, seyd it was a gracyows and a special gyft of God, and God was hyly to be magnified in hys gyft.

p.160 ‘The Book of Margery Kempe’ edited by Lynn Staley, Middle English Texts

(The worshipful doctor [of divinity] said to her, ‘Margery, I have read of a holy woman whom God has given great grace of weeping and crying as he has given to you. In the church where she dwelled was a priest which had no consent in her weeping and caused her through her stirring to be gone out of the church. When she was in the church yard, she prayed God that the priest might have feeling of the grace she felt as certainly as it lay not in her power to cry nor weep but what God would. And so suddenly our Lord sent him devotion at his Mass that he might not measure himself, and then would he no more despise her after that but rather comfort her’. Thus the said doctor, confirming her crying and her weeping, said it was a gracious and a special gift of God, and was highly to be magnified in his gift.)                               My translation

What then do tears signify?

For Margery, the tears signified her deep, emotional connection with the suffering of Jesus and with his Mother and Mary Magdalene. She has conversations with Mary the Mother of God, and with Jesus – she prays that she might be able to join them in Heaven. Jesus tells her that his Mother, John the Evangelist and Mary Magdalene had to wait 15 years, and so she must wait too! He tells her that he loves her as well as he loves Mary Magdalene and the same ‘peace I give to her, I give to you’ (Ibid., p.169). Significantly, from this dialogue, she is so drawn into the love and remembrance of Jesus’ passion, that she can’t behold a leper, or another sick man, without crying and weeping as if it were the Lord Jesus.This is in stark contrast to her years of ‘werdly prosperite’ when she hated to see or behold a leper. She tells her confessor of her desire to kiss lepers, ‘and he warnyd hir that sche schulde kyssyn no men, but, yyf sche wolde algatys kyssyn, sche schulkd kyssyn women. Than was sche glad, for she had leve to kyssyn seke women and went to a place where seke women dwellyd which wer ryth ful of sekenes and fel down on hir kneys beforn hem, preyng hem that sche myth kyssyh her mowth for the lofe of Jhesu’.  (Don’t kiss men, kiss women!). (Ibid., pg.170).

Her love and devotion to the sick women includes preaching the Gospel and leading them to repentance and conversion of life. Such acts of compassion to lepers recalls the actions of many other renowned saints who have shown their love of God in Jesus through lives of service to the sick and poor. Like St Francis, she contrasts her previous life with its love of wealth, to her life now, which is characterised by compassion to the suffering, flowing from her love of and devotion to God.

I happened to watch a programme about Paul Cezanne by Waldemar Januszczak (BBC 4) in which he was discussing Cezanne’s ‘The Card Players’. However, his discussion took him into religious themes, and to Mary Magdalene, whose legend brought her to the part of France where Cezanne lived. The legend goes that she spent her last years in a lonely grotto, weeping over her sins. It is managed by the Dominican order (nice connection with the Dr of Divinity who met Margery in the passage above); Cezanne painted an image of Mary Magdalene, diverting from the typical iconography of the saint (sinful penitent beauty, holding the oils in which she was wrongly thought to have anointed Jesus’ feet).

Paul Cézanne, La Madeleine or La Douleur (1839–1906) 

I’m intrigued for our purposes here, particularly by the three large tear drops at the top of the painting. This is Mary Magdalene ‘weeping’ for her sins. These tears of compunction are tears that Margery shed too and for Margery they became a ministry (like Mary Magdalene’s), for she was weeping not only for her sins, but for the sins of the people, that they might be saved (a priestly ministry).

Margery’s interaction with the learned churchmen of her day and their frequent consternation and dislike of her piety, only deepened her personal and direct devotion to Jesus, in which he taught her all things: ‘Ther is no clerk in al this world that can, dowtry, leryn the bettyr that I can do, and yyf thu wilt be buxom to my wyl, I schal be buxom to they wil. Where is a bettyr charite than to wepyn for thi Lordys lofe?’ Ibid., pg.153. ‘Where is better charity than to weep for thy Lord’s love?’

Cezanne’s image recalls another very famous statue of Mary, by Donatello (below); he too seizes upon her role as penitent sinner, rather than triumphant apostle to the apostles.

Penitent Magdalene (c. 1454) by Donatello, showing her as "an old, emaciated and toothless woman... worn down by years of hard solitude in her cave". 

Tears and sorrow, isolation and fear. I suppose the artists are right, that, even after you experience joy, even after you experience the Risen Christ, the memory of past pain is always present. This Easter season, of all Easter seasons, we are literally stuck in Good Friday and Holy Saturday, wondering and hoping that we will meet the Risen Lord and be able to rejoice together freely, in the open. The liturgical year is cyclical for a reason, we go from birth to death, back to birth; from hope and joy, to grief and suffering, to abandonment and back again to joy. We never leave anything fully behind. At the end of Epiphany, we turn to the Cross; but at Easter we know we will be at the Crib again.

What does it mean then to learn and to grow in this context? If we are to learn by the saints, it means to grow in compassion, in the shedding of tears, to be moved by the suffering we see around us and in which we share. To be moved also by our own failings, tears of compunction: these were quintessentially the tears that Mary Magdalene was thought to have shed, conflated as she was with the penitent woman from Luke’s Gospel:

‘Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love.

Luke 7:44-47

Margery Kempe, idiosyncratic and irritating as she undoubtedly was to the numerous ecclesiastical figures that she sought out, was, nonetheless, a woman who turned from a life of secular values to a life of religious values. She fully embraced the story of Jesus Christ and what she learned from it was twofold: that she was dearly beloved; and that she shared in Christ’s ministry of compassion and mercy. The Christ she encountered was one that welcomed her, valued her and was merciful to, in contrast to some of the Church’s ministry of the day. Her direct encounter with the Lord Jesus was one that enabled her to trust that she was beloved and forgiven, and she in turn desired that others might also know that they were beloved and forgiven. Her confidence and faith in that gift and grace drew hugely from the story of Mary Magdalene and her special relationship with Jesus. She was desirous to be as close to Jesus as Mary was. A little like the sons of Zebedee, she was not bashful to ask the Lord Jesus for the most precious of gifts from him; and he was not slow to grant them. The mark of the Saint comes not from their steadfast love and devotion of God alone, but their capacity to show that love to the least and most despised, in her context, that meant the lepers and the sick.

The pathos of Mary Magdalene as Donatello would have her, or as Cezanne would have her, speaks to me of the great uncovering of mercy and compassion which is at the heart of any genuine encounter with Jesus Christ.

His being risen from the dead, is the revelation of the Father’s deep compassion for His suffering world. He wishes us not to be left to the cycle of birth and death for ever, but to rejoice in eternity with Him, as Jesus says to Margery Kempe:

thu schalt have with me and with my modyr, with myn holy awngelys, with myn apostelys, with myn martirys, confessowris and virginys, and with alle myn holy seyntys al maner joye and blysse lestyne wythowtyn ende’. (pg.201 Ibid) 

[Thou shall have with me and my mother, with mine holy angels, with my apostles, with my martyres, confessors, virgins and with all my holy saints all manner joy and bliss lasting without end’].

Stations of the Resurrection

Second Station: Mary Magdalene at the empty tomb

Jesus is the resurrection and the life.

Those who believe in him shall never die. Alleluia.

Reading

A reading from the Gospel according to John (20.1, 2; 11-18)

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came

to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran

and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said

to them, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where

they have laid him.’

Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 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. 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.’ When she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ 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.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbouni!’ (which means Teacher). 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.” ’ 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.

Response

What causes you to weep?

What do those tears tell you about God, about yourself?

How can you open your heart more to God’s compassionate love?

Who needs compassion in our world today?

How compassionate a society are we?

What do you value the most in life?

Prayer

We praise you and we bless you, our risen Lord Jesus, King of glory,

for the love which drew Mary Magdalene to your tomb

to weep over your death.

As you broke into her grief with your death-shattering life,

so reach into our broken hearts with your promise of hope.

To you, Lord Jesus,

reaching into the deepest tombs of our despair,

be honour and glory, now and for ever.

Amen.

Praise to you, Lord Jesus:

Dying you destroyed our death,

rising you restored our life:

Lord Jesus, come in glory.

Bibliography

The Book of Margery Kempe, edited by Lynn Staley, Middle English Texts Series

The Language of Tears, David Runcorn

Common Worship, Times and Seasons, Stations of the Resurrection