“While I Was Weeping, I Saw The Lord”

I’d like to return to a few insights from an article entitled “Poetry of Praise” by Anthony Esolen. It begins with the familiar passage of Mary Magdalen at the tomb of Jesus.  “So Mary Magdalen, the sinner, is at the tomb, surrounded by the garden, and she is weeping. And when she peers again into the tomb, she sees two young men clad in white, sitting where Jesus had been laid, one at the head and one at the feet. And they ask her, no doubt with a glint in the eye, “Why are you weeping?” “They have taken my Lord away, and I do not know where they have laid him!” And then, only then, does the sun shine through the rain. Mary turns and sees a gardener, and he too asks her, “Why are you weeping?”She gives the same reply she gave the young men, and then Jesus utters her name, “Mary.” That is all it takes. Imagine what you shall feel, reader, when in the midst of the gloom of death the Lord utters your own name, your name, and no other.”(Anthony Esolen, “The Poetry of Praise”, Magnificat, 4-15-24) 

Esolen goes on to say, “The Church does wisely when in her antiphons she gives us the words of Scripture, but not exactly the same, or not in the same order; she sets them in a place where they strike us as fresh and new.

• Rejoice with me, all who delight in the Lord, for He whom I sought has appeared to me: And while I was weeping at the tomb, I saw the Lord, alleluia, alleluia.
• The disciples were going away, but I did not go, and kindled with the fire of his love, I burned with desire. And while I was weeping at the tomb, I saw the Lord, alleluia, alleluia.
• Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. And while I was weeping at the tomb, I saw the Lord, alleluia, alleluia.”

It’s difficult to excerpt a few lines from this article because the entire article or poem is so powerful….but a few more lines: “… the Lord finds Mary because Mary sought to find him. Mary Magdalen was weeping at the tomb. We may say with the psalmist that after a night of weeping, the morning comes with joy (Ps 30:6). Yet see what the Church has us chant while I was weeping, not after I had wept my fill. And that is the crucial and climactic sentence in the chant, twice repeated, and each time concluding in the outburst of praise, alleluia. What if the surprise here is not just that Mary had wept, but that she was weeping still, and what if we suppose that the tears are the very medium through which Mary saw the Lord….the tears that grace grants open the heart; they clear the sight. …. Mary saw the Lord through the mist of her tears…” (Ibid)

Okay, so what can we learn from these beautiful insights from Esolen? Well, I guess we can learn that weeping in the power of the Holy Spirit can bring many wonderful things …. weeping over your sins is a grace that can lead to a deeper sorrow and repentance that  can change your life….. weeping with sorrow for the loss of a loved one can bring us to encounter love in a deeper way…this longing can take us to a new level of existence far beyond the shallow experiences of life. Weeping in the power of the Holy Spirit can touch our soul and bring about transformation. In a way it may be like a touch of purgatory, burning away the trivial of this life and leaving only love.

Let’s not be afraid when the Lord brings us to a time of weeping. Let’s not run from it. It truly is an action of the Holy Spirit; it can’t be manufactured. May our beloved Divine Physician use this Holy Spirit Inspired Weeping to heal our poor soul and bring us to true peace. And that would be more of the Good News.