Author: Jobin

  • She Thought He Was the Gardener: Mary Magdalene at the Tomb

    ByJobin

    🌅 Since the first week of Great Lent this blog has been walking through the lives of men and women in Scripture.
    Adam. Eve. Cain. Noah. Abraham. Sarah. Hagar. Jacob. The Theotokos at the Cross. The Good Thief.
    Today we arrive at the first Paschal face.
    Mary Magdalene. Who came to the tomb in the dark. Who stayed when others left. Who thought the risen Christ was the gardener. Who heard her name and turned and knew.
    The series has been moving toward this garden since the first post.
    The gate that closed on Adam has opened here. In a garden. At dawn. In one word spoken to a weeping woman.
    First Paschal reflection now on the blog.

  • Hevoro Monday – The First Day of Brightness

    ByJobin

    Hevoro Monday. The First Day of Brightness. Luke 24:13-35

    Two disciples walked seven miles away from Jerusalem. Away from the resurrection. They had the facts. They did not have the faith.

    A Stranger joined them. Opened the Scriptures. Set their hearts on fire.

    At a table in Emmaus, He took bread. Blessed it. Broke it. Gave it. And their eyes opened. And they knew Him. And He vanished.

    “Did not our heart burn within us?”

    St. Ephrem: the Emmaus road is the road every Christian walks. Hearts burning from Scripture. Eyes opening at the bread. And between the two: a walk with the risen Christ. Unrecognised. But present.

    For our journey today:
    – Stay on the road
    – Invite Him in
    – Look for the breaking

    Full reflection at Seeking Theosis

  • Lenten Reflection – The Feast of Resurrection

    ByJobin

    The Feast of the Resurrection. John 20:1-18

    Mary Magdalene stood weeping at the empty tomb. She thought the body had been stolen. She turned and saw a man she assumed was the gardener.

    He said one word. “Mary.”

    And she knew. Not by sight. By voice. The shepherd’s sheep know the shepherd’s voice.

    “Rabboni!” My Teacher. My Lord. You are alive. You said my name.

    St. Cyril: the resurrection is not a doctrine believed from a distance. It is a Person standing behind you while you weep, about to say your name.

    Fifty days. The fast is finished. The tomb is empty. Christ is risen.

    Full reflection at Seeking Theosis

  • Remember Me: The Good Thief and the Last Word on Repentance

    ByJobin

    *Remember Me: The Good Thief and the Last Word on Repentance*
    _Movement V, Post 2 | Seeking Theosis_

    🕯️ The Faces of the Fast series began on the first day of Great Lent with Adam sitting outside the gate of Paradise.

    The gate had just closed behind him. He sat in the dust. He wept. And God had compassion on him.

    Today, Holy Saturday, the Lenten portion of the series ends.

    It ends with a man dying on a cross asking to be remembered. And being told by the man dying beside him that today he will be in Paradise.

    The gate that closed on Adam is opened again. Not for a patriarch or a prophet or a person of demonstrated virtue. For a dying thief. With hours left. Asking for the most human thing in the world.

    Remember me.

    We began with the gate closing. We end with it opening.

    That is the whole of the Gospel in the arc of a Lenten series.

    The last Lenten reflection is on the blog today. Short because Holy Saturday is a day of silence. But the silence is not empty.

    Tomorrow the stone moves.

    Χριστὸς Ἀνέστη. Christ is RIsen. That is where all of this has been going. 🕯️

  • Lenten Reflection – Day 48 of the Great Lent

    ByJobin

    The stone was sealed. The soldiers were posted. The women went home to rest.
    And inside the tomb, the Lord of life was making the most powerful journey in history – to the place where the dead had waited since Adam.
    Holy Saturday is not the absence of God. It is God hidden. And hiddenness is not the same as absence.
    Day 48 of the Great Lent

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    She Stood There: The Theotokos at the Foot of the Cross

    ByJobin

    She Stood There: The Theotokos at the Foot of the Cross

    🕯️ Thirty-three years before Golgotha, Simeon held the infant Jesus in the temple and said to Mary:

    “A sword will pierce through your own soul also.”

    She did not know then what the sword would look like.
    Today she knew.

    St. John Chrysostom says the sword was real. The pain of watching her son crucified was not spiritualised away or made bearable by some special divine protection. She felt what any mother would feel. The theology of the Incarnation does not exempt the Theotokos from human suffering. If anything it intensifies it. Because she knew, with a clarity no one else had, exactly who it was dying on that Cross.

    She knew He was the Son of God.

    And she stood there watching the Son of God die.

    And she did not leave. Not until He gave her somewhere to go.

    Good Friday reflection on the blog. On the Theotokos at the foot of the Cross. On the sword that was promised and the standing that received it.

    She stood there. And today we stand with her.

  • Wrestling Through the Night: Jacob and the God Who Wounds to Bless

    ByJobin

    *Wrestling Through the Night: Jacob and the God Who Wounds to Bless*
    _Faces of the Fast – Movement II, Post 3_

    🕯️ He went into the night self-sufficient and strategic.

    He came out limping.

    Jacob wrestled with God at the ford of the Jabbok all night long. And as dawn was breaking the mysterious wrestler touched the socket of his hip and wrenched it out of joint.

    With a dislocated hip Jacob was still holding on.

    *_”I will not let you go unless you bless me.”_*

    The wound and the blessing came from the same encounter. They could not be separated. He crossed the river into the morning carrying both of them together.

    Now stand that image beside what we are remembering this week.

    The risen Christ appears to His disciples and shows them His hands and His side. The wounds are still there. The Resurrection did not erase them. It transfigured them. The wounds of Good Friday are present in the glorified body of Easter Sunday. Still real. Still visible. Now luminous.

    Jacob’s limp and the wounds of the risen Christ are the same testimony in two different moments of salvation history. The blessing and the wound came from the same night. The glory and the marks came from the same Cross.

    Holy Week reflection on the blog now. On Jacob. On Gethsemane. On what it means to hold on through the darkness when you have run out of everything else.

    Full reflection on Seeking Theosis:

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    Lenten Reflection – Day 46 of the Great Lent

    ByJobin

    Lenten Reflection – Day 46 of the Great Lent: Maundy Thursday – Luke 22:14–30 & John 13:1-20
    The Table, the Towel and the New Covenant

    “With fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.”

    Christ longed for this meal. Not dreading it. Longing. Because this is the meal that changes everything. The Passover that fulfils every Passover. The lamb of Egypt giving way to the Lamb of God.

    St. Cyril: the words “this is My body” create what they declare. The bread becomes the body. The wine becomes the blood. Not symbolically. Really.

    After forty-six days of fasting: the bread that was denied is now the body that is given. Receive.

    Further, the washing of the feet is participation. Not spectacle. We must be washed. We must receive. We must let the God of the universe touch our dirt.

    That is harder than any act of service. Letting ourselves be served by the One who made us.

    Tonight: sit still. Extend your feet. Receive.

    Full reflection at Seeking Theosis

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    Lenten Reflection – Day 45 of the Great Lent

    ByJobin

    Wednesday of Holy Week – John 12:19-50: The Last Day of the Light

    “A little while longer the light is with you.”

    The most urgent sentence in Holy Week. A little while. Hours. By tomorrow evening, the light will be arrested. By Friday afternoon, extinguished. By Friday evening, in the tomb.

    “Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you.”

    The fast has been forty-five days of walking in the light. Every reflection. Every prayer. Every Scripture. The light has been saying: walk while you have Me.
    Wednesday asks: have you walked? The little while is almost over.

    For our journey today
    – Let the grain fall
    – Speak the secret belief
    – Walk while you have the light

    Full reflection at Seeking Theosis

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    Lenten Reflection – Day 44 of the Great Lent

    ByJobin

    Tuesday of Holy Week – Matthew 22:15–33: Two Traps, Two Truths

    The Pharisees and the Sadducees both tried to trap Christ in the Temple on Tuesday. Both failed.

    The tax trap revealed the truth about identity. The coin bears Caesar’s image; give it to Caesar. You bear God’s image; give yourself to God.

    The resurrection trap revealed the truth about God. “I AM the God of Abraham.” Present tense. God does not preside over corpses. The dead are alive in Him.

    The traps failed on Tuesday. By Friday, the enemies will bypass the arguments and use soldiers instead. But by Sunday, the resurrection argument will be proved. From inside an empty tomb.

    Full reflection at Seeking Theosis