Blessings of the Wise Fool on this April 1st –
Both Judas and Mary Magdalene are typical Mercury people; they are active and temperamental; something is always happening round them.
Mary Magdalene transforms her restlessness into peaceful devotion, and the capacity for love.
She anoints the head of Christ with precious spikenard oil, a spiritual act.
Christ accepts what this woman does as a sacrament of death – a fulfillment of the Last Anointing.
Judas declares her deed extravagant and becomes indignant. He pretends to want something for the poor; yet it is only self-deception, not a genuine social impulse, but his own inner restlessness. His unrest springs from a deeply hidden fear, and it leads to his betrayal of Christ.
Such a soul cannot show devotion; above all, it cannot love. A restless person is not capable of real love; for love is possible only where the soul has found peace.
Thus, in the two figures, Mary Magdalene and Judas, two roads separate as at a crossroads. One leads to the realization of the nearness of Christ; the other into the dark night.
All the figures taking part in these scenes on Holy Wednesday -Mary, Martha, Lazarus, and Judas, show us separate approaches in the expression of the mysteries.
Judas is the man without ritual. He loses self-control when he comes into the sphere of true ceremonial worship.
Mary Magdalene is the sacramental soul.
Mercury, who for the Greco-Roman world was both the God of Healing and also the God of merchants and of thieves,
comes now into the orbit of the Christ Sun. The scene in the house of Lazarus and her sisters at Bethany shows how Mercury, the God of Healing, can himself be healed by the Sun of Christ.»
~ excerpted from Emil Bock’s “Holy Week”, A Spiritual Guide from Palm Sunday to Easter
‘The Best Fool is the Fool for Love’
1 April Fool’s Day, 7-8pm* at thebranch
Holy Wednesday
The 2 sides of Mercury: Healer/Thief
Mary Magdalene’s pre-burial anointing, the impulse for Judas’s betrayal
Group Eurythmy: Hallelujah in the ‘Lamb of God Heptagram’
Study of Emil Bock’s “Holy Week”, A Spiritual Guide from Palm Sunday to Easter
*Followed by an Optional ‘Close of Day’ at 8:15pm, at the Christian Community 2135 W. Wilson
