The Chartres Labyrinth and Mary (14) The Passion and Resurrection Window

When something is so horrible that it is inappropriate to speak, I can follow Mary’s example by keeping my hands and heart open.

My prayer

(My hands, open like Mary’s, are”saying” what I need to communicate.)

Biblical touchstone

Joseph of Arimathea went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Joseph took it down, wrapped it in a linen cloth, and laid it in a rock-hewn tomb where no one had ever been laid. It was the day of Preparation, and the sabbath was beginning. The women who had come with him from Galilee followed, and they saw the tomb and how his body was laid. Luke 23: 52-55 (NRSV)

Invitation to prayer

Think of something that has devastated you. Imagine yourself facing it as if hovering above. Place your right thumb over your mouth. Extend your four finger out like a fan. Now place your left hand with your palm facing out and your fingers extended close to your heart. Feel your body pray (no words are necessary) for as long as it wants.

Photo and placement of this image in relationship to the labyrinth

Mary above Jesus as he is anointed and placed in a tomb. The image is in the left panel of the fifth row (from the bottom) of the Passion and Resurrection of Christ window, a twelfth century stained glass window on the south side (left as you face it from the inside) of the west wall of the Chartres Cathedral in France. This image is visible from all those places in the labyrinth where the walker is facing west. As one leaves the center the labyrinth, and on all the straight sections of the pathway as one returns to the threshold, the window and Mary are fully visible.