Further into the Garden...

It's hard to stay out of the garden when spring has freshly arrived.  It is a time of new life.  A time of celebration.

We are now moving into the final days of Lent, when we will focus more intently upon the greatest expression of love the world has ever known.  I find my mind going to another garden, one from which Our Lord was taken just before He suffered for you and for me.

I don't know what "areas of the monastery" we'll be visiting in the week and a half just ahead, but I do know this much.  I will be praying - and I invite you to as well - that we will all see more deeply than ever the personal love Our Lord has for each and every one of us.  Love that would suffer to the death.  Love that would rise and bring us eternal life. 

Occasionally we will look into Scriptures we've cited before... this is because Scripture is fresh each time we pray with it.  The more we look, pray, consider, the more we see and experience and hear and realize and know His personal love...

"Arise, My beloved, My beautiful one, and come!  For see, the winter is past, the rains are over and gone.  The flowers appear on the earth, the time of pruning the vines has come, and the song of the dove is heard in our land.  The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines, in bloom, give forth fragrance.  Arise, My beloved, My beautiful one, and come!"  (Song of Songs 2:10-13)