Sr Martha Reeves (1941-2026)

Sr Martha Reeves, who wrote this blog and her many books under the pen-name Maggie Ross, passed away peacefully on June 11th 2026. She was visited by many friends and surrounded by love and prayer to the end. A simple funeral, with much silence, was held on the 2nd July. Her earthly body is buried in Botley cemetery in Oxford. The name-plate on her grave reads:

Sr Martha Emilie Reeves

In Silence Beholding 

Martha left behind an enormous body of unpublished writings, and it is hoped that a selection at least of these can be edited and published in the future. 

Meditation for Good Friday 'Today you will be with me in paradise''

Luke 23:42-43 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.” And Jesus replied, “I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

 

In the West we translate this passage in the future tense: “today you will be in paradise.” But in many Orthodox churches this passage is understood in the present tense: “even now, hanging here in agony on these crosses, you are with me in paradise.” This interpretation carries over into the liturgy; the prayer before Communion contains these words: 'I will not kiss you like Judas or betray your mystery to your enemies, but confess you as the thief did. Remember me in your Kingdom.'

 

Though the passage is not often understood this way in the West, it is in fact perhaps the perfect expression of the paradox of Good Friday. As someone put it long ago, the Resurrection is not the glorification of Christ but rather the celebration after the glorification, which is the cross.

 

The meaning of the Good Thief’s petition is found in the sentence we use at every Eucharist: “And here we offer and present unto you our souls and bodies, to be a living sacrifice.” The Good Thief’s petition, uttered in the agony he shares with Christ, is a supreme act of confidence and love. The focus is away from himself. He does not bewail his sins; he does not grovel; he simply offers his life in hope in the mercy of Christ and awakens to paradise. And in that eucharistic self-offering of his pain in union with Jesus he is not only forgiven but forgives.

 

So it is with us. As Julian of Norwich says, “Sin is behoovely”, that is to say, sin is necessary, because it is only through the lens of our sins that we can properly see the love that hangs on the Tree, and the paradise of God’s mercy. As the old hymn puts it, “In your deep floods/Drown all my faults and fears/ Nor let His eye/See sin, but through my tears.”

 

Every day of our lives we awaken to paradise: as Christians, we can trust our heart’s intention of self-offering even if it is consciously forgotten, pushed in the background by pain, personal, physical, spiritual, pain that is so severe that everything else is shoved aside except, perhaps, a longing for death.

 

In his book, The Shattering of Loneliness, Eric Varden writes of his eucharistic understanding of pain, which, when he was a child, was triggered by seeing a farmer’s back covered with terrible scars from his scourging by the Nazis. He writes of his journey to understanding the eucharistic paradox of the cross: 

 

“The Church became for me an inspirer of remembrance. It permitted me to read my banal, sometimes squalid life into a narrative of redemption that not only reaches back to time’s beginning but remembers forwards, into eternity. To stay within that narrative’s crux is to hear, sometimes with clarity, the desolate cries of mankind, to hear, too, the rasping voice of evil; and that, not vaguely round about, but in one’s heart. One can only persevere in such hearing by attending, at the same time, to another, discreet but ordering voice that speaks, ‘It is accomplished!’ It manages, by harmonic genius, to fathom the violent cries of ‘Crucify!’ and the angelic ‘Hosanna!’ in a single chord that rises out of dissonance towards unheard beauty.

“The scourge whose image stood before me as a child continues to be what it was. It inflicts real wounds that demand to be seen and wept for. They are not, though, beyond healing if irradiated by a glimmer of the fire that obliterates night, the fire that has come into the world as love and simply needs kindling to burn. … I understood that to be a [Christian] is to offer dry wood for this purpose. I was sure . . .the heart . . . conformed to Christ’s, is a tent of meeting. It tends upwards in a joy that is the more confident for having been tested. . .  I see the darkness still—how could I not? . . .  [but] I know it has been pierced. ‘Even darkness is not dark to you, says a Psalm [138:12] That, above all, must never be forgotten.” [Varden 9-10]

            

So when we pray today through our tears “Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom,” let us have faith that in the depths of unknowing in our darkest hour, we are even now kindling the eucharistic Easter fire; and that this loving sacrifice of our souls and bodies is simultaneously and unknowably present to the Face of Christ in Paradise.

 

—   Maggie Ross

 

 

 

 

 

 

Archbishop Desmond Tutu

 Desmond Tutu was small in stature but a giant of a man. Others have commented on his greatness in terms of being a moral leader, one who spoke truth to power, one who was fearless in the face of opposition and death threats, even pulling a man to safety from a mob.

But I want to concentrate on Tutu's generosity. He was first and foremost generous with the love of God. When starting a conversation he would often look at a person and say, 'God LOVES you!' as if it were the most wonderful, miraculous, surprising state of affairs, which of course it is. The love of God pouring out through him to others was the foundation of his being, his ministry, and the power that kept him alive for 90 years and able to relate to so many people. It allowed him to conduct the Truth and Reconciliation process at terrible cost to himself. 

Fortunately he also had his wonderful wife Leah and his children and was grounded by all the joys and sorrows of family and the love only a strong woman can bring.

He was generous in sharing himself. He was generous with laughter and joy. He made time for people, even if it meant disrupting carefully made plans. He loved children. He answered mail from the most unlikely correspondents. He could never say 'no' to someone who put demands on his time. He needed to have someone to help him pick and choose and to have enough rest enough to avoid a breakdown. He continued to travel and teach even when he had cancer. He shared himself with everyone the great and small, ordained and lay, the religious and non-religious, Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists. He gave Communion to the Dalai Lama. He understood and acted on the principle that there are no bounds to the eucharistic love of God.

He was generous in material things. He would send flowers at the drop of a hat. As he became wealthy he set up foundations. He would send money to friends in need. It should also be said that he was terrible with money and had to have friends to help him put on the brakes and run the foundations.

He was generous in gratitude. As far as I know he never failed to acknowledge a source, no matter how unfashionable, as can be seen in Michael Battle's biography. If someone helped him through a dark patch he remembered it for the rest of his life and acknowledged the person publicly if the opportunity arose. He understood the interdependence of humanity, that no matter how high one arises, there are hundreds if not thousands of people who helped one along the way. He championed the downtrodden and the marginalised, such as LBGTQ+. He supported unpopular causes among his peers, such as assisted dying.

It is true that he had faults. He had a temper, but some of it was holy anger. He was impulsive, although that could also be an asset. He could be rude, but it was often because he felt that the people who needed to listen would not listen otherwise. He could be autocratic.

Like many other people I can humbly say that I had the privilege and honour of knowing him personally. I grieve the loss for all of us, the whole of humanity, and grieve even more because there is no one of similar stature, however diminutive physically, to pick up his standard. This means that each of us in our own way must do more in promoting human rights.

But I also rejoice. He has fought the good fight, he has stars in his crown, and at last he is seeing the Face of the One he sought all his life and beheld.

Advent 2020

 Happy Advent to all the readers of this blog. I'm sorry I haven't posted much this year, but events have been so significant—I almost wrote 'monstrous', thinking of various governments—that it has been almost impossible to find an impartial view or know what to say. This silence has been exacerbated by the two books on silence that I published; one might say I have written myself into silence.

Nonetheless, in the interest of keeping this blog alive for a time when words may make their reappearance, I will try to say something useful.

I'm afraid that I am not one of those people who think that, with the Biden presidency to be confirmed tomorrow by the electoral college, all the troubles of the last four years are over. Quite the contrary. Of course I am hugely relieved not only that he won and also that he has survived all the challenges, but I fear Trump has done and is still doing so much damage that this is only the beginning, not to mention his inhuman and shocking last-minute killing spree of prisoners, while pardoning those who are his cronies. And the corona virus gets worse by the day; he is responsible for many of these deaths as well because of his lies and sloth.

Add to that the problems here in the UK, facing a no-deal Brexit on top of the coronavirus epidemic—it's going to be an almost unimaginable maelstrom.

But in spite of all the doom and gloom the light does shine in the darkness and the mystery of the Incarnation is not only with us at this season but in every season; we encounter it most directly in the Eucharist. Recently I was asked to write 10,000 words on the subject of 'My Theology'. Even that request has left me baffled in silence. The only phrase that has come to mind is 'eucharistic entanglement' in its widest sense. Even with ten times the words requested, I don't think I could tease out the theology contained in this phrase, and I'm not sure if it is at the core of 'My Theology'. Besides, what theology can be said to be 'mine' anyway? 'We stand on the shoulders of giants', is the medieval phrase that cathedral builders (theology in stone) and theologians once used. We forget it at our peril.

But maybe 'Peace on earth, good will among peoples' is part of what could be if we recognised that life is eucharistic and everything in creation is entangled with everything else in the love of God, both materially and spiritually—although I wish there were a way to say this that isn't a dichotomy .

Please have a blessed and safe Christmas, and pray for the New Year.

Sanity in a Time of Insanity

In a time when sanity seems in short supply, I would like to recommend a resource which has provided me with some clarity and some hope amid Trump's gaslighting and bluster. It is the (free) daily newsletter of Harvard historian Heather Cox Richardson. Her work is deeply researched, interpretively canny, and she is able to bring some light into a time of obfuscation. I can't recommend it highly enough.

    The times have been so confusing on both sides of the Pond that one might say that I have been shocked into silence. Sometimes I feel that I have escaped the worst of things by living in England, but sometimes also I feel guilty for not being on the other side of the water trying to help out. Things in the UK are in upheaval too, though we face incompetence of a different kind. I don't understand—or perhaps I understand all too well—British politics; I only know that the government isn't working to manage the pandemic properly, and that we are having a catastrophic rise in cases.

    What is happening in America, however, seems to be politics as a blunt instrument. As Richardson has pointed out, Trump has done many things each of which would have sunk previous presidents, but no one is willing to call him out. One can only hope he loses the election so he can go to jail for the rest of his life.

    With that hope, and hope in God, I will sign off. As the Queen said at the beginning of the pandemic, Never give up; never despair.

    Pray!

Fortieth Anniversary of my Solemn Vows June 12, 2020

Gentle Readers,

June 12, 2020 marks the 40th anniversary of my solemn and irrevocable vows professed in the Cathedral of St John the Divine, New York City, into the hands of Bishop Paul Moore. Anglican Franciscan friars and Roman Catholic Cistercian monks were the sponsors. I was professed as a religious solitary for the whole church. When Paul Moore died, he transferred my responsibility to Rowan Williams, who is my Bishop Protector to this day.

Please join me on June 12 in prayer and thanksgiving. Thank you.

Silent Knowing IV

Some people complain that silence is elitist, that it is isolationist and ignores the problems of the world. Nothing could be further from the truth. Silence is eucharistic, returning and offering our life’s God-given energy back into the vast beholding of God for God to use where it is needed. We are never less alone than when we are alone and, as Antony of the Desert wrote, ‘Whether alone or with the elders, your life and your death is with your neighbour.’ Communities are only as healthy as the solitudes that make them up, so that it is incumbent upon each of us to do the transfiguring work of silence.

I started this talk by quoting Graham Ward, and would like to end in the same way. It is a poem, and reading poetry requires that we use both hemispheres in optimal harmony:

                                                   Silent Knowing

Silence tenderizes, senses constellate,

Edges angulate, fuse and melt. I tend

To the gold circlet bounding the black eye

Of a blue-jay, scratching through the dead leaves

On a spring morning. I tend to the bold

White bells of the snowdrops poised between proud

Beauty and heads humbled by its presence.

Silence tenders the vivid, the vital,

Scintillas of sense, attentive delights:

Diamond frosted spiders’ webs, white carved swans

Paddling the infinite waves of quietness.

I contend that all things portend their glory

When we can see – receive – when we can care.