04/02/2026
As we move toward Easter, and especially on this threshold day, April 2nd, there is an invitation within the Christian contemplative tradition…
to not only remember the events of Jesus, but to embody the pattern of death and resurrection within our own lives.
The early mystics, desert mothers, and the lineage of contemplative Christianity did not approach the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ as a distant theology.
They experienced them as an inner pathway, a living initiation of transformation, healing, and union.
The 5 Sacred Rites are patterns of creation woven into all of life that we enter into as we move into union with Christ through the body, devotion, and surrender.
And in the lineage of the Magdalene,
we remember that this path from death to life is not only endured…
It is anointed.
It is felt.
It is loved into becoming.
🌹Rite I. Presence — The Garden of Gethsemane
Before the cross, there was the garden.
This was the place where Christ said, “Stay with me.”
Presence is the first rite because nothing can be transformed until it is fully met.
In Gethsemane, Yeshua did not bypass anguish; he entered it consciously.
Magdalene did not turn away when life felt too hard to face.
She knelt beside it.
She breathed with it.
She tended it.
Practice:
• Sit with what is here without numbing, fixing, or fleeing
• Let your prayer become honest, raw, and unfiltered
• Allow your body to feel what it has been holding
This opens the courage to remain.
🌹Rite II. Unbinding — The Surrender
Yeshua was arrested, stripped, and emptied.
This is kenosis (self-emptying), a core concept in Christian theology (Philippians 2:7).
Unbinding releases you from the programming to control, to cling to false identities and protective strategies.
Reflections:
• What are you still performing to feel safe, loved, or enough?
• What if surrender is not loss—but return?
Let yourself be undone,
gently, and consciously…
Like loosening a garment that no longer belongs to you.
This is the dismantling of the false self.
🌹Rite III. Anointing — The Cross as Sacred Wounding
Before and after the cross, there was oil.
In the Gospels, it is a woman,
Mary Magdalene, who anoints Yeshua.
She prepared the body and recognized what others could not yet see.
The need for embodied ritual, offering, and love poured out without restraint.
The cross is not just suffering; it is consecration. Our wounds become portals of love.
Anointing is where pain is no longer meaningless; it becomes holy ground.
Embodiment invitation:
• Bring tenderness to the places that ache
• Touch the places that ache with reverence, not resistance
• Let your grief be kissed by compassion
• Physically anoint your body with oil of spikenard, rose, or frankincense.
This is where suffering is transfigured into love.
🌹Rite IV. Reclamation — The Tomb/Womb of Holy Descent
The world calls it death.
The mystic calls it descent.
The Magdalene knew it as the womb.
The tomb is dark, but it is also held.
This is the place of holy gestation.
Where identity dissolves and essence reforms.
After death, there is silence, which the early Christian mystics understood as the harrowing of hell—Yeshua descending into the depths to reclaim what was lost.
Reclamation is the retrieval of:
• soul fragments
• truth buried under pain
• forgotten identity in God
Embodiment invitation:
• Wrap yourself in stillness (a blanket, dim light, silence)
• Let yourself be held in the unknown
• Trust what is quietly reorganizing within you
This is the sacred descent where restoration begins.
🌹Rite V. Resurrection — The Rising of New Life
Resurrection is not a return to what was; it is a transfiguration.
A body remade.
A presence that carries both wound and light.
Magdalene first witness the risen Christ.
Risen through presence, love, and a devotion that stayed when it would have been easiest to turn away.
Embodiment invitation:
• Let yourself rise without rushing
• Notice what feels different—subtle, quiet, true
• Walk as one who has been remade… even if no one else understands yet. Trust your soul’s evolution
This is the emergence of your true self in God.
🕊️The 5 Sacred Rites are not a pattern of suffer — survive — move on.
It’s a pattern revealed through Christ as presence — surrender — consecration — descent — transformation.
This is the path of theosis, union with God.
As you stand on the threshold of Easter, ask yourself:
• Where am I being asked to stay, instead of flee?
• What is ready to be lovingly undone?
• Where is my pain asking to be touched, not fixed?
• Can I trust the wisdom of the dark, still, and quiet?
• What is quietly rising that I have not yet named?
This is not just a story we remember once a year, it is a rhythm written into the body, a sacred architecture of transformation…
A rose that blooms through the cross…
A living invitation…To walk the path of Christ both in devotion and in embodiment.
🌿🌿🌿
I write about the 5 Sacred Rites of Abiding in the Presence of Christ, through my own death and resurrection stories, in the upcoming book, Christ Illumined. Will share more in time to come.
I walk women through this level of healing in my work as a spiritual director and founder of MONASTICA. If you’d like to learn more reach out.
🙏🏻🕊️🌹✨Blessings at the threshold…
Lauren
