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a Lenten retreat with the Myrrhbearers

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Myrrhbearers is a mouthful of a word. It makes you pause in wonder. What could it hold? How could it hold you?

I discovered the Myrrhbearers from the Magi. As I worked on my Epiphany retreat, I delighted in digging down theological rabbit holes.

Researching the meaning of myrrh was one I couldn’t resist. What was the symbolism of the gifts the magi brought? Where did myrrh come from? What was it used for?

Suddenly a strange word appeared on my screen: Myrrhbearers.

Icons and imagery abounded, showing the holy women who brought oil and spices to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body. I dove into the rich tradition of Orthodox Christianity around the Myrrhbearers, and how this group of saints is honored each Easter.

But beyond the history and art and spirituality, the word itself grabbed me.

The more I learned about the Myrrhbearers, the more I saw the word as a gift in itself. I wanted to dwell with it and dive into the stories of the women and men who bear this holy name. Right now when the world feels dark, what light might they help us bear to each other?

Out of Epiphany was born this new retreat. I can’t wait to share it with you.

. . .

This retreat is designed to meet you halfway through Lent. Not the shiny start where everything seems possible. But the muddled middle, where you’ve given up on half your Lenten practices.

This is exactly where the Myrrhbearers are waiting to meet us.

They were real people too, with shortcomings and fears and failings. But they kept showing up, even when everything seemed darkest.

Exactly where God was waiting to surprise them.

. . .

The virtual retreat will run from March 11-14. Each evening we’ll gather on Zoom for an hour—to pray, reflect, learn, and listen together. You’ll have the option to stay for small group discussion, to deepen your reflection on Scripture and build community with others.

Retreat sessions will be recorded so you can go back and listen or catch up if you miss a day or two. The recordings will remain live for 30 days following the retreat, so you can return to them during Lent and into Easter.

During the rest of the retreat days, you’ll continue to pray with the resources in the companion e-book: Scripture, prayer, and reflections to take you beyond the four days of retreat.

The Myrrhbearers Companion Book offers a full guide through the entire season of Lent with reflections for each week. Simple enough to dip into (if you’ve already got a plan for prayerful reading through Lent) and deep enough to dwell within (if you’re still looking for inspiration).

Each week you’ll learn more about the women and men who knew Jesus intimately and followed him faithfully—from his days of ministry in Galilee to his suffering on the cross and the glory of the Resurrection.

. . .

The Myrrhbearers were saints and sinners, women and men, ordinary and extraordinary Christians. Their stories have shaken me awake and shown me a way forward through this hard year.

I want to share this with each of you. And I promise you this:

You will never hear the Easter stories the same way after you spend Lent with the Myrrhbearers. Their faith is fire and strength and courage—and we need it now.

Learn more about the Lent retreat and register here.

(And to read another story of myrrhbearing—and birth and death and new life—click here for The Holy Labor.)

“A myrrhbearer is anyone who is willing to bring comfort and solace to another. These women challenge us to leave our security and to put aside conventional thinking and rules in order to care for one another.”
(Sister Catherine Ward, I.H.M.)

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Vanessa Kirby says

    8 March 2021 at 10:13 am

    Hello

    Just seen this info about the retreat. Please would you send me the full details.

    Thanks

    Vanessa

    Reply
    • Laura says

      12 March 2021 at 8:27 am

      Hi Vanessa,
      You can find more info and register for the retreat here: https://laurakellyfanucci.com/events/
      Please let me know if you have any questions.
      Hope you can join us!

      Reply
  2. Marilyn Healey says

    11 March 2021 at 9:30 pm

    I just saw this retreat. Is it too late to join? Could you please send me info?

    Reply
    • Laura says

      12 March 2021 at 8:27 am

      No, it’s not too late to join the retreat! I just had several people register this morning. We had our opening session last night, but all sessions will be recorded and available for 30 days following the retreat, so you’ll be able to watch that one later.
      You can find more info and register for the retreat here: https://laurakellyfanucci.com/events/
      Please let me know if you have any questions.
      Hope you can join us!

      Reply

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About Laura

I’m Laura Kelly Fanucci. Mother, writer, wonderer. This space is where I explore mothering through writing. It’s where I celebrate how God shows up in the chaos of raising children. It’s where I love to build community with readers like you. Read More…

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Watch me try not to laugh while my kids are scream Watch me try not to laugh while my kids are screaming upstairs at my spouse while I muse on motherhood & creativity 😝

Check out @grottonetwork for thoughtful reflections on relationships, work, faith, and life’s big questions. And let yourself thank someone this week for the creative work of nurturing new life in you!
Pilgrimage update! I shared in my last newsletter Pilgrimage update! I shared in my last newsletter that we were able to add Chartres & Mont-St-Michel to our itinerary, plus an extra day in Paris. Three of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been, so I can’t wait to pray there with you on pilgrimage in October. Check out my bio for details.

Want to hear more about the trip? Join me on Friday, May 6th, at 1:30 pm CT for an Instagram Live with Claire Swinarski - founder of @thecatholicfeminist & leader of last year’s pilgrimage to France with @selectinternationaltours 

Claire will share her experience on pilgrimage, her favorite places in France, & her wisdom for anyone thinking about joining us this fall. 

Have you ever been to France? Or made a pilgrimage? I’d love to hear your favorites!

#pilgrimage #travelwithselect #holyplaces #travel2022 #france #thesacredway2022
For years these words hung on the wall of my offic For years these words hung on the wall of my office. A reminder to behold the beauty in the ordinary.

I took them down after grief tore apart my world. Normal days, what a joke.

But years later I pulled the words out again. Turned out they were true, of course.

I had always caught my breath at the line about war, barely able to imagine longing for boring days from bloody battlefields.

Today I keep the wise words before my eyes again, as a way to keep praying for Ukraine.

For all the places where war or violence make for (ab)normal days.

May the common rock of any ordinary day we’re given remind us to remember all whose earth is upheaved right now.
The sun came out for the first time in days (weeks The sun came out for the first time in days (weeks? gloomy where you are, too?).

So I followed every ladybug in the bedroom to the window, closed my eyes and sunned my face. I could have curled up like a cat for hours. But the sun slipped back, retreating behind the grey wall as quickly as it came.

May today hold a gentle reminder to turn wherever you find the light, to let it warm and delight you. The spiritual practice of sunning ourselves (for a whole holy second!) is not trite or toxic: we are creatures who crave what is good and this is not wrong.

If you linger there for a moment, to remember God and grace and any good gift that has been poured out upon you, unasked or undeserved, you can return for a flash to the Source of your Being.

All the Psalms about the sun sing the same. We were made for the Great Light.
I spent years wondering about the opposite of grie I spent years wondering about the opposite of grief.

Would it be joy? To hold happiness again, to have tears turned into dancing?

Would it be gain? To find what was lost? To have arms full again around the ones I love?

Would it be peace? To breathe into the space of calm? To soak up healing as balm?

This morning I rose and realized: the opposite of grief is Easter.

Joy, gain, peace, hope, love, healing—all of it rolled into one and heaps more besides.

You know that awful feeling in grief’s first weeks, after someone you love has died, when you rise and remember yourself back into reality, and the grief-pain of loss washes over you again? The terrible turning moments that torpedo the day.

Easter Monday was the first morning that humans got to experience the utter opposite.

The undoing of what seemed undone. The resurrection of what looked impossible to restore.

The flip side of every grief and loss.

This morning I pictured the women rising again on Monday, the first ones to find and preach the Resurrection.

What joy & delight & hope & astonishment must have washed across their faces in their first few moments after waking, as they remembered themselves back into a world made new.

This is what every single one of us has yearned for, in the impossible imagination after loss. What if I could wake up and they would be back here again?

Exactly what all who loved him found when they woke up on Monday morning.

Now we only taste it, glimpse it, grasp it for a moment—but one day it will rise for us and never leave.

The opposite of grief is here.
To see others in pain while you are in pain— To To see others in pain
while you are in pain—
To reach out to the grieving
while others are grieving for you—
To lift up the least
while you are the greatest—
To speak to the suffering of women
while your own body is suffering—
To stop for others
while you walk the hardest road—

Until now I never noticed how much it meant that Jesus stopped for the women of Jerusalem.

He stops for the women of Ukraine, the women of Juarez, the women of Afghanistan, women everywhere who suffer and grieve and mourn.
 
He stops for them and for us. He tells us not to weep for him but to weep for this world, not to despair of the present but to steel ourselves for the future, not to lament unless we are willing to change.

What is he calling me to grieve? How is he calling me to change?

What might he see in us—our lives, our sorrows, our griefs, even our bodies—that we have not let ourselves lament?
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