In the refectory (the place in the monastery where we eat while keeping a recollected silence) we are listening to Pope Benedict's book Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week. We are finishing up the section on the Resurrection and when I heard this I had to share it with you. It ties in so well with Fr. Ray's homily which I noted in my previous post. It is also a beautiful note on feminine spirituality and that receptivity...openness to the Lord which we all need to inculcate...that includes the men too! ;)

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Just as there were only women standing by the Cross - apart from the beloved disciple - so too the first encounter with the risen Lord was destined to be for them.  The Church's juridical structure is founded on Peter and the Eleven, but in the day-to-day life of the Church it is the women who are constantly opening the door to the Lord and accompanying him to the Cross, and so it is they who come to experience the Risen One."

~ page 263

James Reid Woodcut From The Life of Christ in Woodcuts by James Reid (Farrar & Rinehart, Inc.: 1930)