Jean-Yves Leloup : Miriam

Yeshua loved John or Miriam not more than he loved Peter or Judas, but differently. He loved them all with a universal and unconditional love, but he also loved each of them in a unique and particular fashion. Human love can still function while being subsumed in a divine love that includes all beings, even our enemies. It was this love that he proposed to all who would walk with him. Human love consists of preferences, affinities, particular resonances, and intimacies that are not possible with all.

When Miriam realized this divine Love, she was no longer a woman who could be possessed, either by man or by demon. She became the faithful, blessedly happy friend of the one who had delivered her. Henceforth she could not be “had,” not even by death itself, for her lover remained faithful to the great life that spoke through him. This new desire of hers was one that he would never betray.

This is how it is with those who give themselves to love. How can they think of anything better, how can they have any concern other than loving even more, giving themselves with no expectation of return?

"When you make the two into One,
when you make the inner like the outer and
the high like the low; when you
make male and female into single One,
so that the male is not male and the female is not female;
when you have eyes in your eyes, a hand in your hand,
a foot in your foot, and an icon in your icon,
then you will enter into the Kingdom."




from 'The Sacred Embrace of Jesus and Mary: The Sexual Mystery at the Heart of the Christian Tradition'

By Jean-Yves Leloup