Easter Friday

Alleluia! Praise the Lord. The Lord has done great things for us. I would like to make some very simple remarks about the Resurrection. This is at the centre of our faith: without resurrection, our faith is vain. If we have believed for this life only, we are the most wretched of men. But what is the Resurrection for me?

The Resurrection is repose after the painful tension of the Passion, it is the stone rolled away from the tomb, it is the joyful cry of Mary Magdalene, it is the other side of death, become luminous. It is the certainty that life is already triumphant and that it will triumph in the end: the fundamental force that sustains the world and history is love, and love is stronger than death. It is only in the light of the Resurrection that I understand what life is.

From “Alleluia!” in From Advent to Pentecost: Carthusian Novice Conferences by a Carthusian

The Lord has done great things for us!

We are glad indeed!  ~Psalm 126:3

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

A Carthusian Reflects on the Presentation of the Lord

See, then, what we shall be if we are to prepare ourselves to be offered in the temple by Mary -- faithful, tranquil, simple and trustful; blind as one becomes blind through an excess of light. Then will she carry us in her arms, and each of our actions, offered by her to the Father, will have an infinite value. For a soul thus abandoned there are no longer any little things. To fulfill the most ordinary household duties -- everything is so precious when offered at Mary's hands...

It is a lovely thing, indeed, to feel oneself abandoned into those pure hands. How sure one is of not straying; what assurance their very purity imparts. Mary has no need of purification, but we need it, everyone of us, if we are to receive Jesus the Light of the Father.

And finally she lifts us up in her arms and presents us to the Father. He gazes unceasingly at us, and we at him. This "face to face" is the highest form of the interior life; it is thus that St. Paul describes heaven. We shall no longer see him, he says, in the mirror of creatures, but "face to face."

Dear Mary, Mother most wonderful, how happy I am to abandon myself into your loving hands! Amen!