AECI Lenten 2025 Reflection: 'Steer Us From Hardness Of Heart' (Easter Sunday - 'To Proclaim Liberty ')

AECI Lenten 2025 Reflection: 'Steer Us From Hardness Of Heart'

Easter Sunday - 'To Proclaim Liberty'

'The day on which God has unrestricted power over our hearts

we shall also have unrestricted power over his'

(St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross)

Early on the first day of the week. Before the light of daybreak had touched the earth. In the silence, the tranquillity, the chill of the morning air. Mary Magdalene came to the tomb where they had laid the body of Jesus and found that the stone had been rolled away.

What was it that drew her to that place? A heart full of sadness? A heart full of faith? A heart without confidence and direction?

It is the heart of Mary Magdalene that we enter today as she stands before the empty tomb on that morning in question.

'He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives'

'Mary', says the risen Jesus, later the same morning. 'Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father' (John 20:16-17)

There are indeed moments when the human heart truly experiences an abundant, transformative, illuminating joy, accepting the day with all its 'mysteries' and its many 'puzzles'.

In that moment there is a sense that we truly have everything that we need. We readily trace what it is that liberates us and what it is that restricts us, confines us, holds us 'captive' in this world.

It is the 'fullness' of Being, of Presence, of Love, that keeps us awake, alert and alive. We can move towards this in imitation of the life of Jesus.

'Leave the heart that now I bear,   And give me liberty' , wrote Emily Bronte (1818-1848).

St Elizabeth of the Trinity too picks up the central Easter message. Our human faculties must be uncluttered and open, 'to permit the Divine Being to satisfy in itself His need to communicate all that He is and all that He has'.

Wishing You A Very Happy Easter!!

Ami Elisabeth Catez Institute