Happy and Blessed Easter!

(St. Mary Magdalen Church, Drogheda, Ireland. First the penitent Magdalen, then the sorrowful Magdalen anointing Him for His burial a few days before His Passion, and finally a joyful Magdalen on Easter Day)

The more penitential our Lent has been, the more we can rejoice on Easter Sunday! The more deeply we have meditated on His sufferings during Holy Week, the more our heart lifts with joy at His Triumphant Resurrection! Let us fly up on the wings of this joy - rejoicing for Him and rejoicing for ourselves because we will rise glorious with Him one day too if we do His Holy Will here below.

"O good Master!...It was one of Thine unselfish Joys in Thy Resurrection, that Thou mightest [help] Thy friends. I give Thee my hopes, that they may flower into realization in Thee and under Thy loving care, Whose Infinite Wisdom 'reacheth from end to end mightily and ordereth all things sweetly'. I give Thee my fears, that Thou, Who didst console Thy broken-hearted Magdalen with such exquisite Divine tenderness, mayest also comfort and deliver me and mine. I give Thee my sorrows, that Thou mayest unite them to Thine own, and alleviate them -- my joys, that, united to Thine and thankfully received by me, they may help me to the eternal joys Thou, my Risen Lord, art storing up for me in Paradise. I give my friends to Thee -- keep us all in Thy Sacred Heart; I give Thee mine enemies, that they may never be a source of sin or fault to me, or of grief to Thee....And now, O dearest Master, when I leave Thee, grant that I may spread abroad 'the good odor of Christ' among Thine and my brethren, that I may be Thine Apostle as was Magdalen after Thy joyous Resurrection. Fill my soul, as Thou didst hers, with the unselfish joy of Thy Rising from the dead. And may all my thoughts, words, and acts this day be a sweet fragrance unto Thee."

~ part of a prayer after Communion from Sundays in the Garden of Easter by E. Seton, imprimatur 1921.