examination of the heart 200 But first of all, give thanks toHim for His glorious Resurrection, and say: O most happy day! O day to mark with a white pebble!77 O most longed-for day! When not only the hope of salvation shone for us, but salvation itself was restored; when the darkness of limbo was illuminated, while its prisons were annihilated, and a such a great number of holy captives, held there for so many centuries, were delivered to eternal freedom. O day on which the dead body was revived despite the law of nature. O day on which the Mother looked with astonishment on the living Son, who was killed three days before, while the Risen Jesus consoled the sorrowful Mary with His greeting. O day on which the heavenly spirits conversed with earthly women. [f.42r] O day on which the Master, resurrected after His natural death, appeared to the disciples, and, as the Prince of Peace, offered peace to the apostles. O this most happy, most glorious, and most joyful day! After Holy Communion 1. “Who will roll away the stone for us?” (Mk 16:3). How much these holy women are worried about the removal of the stone from the tomb! Seeing that Christ is crushed in your heart by the great stones of imperfection: the marble of halfheartedness, the rock of spiritual coldness, the flints of obstinacy, of self-will, and self-love, you can, nay, must cry out: “Who shall roll back these stones for me?” Also: “Who shall remove the scales frommy eyelids, or rather the film frommy eyes, so that I may see my Lord staying with me today?” O can it be that one of the heavenly saints would descend and, having removed the darkness, restore the light to my soul and lift up and throw away the stones of my defects! Certainly You, Jesus risen from the dead, whose presence I am still able to feel in me, can enlighten me like the Sun and, as a strong man girt with power, remove from my heart every hard stone. 77 Cf. SLL, vol. 1, Typis Seminarii apud Joannem Manfrè, Patavii 1758, p. 111 (s.v. Calculus): Here St. Stanislaus is making reference to “[t]he Thracians [who] used to mark a day of success and happiness with white stones or pebbles cast into an urn.” Cf. CLD, p. 79 (s.v. calculus).
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