On the occasion of the Resurrection, wishes for my readers expressed in the beautiful words of 17O years ago:

Christian! thou hast the assurance of thy redemption in the passion and death of Christ, and the hope and ground of thy faith in His resurrection. He suffered for thy sake; show Him reciprocity by suffering willingly the tribulations of mortal life for His glory. He died that He might deliver thee from eternal death; die daily to the senses of thy flesh by holy mortification, for the sake of showing love to thy eternal Bridegroom. He rose from death to eternal life that He might assure thee of thy once resurrection; rise thou also from the grave of thy sins by holy repentance.

Christ is risen once, and dies no more; behold, your rising is to be like this, so that you die no more through your falls to God’s grace. If, therefore, last holy week you suffered and died with Jesus by meditating on his passion and death, begin from this day to live with him in true love. He has not returned to the grave, return no more thou also to past sins; and if thou hast already risen with Christ, seek henceforth not what is on earth, but what is above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God; love no longer what is temporal and insignificant, but what is everlasting. Put off the old man and his lusts, and put on the new man, which is according to the spirit of Jesus Christ; turn from the way dangerous to your salvation, which is the way of superstition and the customs of the world, the way of the freedom of conscience and the errors of reason, the way of the lusts and the licentiousness of the heart, the way of corruption and perdition, and follow the way shown to you by Christ, unpleasant indeed, but in the end having eternal life. Reward thy past lapses with an opposite life henceforth, that is, reward the unbridledness of the flesh with prudent mortification, superfluous pleasures and merriment with the cry of repentance, the love of the world with hatred toward it, the love of the world with superfluous love in its vanities with true piety, and the sins of depravity with deeds and virtues that edify your neighbors.

Begin already to bear in thy soul the image of Christ, who was always humble, patient, gentle, pure, and in all things faithfully doing the will of God. May his saving word, or the teaching of his Gospel, keep thee in wisdom, justice, concord, purity, hope, sobriety, faith, and love; and may his peace fill thee with every good thing unto thy salvation, that when he shall appear as thy eternal life, thou mayest appear with him in immortal glory; which I wish thee with all my heart.