Empty hands, empty heart...

When someone gives us a watch but we never wear it, the watch is not really received. When someone offers us an idea but we do not respond to it, that idea is not truly received. When someone introduces us to a friend but we ignore him or her, that friend does not feel well received.

Receiving is an art. It means allowing the other to become part of our lives. It means daring to become dependent on the other. It asks for the inner freedom to say: "Without you I wouldn't be who I am." Receiving with the heart is therefore a gesture of humility and love. So many people have been deeply hurt because their gifts were not well received. Let us be good receivers.

Henri Nouwen, from Bread for the Journey

Christianity is precisely a liberation from every rigid legal and religious system. This is asserted with such categorical force by St. Paul that we cease to be Christians the moment our religion becomes slavery to "the Law" rather than a free personal adherence by loving faith to the risen and living Christ: "Do you seek justification by the Law... you are fallen from grace... In fact, in Christ Jesus neither circumcision or its absence is of any avail. What counts is faith that expresses itself in love" (Gal. 5:4, 6).

Thomas Merton. Seasons of Celebration

Do you see the connection? It is the gift of grace, the gift we celebrate with increasing force over these days leading up to Easter, that we must receive with open hands, and an open heart. It's probably a cliché, but our hands cannot receive if they are clenched in possession or defence, and our hearts cannot receive if they are full of stuff. It is the empty hands, the empty heart, that will receive the priceless gift of love that Christ has for us at Easter. It is to the anawim, to the helpless poor, that Jesus was sent, as he described when he quoted from Isaiah 61 at the start of his ministry, as Luke records (4.16-21).

Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven...

(Matthew 5.3)