Under the title "Good News at the Monastery", the Jesuits' Manresa Center in
Cluj offers a "blog for the globe" in the form of meditations of Ignatian
inspiration: a kind of virtual exercises for real life. As we are in the
Easter season, let us begin with a short reflection on the Egg, in three
guises: Jewish, Christian and biological.
Beitza — the boiled egg of the Seder meal
There the head of the family raises the egg and says: "This reminds us of the
sacrifices of the Temple. The egg is round, without end, just like eternal
life. Coming out of bondage is as if we had risen from the dead. Alleluia!"
Its roundness points to eternal life, while its breaking signifies liberation
from death.
The Christian Paschal Egg
Easter eggs are used as a Christian symbol to represent the empty tomb of the
Risen One. The outside of the egg seems dead, but inside there is new life,
ready to burst forth. Eloquent here is the early-Christian iconography of the
Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, where Jesus is depicted inside a mandorla,
an egg-shaped outline, at three crucial moments: the Transfiguration, the
Descent into Hell, and his Ascension to the Father.
The everyday egg
The biological perspective of the egg conveys a paradox: the shell is so
strong that it withstands enormous external pressures, yet so tender that it
yields at the first tap of the beak of the life preparing to come to light.
An EGG. NEW. AGAIN: Life, the Resurrection as being born again, and the
importance of the Spiritual Exercises in everyday life.
What do you see when you look at an Egg?