Category: 04.ix.22 XIII Post Pentecost

St. Augustine says to us: “It is not permitted to you to love a little: let Him Who was wholly fixed upon the Cross for you be wholly fixed in your hearts.” Let us, therefore, unite ourselves wholly with St. Paul, and say with him: I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me… I live in the faith of the Son of God who loved me and delivered himself for me (Gal. ii. 20). On this St. Bernard remarks: “It is as if he had said, — To all other things I am dead and for them I have no feeling or regard; but the things which are of Christ, these find me a living man, and prepared to act.

Jesus Christ, then, died for each one of us, in order that each one of us might live only to his Redeemer, Who died for love of us. Christ died for all, that they also who live may not now live to themselves, but unto him who died for them and rose again (2 Cor. v. 15).

St. Augustine says that Jesus Christ, having first given His life for us, has bound us to give our life for Him; and, further, that when we go to the Eucharistic table to communicate, as we go to feed there upon the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, we ought also, in gratitude, to prepare for Him the offering of our blood and of our life, if there is need for us to give them for His glory.

Behold Jesus, then, presented by the Scribes and priests to Pilate as a malefactor, that he might judge Him and condemn Him to the death of the Cross; and see how they follow Him, in order to see Him condemned and crucified. Oh, marvellous thing, cries St. Augustine, to see the Judge judged! To see Justice condemned! To see life dying! And by what were these marvels accomplished except by the love which Jesus Christ bore to men? Christ hath loved us and delivered himself for us.

St. Francis de Sales called Mount Calvary “the Mountain of lovers,” and says that the love which springs not from the Passion is weak; meaning that the Passion of Jesus Christ is the most powerful incentive to inflame us with love of our Saviour. To be able to comprehend even a part, for to comprehend the whole is impossible, of the great love which God has shown us in the Passion of Jesus Christ…

St. Francis de Sales called Mount Calvary “the Mountain of lovers,” and says that the love which springs not from the Passion is weak; meaning that the Passion of Jesus Christ is the most powerful incentive to inflame us with love of our Saviour. To be able to comprehend even a part, for to comprehend the whole is impossible, of the great love which God has shown us in the Passion of Jesus Christ…

Jesus came into the world, not only to redeem us, but by His own example to teach us all virtues, and especially humility, and holy poverty which is inseparably united with humility. On this account He chose to be born in a cave; to live a poor Man in a workshop for thirty years; and finally to die, poor and naked, upon a Cross, and seeing His garments divided among the soldiers before He breathed His last.

The soldiers came, and broke the legs of the two thieves who were crucified with Jesus, but when they came to Jesus, they saw that He was already dead, and abstained from doing the same to Him. One of them, however, with a spear pierced His side, from which immediately came forth Blood and water (Jo. xix. 34).

The Divine Priest, Jesus Christ, Who was both Priest and Victim, by the sacrifice of His life for the salvation of men completed the Sacrifice of the Cross and accomplished the work of the world’s Redemption. By His death Jesus Christ stripped our death of its terrors. Until then it was but the punishment of rebels; but by grace and the merits of our Saviour it becomes a sacrifice so dear to God that when we unite it to the death of Jesus, it makes us worthy to enjoy the same glory that God enjoys, and to hear Him one day say to us, as we hope: Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord! (Matt. xxv.21).