The practice of the love of Jesus Christ - 006

VI.-HOW DESERVING JESUS CHRIST IS OF OUR LOVE ON ACCOUNT OF THE LOVE HE HAS SHOWN US IN HIS PASSION

I.

“O Jesus, stealer of hearts, the strength of Thy love has broken the exceeding hardness of our hearts! Thou hast inflamed the whole world with Thy love. O most loving Lord, inebriate our hearts with this wine, consume them with this fire, pierce them with this dart of Thy love! Thy Cross is indeed an arrow which pierces hearts. May all the world know that my heart is smitten! O sweetest Love, what hast Thou done? Thou hast come to heal me and Thou hast wounded me. Thou hast come to teach me, and Thou hast made me well nigh mad. O madness full of wisdom, may I never live without thee! All, O Lord, that I behold upon the Cross, invites me to love Thee: the wood, the figure, the Wounds of Thy Body; and, above all, Thy love engages me to love Thee, and never more to forget Thee.

II. But in order to arrive at the perfect love of Jesus Christ we must adopt the means of doing so. The means which St. Thomas Aquinas gives us: (1) To have a constant remembrance of the benefits of God, both general and particular; (2) To consider the infinite goodness of God Who is ever waiting to do us good, and Who ever loves us and seeks from us Our love; (3) To avoid even the smallest thing that could offend Him; (4) To renounce all the sensible goods of this world, riches, honours, and sensual pleasures. Father Thaulers says that meditation on the Sacred Passion of Jesus Christ is a great means also for acquiring His perfect love.

Who can deny that, of all devotions, devotion to the Passion of Jesus Christ is the most useful, the most tender, the most agreeable to God- one that gives the greatest consolation to sinners, and at the same time most powerfully enkindles loving souls? Whence is it that we receive so many blessings, if it be not from the Passion of Jesus Christ? Whence have we hope of pardon, courage against temptations, confidence that we shall go to Heaven? Whence come so many lights to know the truth, so many loving calls, so many spurrings to change our life, so many desires to give ourselves to God, as from the Passion of Jesus Christ? The Apostle therefore had but too great reason to declare him to be excommunicated who did not love Jesus Christ: If any man love not our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema-(l Cor. xvi. 22).