Considerations on the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ - 36

I. 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, it is sufficient to glance at what is said of it in the Divine Scriptures, of which I shall here set forth some of the principal passages. Nor let any one complain that I thus repeat the texts which I have already repeated several times in my other works when speaking of the Passion. Many writers of mischievous books constantly repeat their immodest jests, in order the more to excite the passions of their thoughtless readers; and shall it not be permitted to me to repeat those holy texts which most inflame souls with Divine love?

Speaking of this love, Jesus Himself said: God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son (Jo. iii. 16). The word so expresses much. It teaches us that when God gave His only-begotten Son, He displayed a love for us we can never comprehend. Through sin we were all dead, having lost the life of grace; but the Eternal Father, in order to make known His goodness to the world, and to show us how much He loved us, chose to send on earth His Son, that by His death He might restore us to the life we had lost. In this appeared the love of God to us, in that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live by him (1 Jo. iv. 9). Thus, in order to pardon us, God refused that pardon to His own Son, desiring that He should take upon Himself to satisfy the Divine justice for all our sins: He spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all (Rom. viii. 82). The words delivered up are used because God gave Him into the hands of the executioners that they might load Him with insults and pains, until He expired in agony on a shameful tree. Thus He first loaded Him with all our sins. The Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all. And then He chose to see His Son consumed with the most bitter inward and outward pangs and afflictions: For the wickedness of my people have I stricken him. The Lord was pleased to bruise him in infirmity (Is. liii. 6-8).

II. St. Paul, considering the great love of God for us, says: But God (who is rich in mercy) for his exceeding charity wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together in Christ (Eph. ii. 4-5). The Apostle calls it exceeding charity. Could there be anything, indeed, of excess in God? Yes; by this he gives us to understand that God has done such things for us, that if Faith had not assured us, none could have believed it. And therefore the Church cries out in astonishment: "How wonderful the condescension of Thy mercy towards us! How incomparable the predilection of Thy love! That Thou mightest ransom Thy slave Thou gavest up Thine own Son!" Remark here the words: the predilection of Thy love; for the love of God to us is more than He has shown to any other creatures. God being Love itself, as St. John says, He loves all His creatures: Thou lovest all things that are, and hatest none of the things which thou hast made (Wis. xi. 25). But the love He bears to man seems to be that which is the dearest to Him and most beloved, for it appears as though, in love, He had preferred man to the Angels, since He has been willing to die for men and not for the fallen angels.