O love, o love, o love!

St. Paul says that when the Gentiles heard it preached that Jesus was crucified for the love of men they considered it such foolishness that they could not believe it. Yes, for it seemed only folly that a God should die for men. Hence the Saints were struck dumb with amazement at the consideration of the love of Jesus Christ. At the sight of the crucifix St. Francis de Paul could only exclaim: O Love! O Love! O Love!

I. St. Paul says that the love Jesus has shown us in condescending to suffer so much for our salvation should excite us more powerfully to love Him than the scourging, the crowning with thorns, the painful journey to Calvary, the agony of three hours on the Cross, the buffets, the spitting in His face, and all the other injuries which the Saviour endured. According to the Apostle, the love which Jesus has shown us not only obliges, but in a certain manner forces and constrains us, to love a God Who has loved us so much. For the charity of Christ presseth us (2 Cor. v. 14). On this text St. Francis de Sales writes: "We know that Jesus, the true God, has loved us so as to suffer death, and even the death of the Cross for our salvation. Does not such love put our hearts as it were under a press, to force from them love by a violence which is all the stronger in proportion as it is more amiable?"

So great was the love which inflamed the enamoured Heart of Jesus, that He not only wished to die for our redemption, but during His whole life He sighed ardently for the day on which He should suffer death for the love of us. Hence, during His life Jesus used to say: I have a baptism wherewith I am to be baptized, and how am I straitened until it be accomplished? (Luke xii. 50). In My Passion I am to be baptized with the baptism of My own Blood to wash away the sins of men. And how am I straitened! How, says St. Ambrose, explaining this passage, am I straitened by the desire of the speedy arrival of the day of my death? Hence, on the night before His Passion, He said: With desire I have desired to eat this pasch with you before I suffer (Luke xxii. 15).

O infinite Love, worthy of infinite love, when shall I love Thee, my Jesus, as Thou hast loved me! Enlighten me, inflame me, detach me from the earth, and permit me no longer to resist so many enticements of Thy love.

II. We have, says St. Laurence Justinian, seen wisdom become foolish through excess of love. We have seen the Son of God become as it were a fool, through the excessive love He bore to men. Such, too, was the language of the Gentiles when they heard the Apostles preaching that Jesus Christ suffered death for the love of men. But we, says St. Paul, preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews indeed a stumblingblock, unto the Gentiles foolishness (1 Cor. i. 23). Who, they exclaimed, can believe that a God, most happy in Himself, and Who stands in need of no one, should take human flesh and die for the love of men who are His creatures? This would be to believe that a God became foolish for the love of men. "It appears folly," says St. Gregory, "that the Author of Life should die for men." But whatever infidels may say or think, it is of Faith that the Son of God has shed all His Blood for the love of us, to wash away the sins of our souls. Who hath loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood (Apoc. i. 5). Hence the Saints were struck dumb with astonishment at the consideration of the love of Jesus Christ. At the sight of the Crucifix, St. Francis de Paul could only exclaim: O love! O love! O love!

O my Jesus, if Thou art, as it were, mad for the love of me, how is it that I do not become mad for the love of a God! When I see Thee crucified and dead for me, how is it that I can think of any other than Thee! Mary, my Mother, entreat Jesus for me that He may grant me His holy love.