Reflections and affections on the passion of Jesus Christ - 01

I. From what source did the Saints draw courage and strength to suffer torments, martyrdom, and death if not from the sufferings of Jesus crucified? St. Joseph of Leonessa, a Capuchin, on seeing that they were going to bind him with cords for a painful incision that the surgeon was to make in his body, took into his hands his Crucifix and said, "Why these cords? Why these cords? Behold, these are my chains — my Saviour nailed to the Cross for love of me. He through His sufferings constrains me to bear every trial for His sake." And thus he suffered the amputation without a com¬plaint; looking upon Jesus, Who, as a lamb before his shearers, was dumb, and did not open his mouth. (Is. liii. 7). Who, then, can ever complain that he suffers wrongfully, when he considers Jesus, Who was bruised for our sins? (Is. liii. 5). Who can refuse to obey, on account of some inconvenience, when Jesus became obedient unto death? (Phil. ii. 8). Who can refuse ignominies, when he beholds Jesus, treated as a fool, as a mock king, as a disorderly person; struck, spit upon His Face, and suspended upon an infamous gibbet?

Who could love any other object besides Jesus, when he sees Him dying in the midst of so many sufferings and insults in order to captivate our love? A certain devout solitary prayed to God to teach him what he could do in order to love Him perfectly. Our Lord revealed to him that there was no more efficient way to arrive at the perfect love of Him, than to meditate constantly on His Passion. St. Teresa lamented and complained of certain books which had taught her to leave off meditating on the Passion of Jesus Christ, because this might be an impediment to the contemplation of His Divinity; and the Saint exclaimed: "O Lord of my soul, O my Jesus crucified, my Treasure, I never remember this opinion without thinking that I have been guilty of great treachery. And is it possible that Thou, my Lord, couldst be an obstacle to me in the way of a greater good? Whence, then, do all good things come to me, but from Thee?" And she then added: "I have seen that, in order to please God, and to induce Him to grant us great graces, He wills that they should all pass through the hands of this most Sacred Humanity, in which His Divine Majesty declared that He took pleasure."

II. Father Balthassar Alvarez said that ignorance of the treasures that we possess in Jesus was the ruin of Christians; and therefore his favourite and usual meditation was on the Passion of Jesus Christ. He meditated especially on three of the sufferings of Jesus — His poverty, contempt, and pain; and he exhorted his penitents to meditate frequently on the Passion of our Redeemer, telling them that they should not consider that they had done any thing at all, until they had arrived at retaining Jesus crucified continually in their hearts.

"He who desires," says St. Bonaventure, "to go on advancing from virtue to virtue, from grace to grace, should meditate continually on the Passion of Jesus." And he adds, that there is no practice more profitable to the entire sanctification of the soul than frequent meditation on the sufferings of Jesus Christ.

St. Augustine also said that a single tear shed at the remembrance of the Passion of Jesus is worth more than a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, or a year of fasting on bread and water. Yes, because it was for this end that our Saviour suffered so much, in order that we should think of His sufferings; because, if we think of them, it is impossible not to be inflamed with Divine love: The charity of Christ presseth us, says St. Paul. (2 Con v. 14). Jesus is loved by few, because few consider the pains He has suffered for us; but he that frequently considers them cannot live without loving Jesus. The charity of Christ presseth us. He will feel himself so constrained by His love, that he will not find it possible to refrain from loving a God so full of love Who has suffered so much to make us love Him.