Third Sunday in Lent — On Devotion to the Passion of Christ

Consider, first, that meditating on the sufferings and death of our Redeemer, ought to be a principal part of the Christian’s devotion, during the time of Lent For the season approaches, in which we celebrate the yearly memory of our Lord’s passion; and therefore the Church, which at no time can forget the sufferings and death of her heavenly spouse, at this time particularly recommends to her children, to set before their eyes their crucified Saviour, and to make him the great object of their devotion. His passion is the overflowing source of all mercy, grace, and salvation to us: all our good must be derived from his cross: therefore, the more we approach to him in his sufferings, and station ourselves near the cross, by pious meditations on his passion, the more plentifully shall we partake of that mercy and grace which flow continually from those fountains of life, his precious wounds. The great design of Lent is, that the sinner should now return to God, and sue for pardon and mercy; and what better means can he have fbr this, than by taking along with him to the throne of mercy, the blood of Christ, by daily meditating on his passion?

Consider, secondly, that the passion of Christ has been always, from the beginning of the world, the great object of the devo- tion of the children of God. In all their bloody sacrifices of old, of oxen and sheep, they celebrated beforehand the death of the Lamb of God, slain in figure from the beginning of the world. And as, from the time of the fall of Adam, no grace could ever be derived to any man, but through the channel of the merits of the death and passion of our Redeemer, whose future coming was revealed to man immediately after his fall; so no sacrifices could ever be acceptable to God, but such as had relation to him, and through faith in him. Much more now, under the new law, are all the faithful obliged to make the passion of Christ the great object of their devotion; since he has instituted the eucharistical sacrifice and sacrament, and left us therein the sacred mysteries of his body and blo, for this very end, that, in our most solemn worship, we should have always before our eyes his passion and death. See, my soul, how much thy God desires thou shouldst remember what he has suffered for thee! And why? Doubtless that, by this means, thou mightst be confirmed in his love. O blessed be his goodness for ever!

Consider, thirdly, how ungrateful all such Christians are as forget the sufferings and death of their Redeemer. May they not ail be reckoned in the number of those, of whom he com plained of old, by the royal prophet, that they left him alone in his passion, and took no notice of him. I lodked on my right handy and beheld, and there was no one that would know me. Psalm cxli. Had the meanest man upon earth suffered but the tenth part of what our Lord has suffered, for the Jove of one of us, we should be basely ungrateful, if we ever forgot his sufferings and his love. What, then, must we think of ourselves, ii we forget the unspeakable sufferings, and infinite love of the Son of God himself, nailed to a cross, to deliver us, by his death, from the eternal torments of hell 1 Ah, Christians, let us never be so ungrateful!

Conclude, O my soul, at this holy time at least, daily to accompany thy crucified Jesus, by meditation on his sufferings. With Christ I am nailed to the cross, said St. Paul, Gal. ii. 19. My love is nailed to the cross, said St. Ignatius the Martyr. O that, like these generous lovers, we could always adhere to our crucified God.