Chapter LI. Of Meditation on the Passion of Christ, with a view to excite various Affections

WHAT has already been said respecting meditation on the Lord's Passion, relates to that manner of praying which consists in seeking something from God. I am going now to refer to it, in order to show how we may in this way excite divers affections.

I will imagine, then, that you have chosen the Crucifixion for your meditation. In this Mystery you may dwell on the following points among others:—

First, consider how the furious people on Mount Calvary passionately stripped our Lord; and how His Flesh, through the Scourging He endured, stuck to His clothes, and was torn off in pieces.

Secondly, how the crown of thorns was taken off His Head, and again pressed upon It, so that the thorns were driven in again.

Thirdly, how with the blows of the hammer and with nails, He was cruelly fastened to the Cross.

Fourthly, how, when His sacred Limbs would not reach the places where the holes were made to receive the nails, those savage dogs stretched his Arms and Legs so violently that His disjointed Bones might be numbered.

Fifthly, how, as the Lord hung on the hard wood of the Cross, the weight of His Body in that position increased the size of His most Sacred Wounds, and aggravated inexpressibly the pain.

In order to excite in yourself, by these and other considerations of the same kind, the affection of love, strive to gain more and more deeply the knowledge of your Lord's Infinite Goodness, and Love towards you, Who for your sake willed to suffer such cruel torments; for the more you advance in this knowledge, the more will you increase in love.

This knowledge, too, of the Goodness and Infinite Love of your Lord, will excite in you contrition and regret for having so often and so ungratefully offended a God Who was for your sins in so many ways ill-treated and tortured.

To call out hope, consider, that into this state of misery your mighty Lord descended, that He might destroy sin, and rescue you from the snares of the devil, and from the faults which you have committed; that He might reconcile you to His Eternal Father, and give you boldness to draw near to Him in every need.

To call out joy, pass from the consideration of the Passion to the thought of its results; you will see how this Passion has the power of purifying the whole world from sin, and of satisfying Divine Justice; how it has confounded the Prince of darkness, vanquished death, and filled again the void places in the angelic ranks.

Joy will be heightened by the consideration of the joy of the Most Holy Trinity, of the Blessed Virgin, of the Church Militant and Triumphant, in these results.

To excite in yourself a hatred for your own sins, bring the points of meditation to bear upon yourself, by regarding the Passion of the Saviour as endured for no other end than to inspire you with hatred for your evil inclinations, and especially for the one which most of all has dominion over you, and which is most displeasing to the Divine Goodness.

To move you to wonder, consider what greater marvel could there be than to behold the Creator of the universe, Who imparts life to all, persecuted to death by His own creatures: to see Supreme Majesty trampled upon and despised; to behold Justice condemned; to see Divine Beauty spit upon; the Love of the Heavenly Father hated; the inner and unapproachable Light brought under the power of darkness; Essential Blessedness and Glory reckoned as the dishonour and disgrace of the human race, and overwhelmed in abject misery.

To stir in yourself the feeling of compassion for your Suffering Lord, besides meditating on the pains of His Body, strive to enter into those incomparably greater sufferings which He endured in His Soul. For if you are capable of being touched by the former, it will be wonderful if your heart is not broken by the thought of the latter.

The Soul of Christ beheld the Divinity, as It now beholds It in Heaven; He knew It, then, to be infinitely worthy of all honour and worship, and through the unspeakable Love with which this knowledge inspired Him for It, He burnt with the desire that all creatures should devote themselves with all their powers to the Divine Majesty.

To see the Divine Essence, then, so strangely outraged and despised by the innumerable faults and abominable sins of the world, pierced Him through and through with darts of sorrow, which tortured Him in proportion to the greatness of His Love, and the intensity of His desire that all men should honour and obey so exalted a Majesty.

As we cannot measure the greatness of this love and desire, even so can we not estimate how bitter and grievous was the inward sorrow of our Crucified Lord on that account.

His love for all creatures, a love unspeakable, was another ground of sorrow; in proportion to His love for them, did He grieve intensely for all their sins, which separated them from Him. He grieved for every mortal sin which had been, or which ever should be, committed by all men who had lived, or hereafter should live, upon the earth; for every mortal sin separates the soul of the sinner from the Soul of the Lord, to which by charity it was united.

Such a separation is far more painful than dismemberment of the body; inasmuch as the soul, being altogether spiritual, and of a nature more noble and perfect than the body, is therefore more capable of suffering.

Yet of all the sorrows which our Lord endured for His creatures, the most bitter was that which He felt for the sins of the damned, who, as they could not again be united to Him, would have to suffer torments eternal and inconceivable.

And if the soul, already touched with the view of these sufferings of her Beloved Jesus, would penetrate more deeply into them, it would be found that there was ample cause for compassion, in the heavy grief He endured, not only for sins actually committed, but also for all possible forms of sins; for doubtless it is to His Passion we are indebted both for the pardon of the former, and for preservation from the latter, both having been purchased for us by His precious Sufferings.

Nor will other considerations be wanting, beloved, to move you to sympathize with the Crucified; for there never was a grief, and never will be one, endured by any reasonable being, which He Himself has not tasted. Injuries, reproaches, temptations, pains, mortifications, and every grief and trouble which the human race can know, pierced more keenly the Soul of Christ than the souls of those who actually suffer them.

For every separate suffering, great or small, of body or of mind, even to a slight headache or a prick of a needle, was clearly seen by our most Pitiful Lord, who of His boundless love was pleased to compassionate them and to engrave them on His Heart.

But who can express what He felt at the sight of the sorrows of His most holy Mother? For in every respect and in every way in which the Lord sorrowed and suffered, did the Holy Virgin sorrow and suffer, not with equal intensity, but most bitterly nevertheless.

And these her sorrows opened anew the inward wounds of her Blessed Son. These, like so many fiery darts of love, pierced His most loving Heart, which by reason of all the torments which have been mentioned, and of others unknown—yet infinite in number—which He endured, may be well described in the words of a devout soul, who in holy simplicity was wont to call it "a loving hell of voluntary sufferings."

Consider then, beloved, the cause of all this anguish, borne by our Crucified Redeemer and Lord, and you will find that it is nothing else but sin; therefore the genuine and principal way of showing the sympathy and gratitude which He demands of us, and which we are undoubtedly bound to render to Him, is to be sorry for our past sins purely from love to Him; to hate sin with a hatred beyond all other hatred, and to fight manfully against all His enemies and our own evil inclinations; that thus, putting off the old man with his deeds, we may be clothed with the new, and our souls may be adorned with the virtues of the Christian character.