27
If one drop of the
Precious Blood is far
more than enough to
redeem a thousand
worlds, why did Christ
shed His Blood to the
very last drop? All His
excess is to encourage
our cowardly hearts to
value properly the Cross.
By His example, Christ
has ennobled suffering.
The Cross is the throne
of the Savior whereon He
reigns in all His Divine
Majesty and triumphs
over all His enemies. All
sufferings, before they
passed through the Body
and Heart of Jesus Christ,
were the wounds and scars of sin, and
bore upon them the mark of ignominy.
Now, however, they have passed through
the Wounds of Our Divine Savior like
waters issuing from the wells of
paradise and have infinite value. Our
sufferings have been invested with
honor and our torments are sanctified
and made holy in His own Person.
We are so accustomed to look upon
our crosses with horror, and the gifts
that God gives us as wounds inflicted
upon us. We must realize that we are
unworthy to follow Christ in the footsteps
of His sufferings. By His example,
He has made sufferings sweet. He came
from Heaven to earth in order to teach
us both by word and example the
happiness there is in suffering. Christ
has made suffering necessary to us.
Have we not a heart for Our Savior to
taste at least of that bitter chalice which,
for love of us, He desired to drink to
the last drop?
Do not flee from what Christ loves the
most. Jesus Christ is the Angel of great
counsel and He knows no sounder
advice to give us than that we carry
our cross after Him. We beg Him to
impart to us a new spirit
of strength that the
memory of His sufferings
may make us invincible
in every encounter. Our
suffering comes from the
love of God for us. The
first plan Divine Goodness
had for man was to
bestow upon him every
kind of blessing. For this
reason as soon as man
was created, God placed
him in a paradise of
pleasures in order that,
from all these delights,
he should pass without
pain to the delights of
Eternity.
When God was constrained, by reason
of sin, to alter His loving designs in
our regard and allow tears, sorrows and
sufferings to enter the world, He did it
in such a way that His just severity
should become an effect of His Mercy,
so much so that sufferings in this life
would be the best means of making us
happy. We must fix firmly then in our
hearts these two incontrovertible truths
as the foundation of our patience.
Whatever kind of sufferings may come
to us either from man or other creatures,
or from evil spirits, none can ever
succeed in touching us without first
having passed through the hands of
Divine Providence.
When this same Providence afflicts us
in order to perfect our virtue, it does
so with an inconceivable love, even
as the most tender mother, when she
has placed her child in the hands of a
surgeon, weeps over the wounds he
inflicts and mingles her tears with his
blood. Why do we so easily lose heart?
When our bodies are full of pain and
our spirits are in darkness, when all
shall aspire against us, let us remember
that no matter how many may be the
blows, it is only one arm that strikes