Blessed Palm Sunday and Holy Week! As most of us will be unable to have access to the Sacraments during these difficult times, therefore we should reinforce our prayer life in order to survive spiritually and continue developing our spiritual lives. Nothing less than the daily prayers, daily Rosary, and daily spiritual reading. God bless!

This post has been edited by yeeck: Apr 6 2020, 05:41 PM

MEDITATION

JESUS after having commended His Spirit to His Father, after being three hours on the Cross in agony of body and desolation of mind, at length bows His head and dies. Consider:

1. Who is it that dies? He is the Son of God, the only begotten of the most High, who is immense and infinite in all His adorable perfections. He is the God of Glory; God most loving, most holy. The ocean of all good dies for thee, a creature most vile, most wicked, a sink of every vice, a sea of miseries, a monster of ingratitude. So it is: the Creator dies for the creature; the Lord for the servant; God for man. And art thou not struck with wonder at seeing a God dying for thee, solely on account of the love He bears thee! Where is thy emotion, where is thy astonishment, at the sight of such a death, such condescension! A God has died for man. This thought was the sweetest, this reflection was the most endearing to the Saints. This was the powerful motive to the love of God. A God has died for man. This is suggestive of the confusion and despair of the damned in Hell. “A God has died for me,” will the damned soul exclaim, “and yet I burn, I despair in those flames. I cannot doubt of His love, if He has died upon the Cross to save me. Therefore, if I am damned, it is all through my own malice.” Ah, deservedly does that soul burn eternally who has been ungrateful and frowardly heedless of a God Crucified and dying for man! My soul, wouldst thou rather burn forever in the unquenchable fire, than burn now with the love of that God who has died for thee on the Cross? And is it possible that, after having beheld God dying for thy love, thou wilt not cease to offend Him, to maltreat Him, to despise His tender charity? Drawn ear, my soul, to the foot of the Cross, where cold and bloodless hangs the Body of thy dead Jesus; repent of thy past ingratitude; thank Him for having died for thee, and freed thee from eternal pains; put thy trust in His Blood, and in His sacred Wounds, and promise Him never more to draw thyself away from His love.


2. How does He die? He dies, after having poured forth in cruel anguish all the sacred Blood in His veins. He dies, satiated with insults, with reproaches and ignominies. He dies, plunged in an ocean of inexplicable pains and torments. He dies consumed, not so much by the raging fire of His sufferings, as by the living furnace of His charity. Which of us can wish to live except in order to love our Jesus? Which of us would like to suffer except in order to give Him pleasure? Who will dare to make Him die over again by accursed sin? Jesus dies, bowing His head in sign of obedience and submission to His Eternal Father. He could have prolonged His life, and even abolished death altogether, but He was pleased to die, and allow the force and atrocity of His pains to slay Him, in order that His obedience might reach to death itself. By His obedience he repairs the damages caused by the first fatal disobedience; He restores to the Divine Majesty the honor that had been robbed, and puts man again in possession of Paradise. God does not require of you an obedience that will cost you your life; yet how remiss are you in obeying? It may be, indeed, that the observance of some precept will cost you something? But will you not obey God, your Lord, your Sovereign Lord? Will not you, a vile creature, do this, seeing Jesus has obeyed even unto death? Jesus bows His head towards us, to express the lovingness of the invitation He gives us to approach Him. But, ah! who accepts so sweet, so loving an invitation? How long is it since Jesus invited you to penance? How often has He entreated you to come and ask pardon? And do you defer coming to One who is so anxious to receive you! Shall you, to satisfy a wrong desire, delay to approach Jesus calling you from the Cross? Resolve this moment to amend.


3. Where does He die? He dies on the Cross, suspended by three nails, between two thieves, covered with wounds, in the presence of an immense multitude. Behold the excess of a God loving. One sigh, one tear of His, would have been sufficient to redeem the world. That would not satisfy the love of Jesus. He wished for death—the death of the Cross. Fix thy gaze, my soul, upon the adorable lifeless Body of thy Jesus, which still hangs from the Cross. See this beautiful countenance, pale, livid, defiled with blood and spittle; this head pierced with thorns; those hands and feet perforated with big nails; those members rent and torn until the bones may be numbered. At the sight, the sky is covered with heavy darkness, the earth is shook, all creation emits a voice of sorrow and mourning. How is thy heart moved towards its good God, its dear Father, its loving Brother, just expired for your sake? The number of wounds opened in His sacred Body are so many mouths which speak and preach of love. Canst thou doubt of being loved by Jesus? Canst thou live without making a return? My soul, thy value is the life of a God. Thou owest thy life to the Son of God, who gave His for thee on the Cross. What enormous injustice would it be if thou gavest thy love to the world, to the flesh, to the devils, thy cruel enemies, and deniest it to Jesus? O my Jesus! I am no longer mine, nor do I wish to be another’s, but only Thine, who hast died for me, and Thine I wish to be for eternity. My soul has cost Thee much. Grant that I may know its value, that I may esteem it, and no longer give it away to sin and the devil. Grant that I may spend the remainder of my life in serving Thee and loving Thee with all my heart.


The Fruit: Look often at your Crucifix, and say with affectionate devotion, “A God died on the Cross for me.” Kiss often His sacred feet, bathing them with tears of true contrition. The Crucifix will be the only object of comfort and consolation that can be presented to Thee at the hour of death. Try now so to act that the love and the Wounds of Jesus serve not to reproach thee at that terrible moment.

Example: Devotion to the sufferings of Jesus procures us a holy death. The blessed Joachim Piccolomini, of the order of Servites, having had during life a tender devotion, and kept up a loving remembrance of the Passion of our Lord, and not having had the opportunity of shedding his blood for Him by martyrdom, begged earnestly of the Blessed Virgin to procure for him the privilege of dying on Good Friday, in order that he might thus have, at least, the happiness of giving up his life on the same day on which Jesus laid down His upon the Cross. The loving Mother was pleased at the petition. On the very day he prayed for, while assisting at the function, and the Passion was being sung, he was buried in the thought of the pains and sufferings of Jesus Crucified, and just as the words, “He gave up the ghost,” were pronounced, he sweetly rendered his soul up to his Maker, by a death which excited the wonder and holy envy of all present.

ALLELUIA! RING THOSE BELLS!

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his life for his sheep. But the hireling, and he that is not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and flieth: and the wolf catcheth, and scattereth the sheep: And the hireling flieth, because he is a hireling: and he hath no care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd; and I know Mine, and Mine know me. As the Father knoweth Me, and I know the Father: and I lay down my life for my sheep. And other sheep I have, that are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear My voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd.

--John 10:11-16



This post has been edited by yeeck: Apr 26 2020, 02:56 PM

AMEN!!!

“Do not be ashamed to enter again into the Church... These are two things: sin and repentance. Sin is a wound; repentance is a medicine. Just as there are for the body wounds and medicines, so for the soul are sins and repentance. However, sin has the shame and repentance possesses the courage.” —St. John Chrysostom



This post has been edited by yeeck: May 5 2020, 11:38 AM