The Passion of Jesus should move us to deepest gratitude and Love for God
3 min • Digitized on March 7, 2022
From The Sinner’s Guide, page 50
By Venerable Louis of Granada
Can we, without the deepest grief, behold this spectacle—God hanging as a malefactor upon an infamous gibbet?
We could not withhold our compassion from a criminal who had brought such misfortune upon himself; and if our compassion be greater when the victim is innocent, and his excellence known to us, what must have been the astonishment and grief of the Angels, with their knowledge of His perfection, when they saw Him overwhelmed with ignominy and condemned to die upon the cross?
The two cherubim placed by God’s command [Exod. xxv. 18.] on each side of the ark, looking towards the mercy-seat in wonder and admiration, are an emblem of the awe with which the heavenly spirits were seized at the sight of God’s supreme mercy in becoming the propitiation for the world on the sacred wood of His cross.
Who, then, can contain his astonishment or forbear to exclaim with Moses: “O Lord God, merciful and gracious, patient and of much compassion, and true!” [Exod. xxxiv. 6.] Who would not, like Elias, [3 Kings xix. 13.] cover his eyes did he see God passing, not in the splendor of His majesty, but in the depths of His humiliation; not in the might of His power, moving mountains and rending rocks, but as a malefactor, delivered to the cruelties of a brutal multitude?
While, then, we confess our inability to understand this incomprehensible mystery, will we not open our hearts to the sweet influence of such boundless love, and make, as far as we are able, a corresponding return?
Oh! abyss of charity! Oh! boundless mercy! Oh! incomprehensible goodness! By Thy ignominy, O Lord! Thou hast purchased honor for me. By Thy Blood Thou hast washed away the stains of my sins. By Thy death Thou hast given me life. By Thy tears Thou hast delivered me from eternal weeping. O best of Fathers! how tenderly hast Thou loved Thy children! O good Shepherd, Who hast given Thyself as food to Thy flock!
O faithful Guardian, Who didst lay down Thy life for the creatures of Thy care! With what tears can I return Thy tears? With what life can I repay Thy life? What are the tears of a creature compared to the tears of his Creator, or what is the life of a man compared to that of his God?
Think not, O man! that thy debt is less because God suffered for all men as well as for thee. Each of His creatures was as present to His Divine mind as if He died for him alone. His charity was so great, the holy Doctors tell us, that had but one man sinned He would have suffered to redeem him. Consider, therefore, what thou owest a Master Who has done so much for thee and Who would have done still more had thy welfare required it.