DEVOTIONAL THOUGHTS FOR MARCH 2010

+Let us contemplate our Salvation in this Lenten time+

It is with the holiest fear that we should approach the terrible fact of the sufferings of our Lord. Let no one think that those were less because He was more. The more delicate the nature, the more alive to all that is lovely and true, lawful and right; the more does it feel the antagonism of pain, the inroad of death upon life; the more dreadful is that breach of the harmony of things whose sound is torture. He felt more than man could feel because He had a larger feeling. He was even therefore worn out sooner than another man would have been. These sufferings were awful indeed when the struggle to keep consciously trusting in God began to sink in darkness; when the Will of The Man put forth its last determined effort in that cry after the vanishing vision of the Father: “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” Never had it been so with Him before. Never before had He been unable to see God beside Him. Yet never was God nearer Him than now. For never was Jesus more Divine. He could not see, could not feel Him near; and yet it is “My God” that He cries. Thus the Will of Jesus, in the very moment when His faith seems about to yield, is finally triumphant. It has no feeling now to support it, no beatific vision to absorb it. It stands naked in His soul, and tortured, as He stood naked and scourged before Pilate. The sacrifice ascends in the cry: “My God.” The cry comes not out of happiness, out of peace, out of hope. Not even out of suffering comes that cry. It was a cry in desolation, but it came out of Faith. It is the last voice of Truth, speaking when it can but cry. The divine horror of that moment is unfathomable by human soul. And yet He would believe. Yet He would hold fast. God was His God yet. “My God” – and in the cry came forth the Victory, and all was over soon. Of the peace that followed that cry, the peace of a perfect soul, large as the universe, pure as light, victorious for God and His brethren, He Himself alone can ever know the breadth and length and depth and height.
(Reverend George MacDonald, 1824-1905)
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Bishop Anthony writes: I remember a nun once saying to me that, as Jesus is God, His most agonising suffering on the Cross would be somehow “less, because He knew the Victory was in sight.” [her words] I told her this was blasphemy – and it is!  Jesus Who is God, became man; He was tortured and died as the Representative Man in the great Compact between Father and Son, and with the co-operation of the Holy Spirit. So, as Professor MacDonald asserts in the above Lenten Reflection, let no one think the suffering was less because He was more! Please re-read the Reflection as a Lenten devotion. This final, seeming Abandonment of His Son by the Father, and our divine Saviour’s dereliction on the Cross, was at the very heart of the Sacrifice. And yet Jesus cries “My God!” and tells Saint Dysmas, the good thief, who had in fact merely stolen some bread because he was poor and hungry, that he would be with Him in paradise. The sins of humankind caused Christ’s birth, passion and death – our sins! He came to his own people to teach them and lead them to God. They said NO! Their temple and their pointless blood sacrifices were blotted out when Christ died on the Cross, and the veil of that temple was rent in two.
 Victory and Resurrection indeed followed. And what of us?  How are we keeping Lent and Holy Week!
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Let us pray: Lord, we beseech Thee, favourably hear the prayers of Thy people: that we, who are justly afflicted for our sins, may be mercifully delivered by the Passion of Thy Son, Jesus Christ. +Amen+
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And a Passing Thought
Devout souls cling wholeheartedly to the Cross with Christ. They thus acquire the most abundant fruits of the Redemption for themselves and for others.  (Pope Pius XI)
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WE ADORE THEE, O CHRIST, AND WE BLESS THEE: FOR THY CROSS HAS REDEEMED US!
SACRED HEART OF JESUS: GIVE TO OUR HEARTS THE SPIRIT OF TRUE REPENTANCE!
JESU! WE WORSHIP THEE HANGING ON THE CROSS: MAKE US THINE OWN FOR EVER!
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“Jesus said unto them: Verily, verily I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am.”  St. John, Chapter 8