MORNING MEDITATION: FRIDAY IN THE THIRD WEEK OF ADVENT

Morning Meditation: Considerations on the Religious State — X

     Consider the love we owe to Jesus Christ in return for the love He has shown us.
   In order to understand the love the Son of God has borne us it is enough to consider what St. Paul says of Jesus Christ: He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant . . . he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. O my Jesus, only too much, indeed, hast Thou obliged me to love Thee.

Meditation I:
     He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. He emptied himself! O God! what astonishment to the Angels, through all eternity, to see a God become Man for the love of man, and submit to all man’s weaknesses and sufferings. And the Word was made flesh! What a marvel would it not be to see a king become a worm for the sake of worms! But it is an infinitely greater wonder to see a God become Man, and then humbled unto such a painful and ignominious death on the Cross upon which He ended His most sacred life.
     Moses and Elias, on Mount Thabor, speaking of His death, as it is related in the Gospel, called it an “excess”: They spoke of his decease (the Latin word is “excessus,” which also means “excess”) that he should accomplish in Jerusalem. – (Luke ix., 31). Yes, says St. Bonaventure, it is with reason the death of Jesus Christ was called an “excess,” for it was an excess of suffering and of love – Excessus doloris, excessus amoris. So much so that it would be impossible to believe it, if it had not already happened. It was truly an excess of love, adds St. Augustine, for to this end the Son of God wished to come on earth, to live a life so laborious and to die a death so bitter, namely, that He might make known to man how much He loved him. “Therefore Christ came, that man should know how much God loved him.”
     The Lord revealed to His servant Armella Nicolas that the love He bore to man was the cause of all His sufferings and of His death. If Jesus Christ had not been God, but only man and our Friend, what greater love could He have shown us than to die for us? Greater love than this, no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends. – (Jo. xv., 13). At the thought of the love shown us by Jesus Christ, how little the Saints esteemed it to give their lives and their all for so loving a God! How many youths, how many noblemen, have left their house, their country, their riches, their parents, and all things to retire into cloisters, to live only for the love of Jesus Christ! How many young virgins, renouncing nuptials with princes and the great ones of the world, have gone joyfully to death, thus to render some return for the love of a God Who had been executed on an infamous gibbet and died for their sake.
     Indeed, O my Jesus, my Lord, and my Redeemer! only too much hast Thou obliged me to love Thee; too much has my love cost Thee. I should be too ungrateful if I should content myself to love with reserve a God Who has given me His Blood, His life, and His entire self. Oh, Thou Who hast died for me, Thy poor servant, it is but just that I should die for Thee, my God, and my All. Yes, O my Jesus! I detach myself from all, to give myself to Thee. I put away from me the love of all creatures in order to consecrate myself entirely to Thy love.