We ask ourselves: "When I see a crucifix, do I realize that of Jesus suffered and died for me? Do I realize He was thinking of me and praying for me as He hung on the cross? In fact, that is what He did!
The following is a good way of meditating on our Lord's Passion and Death and overcoming our sins.
- If you are tempted, remember that He was tried before you.
- If you are governed by pride, self-love, or vanity, think of Jesus during His Passion, covered with blows, spat upon, humiliated, and crowned with thorns.
- If you are beset by laziness and sensuality, think of Jesus covered with a bloody sweat, scourged, carrying His Cross, think of Him hanging upon it, His hands and feet pierced, His sacred body torn, devoured by thirst and shattered by pain.
- If you are a slave to material things, think of Jesus poor and wholly destitute at Bethlehem, at Nazareth, and during His public life; think of Him upon the cross, rendering His soul in the supreme embrace of poverty.
- If you fall into sin, remember that Jesus fell three times on the road to Calvary so that He might merit for you the grace to rise again after your falls as H e rose after His, and so that discouragement might never enter your heart.
- If at times the trails and the burden of life are too heavy, if nature rebels and, in spite of yourself, you cry out, "I can bear no more," remember that Jesus in His human nature knew this extremity, the very brink of despair, and that He, too, cried out: "My Father...let this chalice pass from me! My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?"
From Keep it Simple by Emmanuel de Gibergues
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