Read St. Mark 14:32–42
1. If it is difficult to suffer, it is far more difficult to suffer willingly for those who show no gratitude in return for what we endure for them. But most difficult, nay, impossible, save to one who is himself divine, or else shares the divine charity of the Son of God, to suffer for those who requite our love with hatred, our sufferings with bitter mockery, the favors we win for them by outrages and insults. It was this that crushed to the earth the Son of God. Alas! how ungrateful I am to Him!
2. During His sacred Agony He took upon Himself the sins of the whole world. Not in a general way, but individually, so that each and every sin, from the first sin of Adam to the last that shall be committed on the eve of the judgment, was present before Him; and not only present, but each added its own pang. The great black cloud which passed before His soul contained each sin of each individual man, woman, and child, and Christ suffered for each. What a frightful thing it must be to commit deliberately even the least sin, if thereby we add fresh pain to the agony of Jesus!
3. It was in this way that “He was made sin for us,” i.e., He identified Himself with sin as far as it was possible for the Immaculate Lamb of God. He took upon Him all the effects of sin except those which necessarily belong to him who is guilty of the act of sin. All the darkness, all the gloom, the despondency, the loss of God, the feeling of hopelessness, the terror, which arise from sin inundated His sacred soul.
Source: Clarke, R. F. (1889). The Sacred Passion of Jesus Christ: Short Meditations for Every Day in Lent (p. 17). Benziger Brothers.
1. If it is difficult to suffer, it is far more difficult to suffer willingly for those who show no gratitude in return for what we endure for them. But most difficult, nay, impossible, save to one who is himself divine, or else shares the divine charity of the Son of God, to suffer for those who requite our love with hatred, our sufferings with bitter mockery, the favors we win for them by outrages and insults. It was this that crushed to the earth the Son of God. Alas! how ungrateful I am to Him!
2. During His sacred Agony He took upon Himself the sins of the whole world. Not in a general way, but individually, so that each and every sin, from the first sin of Adam to the last that shall be committed on the eve of the judgment, was present before Him; and not only present, but each added its own pang. The great black cloud which passed before His soul contained each sin of each individual man, woman, and child, and Christ suffered for each. What a frightful thing it must be to commit deliberately even the least sin, if thereby we add fresh pain to the agony of Jesus!
3. It was in this way that “He was made sin for us,” i.e., He identified Himself with sin as far as it was possible for the Immaculate Lamb of God. He took upon Him all the effects of sin except those which necessarily belong to him who is guilty of the act of sin. All the darkness, all the gloom, the despondency, the loss of God, the feeling of hopelessness, the terror, which arise from sin inundated His sacred soul.
Source: Clarke, R. F. (1889). The Sacred Passion of Jesus Christ: Short Meditations for Every Day in Lent (p. 17). Benziger Brothers.
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