Quote/s of the Day – Friday of the Passion of the Lord – 19 April
“Jesus was in a garden,
not of delight as the first Adam,
in which he destroyed himself
and the whole human race
but in one of agony,
in which He saved Himself
and the whole human race.”
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
“Take your crucifix in your hand
and ask yourselves whether this is the religion
of the soft, easy, worldly, luxurious days in which we live;
whether the crucifix does not teach you
a lesson of mortification, of self-denial, of crucifixion of the flesh.”
Cardinal Henry Edward Manning (1808-1892)
“As is well known, the initial cry of the Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”, is recorded by the Gospels of Matthew and Mark as the cry uttered by Jesus dying on the Cross (cf. Mt 27:46, Mk 15:34). It expresses all the desolation of the Messiah, Son of God, who is facing the drama of death, a reality totally opposed to the Lord of life. Forsaken by almost all His followers, betrayed and denied by the disciples, surrounded by people who insult Him, Jesus is under the crushing weight of a mission that was to pass through humiliation and annihilation. This is why He cried out to the Father and His suffering took up the sorrowful words of the Psalm. But His is not a desperate cry, nor was that of the Psalmist who, in his supplication, takes a tormented path which nevertheless opens out at last into a perspective of praise, into trust in the divine victory.”
Pope Benedict XVI
General Audience 14 September 2011
AnaStpaul 