Thought for the Day – 13 September – The Redemption

Thought for the Day – 13 September – Meditations with Antonio Cardinal Bacci (1881-1971)

The Redemption

“The Incarnation of God, was sufficient to have saved us.
It would have been enough for God made man, to have offered Himself to God, for our redemption in a single act of love.
Every act of Jesus, the God-Man, had infinite value and was, therefore, sufficient to be offered to the Father as an infinite satisfaction for all our sins.

But, if Jesus had desired to show more clearly His great love for us, He could have offered Hi sufferings as a child in the cold cave at Bethlehem, when He lay whimpering on a wretched straw bed.
He could have offered the sorrow of His exile in Egypt, He could have offered a single drop of His Precious Blood , during the ceremony of the circumcision.
He could have offered the difficulties and privations of His simple working life at Nazareth, or the fatiguing exertions of His apostolic journeys.
All these, would have been more than enough to have made amends to the divine Father for all the sins of humanity, to have ransomed us from the devil and to have restored to us, God’s grace and love.
But in God, everything is infinite.
His love has no limit.
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart,” He as commanded men “and with thy whole soul and with thy whole strength and with they whole mind and thy neighbour as thyself.”
He, Himself, did infinitely more than this, however, Jesus was not satisfied merely to love us, His brothers by adoption, as He loved Himself but, He wished to love us “more than He loved Himself. Greater love than this no-one has,” He said, “that one lay down his life for his friends” (1 Jn 15:13).
This was what he Himself did.
Sinful though we are, He called us friends.
“You are my friends” (Jn 15:14).
Out of love for us, He gave Himself entirely.
He perspired blood in the Garden of Gethsemane, He was betrayed by Judas, denied by Peter and, abandoned by the Apostles, He was bound like a criminal, insulted, scourged, crowned with thorns, condemned to death and burdened with a cross; finally, when He arrived at Calvary, He was nailed to the gibbet, where He shed His Precious Blood and gave His life for our redemption.
Such was the extent of Jesus’ infinite love for us.

“Calvary” writes St Francis de Sales,“is the school of love.”
The Saints were moved to tears by the strange spectacle of God-made-man, dying on the Cross for men.
What is our reaction?“

Antonio Cardinal Bacci