Lenten Meditations – 8 April – With Fr Richard Frederick Clarke SJ (1839-1900) Scripture search here: https://www.drbo.org/
“The Sacred Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ”
“Short Meditations for Lent”
From “The Devout Year”
By Fr Richard Frederick Clarke SJ (1839-1900)
Tuesday after the Fifth Sunday in Len
Jesus Meets His Holy Mother
Read St Matthew xvi:24-28
[24] Then Jesus said to His disciples: If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. [25] For he who will save his life, shall lose it and he. who shall lose his life. for My Sake, shall find it.
[26] For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul? [27] For the Son of man, shall come in the glory of His Father with His Angels and then, will He render to every man according to his works. [28] Amen I say to you, there are some of them who stand here, who shall not taste death, till they see the Son of man coming in His Kingdom. [Matthew 16:24-28]
+1. Our blessed Lady, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, goes forth to meet her Son as He drags Himself up the hill of Calvary.
With what horror and dismay must she have been stricken at the sight of her darling Son and her God, His Divine Beauty obliterated, mangled and torn, covered with blood and filth, unsightly and terrible to behold!
Heartbroken, anguish fills her soul and we may well believe, she would have died of sorrow had she not been miraculously supported by the power of God.
O Mother of God! obtain for me a share in Thy grief and Thy intercession!
+2. What a fresh stab of sorrow to the gentle Heart of Jesus to see His holy Mother, pale and haggard, come to share in His Sacred Passion by her compassion!
None so full of sympathy as He, none so full of acute feeling for the woes of other. If He sorrowfully sympathised with the women on the way, how much more His own Mother, whom He loved far better than all the world beside!
O Mary, obtain for me, a sinner, the Sacred Compassion of Jesus!
+3. Our Lady shared in the Passion of Christ in a way in which no-one else could, none even of the Saints, simply because she too was sinless. She did not need to suffer for herself. She had no sin to expiate. This it is which justifies us in giving her the title of co-Redemptrix. She too, who knew no sin, was made sin for us!
This earned for her ,the privilege of sharing in all the agony of the sinless Lamb of God.
AnaStpaul 