Empowered by the Passion of Christ
In the last blog post I mentioned a few situations in need of prayer, but the list of needs is endless! In our monastery we have a number of prayer bulletin boards throughout the monastery to keep before our eyes the many prayer requests that come to us. We feel our inadequacy before such a need of God's love and compassion in these situations. Yet, the Passion of Jesus is an endless sea of love and mercy. May He be blessed that through our baptism we have been plunged into His Passion, Death and Resurrection and therefore, His saving mysteries now belong to us! We are empowered by these graces! His prayer is our prayer! And He prays perfectly. Therefore, let us never cease to pray and beg for God's gracious aid.
Saint Paul of the Cross wrote so eloquently about the royal road of suffering and the union we have with Jesus in these sufferings. The motto of the Passionists flows out of this thought: "May the Passion of Christ be ever in our hearts!" Paul, so in touch with the Catholic theology of redemptive suffering, thought of the Passion not merely as a past event, but as a present sign which we need to contemplate and allow to penetrate us. To be plunged into the Passion of Jesus and empowered by His Resurrection!
The world lives unmindful of the sufferings of Jesus which are the miracle of miracles of the love of God. We must arouse the world from its slumber. His Holy Spirit will teach us how.
~ Saint Paul of the Cross
We must take time to gaze on the crucifix during the great sufferings of our time. Gaze on Love, gaze on the One who was tortured and murdered for me. Gaze on Him whose wounds cry out, "I love you!", "I thirst for your love!"
Let us love Him in the mystery of our sufferings and let us renew the gift of our baptism and unite our self-gift with Christ's in His offering to the Father for the redemption of the world. The Holy Sacraments, especially Christ - ever present in His total act of self-offering in the Eucharist, will empower us to do just this.