Fr. Dehon's meditations on the passion of Jesus.
In the mysteries of the Passion, Jesus is like a book replete with interior and ex terior meaning. What are the letters traced in this book? Only these: L-0-V-E.
The scourge, the thorns, and the nails have written them in ·letters of blood upon His divine flesh. But let us not be satisfied with reading and ad miring only the exterior of this divine writing.
Let us penetrate to the heart and we shall see a much greater marvel: an inexhaustible and un failing love that suffers willingly and gives it self without tiring.
Friends of the Sacred Heart always have the grace to discover the love of our Lord hidden under the veil of His mysteries. But where can we see it more impressively than in the Passion? If we do not see it there, or if we see it only superficially, let us be convinced that we shall derive little benefit from these great mysteries of the suffering of Jesus and that we shall render little glory to God. To draw all possible fruit from this divine contemplation, we must first establish a few principles; then we shall treat of the special sentiments that this contemplation should excite in us.
The first principle is this: In the eyes of the Father, the Passion of the Saviour draws all its merits and all its value not so much from His external sufferings nor even from His death as from His Heart, from His love, the love of God made man, which led Him to give Himself to us without reserve.
The second principle: Our Lord chose to endure these extraordinary sufferings in order the better to show us His love and to spare nothing to win our love in return. This love would have been just as great if He had redeemed us by some trifling suffering, but what effect would it have exerted on us? We would have been left un moved, and the Sacred Heart wanted by all means to win our hearts.
The third principle: Since the Sacred Heart freely took upon Himself in consequence of His love and His Behold I come, to suffer everything for us, His sufferings and His death were as so many acts of love that effected our redemption; and the Heart of Jesus was the source whence flowed all His merits along with His sufferings. Such was the divine will to which the Sacred Heart of Jesus freely submitted.
(Fr. Dehon,The love of the Sacred Heart II, 1905)
