Saint Anthony of Padua and the Infant Jesus by Bartolome Esteban Murillo

Love of Jesus Christ – Twenty-First Day of January

Love of Jesus Christ.

If any man love not Our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema.” — 1 Cor. 16:22.

TWENTY-FIRST DAY.

Everything in the Passion of Jesus Christ shows how He has loved us — the cross to which He was nailed, the sorrows which He endured, the death which He suffered. — St. Thomas of Villanova.

St. Thomas Aquinas, during a visit which he made to St. Bonaventure, asked the latter from what books he had drawn the erudition, the unction which made his writings so admirable. Showing him a crucifix, he replied: “This is my book; it is the source of all I have written. It is this which has taught me the little that I know.” Let us press the crucifix to our lips, begging our divine Saviour to instruct us, to give us His love. Let us beseech Him to grant to sinners the grace of conversion, and let us make amends for the sins we have committed.

St. Gertrude meditated with love upon her crucifix. At the sight of her divine Saviour on the cross, she begged for the love of suffering, and asked that she might suffer still more and more with gratitude and love. “I offer to Thee, divine Saviour,” she said, “all that it may please Thee to make me suffer, either in body or mind. I desire to imitate Thee, O my Jesus, Who hast loved me even to die for me. Let this body, so rebellious a slave, be chastised. Let my will, which has so often opposed thine, be unceasingly mortified I will no longer follow its desires. I place it in Thy hands; dispose of it as Thou wilt.” St. Augustine said: “Each time that I am tempted I have recourse to the wounds of Jesus Christ. I take refuge in the bowels of mercy of my Saviour. Jesus Christ died for me: this thought is sweet consolation in my greatest pains. All my hope is in the death of Jesus Christ. His death is my merit, my refuge, my salvation, my life, my resurrection. I wish to live, to die in the arms of my Saviour.”

Prayer.

O Jesus O the God of my heart, by the five wounds which Thou hast received for us on the tree of the cross, have pity on those whom Thou hast redeemed by Thy precious blood. I will no more by my sins renew Thy Passion, crucify Thee again, nor trample under foot Thy adorable blood.

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