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Brookline Carmel Bulletin J M J T
April 10, 1960
Cogitatio Sancta
(Holy
Meditation)
Meditating on the Passion
“We begin to meditate upon a scene of the Passion – let us say upon the binding of the Lord to the column. The mind sets to work to seek out the reasons that are to be found for the great afflictions and distress that His Majesty must have suffered when He was alone there. It also meditates upon the many other lessons that, if it is industrious, or well equipped with learning, this mystery can teach it. This method should be the beginning, the middle and the end of prayer for all of us: it is a most excellent and safe road until the Lord leads us to other methods, which are supernatural. I say ‘for all of us’, but there will be many souls who derive greater benefits from other meditations than from that of the Sacred Passion. For, just as there are many mansions in Heaven, so there are many roads to them. Some people derive benefit from imagining themselves in hell, others, whom it distresses to think of hell, from imagining themselves in Heaven. Others meditate upon death. Some, who are tender-hearted, get exhausted if they keep thinking about the Passion, but they derive great comfort and benefit from considering the power and greatness of God in the creatures, and the love that He showed us, which is pictured in all things. This is an admirable procedure, provided one does not fail to meditate often upon the Passion and the life of Christ, which are, and have always been, the source of everything that is good.” (St. Teresa, Life, ch. 13)
“He was accustomed to
say that two things serve the soul as wings whereby it is able to rise to union
with God: these are affective
compassion for the death of Christ and for our neighbor; and that, when the
soul pauses to have compassion for the Cross and sufferings of the Lord, it
must remember that by these means He was only working our redemption… From this
thought the soul will receive many other most useful thoughts and meditations.” (St. John of
the Cross, Spiritual Sayings)
“Who can there be so
miserably proud that, when he has labored all his life long over every
imaginable kind of penance and prayer and suffered every kind of persecution,
does not consider himself very rich and abundantly rewarded if the Lord allows
him to stand with Saint John, at the foot of the Cross? I cannot imagine how it can enter anyone’s
head not to be contented with this…” (St. Teresa, Life, ch. 22)
“It may be that our
temperament, or some indisposition, will not always allow us to think of the
Passion, because of its painfulness; but what can prevent us from being with
Him in His Resurrected Body, since we have Him so near us in the Blessed
Sacrament, where He is already glorified?
Here we shall not see Him wearied and broken in body, streaming with
blood, exhausted by journeying, persecuted by those to whom He was doing such
good, disbelieved by the Apostles.
Certainly, it is not always that one can
bear to think of such great trials as those which he suffered. But here we can behold Him free from pain,
full of glory, strengthening some, encouraging others, ere He ascends to the
Heavens.”
(ibid.)
“The mere sight of the
Lord on His knees, in the Garden, covered with that terrible sweat, will
suffice us (she is speaking of the Sixth
Mansion), not merely for an hour, but for many days. We consider, with a simple regard, Who He is
and how ungrateful we have been to One Who has borne such pain for us. Then the will is aroused, not perhaps with
deep emotion but with a desire to make some kind of return for this great
favor, and to suffer something for One Who has suffered so much Himself.” (St.
Teresa, Interior Castle, VI, vii)
“God forbid that I
should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the
world is crucified to me, and I to the world.” (Gal. 6:14)
“The Jews ask for
signs, and the Greeks look for ‘wisdom’; but we, for our part, preach a
crucified Christ – to the Jews indeed a stumbling-block and to the Gentiles
foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the
power of God and the wisdom of God.” (I Cor.
1:22-24)
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