V. Adoramus te Christe et benedicimus tibi (We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee)
R. Quia per Crucem tuam redemisti mundum (For by Thy holy cross Thou hast redeemed the world.)
Everything has to be consummated. From this perspective we can also understand the threefold fall of Jesus. The imperfect and sinful world was to be redeemed in its entirety.
The threefold fall of Jesus reminds us of the threefold denial of His beloved disciple Peter.
‘My God, Most Holy Trinity, be my dwelling place and my refuge; the Father’s house I never want to leave’ (St. Elizabeth of the Most Holy Trinity).
A soul in love with God expresses in her letters what the Heavenly Father offers us again and again in the message to Mother Eugenia: the most intimate relationship of the soul with her Creator and Saviour. All the books in the world cannot fully describe this love. We need to read more in that book of which Saint Joan of Arc spoke: to listen attentively to the Heart of God and to know our Father as He is.
V. Adoramus te Christe et benedicimus tibi (We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee)
R. Quia per Crucem tuam redemisti mundum (For by Thy holy cross Thou hast redeemed the world.)
Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem. They remained faithful to Him. Their hearts are aching, because they see the Son of God suffering on the way to the crucifixion, suffering for humanity. So we see that there were also those who did not close their hearts to the Lord.
Perhaps they did not yet understand the full extent of the events, but they have compassion for Jesus. He sees their compassion and accepts their weeping. However, He announces to them the true grief that awaits them. His death will not be final, for He will soon rise again. Then His suffering will be over.
Once again we see how difficult the way is. How many burdens does the Lord carry on His shoulders: the physical burden, the spiritual burden, all that is happening around Him, the cruelty of so many? But what weighs most on Him is the burden of sin, which brings separation from God, and which Jesus now takes upon Himself in His own flesh for our sake, depriving Himself of the glory of the Father.
“Listen attentively to the Heart of God. This is more important than reading many things” (Inner Word).
No time is ever wasted in listening attentively to the Heart of our Father. On the other hand, we waste a lot of time if we do not take advantage of His invitation and let these moments pass us by. Often we are so immersed in our tasks and so used to them that we do not really notice the precious moments of silence in our lives. Yet it is precisely these moments that mark us the most and make us inner persons.
V. Adoramus te Christe et benedicimus tibi (We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee)
R. Quia per Crucem tuam redemisti mundum (For by Thy holy cross Thou hast redeemed the world.)
In Veronica, Jesus finds a kind soul, a soul that has compassion for Him. She does not mock Him, she does not turn her back on Him, nor is she indifferent to Him. With this gesture of love and compassion, she shows Him her heart by offering Him a handkerchief. Jesus understands the gesture and imprints His face on the cloth. He leaves a deep imprint of His being on this pious soul.
“Oh, my good Lord, if only my soul could be called your beloved” (Blessed Henry Suso).
This exclamation comes from a mystic inflamed with love, Blessed Henry Suso, who experienced the fire of the Holy Spirit in his inner encounter with the Lord, awakening him to the love of God. There is such a profound awakening to the love of God that the soul longs for union with the Beloved and yearns with increasing intensity for an encounter with Him. It suffers a ‘sweet sorrow’. On the one hand, it is sweet because it fills the soul with the bliss of God’s incomparable love; on the other hand, it is painful because it awakens in her an ever-increasing hunger for love which cannot be fully satisfied in this life and is only comforted by the prospect of eternity.
“Do not go outside, come back inside: within man dwells the truth” (St. Augustine).
How often we seek outside, in the world, in events, in the media, in encounters and in other people, that which in reality we can only find within ourselves! We often forget that, if we live in a state of grace, the Trinity Herself has established Her dwelling place in our soul and has erected in it Her temple of truth. In this inner temple we can withdraw at any time and enter into an intimate dialogue with God within ourselves.
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If the Lord had just been comforted by the encounter with His Mother, who loved Him with all her heart, He now experiences Simon’s forced help. The Scriptures do not reveal to us what the Cyrenian must have felt when he suddenly found himself so closely bound to the Lord’s destiny. Did he simply do his duty and then go on his way? Or did the Lord touch his heart, so that something happened within him? Was he before a mere spectator of the events surrounding Jesus of Nazareth or was his heart already open to the Lord? We do not know!
“Do not go outside, come back inside: within man dwells the truth” (St. Augustine).
How often we seek outside, in the world, in events, in the media, in encounters and in other people, that which in reality we can only find within ourselves! We often forget that, if we live in a state of grace, the Trinity Herself has established Her dwelling place in our soul and has erected in it Her temple of truth. In this inner temple we can withdraw at any time and enter into an intimate dialogue with God within ourselves.
