Part V, Chapter XIII
Fourth Consideration: Of the Love That Jesus Christ Bears Us
Consider the incomparable love with which Jesus Christ our Lord has suffered so much in this world, but especially in the Garden of Olives and upon Mount Calvary, for your sake. By all those pains and sufferings he obtained of God the Father good resolutions and protestations for your heart; and by the same means he also obtained whatever is necessary to maintain, nourish, strengthen, and fulfil them. O resolution, how precious art thou, being the daughter of such a mother, as is the passion of my Saviour! Oh, how tenderly ought my soul to cherish thee, since thou hast been so dear to my sweet Jesus! Alas, O Saviour of my soul! thou didst die to purchase for me these resolutions. Oh, grant me the grace rather to suffer death than to lose them!
Observe, my Philothea, it is certain that the heart of Jesus beheld your heart from the tree of the cross, and, by the love which he bore towards it, obtained for it all the good you shall ever have, and among the rest your resolutions. Yes, Philothea, we may all say, with the prophet Jeremias: “O Lord, before I had a being thou didst behold me, and called me by my name”; since the divine goodness did actually prepare for us all the general and particular means of salvation, and consequently our good resolutions. As a pregnant woman prepares the cradle, the linen, and swathing-clothes, and even a nurse for the child which she hopes to bring forth, although it is not yet in the world; so our Saviour, who designed to bring you forth to salvation, and make you his child, prepared all that was necessary for you upon the tree of the cross: your spiritual cradle, your linen, and swathing-clothes, your nurse, and all that was necessary for your happiness. Such are all those graces by which he seeks to attract your soul and bring it to perfection.
Ah, my God! how deeply ought we to imprint this thy love in our memory! Is it possible that I could have been so tenderly beloved by my Saviour as that he should think of me in particular even in all these little occurrences, by which he has drawn me to himself? How much, then, ought we to love, cherish, and convert them all to our own profit! O consoling reflection! the amiable heart of God has thought of Philothea, loved her and procured her a thousand means of salvation, even as many as if there had been no other soul in the world to think of. As the sun shining upon one place of the earth enlightens it no less than if it shined on no other, so in the very same manner is our Lord solicitous for all his dear children, thinking on each of them as though he had forgotten the rest. “He loved me,” says St. Paul, “and delivered himself for me.” He says for me alone, as if he had done nothing for the rest. O Philothea! let this sacred truth be imprinted in your soul, in order to cherish and nourish your resolution, which has been so precious to the heart of our Saviour.
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