Follow Saint Alphonsus Liguori as he guides you through a meditation upon Jesus in the womb of Mary. This excerpt was taken from The Road to Bethlehem.
Consider the painful life that Jesus Christ led in the womb of His Mother, and the long-confined and dark imprisonment that He suffered there for nine months. Other infants are indeed in the same state; but they do not feel the miseries of it, because they do not know them. But Jesus knew them well, because from the first moment of His life He had the perfect use of reason. He had His senses, but He could not use them; eyes, but He could not see; a tongue, but He could not speak; hands, but He could not stretch them out; feet, but He could not walk;—so that for nine months He had to remain in the womb of Mary like a dead man shut up in the tomb: I am become as a man without help, free among the dead. He was free, because He had of His own free-will made Himself a prisoner of love in this prison; but love deprived Him of liberty, and bound Him there so fast in chains that He could not move: “Free among the dead! Oh, great patience of our Savior!” says St. Ambrose, while he considered the sufferings of Jesus in the womb of Mary.
The womb of Mary was, therefore, to our Redeemer a voluntary prison, because it was a prison of love. But it was also not an unjust prison: He was indeed innocent Himself, but He had offered Himself to pay our debts and to satisfy for our crimes. It was therefore only reasonable for the divine justice to keep Him thus imprisoned, and so begin to exact from Him the due satisfaction.
Behold the state to which the Son of God reduces Himself for the love of men! He deprives Himself of His liberty and puts Himself in chains, to deliver us from the chains of hell. What gratitude and love should we not show in return for the love and goodness of our deliverer and our surety, who, not by compulsion but only out of love, offered Himself to pay, and has paid for us, our debts and our penalties by giving up His divine life! Forget not the kindness of thy surety: for He has given His life for you.
Affections and Prayers
Forget not the kindness of thy surety. Yes, my Jesus, the prophet has reason to warn me not to forget the immense favor which You have shown me. I was the debtor, I the criminal, and You the innocent one; You, O my God, have chosen to satisfy for my sins by Your sufferings and Your death. But after all this kindness I have forgotten Your favors and Your love, and I have had the boldness to turn my back upon You, as if You had not been my Lord, and that Lord who has loved me so much. But if in times past I have forgotten Your mercies, O my dear Redeemer! I will in the future never forget them again. Your sufferings and Your death shall be the constant subjects of my thoughts, because they will always recall to my mind the love that You have borne me. Cursed be the days in which, forgetting what You have suffered for me, I have made so bad a use of my liberty. You have given it to me to love You, and I have used it to despise You. But I now consecrate entirely to You this liberty which You have given me. I beseech You, my Savior, deliver me from the misery of seeing myself again separated from You, and again made the slave of Lucifer. I implore You to bind my poor soul to Your feet by Your holy love, so that it may never again be separated from You. Eternal Father, by the imprisonment of the infant Jesus in the womb of Mary, deliver me from the chains of sin and of hell. And you, O Mother of God, help me! You have in your womb the Son of God imprisoned and confined; as, therefore, Jesus is your prisoner, He will do everything that you tell Him. Tell Him to pardon me; tell Him to make me holy. Help me, my Mother, for the sake of the favor and honor that Jesus Christ conferred upon you by dwelling within you for nine months.
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This article is taken from a chapter in The Road to Bethlehem by Saint Alphonsus Liguori which is available from TAN Books.
