Christ’s suffering began in the womb. Read this stirring Advent meditation from the great St. Alphonsus Liguori!
Meditation
Consider that all the sufferings and ignominy that Jesus endured in His life and death were present to Him from the first moment of His life: My sorrow is continually before Me; and even from His childhood He began to offer them in satisfaction for our sins, beginning even then to fulfill His office of Redeemer. He revealed to one of His servants that from the commencement of His life even until His death, He suffered continually; and suffered so much for each of our sins that if He had had as many lives as there are men, He would as many times have died of sorrow, if God had not preserved His life that He might suffer more.
Oh, what a martyrdom did the loving heart of Jesus constantly endure in beholding all the sins of men! He beheld every single fault. Even while He was in the womb of Mary every particular sin passed in review before Jesus, and each sin afflicted Him immeasurably. Saint Thomas says that this sorrow which Jesus Christ felt at the knowledge of the injury done to His Father, and of the evil that sin would occasion to the souls that He loved, surpassed the sorrows of all the contrite sinners that ever existed, even of those who died of pure sorrow; because no sinner ever loved God and his own soul as much as Jesus loved His Father and our souls. Wherefore that agony which our Redeemer suffered in the garden at the sight of our sins was endured by Him even from His mother’s womb: I am poor, and in labors from My youth. Thus through the mouth of David did our Savior prophesy of Himself, that all His life should be a continual suffering. From this Saint John Chrysostom deduces that we ought not to afflict ourselves for anything but for sin alone; and that since Jesus was afflicted all His life long on account of our sins, so we who have committed them ought to feel a continual sorrow for them, remembering that we have offended God who has loved us so much. Saint Margaret of Cortona never ceased to shed tears for her sins: one day her confessor said to her, “Margaret, no more tears; it is enough, our Lord has already forgiven thee.” “What,” answered the saint, “how can my tears and my sorrows suffice for the sins for which my Jesus was afflicted all His life long!”
Prayer
Behold, my Jesus, at Your feet the ungrateful sinner, the persecutor who kept You in continual affliction during all Your life. But I will say to You with Isaiah: But You have delivered my soul that it should not perish; You have cast all my sins behind your back. I have offended You, I have pierced You through with all my sins; but You have not refused to bear on Your shoulders all my sins; I have voluntarily cast my soul into the fire of hell every time that I have consented to offend You gravely; and You, at the cost of Your own blood, have continually liberated me and prevented me from being entirely lost.
My beloved Redeemer, I thank You. I could wish to die of sorrow when I think how I have abused Your infinite goodness; forgive me, my Love, and come and take entire possession of my heart. You have said that You would not disdain to enter into the abode of him that opens to You, and to remain in his company: If any man shall open to Me the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him. If I have hitherto driven You away from me, I now love You, and desire nothing but Your favor.
Behold, the door is open, enter into my heart, but enter never to depart from it again. I am poor; but if You enter You will make me rich. I shall always be rich as long as I possess You, the sovereign good.
O Queen of Heaven, sorrowful Mother of this suffering Son, I have also been a cause of sorrow to you, because you have participated, in great part, in the sufferings of Jesus: my Mother, forgive me also, and obtain for me the grace to be faithful to you, now that I hope my Jesus has returned into my soul.
ooo
This article is taken from a chapter in The Road to Bethlehem by St. Alphonsus Liguori which is available from TAN Books.
