“…go to my brethren, and say to them: I ascend to my Father and to your Father, to my God and your God.” ~John 20: 17 ~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+
Christ is Risen! He is truly Risen, and He reigns now and forever, Body and Soul, sitting at the right hand of Our Father in heaven!
Our Lord’s glorified Body bears the Four Wounds or “marks” He suffered during His Passion for His Church, His Bride, and for His Mystical Body. Those marks came from the nails that pierced His Hands and Feet, and the Wound that pierced His Sacred Heart.
His Bride - the Catholic Church - imitates Her Holy Spouse and Head in everything. And so she, too, bears four marks – that of being One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic. Like Him, she also bears a Crown of Thorns, as do all true and loyal members of the Mystical Body of Christ.
Today we celebrate Easter, the day the Lord rose from the dead. Yet we must never forget - before the Resurrection came the Passion of Christ.
“How necessary to remember that while we are making our way home, we shall certainly meet Jesus, for He is ever passing our way, but always with His Cross. If we want Him, we must have His Cross, too."
"Some meet Him and turn away."
"Some see Him from afar and turn down another road."
"Some come close up and leap down a precipice to avoid the Cross."
"Some pass by as if they do not know Jesus, the Cross-laden."
"He has few honest, reverent, loving greetings. Faith and love make some too timid to pass Him or avoid Him but they remonstrate with Him about the Cross and weep aloud when He insists. Others follow in the sullenness of servile obedience – drag their cross, which jolts upon the stone and hurts them all the more – and they fall; but their falls are in not union with those of the Master, Jesus the Savior, upon the old Way of the Cross."
"How few kneel down, kiss His dear feet, take the Cross off His back, shoulder it gladly to please and satisfy Him, walk courageously and lovingly by His side, and smile when the totter beneath the load! This is what we should do!"
Can we do it? Can we carry the Cross? Not without turning to Christ: “I can do all these things in Him who strengthens me.” (Phillipians 4:13) It is only through the Cross of Christ that all Graces are given but - like the Apostles, like the Holy Women, like His disciples, like the Good Thief Dismas - we must ask for, accept and use well the Graces that God gives us.
Above all, we “must do now what Mary our Immaculate Mother did, when she met her Jesus with His Cross – look at Him Who is on the road before us, and see how the beauty of the Sacred Hears appears with meek majesty and attractive love on the woe-worn and disfigured face of our Divine Lord and Savior – our Jesus, Who loves us, and delivered Himself up for us.”
Our Lord’s Passion is the Eternal Sacrifice to God, given as the act of Redemption by which mankind can be saved from the eternal misery of hell and raised to the eternal and unspeakable joy of the Beatific Vision.
“Do not offend the Lord our God any longer; He is already deeply offended.” Our Lady’s words at Fatima must be engraved on our hearts, because she always directs us to her Divine Son, Who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. To Jesus through Mary!
“And He said to all: If any man will follow Me, let him deny himself daily, and take up his cross and follow Me.” (Luke 9:23) Let us not forget it; let us remember that, like Our Lord, Jesus Christ, our time on earth is our Way of the Cross. And after the Cross – the Resurrection! (With excerpts from Meditation on the Passion)
