“Contemplate Me in the prison
where I spent the greater part of the night. The soldiers came and, adding
words to injuries, insulted Me, mocked
Me, outraged Me, and gave Me blows on My face and on My whole body.
Tired of their sport, at length
they left Me bound and alone in the dark and noisome place, where, seated on a
stone, My aching body was cramped with cold.
Compare the prison with the
Tabernacle, and especially with the hearts that receive Me. "In the prison I spent only part of
the night…but in the Tabernacle, how many days and nights?
In the prison I was insulted and
ill-treated by soldiers who were my enemies. In the Tabernacle most often it is
they who call Me their Father who treat Me thus, but how unlike that of children
is the treatment!
In the prison I endured cold,
sleeplessness, hunger and thirst, solitude, and desertion. And there passed
before My mind’s eye all the tabernacles where in the course of ages I should
lack the shelter of love. . . the icy-cold hearts that would be as hard and unfeeling as the stones of the prison floor
were to My numbed and wounded body.
And how often should I wait for
this or that other soul to visit Me in the Blessed Sacrament and receive Me
into his heart…how many nights should I spend longing for his corning…but he would
let business or carelessness or anxiety for his health get the better of him. .
. and he would not come!
O! if they would thus unite
themselves to Me, with what peace would they face difficulties…how much fortitude they would win
and how they would gladden My
Heart!"
(Words of Our Lord to Sr.
Josefa Menendez as set forth in The Way
of Divine Love and as quoted by Joan Carter McHugh in My Daily Eucharist)
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