The Greatest Sorrow of Jesus

The Greatest Sorrow of Jesus

EXTRACT FROM The Incarnation, Birth and Infancy of Jesus, St. Alphonsus Liguori with Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur 

Quæ utilitas in sanguine meo, dum descendo in corruptionem?

"What profit is there in My Blood, whilst I go down to corruption?"-----Ps. 29:10

 

<>  Jesus Christ revealed to the Venerable Agatha of the Cross that whilst He was in his Mother's womb, that which afflicted Him more than any other sorrow was the hardness of the hearts of men, who should, after His Redemption, despise the graces which He came into the world to diffuse. And He had expressed this sentiment before, by the mouth of David, in the words just quoted, which are generally thus understood by the holy Fathers: What profit is there in My blood, whilst I go down to corruption? St. Isidore explains whilst I descend into corruption, "whilst I descend to take the nature of man, so corrupted by vices and sins;" as if He had said, "O my Father, I am indeed going to clothe Myself with human flesh, in order to shed My Blood for men; but what profit is there in My Blood?-----the greater part of the world will set no value on My Blood, and will go on offending Me, as if I had done nothing for the love of them."
 

Saint Quote of the Day- Love Has a Unitive Quality

'Our sweet Jesus has pierced your heart so deeply with the thorns of His sorrows that you will say henceforth: To suffer and not to die! or else: To suffer or to die! or better still: Neither to suffer nor to die, but entire submission to the good pleasure of God. Love has an unitive quality, and makes the sufferings of the beloved its own. If you feel yourself penetrated interiorly and exteriorly with the sufferings of your divine Spouse, rejoice; but I may say that this joy is experienced only in the furnace of divine love, for the fire which burns into the marrow of the bones transforms the loving soul into the object of her love; and there, love and sorrow are so sublimely blended that the one can no longer be distinguished from the other, and the loving soul rejoices in her sorrow, and finds her happiness in her dolorous love. Persist in the study of your nothingness, and be faithful in the practice of virtue, above all in the imitation of our sweet Saviour in His patience, for this is the cardinal point of pure love. Never neglect to offer yourself as a holocaust to the infinite goodness of God. This sacrifice ought to be made in the fire of divine charity; light it with a bouquet of myrrh, that is, with the sufferings of your Saviour. All this should be done behind closed doors, that is, apart by yourself, in pure and simple faith.'

St. Paul of the Cross