Meditations for the Novena for Christmas
MEDITATION II.
December 17.
Bitterness of the Heart of Jesus in the Womb of His Mother.
Hostium et oblationem noluisti; corpus autem aptasti mihi.
"Sacrifice and oblation Thou wouldest not; but a body Thou hast fitted to Me." (Heb. x. 5)
Consider the great bitterness with which the Heart of the Infant Jesus must have felt itself afflicted and oppressed in the womb of Mary at the first moment when His Father proposed to His consideration all the series of contempt, sorrow, and agonies which He was to suffer during His life, to deliver men from their miseries: In the morning He wakeneth my ear, and I do not resist; I have given my body to the strikers (Isa. 1. 4, 6).
Thus did Jesus speak by the mouth of the prophet: In the morning He wakeneth my ear; that is to say, from the first moment of My conception My Father made Me feel that it was His will that I should lead a life of sorrows, and in the end should be sacrificed on the Cross: And I did not resist; I have given my body to the strikers. And all this I accepted for your salvation, O ye souls of men, and from that time forth I gave up My body to the scourges, to the nails, and to the death of the Cross.
Consider that whatever Jesus Christ suffered in His life and in His Passion, was all placed before before Him whilst He was yet in the womb of Mary, and He accepted everything that was proposed to Him with delight; but in accepting all this, and in overcoming the natural repugnance of sense, O my God, what anguish and oppression did not the innocent Heart of Jesus suffer! Well did He understand what He was first of all to endure, shut up for nine months in the dark prison of the womb of Mary; in suffering the shame and the sorrows of His birth, being born in a cold grotto that was a stable for beasts; in having afterwards to lead for thirty years an humble life in the shop of an artisan; in considering that he was to be treated by men as ignorant, as a slave, as a seducer, and as one guilty of death, and of the most infamous and painful death that ever was allotted to the most worthless of criminals.
All this did our dearest Redeemer accept every moment; but each moment that He accepted it He suffered at once all the pains and humiliations that He would afterwards have to endure even unto death. The very knowledge of His divine dignity made Him feel still more the injuries that He would have to receive from men: All the day long my shame is before me (Ps. xliii. 16). He had continually before His eyes His shame, especially that confusion which He should one day feel at seeing Himself stripped naked, scourged, and suspended by three iron nails; and so to end His life in the midst of the insults and curses of those very men for whom He was to die: Becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross (Phil. ii 8). And for what? To save us miserable and ungrateful sinners.
(St. Alphonsus de Liguori)
Thus did Jesus speak by the mouth of the prophet: In the morning He wakeneth my ear; that is to say, from the first moment of My conception My Father made Me feel that it was His will that I should lead a life of sorrows, and in the end should be sacrificed on the Cross: And I did not resist; I have given my body to the strikers. And all this I accepted for your salvation, O ye souls of men, and from that time forth I gave up My body to the scourges, to the nails, and to the death of the Cross.
Consider that whatever Jesus Christ suffered in His life and in His Passion, was all placed before before Him whilst He was yet in the womb of Mary, and He accepted everything that was proposed to Him with delight; but in accepting all this, and in overcoming the natural repugnance of sense, O my God, what anguish and oppression did not the innocent Heart of Jesus suffer! Well did He understand what He was first of all to endure, shut up for nine months in the dark prison of the womb of Mary; in suffering the shame and the sorrows of His birth, being born in a cold grotto that was a stable for beasts; in having afterwards to lead for thirty years an humble life in the shop of an artisan; in considering that he was to be treated by men as ignorant, as a slave, as a seducer, and as one guilty of death, and of the most infamous and painful death that ever was allotted to the most worthless of criminals.
All this did our dearest Redeemer accept every moment; but each moment that He accepted it He suffered at once all the pains and humiliations that He would afterwards have to endure even unto death. The very knowledge of His divine dignity made Him feel still more the injuries that He would have to receive from men: All the day long my shame is before me (Ps. xliii. 16). He had continually before His eyes His shame, especially that confusion which He should one day feel at seeing Himself stripped naked, scourged, and suspended by three iron nails; and so to end His life in the midst of the insults and curses of those very men for whom He was to die: Becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross (Phil. ii 8). And for what? To save us miserable and ungrateful sinners.
(St. Alphonsus de Liguori)
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