MARY, OUR MOTHER

TWENTY THIRD MEDITATION FOR LENT

Jesus said to him: "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests: but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head." (Luke 9:58)

Is there any exaggeration in this complaint which Jesus Christ makes? Is it true that He has been everywhere persecuted and treated with contempt? Alas! persecution was waiting in Bethlehem for Him at birth. He was no sooner born than He had to take refuge among an idolatrous people; He Himself complained of the treatment He received at Nazareth; He was driven out of Jerusalem; He was refused admittance into the villages of Samaria; He was several times obliged to hide Himself from the fury of the persecution of those who wished to kill Him before the time He had chosen had arrived. But did this contempt and persecution end with His mortal life? It would have ceased if He had not instituted the Blessed Eucharist. But He has instituted It, and since Its institution, wicked men have never ceased to insult Him and persecute Him. If this had not actually happened, who could have ever imagined that Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament would not have been safe from insults and outrages? Alas! it is only too true that Jesus Christ has been the object of every kind of outrage all through the ages in the Sacrament of His love, and that a very large number of Christians have in no way been moved by this treatment.


[From 'The Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus' by Fr. John Croiset, SJ]