MARY, OUR MOTHER

ADVENT MEDITATIONS
FOR THE FIRST EIGHT DAYS
By St. Alphonsus de Liguori

MEDITATION V

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Jesus has done and suffered Everything to save us.

Dilexit me, et tradidit semetipsum pro me.
"He loved me, and delivered Himself for me." (Gal. 2:20)

I.
If, therefore, my Jesus, Thou hast for the love of me embraced a laborious life and a bitter death, I may, indeed, say that Thy death is mine, Thy sufferings are mine, Thy merits are mine, Thou Thyself art mine; since for me Thou hast given Thyself up to so great sufferings. Ah, my Jesus, there is no trouble that afflicts me more than the thought that once Thou wert mine, and that I have so often willingly lost Thee. Forgive me, and unite me to Thyself; suffer me not in future ever to offend Thee again. I love Thee with all my heart. Thou willest to be all mine; and I will be entirely Thine.

II.
The Son of God being true God is infinitely happy; and yet, as St. Thomas says, He has done and suffered as much for man as if He could not be happy without him. If Jesus Christ had been obliged to earn for Himself upon this earth His eternal beatitude, what could He have done more than to burden Himself with all our weaknesses, and assume all our infirmities, and then end His life with a death so severe and ignominious? But no, He was innocent, He was holy, and was in Himself blessed; Whatever He did and suffered was all to gain for us divine grace and paradise, which we had lost.

Miserable is he that does not love Thee, my Jesus, and that does not pass his life enamored with so much goodness.

III.
If Jesus Christ had permitted us to ask Him for the greatest proofs of His love, who would have dared to propose to Him to become a child like one of us, to embrace all our miseries, to make Himself of all men the most poor, the most despised, the most ill-used, even to dying in torments the infamous death of the cross, cursed and forsaken by all, even by His own Father? But that which we should not have dared even to think of, He has both thought of and done.

My beloved Redeemer, I beseech Thee to obtain for me that grace which Thou hast merited for me by Thy death. I love Thee, and am sorry for having offended Thee. Oh, take my soul into Thy hands; I will not let the devil have dominion over it any more; I desire that it may be entirely Thine, since Thou hast bought it with Thy Blood. Thou alone lovest me, and Thee alone will I love. Deliver me from the misery of living without Thy love, and then chastise me as Thou willest. O Mary, my refuge, the death of Jesus and thy intercession are my hopes.

[From 'The Incarnation, Birth and Infancy of Jesus Christ.']