MARY, OUR MOTHER

ADVENT MEDITATIONS

FOR THE FIRST EIGHT DAYS

By St. Alphonsus de Liguori

MEDITATION VII

Baptismo habeo baptizari: et quomodo coarctor, usquedum per ficiatur?

"I have a baptism wherewith I am to be baptized; and how am I straitened until it is accomplished?" (Luke 12:50)

The Desire that Jesus had to suffer for us.

I.

Jesus could have saved us without suffering; but He chose rather to embrace a life of sorrow and contempt, deprived of every earthly consolation, and a death of bitterness and desolation, only to make us understand the love which He bore us, and the desire which He had that we love should Him. He passed His whole life in sighing for the hour of His death, which He desired to offer to God, to obtain for us eternal salvation. And it was this desire which made Him exclaim: "I have a baptism wherewith I am to be baptized; and how am I straitened until it be accomplished?" He desired to be baptized in His own Blood, to wash out, not, indeed, His own, but our sins. O infinite Love, how miserable is he who does not know Thee, and does not love Thee!

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II.

This same desire caused Him to say, on the night before His death, "With desire I have desired to eat this pasch with you." By which words He shows that His only desire during His whole life had been to see the time arrive for His Passion and death, in order to prove to man the immense love which He bore him. So much, therefore, O my Jesus didst Thou desire our love, that to obtain it Thou didst not refuse to die. How could I, then, deny anything to a God who, for love of me, has given His Blood and His life?

III.

St. Bonaventure says that it is a wonder to see a God suffering for the love of men; but that it is a still greater wonder that men should behold a God suffering so much for them, shivering with cold as an infant in a manger, living as a poor boy in a shop, dying as a criminal on a cross, and yet not burn with love to this most loving God; but even go as far as to despise this love, for the sake of the miserable pleasures of this earth. But how is it possible that God should be so enamored with men, and that men, who are so grateful to one another, should be so ungrateful to God?

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Alas! My Jesus, I find myself also among the number of these ungrateful ones. Tell me, how couldst Thou suffer so much for me, knowing the injuries that I should commit against Thee? But since Thou hast borne with me, and even desirest my salvation, give me, I pray Thee, a great sorrow for my sins, a sorrow equal to my ingratitude. I hate and detest above all things, my Lord, the displeasure that I have caused Thee. If, during my past life, I have despised Thy grace, now I value it above all the kingdoms of the earth. I love Thee with my whole soul, O God, worthy of infinite love, and I desire only to live in order to love Thee. Increase the flames of Thy love, and give me more and more love. Keep alive in my remembrance the love that Thou hast borne me, so that my heart may always burn with love for Thee, as Thy Heart burns with love for me. O burning Heart of Mary, inflame my poor heart with holy love.

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