Summary of the Morrow's Meditation
After having meditated upon the love of God and its effects, it will be most suitable to meditate now upon the love of Jesus Christ, His amiable Son. We will consider: 1st, how amiable Jesus Christ is; 2nd, what our hearts owe to Him. We will then make the resolution: 1st, often and lovingly to consider all that is amiable in the person of Jesus Christ, in order that we may rejoice in it and find our happiness in dwelling upon it; 2nd, often during the day to make acts of love towards our divine Saviour. Our spiritual nosegay shall be the words of St. Paul: "If any one love not Our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema" (I. Cor. xvi. 22).
Meditation for the Morning
Let us adore the great love which the Eternal Father bears His Son. He makes of this dear Son the object of His complaisance; He gives Him all that He has and all that He is; through consideration for Him He bears all our defects, pardons our sins, listens to our prayers, and presents us with His graces. What homage and what thanksgivings ought we not to render to a Father who is so full of love for the most amiable of all sons! He is the most perfect model of the love which we ourselves owe to Jesus Christ.
FIRST POINT
How Amiable Jesus Christ is.
Evidently Jesus Christ, considered as God, is infinitely amiable, since in that title is contained all perfection and all holiness, all that ravishes the saints and angels in heaven. Full of grace and of truth, the beginning and the end of all things, the centre of all good, He is the eternal love of the Father, His joy, His beatitude, His delight.
Considered as Man-God, He is amiable in all the states through which His holy humanity has passed.
Amiable in the womb of His mother; He thinks therein of us, He prays therein for us, He treats respecting our reconciliation with His Father, and even then His eyes are preparing to cast upon us looks of kindness, His ears to listen to us, His tongue to instruct us, His feet to seek the wandering sheep, His hands to help us, His arms to embrace us, His blood to flow for us, His body to be sacrificed for us, and His heart gives itself to us whilst asking us for ours.
Amiable in the crib; He suffers there, He weeps there, He humbles Himself there for us.
Amiable in His Epiphany; He therein appears to us as our God and our King.
Amiable in His Presentation; He therein offers Himself to His holy Father as our victim.
Amiable in His hidden life; He thereby teaches us labor, humility, obedience.
Amiable in His public life; He passed through it doing all things well (Acts x. 38).
Amiable at the Last Supper; He there institutes the Eucharist, the greatest miracle of His love, and He therein begs His Father to give us His throne (John xvii. 24).
Amiable at Gethsemani; He there sheds for us His tears and His blood.
Amiable before His judges; He receives blows as being a blasphemer, He is scourged as being an impious man, crowned as a fool, condemned as a wretch, and all that was in order to save us.
Amiable on Calvary; He allows Himself to be crucified there for our love, He prays there for His executioners, He gives us His own mother, even as He had given us His own Father, that we might be His sisters and brothers of one and the same parents; lastly, He dies of love, with His arms stretched out to embrace us, His head bent down to give us the kiss of peace, His breast and His side open to receive us.
Amiable in His resurrection; He gives us thereby the warrant of our own resurrection.
Amiable in His ascension; He goes to prepare a place in paradise for us, and, like the eagle exciting its little ones to imitate its flight, He invites us to follow Him.
Amiable in the mystery of Pentecost; He therein sends us His Holy Spirit, the substantial love which consoles, which aids human weakness, and produces in us good prayers and good works.
Amiable at the right hand of His Father; He is there our Mediator, our Advocate, our Pontiff, our King.
Amiable, lastly, in His tabernacles; He is therein heaven and earth for us, the food of our soul, the summary of all the mysteries of love (Ps. cix. 4, 5).
O God, Thou dost ravish my heart! Why have I not the heart of the seraphim with which to love Thee?
SECOND POINT
What our Hearts Owe to Jesus Christ.
We owe it to Him:
To love Him as our God and Sovereign Lord. As our God, we ought to love Him above all things, more than all creatures, more than ourselves, and our hearts should be constantly filled with the highest joy at the thought of His greatness and all the perfections which He possesses. As our Sovereign Lord, we owe Him the obedience of a servant, the fidelity of a subject, the dependence of a slave, and true joy for His supreme dominion over us, which gives Him the right of life and death over our whole being.
To love Him as our Saviour and our Master. As our Saviour, we ought to do everything and suffer everything through gratitude for what He willed to do and suffer for our salvation. As our Master, we owe it to Him to conform our life to His instructions, to His holy maxims, and to long that such excellent teaching should be spread throughout the whole world.
To love Him as our Chief and our Shepherd. As our Chief, we ought to receive from Him the principles and the rule of our conduct, and expose all that we are and have in order to guard His glory, in the same way as the members expose themselves to preserve the head. As our Shepherd, who feeds us with His own blood, we ought to listen to His voice, follow Him, and be ready to give our blood for His love.
To love Him as our Father, the Spouse of our souls, and our All. As our Father, we owe Him a love of tenderness, of respect, of gratitude, and we ought to fear nothing so much as to displease Him. As the Spouse of our souls, we ought to espouse all His interests, desire nothing but what He wills, and place all our happiness in being inseparably united to Him in time and in eternity. Lastly, as our All, we owe it to Him to fill our hearts with Him alone, and to pour forth in Him alone all our affections.
Let us here examine ourselves. Do we regret to have hitherto loved Him so little, and do we resolve to love Him better henceforth, and to prove our love to Him by our acts?
Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.