Summary of the Morrow's Meditation
After having seen how amiable Jesus Christ is and how loving, we will excite ourselves: 1st, to love Him as the saints loved Him; 2nd, we will study what should be the way in which to testify our love. We will then make the resolution: 1st, often to ask Our Saviour for His love; 2nd, to perform all our actions in a spirit of love, and to accept all crosses as testimonies of this love. Our spiritual nosegay shall be the words of St. Paul: "The charity of Christ presseth us" (II. Cor. v. 14).
Meditation for the Morning
Let us adore the immense, eternal, infinite love of God the Father for Jesus Christ. He loves Him more than all creatures put together; He loves Him with a love which is the Holy Spirit Himself, God like Him, with a love which is the beginning and end of all His divine operations, since it is for the love of Jesus that everything has been created, that He preserves all, governs all, vivifies all in heaven and on earth, in the order of nature and in the order of grace. Let us rejoice to see Jesus so much loved, and let us desire to love Him in our turn with all our strength.
FIRST POINT
The Example of the Saints Invites us to Love Jesus.
There is nothing more powerful than the example of the saints to induce souls to love Jesus Christ. Let us therefore excite ourselves to love Him as did the Blessed Virgin, whose heart burned with ineffable ardor for her divine Son, like the angels, who love in Jesus their king, their lord, and their master; like the patriarchs and the prophets, who supplicated for Jesus of the heavens (Is. lxiv. 1), of the earth (Ibid. xlv. 8), of God Himself (Ibid. xvi. 6); like David and Isaias, who summoned Him by the most ardent desires; like the prophet Micheas, who exclaimed, "I will look towards the Lord, I will wait for God my Saviour" (Mich. vii. 7); like Habacuc, who sang, "I will joy in God my Jesus" (Habac. iii. 18); like Solomon, who said in his canticle: "Thou art fair, my Beloved, and comely" (Cant. i. 15). Let us look at the saints of the New Testament, who were still more admirable; the just Joseph, with his paternal love for Jesus; St. John Baptist, the true burning lamp, with flames of holy love; St. Peter, saying to the Saviour, "Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee;" St. John the Evangelist, a furnace of love; St. Paul, suffering in his heart a martyrdom of love; the martyrs, victims of their charity for Jesus; St. Augustine, drawing from his heart such overflowings of love as these: "O love, which burnest always, inflame me; may I be all fire for Thee" (Conf., lib. x., c. xxix.); St. Romuald and St. Bernard, melting into tears of love; St. Francis of Assisi, a living brazier of love; St. Philip Neri, only by means of a miracle bearing the violence of the charity which beats in his heart and breaks one of his ribs; St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Aloysius Gonzaga, St. Stanislaus Kostka, burning here below with the love of the seraphim. And what shall we say of the love of so many holy virginsāof a Teresa, with her heart pierced with love by the arrow of a seraphim; of a Catherine of Siena, receiving in her body, as the price of her love, the stigmata of the Passion of the Saviour; of a Magdalene of Pazzi, complaining in these words to Jesus Christ: "O Lord, if Thou dost not interfere, the excess of Thy love will make me die. I cannot bear its ardors. O Love, how little art thou loved! Who will enable me to make all the nations of the earth understand how Thou dost deserve to be loved!" O my soul, wilt not thou be touched by so many beautiful examples, and will they not make thee resolve to live henceforth only for the love of Jesus?
SECOND POINT
How we ought to Testify our Love for Jesus Christ.
We ought to testify it to Him in our exercises of piety, in our actions and our sufferings.
In our exercises of piety.Ā Love ought to make us fly to them with joy as to the delicious moment of our union with Jesus, when we are able to pour forth our heart into His and to ask Him for His love for ourselves and for all men. When we employ ourselves in the reading of pious books, what delight to listen to the love which speaks to us, and to treasure up His sweet words! When we present ourselves at the sacred tribunal, what a consolation for us to cast ourselves, like the prodigal, upon the breast of the best of fathers, and to promise to love Him more and more! When we sit down at the holy table, what delight to identify ourselves with Jesus and to be able to say: "My Beloved to me and I to Him.... I found Him whom my soul loveth: I held Him, and will not let Him go" (Cant. ii. 16; iii. 4).
In our ordinary actions, how sweet it is to do everything for Jesus, as being our last end; to do all like Jesus, as being our model; to do all with Jesus, as being our help! When we converse, we speak of Jesus, at least from time to time, and we endeavor always to imitate His goodness, His gentleness, His discretion. When we are alone, we unite ourselves with Jesus, solitary, silent, and then more united than ever to God His Father. When we are at table, we imitate the temperance and the modesty of Jesus taking His meals together with Mary and Joseph. Lastly, in the employment of our time, we endeavor, like Jesus, to make the most holy use of every moment.
In suffering, we unite ourselves with Jesus suffering (I. Pet. iv. 13). We say to Him as did the sister of Lazarus, "Lord, he whom Thou lovest is sick" (John xi. 3), and we take Him as the rule of our conduct: the patience, the meekness, the obedience, the simplicity, the humility of the Saviour, above all His abandonment to the will of God in health or sickness, life or death.
Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.