March 2026 (5-7 March)
Our Blessed Lord revealed to St Gertrude that reading and meditating His Sacred Passion is far more useful and efficacious than all other spiritual exercises. Just as those who handle flour cannot avoid contracting some whiteness, so no one, however imperfect his devotion may be, can occupy his mind with the Passion of Our Lord without receiving some benefit from it. No matter how cold and lukewarm our devotion, Our Lord will look upon us with greater mercy if we perseveringly ponder the sufferings of His passion. Obviously this should not encourage faintheartedness in meditating the passion. On the contrary, the more attention we pay to the sufferings of Our Saviour, the more we open ourselves to receiving the outpouring of His love.
St Thomas Aquinas gives us some profound insights into why Our Lord wanted to suffer the way He did. He notes that in addition to freeing us from sin, the passion of Christ obtains many other things for us. It teaches us first of all how much God loves us, and are thereby moved to love Him in return, and it is precisely in this love that lies the perfection of human salvation. This is why St Francis de Sales writes: ‘Christ’s love compels us (2 Cor. 5:14). Nothing compels the heart like love. If you know you are loved, you are inspired to return that love. If the one who loves you is prominent, you are even more motivated to respond with love. If we know that Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, has loved us even to the point of suffering death on the cross for us, this puts an enormous compulsion in us to answer with love. Powerful love! Jesus Christ died for us. By his death He has given us life. We live only because He died. He died for us. Our life, then, is no longer ours. It belongs to Christ who purchased it for us by his death. No longer can we live for ourselves. We live for Him’.
By His Passion Jesus also sets for us an example of many other virtues, especially obedience, humility, constancy, and justice, which are necessary for salvation. Furthermore, Christ by His Passion not only delivered us from sin, but also merited sanctifying grace for us and the glory of eternal bliss. Because of all this, we are all the more bound to refrain from sin, as St Paul tells us: You are bought with a great price: glorify and bear God in your body (1 Cor 6:20). Finally, as man was overcome and deceived by the devil in the Garden of Eden, so also it was fitting that a man that should overthrow the devil; and as man deserved death, so a man by dying should vanquish death. In this the human race receives greater dignity than if God has simply pardoned us without demanding atonement for sin. Thanks be to God who hath given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! (1 Cor 15:57).