Jesus, the Man of Sorrows

The prophet Isaias calls our Blessed Redeemer a man of sorrows; (Isaiah 53:3) and such he was, for his whole life was a life of sorrows. He took upon his own shoulders all our debts. It is true that as he was man and God, a single prayer from him would have been sufficient to make satisfaction for the sins of the whole world; but our Saviour would rigorously satisfy divine justice, and hence he chose for himself a life of contempt and suffering, being content for the love of man to be treated as the last and the vilest of men, as the prophet Isaias had foreseen him: We have seen Him... despised and the most abject of men (Isaiah 53:2)

O my despised Jesus! by the contempt which Thou didst endure Thou hast made satisfaction for the contempt with which I have treated Thee. Oh that I had died and had never offended Thee!

Who, my God, amongst the sons of men, was ever so afflicted and oppressed as our most loving Redeemer? Man, however much he may be afflicted in this world, enjoys from time to time relief and consolation. Thus does our compassionate God treat his ungrateful and rebellious creatures. But he would not thus treat his beloved Son; for the life of Jesus Christ in this world was not only a life of afflictions, but of continual afflictions from its commencement until death. Our Blessed Saviour was deprived of all consolation and of every kind of relief. In a word, he was born but to suffer and to be the man of sorrows.

O Jesus! how unhappy is he who does not love Thee, or who loves Thee but little, after Thou hast so loved us miserable worms who have offended Thee! Enable me from this day forward to love no other but Thee, who alone art worthy of being loved.

Again, men suffer afflictions, but it is only while they are suffering them, because they do not know those which are yet to come. But Jesus Christ, having, as God, a knowledge of all future things, suffered in every moment of his life, not only the pains which actually afflicted him, but all those also which were to come upon him, and especially the outrages of his most sorrowful Passion, having always before his eyes his scourging at the pillar, his crowning with thorns, his crucifixion and bitter death, with all the sorrows and desolation which accompanied it.

And why, O Jesus! didst Thou suffer so much for me who have so grievously offended Thee? Accept of me now that I may love Thee, and that henceforward I may love no other but Thee. My love and my only good, accept of me and strengthen me. I am resolved to become holy, that I may please Thee alone. Thou desirest me to be all Thine, and such do I desire to be. Holy Mary, thou art my hope.