Living for Christ, Who Died for Us ~ St. Alphonsus de Liguori,
On the Passion of Christ
It was for this end, says St. Paul, that
Jesus Christ died, that each of us should no longer live to the world nor to
himself, but to Him alone who has given himself wholly to us. And Christ died for all, that they who live
may not now live for themselves, but for Him who died for them. (2 Cor.
5:15) He who lives for the world seeks to please the world; he who lives for
himself seeks to please himself; but he who lives for Jesus Christ seeks only
to please Jesus Christ, and fears only to displease him. His only joy is to see
him loved; his only sorrow, to see him despised. This is to live for Jesus
Christ; and this is what he claims from each one of us. I repeat, does he claim
too much from us, after having given us his blood and his life?
Why, then, O my God! do we employ our
affections in loving creatures, relatives, friends, the great ones of the
world, who have never suffered for us scourges, thorns, or nails, nor shed one
drop of blood for us; and not in loving a God, who for love of us came down
from heaven and was made man, and has shed all his blood for us in the midst of
torments, and finally died of grief upon a cross, in order to win to himself
our hearts! Moreover, in order to unite himself more closely to us, he has left
himself, after his death, upon our altars, where he makes himself one with us,
that we might understand how burning is the love with which he loves us?
"He has mingled himself with us," exclaims St. John Chrysostom,
"that we may be one and the same thing; for this is the desire of those
who ardently love." And St. Francis de Sales, speaking of Holy Communion,
adds: "There is no action in which we can think of our Savior as more
tender or more loving than this, in which he, as it were, annihilates himself,
and reduces himself to food, in order to unite himself to the hearts of his
faithful."
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