July 19th The Precious Blood A Lesson of Patience
If we watch the Son of God during those
scenes in His Sacred Passion in which He shed
His Blood for us, we notice, in one and all. His
exceeding and incomparable patience. During the
Agony in the Garden it was the sight of the brutal
ingratitude of man that caused the sweat of
blood to flow from His sacred limbs. How could He
endure to suffer for such wretches? Yet meekly and
patiently He endured their sacrileges, blasphemies,
impurities, wanton hatred of God, which rose up
before Him as He knelt there in Gethsemane. At the Pillar again, what Divine patience! Not a look of anger, not a word of reproach. There He stands, the picture of uncomplaining endurance. What a lesson for me! How ready I am to complain, even when I receive some fancied slight or some trifling injury. How different am I from the Son of God! What a contrast is my conduct to His. O Jesus! teach me to endure without complaint my sufferings which are small indeed when compared with Thine! See Him once more upon the Cross! Listen to the gibes and sneers cast at Him by the priests, their taunts of His inability to save Himself, Messiah though He was. How all this must have aggravated His physical agony! Yet His constant prayer was, "Father, forgive them!" O Jesus, grant me more of the patience and meekness Thou didst show while Thy Precious Blood was ebbing forth on the altar of the Cross! |