How much do I not owe Thee, O Jesus my Saviour ! Oh, if I were to give my blood a thousand times over, — if I were to spend a thousand lives for Thee, — it would yet be nothing. Oh, how could any one that meditated much on the love which Thou hast shown him in Thy Passion, love anything else but Thee? Through the love with which Thou didst love us on the cross, grant me the grace to love Thee with my whole heart. I love Thee, infinite Goodness; I love Thee above every other good; and I ask nothing more of Thee but Thy holy love.
“But how is this?” continues St. Augustine. How is it possible, O Saviour of the world, that Thy love has arrived at such a height that when I had committed the crime, Thou shouldst have to pay the penalty? “ Whither has Thy love reached? I have sinned; Thou art punished.”
And what could it then signify to Thee, adds St. Bernard, that we should lose ourselves and be chastised, as we well deserved to be; that Thou shouldst choose to satisfy with Thy innocent flesh for our sins, and to die in order to deliver us from death! “ O good Jesus, what doest Thou? We ought to have died, and it is Thou who diest. We have sinned and Thou sufferest. A deed without precedent, grace without merit, charity without measure.” O deed which never has had and never will have its match! O grace which we could never merit! O love which can never be understood!
III.
Isaias had already foretold that our blessed Redeemer should be condemned to death, and as an innocent lamb
