love of a miserable sinner like me. O love of souls, O my Jesus! I love Thee, I love Thee, I love Thee; but still I love Thee too little. Oh, give me more love, give me flames that may make me live always burning with Thy love! I do not myself deserve it; but Thou dost well deserve it, O infinite Goodness. Amen. This I hope, so may it be.
CHAPTER II.
JESUS CHOSE TO SUFFER SO MUCH FOR US, IN ORDER THAT WE MAY UNDERSTAND THE GREAT LOVE HE HAS FOR US.
I.
“Two things,” says Cicero, “ make us know a lover — that he does good to his beloved, and that he suffers torments for him; and this last is the greatest sign of true love.” 1 God has indeed already shown his love to man by many benefits bestowed upon him; but his love would not have been satisfied by only doing good to man, as says St. Peter Chrysologus, if he had not found the means to prove to him how much he loved him by also suffering and dying for him, as he did by taking upon him human flesh: “ But he held it to be little if he showed his love without suffering;” and what greater means could God have discovered to prove to us the immense love which he bears us than by making himself man and suffering for us? “ In no other way could the love of God towards us be shown,” writes St. Gregory Nazianzen.
