do and bear! “Tell if thou hast anything to justify thyself.”
The unchaste man. “Put Me in remembrance and let us plead together.” Come, impure man! wanton, dissolute woman! whose god was thy corruptible body, whose thoughts and imaginations were filled with foul pictures, with a thousand sinful desires, with unlawful looks and touches, and other shameful things that may not be named, and who wert occupied in such filth day and night; who could not bear a forty days’ fast according to the law of My Church, or an hour’s cold in My house, or a slight mortification of the senses, a word of contradiction, or a slight, trifling cross; look at Me and see what a man can suffer! See the cross, the nails, the thorns; they condemn thy fastidiousness. See this mouth which so often bore hunger and thirst, and spent forty days without food or drink; it condemns thy luxurious living. See My body gashed with the scourge, and the still open wounds that cry out against thy unchastity. I did not wish to enter into My glory except by the rude way of the thorns and the cross; and thou hast tried to enter heaven by a pleasant road strewn with roses! Where is thy excuse? “Tell if thou hast anything to justify thyself.”
The vindictive man. “Put Me in remembrance and let us plead together.“Vindictive man! what hast thou to say for thyself? I have told thee and caused My preachers frequently to remind thee that thou shouldst love thy enemies. Thou didst think it impossible for thee to do that, and didst persuade thyself that thy honor required thee to take revenge, and that in any case there was no use in trying to conceal thy hatred, much less to think of a reconciliation. But how couldst thou err so far? How is it that I, a Man like thee, and the Lord of the world, whose honor is of far more importance than thine, could take the form of a helpless child and fly from a mortal Herod whom I might have destroyed with a breath? I could suffer the cruelties and insults that My enemies inflicted on Me, and repay them by miraculous healings and other benefits. I have allowed Myself to be mocked as a fool by the court and army of Herod, and have not said a word in My own defense. Like a lamb led to the slaughter I have not uttered a word of complaint against those who nailed Me to a cross, and even prayed for them to My heavenly Father. Why hast thou not done the same? Art thon not infinitely smaller than I, and must not eternal shame and disgrace be thy portion on account of thy sins? “Tell if thou hast anything to justify thyself.”
