A Powerful Meditation: The Thirty-Three Years of Jesus’ Life

“Our Lord revealed to Blessed Michael of Florence, the Camaldolese, how He longed that those who loved Him should honour the Thirty-Three Years with affectionate minuteness.”

– Fr. Faber (‘The Precious Blood or The Price of Our Salvation’) 

We think often of those we love. It is very difficult to love God if we do not take the time to know Him e.g. by means of prayer, meditation, and spiritual reading. In the late 19th century, it was revealed to Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerich* that there were living approximately 100,000 souls who loved God greatly. Would we have been counted among this number?

A Fruitful Meditation

“The life of our loving Redeemer was all full of desolation, and bereft of every comfort. The life of Jesus was that great ocean which was all bitter, without a single drop of sweetness or consolation: For great as the sea is thy destruction:

This is what was revealed by our Lord to St. Margaret of Cortona, when he said to her that in his whole life he never experienced sensible consolation.”

(Taken from ‘The Passion and Death of Jesus Christ’ by St. Alphonsus)

How small our crosses are in comparison!

Furthermore, consider the incredible words of our Lord to St. Gertrude:

“Even though a soul be lacking in fervor, yet will I look upon her with much love, if she sometimes meditate upon My Passion. It is an exercise possessing a value in My eyes infinitely surpassing that of any other. Even a short meditation upon My Passion, is worth more than long and multiplied acts of piety that have no direct reference to My sufferings and death.”

 

* The writings of Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerich are very edifying. Unfortunately, however, many of her prophecies have been manipulated by disobedient or confused Catholics. Here is one such example: http://jloughnan.tripod.com/forgery.htm (How much deception and apparent forgery I have encountered on the internet! Given that the number of false mystics greatly outnumbers the authentic mystics, we would be better off following the example of Bl. Elena Aiello, St. Padre Pio and other holy Saints and mystics who submitted to the Church at all times.)

A Remedy For Sadness!

“Were anyone to ask me how a sad soul may be delivered from interior suffering, I would answer by an example. There was a servant of God, a friend of the Eternal Wisdom, who, in the beginning of his conversion, was subject to deep fits of melancholy; not only did he lose all relish for reading and prayer, but he found it impossible to work. One day, as he sat in his chamber, abandoned to dejection, he heard an interior voice, which said to him: ‘

Why remain thus, sad and doing nothing? Why be consumed and wasted in the anguish of melancholy? Take courage, arise, do violence to thyself, meditate on My Passion and cruel sufferings, and thou wilt overcome thy grief.’

The servant of God obeyed; meditation on the Passion of Jesus Christ banished his sadness, and by continuing in this holy exercise, he cured his soul, and was nevermore subject to melancholy.” – Bl. Henry Suso

“I am not a little pleased with those who honour the image of My crucifixion very devoutly… “

– Jesus to St. Gertrude

(In other words, Jesus is very pleased with this pious practice! According to St. Alphonsus, all the saints had a great devotion to Jesus Crucified, and they meditated frequently on His Passion.)

“The Cross is the way to Paradise, but only when it is borne willingly.”

– St. Paul of the Cross

“Life is a struggle, and the best remedy for it is to do everything for the love of God, and to endure everything for the love of Jesus.”

– Fr. Paul of Moll

“Suffering + Love = Joy”

-St. Maximilian Kolbe