unless it be united to watchfulness. Watch and pray! This is what Jesus, the great Searcher of hearts, tells us we must do. We are very weak and very prone to evil; so we must keep a careful watch over our thoughts and imaginations, over the movements and desires of our hearts, and over our senses, especially over our eyes. By so doing we shall either avoid what is sinful, or else be able to overcome it in its very beginnings. By watchfulness we shall escape many temptations, and come victorious out of those struggles with sin which are unavoidable.
Could the chalice have passed? Yes! Satisfaction could have been made to the divine justice without such terrible suffering on the part of our Blessed Lord; for each act of expiation, each suffering of Jesus, He being God, had an infinite value. His very smallest suffering would therefore have been sufficient to pay off the whole debt of sin and appease the justice of God. But what was sufficient to reconcile us to God, was not sufficient to cleanse us inwardly from sin and make us keep from sin. Not only has the guilt of sin to be removed, but sinful man, who is steeped in evil, must be completely cured. What would the satisfaction made for us by our Divine Lord avail us, if we still loved and cherished sin in our hearts, and persisted in sinning more and more till we died in our sins? Nothing! Thus the bitter chalice did not pass, and our Blessed Lord suffered indescribable agony in Soul and Body, in the first place, to put before our eyes in a startling manner the evil and horror of sin. Isaias (55, 4 &c.) had said of Him: “Surely He hath borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows; and we have thought Him as it were a leper, and as one struck by God and afflicted. But He was wounded for our iniquities, He was bruised for our sins: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His bruises we "are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, every one hath turned aside unto his own way, and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” The scourges which tore the Flesh of Jesus, the thorns which lacerated His Sacred Head, the nails which pierced His Hands and Feet, in short, all the tortures which He endured for our sake, teach us more impressively than could anything else what a terrible evil sin is, and what a heavy punishment it deserves. Who can contemplate the Sufferings of Jesus without being moved to contrition and hatred of sin? Who does not feel constrained to love God, when he remembers that the Father gave His Son, and the Son gave His Life for our sakes? This brings us to the consideration of the second reason why the chalice was not removed. Our Blessed Lord drank its bitterness to the very dregs, to kindle the fire of divine love in the hearts of men. There is no one sufficiently degraded not to appreciate, and in a measure to feel grateful for, any sacrifice made for his sake. “Oh, immeasurable love and goodness of God”, says the Church on Holy Saturday, “who to redeem a slave hast delivered up Thine own Son!” It almost looks as if the Father loved man
