Page:Spiritualcombat.djvu/180

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OF MEDITATION ON THE PASSION
165

The Soul of Christ beheld the Divinity, as It now beholds It in Heaven; He knew It, then, to be infinitely worthy of all honour and worship, and through the unspeakable Love with which this knowledge inspired Him for It, He burnt with the desire that all creatures should devote themselves with all their powers to the Divine Majesty.

To see the Divine Essence, then, so strangely outraged and despised by the innumerable faults and abominable sins of the world, pierced Him through and through with darts of sorrow, which tortured Him in proportion to the greatness of His Love, and the intensity of His desire that all men should honour and obey so exalted a Majesty.

As we cannot measure the greatness of this love and desire, even so can we not estimate how bitter and grievous was the inward sorrow of our Crucified Lord on that account.

His love for all creatures, a love unspeakable, was another ground of sorrow; in proportion to His love for them, did He grieve intensely for all their sins, which separated them from Him. He grieved for every mortal sin which had been, or which ever should be, committed by all men who had lived, or hereafter should live, upon the earth; for every mortal sin separates the soul of the sinner from the Soul