away from my heart every affection that might possibly hinder me from loving thee, and cause, by thy powerful grace, that all my love may be for thee, my crucified lover.
Now that the last moment of his mortal existence is drawing nigh, Jesus collects the last efforts of his weak and exhausted spirits, and, in a dying voice, commends his soul into the hands of his eternal Father. He offers himself once more as a victim to the divine justice for the salvation of men; he bows his languid head in token of the profound submission with which he accepts death; he shuts his divine eyes, and between the arms of the cross gives up the ghost. Jesus is dead! After so many and such cruel tortures, being satiated with reproach and ignominy, and drowned in an ocean of suffering — Jesus dies! The loving Jesus, consumed no less by the atrocity of his pains than by the fire of his love, dies! Oh! which of us who has to live can wish to live for aught than solely to love our Jesus? Which of us, who has to suffer, would not wish to suffer for the love of Jesus? Who will refuse to stand at the foot of the cross, to contemplate and love his beloved crucified, to lament the sins that made him die, and die of grief for Jesus, and with Jesus? Jesus dies for our sins: who will be so cruel, so inhuman, as to renew his death by sinning again? This most loving shepherd dies, to give his life for his dear sheep, who will be so ungrateful as to take no share in his sorrows, in his death? Who at the sight of a God dead of love and sorrow, can give himself up a prey to the foolish pleasures of the world, to vanities, frivolities, and sin? Ah, my Jesus, Calvary will be for the future my sojourn; thy death shall be the continual subject of my reflections, my feelings, and my tears. At the death of Jesus, the sky is darkened, the sun eclipsed, the earth quakes, the mountains split open,
