Untitled - Saints' Books

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388 Material for Instructions [PART n.
Christ, we priests should love him with a special love;
for Jesus Christ has died in a special manner to make
us priests: for, as has been said in Chapter I., without
the death of Jesus Christ we should not have the
holy and immaculate victim that we now offer to
God. Justly, then, has St. Ambrose said: "Although
Christ has suffered for all, he has especially suffered
for us. But he that receives more, owes more. Let
us render love to him for the blood that he has shed
for us."
J
Let us endeavor to understand the love that Jesus
Christ has shown us in his Passion, and we shall cer
tainly renounce the love of creatures, Oh, if you
knew the mystery of the cross!" 2 said the Apostle St.
Andrew to the tyrant who tempted him to deny Jesus
Christ. As if he said, O tyrant!
if
you knew the love
that your God has for you, and his desire for your sal
vation, you would certainly cease to tempt me, and
through gratitude for so much love, you would devote
yourself to his love.
Happy, then, the man who keeps constantly before
his eyes the wounds of Jesus Christ! You shall draw
waters with joy out of the Saviour s fountains? Oh, what
waters of devotion, what lights and affections, do the
saints draw from these fountains of salvation! Father
Alvarez used to say, that the ignorance of the riches
that we have in Jesus Christ is the cause of the ruin of
Christians. The learned boast of their science, but the
Apostle gloried in nothing but in the knowledge of Jesus
Christ crucified: For I judged not myself to know anything
1 "
Etsi Christus pro omnibus mortuus est, pro nobis tamen specialitcr
passus est. Plus debet, qui plus accepit; reddamus ergo amorem pro
sangoiinis pretio."
In Ltic. c. 7.
3 "
z
Oh! si scires mysterium Crucis!"
Haurietis aquas in gaudio de fontibus Salvatoris." Isa. xii. 3.
4
Non enim " judicavi me scire aliquid inter vos, nisi Jesum Chris
tum, et hunc crucifixum." I Cor. ii. 2~.