<\/p>\n
@His sufferings were inexpressible; but it was by them that he merited for us the grace necessary to
\nresist those temptations to despair which will assail us at the hour of death,\u2014that tremendous hour
\nwhen we shall feel that we are about to leave all that is dear to us here below. When our minds,
\nweakened by disease, have lost the power of reasoning, and even our hopes of mercy and forgiveness
\nare become, as it were, enveloped in mist and uncertainty,\u2014then it is that we must fly to Jesus,
\nunite our feelings of desolation with that indescribable dereliction which he endured upon the Cross,
\nand be certain of obtaining, a glorious victory over our infernal enemies. Jesus then offered to his
\nEternal Father his poverty, his dereliction, his labours, and, above all, the bitter sufferings which
\nour ingratitude had caused him to endure in expiation for our sins and weaknesses; no one, therefore,
\nwho is united to Jesus in the bosom of his Church must despair at the awful moment preceding his
\nexit from this life, even if he be deprived of all sensible light and comfort; for he must then remember
\nthat the Christian is no longer obliged to enter this dark desert alone and unprotected,\u2019 as Jesus has
\ncast his own interior and exterior dereliction on the Cross into this gulf of desolation, consequently
\n269
\nhe will not be left to cope alone with death, or be suffered to leave this world in desolation of spirit,
\ndeprived of heavenly consolation. All fear of loneliness and despair in death must therefore be cast
\naway; for Jesus, who is our true light, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, has preceded us on that
\ndreary road, has overspread it with blessings, and raised his Cross upon it, one glance at which will
\ncalm our every fear. Jesus then (if we may so express ourselves) made his last testament in the
\npresence of his Father, and bequeathed the merits of his Death and Passion to the Church and to
\nsinners. Not one erring soul was forgotten; he thought of each and every one; praying, likewise,
\neven for those heretics who have endeavoured to prove that, being God, he did not suffer as a man
\nwould have suffered in his place. The cry which he allowed to pass his lips in the height of his
\nagony was intended not only to show the excess of the sufferings he was then enduring, but likewise
\nto encourage all afflicted souls who acknowledge God as their Father to lay their sorrows with filial
\nconfidence at his feet. It was towards three o\u2019clock when he cried out in a loud voice, \u2018Eloi, Eloi,
\nlamma sabacthani?\u2019 \u2018My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?\u2019 These words of our Lord
\ninterrupted the dead silence which had continued so long; the Pharisees turned towards him, and<\/p>\n
@His sufferings were inexpressible; but it was by them that he merited for us the grace necessary to resist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-74643","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74643\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}