Meditation for March 5, Jesus Hesitant

"Father! I cannot! It is too much! Take from me this chal­ice!" Was Jesus really hesitating? Did He really want to escape Calvary? Did He think that by crying to the Father in His ter­rible agony He would diminish the deluge of suffering that was descending upon Him?

Or was He thinking of me? Did He permit this human desire to enter His Agonizing Heart, that I might find it there and unite to it my involuntary aversions, my repugnances?

How strange is this bargaining of Jesus with His Father! "Father, reduce a little the price exacted. You see clearly all these humiliations, all these horrors, all these insults, all this blood! It is too much! Can I not save the world at a lower cost?"

- But my Son, did we not through our inconceivable love deter­mine this from all eternity? It is for these miserable or rather unfortunate creatures.... They must know how much they are loved. Sic Deus dilexit mundum.

- Father, Fiat!

And at this same time Judas is carrying out his shameful bar­gaining with the Princes and the Priests: "One hundred pieces of silver. - No, that is too much! - Sixty? - No. - Thirty? Let it go at thirty!" The price of a common beast!

Behold God! Behold us! Behold me!
_________________
Adapted from Meditations for Religious
by Father Raoul Plus, S.J. (© 1939, Frederick Pustet Co.)

[Ed. note: The dates of some meditations, because of Lent, may not correspond with the book.]