“‘My daughter, My favour rests in your heart. When on Holy Thursday I left Myself in the Blessed Sacrament, you were very much on My mind.’” (Diary of Saint Faustina, 1774).
Lent begins today.
Christ’s long journey into the desert, His trials, His testing, His sacrifices, His abstinence begins today.
Today is the start of the period during which we reflect on the deprivations of He who is infinite.
And I have been wondering how I should focus my reflections during the next few weeks. After all, this is a period of quiet reflection, of sacrifice and of contemplation…
I came across a passage from the Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska today, and it has struck me in such a manner that I cannot help but feel that this should indeed be the focus of my thoughts this lent…
“During the June devotions, the Lord said to me, ‘My daughter, My favour rests in your heart. When on Holy Thursday I left Myself in the Blessed Sacrament, you were very much on My mind.’ After these words, my love made great efforts to express to Him what He was to me, but I was at a loss for words and burst into tears in my helplessness. And Jesus said, ‘For you, I am mercy itself; therefore I ask you to offer Me your misery and this very helplessness of yours and, in this way, you will delight My Heart.’” (Diary 1774-1775).
There it is in black and white – TWO THOUSAND years ago… On the eve before His death, surrounded by His disciples and in the midst of the Passover Meal (which is a HOLY meal and in fact a prayerful meal, during which God the Son was actually Praying to the other Members of the Holy Trinity), Christ thought of Saint Faustina.
When His betrayal was looming, when His friends were preparing to desert Him. When He was preparing for the torture and battering that would come. When He was witnessing and experiencing in His Holy Person all the sin of all the world (which is an offence against God and therefore an offence against Him). Right there. At that table, two thousand years ago… Christ was thinking of Saint Faustina.
And that makes me wonder. Who else was in His mind that night. After all, though He is Perfect Man, He has infinite capacity as Perfect God as well… And this means that Saint Faustina may not have been the only person in His mind that night. Perhaps there was another soul who was the focus of His prayers…
The Medieval Spanish Mystic, Blessed Maria Agreda, when recording her revelations from the Blessed Virgin Mary in the later published text, “The Mystical City of God” wrote that when Christ was beaten by the men on Holy Thursday, He prayed silently for their salvation and for the Father to forgive them their sins. That what was in His Head. Prayers for those men. He was not thinking of the ringing in His ears. He was not thinking of the bleeding of His body. He was not thinking of the aching of His muscles. He was not thinking of the suffering that was and the suffering that would be during that Passion and Death on the Cross. No. He – God of the Universe – was thinking of that hand and that man who slapped and beat Him with it. And He was praying for that man’s salvation…
And so, as I take this first step into Lent today, it occurs to me that I must focus my thoughts during this Lenten season on the thoughts of Christ.
For after all, if He could think of a Great Saint (like Saint Faustina) and a Great Sinner (like the man who beat Him) on the night before He died, then He my miserable little soul must have remained in His mind that night...
And if that is the case, I must pray for the Grace to be a Great Saint; for I would not pain my Beloved by beating Him… I would not…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.