Friday in Passion Week: Daily Lenten Meditations

NOT I BUT CHRIST 

“I live now, not I, but Christ lives in me.” A strong statement, yet true on the lips of St. Paul, who had made himself so thoroughly one with Christ by perfect charity.

“Christ lives in me.” Would those words on my lips have as true a ring as when they were spoken by the Great Apostle?

“Christ lives in me.” In the attitude I bear toward life, in my estimation of values, the worth I set on the good things of time as measured against the things of eternity, would anyone knowing me intimately, judge that “Christ lives in me”?

The thoughts that habitually form the subject of my musings, the images that linger on the screen of my imagination, my hopes and plans and aspirations—are they always such as one would expect to find in him in whom “Christ lives”?

And when I come and go among my fellow men where the milling masses toil for daily bread or among the precious ones who gather with me about the family hearth, with strangers or with the dear ones who are a very part of my life, is all my conduct in every detail such as to make quite clearly manifest that the noble, gentle, kindly Christ lives in me?

“Christ lives in me.” Looks through my eyes? Or would He withdraw blushingly from things my eyes are not afraid to rest upon? Listens with my ears? Or would He turn aside from much in which I find delight? Speaks with my lips? Or would He not very, very often be still where I bandy words about thoughtlessly, sometimes mercilessly?

“Christ lives in me.” Could I honestly say that? I wonder.

O Sweetest Heart of Jesus, I implore that I may ever love You more and more.

EPISTLE AND GOSPEL:  Taken from the Angelus Press 1962 Roman Catholic Daily Missal

EPISTLE:  Jer. 17:13-18 

The prophet foretells the sorrows and anguish of Jesus our Lord, Who feels Himself surrounded by such treacherous and relentless enemies.

In those days Jeremias said: O Lord, all that forsake Thee shall be confounded: they that depart from Thee shall be written in the earth: because they have forsaken the Lord, the vein of living waters. Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed: save me, and I shall be saved: for Thou art my praise. Behold they say to me: Where is the word of the Lord? Let it come. And I am not troubled, following Thee for my pastor: and I have not desired the day of man, Thou knowest. That which went out of my lips hath been right in Thy sight. Be not Thou a terror unto me: Thou art my hope in the day of affliction. Let them be confounded that persecute me, and let me not be confounded: let them be afraid, and let me not be afraid. Bring upon them the day of affliction, and with a double destruction destroy them, O Lord our God.

GOSPEL:  Jn. 11: 47-54 

Sitting of the Sanhedrin at which the death of Jesus was irrevocably decreed by the Jewish leaders.

At that time the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered a council against Jesus, and said: What do we, for this man doth many miracles? If we let Him alone so, all will believe in Him: and the Romans will come, and take away our place and nation. But one of them, named Caiphas, being the High Priest that year, said to them: You know nothing, neither do you consider that it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not. And this he spoke not of himself: but being the High Priest of that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for the nation, and not only for the nation, but to gather together in one the children of God that were dispersed. From that day therefore they devised to put Him to death. Wherefore Jesus walked no more openly among the Jews: but He went into a country near the desert, unto a city that is called Ephrem, and there He abode with His disciples.