CHAPTER 22
For Passion Sunday.

Exercises of devotion for that day.

ON THE Sunday Judica, St. Gertrude having offered her body and soul to Our Lord, that she might suffer therein, in honor of His Passion, whatever afflictions He might please to send her, her offering was accepted graciously; and the Saint, impelled by Divine inspiration, commenced to salute and adore the different members of Our Lord’s Body which had suffered for us during His Passion. As she saluted each member, a Divine splendor shone forth from each, which enlightened her soul, by means of which the innocence which Our Lord acquired for His Church was communicated to her. When she was thus enriched and adorned with the innocence of Jesus Christ, she said to Our Lord: “Teach me, O Lord, I beseech Thee, how I can worthily honor Thy Divine Passion with the innocence with which Thy goodness has endowed me.” Our Lord replied: “Reflect frequently with gratitude and compassion on what I, your Lord and Creator, suffered in My long agony and prayer, when the vehemence of My desires and My love caused Me to bedew the ground with a sweat of blood; offer Me all your actions and all that concerns you, in union with the entire submission with which I said these words: ‘My Father, Thy will be done’; and so receive all that happens to you, whether painful or agreeable, with the same love with which I send it to you for your salvation. Be grateful in prosperity, uniting yourself with the love which made Me send it to you, condescending to your weakness, that temporal prosperity may lead you to think of spiritual joys, and to hope for them; receive adversity also in union with the charity with which My paternal love sends it to you, to prepare you for eternal good.”

Then St. Gertrude resolved to say the following prayer during the remainder of the week, saluting the sacred Limbs of the Son of God with these words: “I salute you, O precious Limbs.” And she perceived that this pleased Our Lord; and if we desire the same grace, let us use the same prayer.

During the Mass which followed, as the words of the Gospel Daemonium habes72 were read, she was grieved in her inmost soul for the contempt offered to Our Lord; and as she could not endure to hear these words, she exclaimed in the depth of her heart, in the sweetest and most loving manner: “Hail, vivifying Gem of Divine nobility! Hail, most loving Jesus! Unfading flower of human dignity! Thou art my Sovereign and only Good.” And this benign Lord, to reward these testimonies of affection, inclined tenderly toward her, and whispered to her: “I am thy Creator, Redeemer and Lover. I left My beatitude to redeem thee by a bitter death.” Then all the Saints, being rapt in admiration of the marvelous friendship which He manifested to her, praised God for it with the greatest joy.

Our Lord then said to her: “Whoever salutes Me, as you have done, in reparation for the blasphemies and outrages which are poured forth on Me throughout the world, when he is tempted at the hour of his death and accused by the demon, will be consoled by Me with the same words with which I have consoled you, and I will testify the same affection toward him; and if the Saints were thus amazed at the words I whispered into your ear, how astonished and amazed will be the enemies of his soul when they shall see him so marvelously consoled by My goodness!”