For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. 2 Corinthians 5:21

I think we all know the state of the world and the knocking of communism at our door. The stench of the curse of abortion leaves the blood of the innocent crying out from the ground. No country can survive that continually kills her children. I, like many of you, have been praying for our nation, praying for our world. Some days seem hopeless; the church, save for a few courageous voices, seems derelict in her duty to condemn what once her voice loudly condemned.

This week the Lord continuously spoke to me saying;

Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.” Matthew 11:28-30

I was always struck by how closely the poem on the Statue of Liberty reminded me of these verse’s from Matthew;

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

But this week when the Lord spoke the verses from Matthew to me it took on a different meaning for me. It was one of reparation.

It struck me that this invitation of the Lord to come to Him didn’t involve him removing our burden or removing our yoke. It involved him lightening them. As if to say, “when you suffer with me, nothing is impossible.” The suffering doesn’t leave, but it can be lessened.

And then I felt called to meditate on His passion. It was like a fire that was lit inside me. And to further the fire, imagine my surprise, when I found the Gospel for election day had the first verse from Matthew as the Gospel Acclamation. Come to me….

I knew what I had to do. Meditate on the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ in these days leading up to the election.

I picked up the 24 hours of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ by Luisa Piccarreta the Little Daughter of the Divine Will. I hadn’t looked at it since Lent. I was again surprised when I began reading a few of the diary verses that she wrote at the beginning of the booklet I have. This booklet was given to me years ago and is weathered and worn. I have read it before, but today, her messages jumped off of the page at me. I will highlight a few. I will bold what stood out to me.

September 6, 1913 Volume 11 – The Hours of the Passion are the very prayers of Jesus.

I was thinking about the Hours of the Passion, which have now been written, and how they are without any indulgence. So, those who do them gain nothing, while there are many prayers enriched with many indulgences. While I was thinking of this, my always lovable Jesus, all kindness, told me: “My daughter, through the prayers with indulgences one gains something, but the Hours of my Passion, which are my very prayers, my reparations, and all love, have come out of the very depth of my Heart. Have you perhaps forgotten how many times I have united Myself with you to do them together, and I have changed chastisements into graces over the whole earth? So, my satisfaction is such and so great, that instead of indulgence, I give the soul a handful of love, which contains incalculable prices of infinite value. And besides, when things are done out of pure love, my love finds its outpouring, and it is not insignificant that the creature gives relief and outpouring to the love of the Creator.”

November 6, 1914 Volume 11

As I continued the usual Hours of the Passion, my lovable Jesus told me: “My daughter, the world is in continuous act of renewing my Passion; and since my immensity envelopes everything, inside and outside the creatures, from their contact I am forced to receive nails, thorns, scourges, scorns, spit and all the rest which I suffered in the Passion – and still more. Now, at the contact with souls who do these Hours of my Passion I feel the nails being removed, the thorns shattered, the wounds soothed, the spit taken away. I feel I am repaid in good for the evil that others do to Me, and in feeling that their contact does no harm to Me, but good, I lean more and more on them.” …

February 2, 1917 Volume 11 – The world unbalanced

As I was in my usual state, I found myself outside myself, and I found my always lovable Jesus, all dripping with blood, with a horrible crown of thorns, looking at me with difficulty through the thorns. He told me: “My daughter, the world has become unbalanced because it has lost the thought of my Passion. In darkness it has not found the light of my Passion which would illuminate it; and as it would make known to it my love and how much souls cost Me, it might turn to loving the One who has truly loved it; and in the light of my Passion guiding it, would put on its guard against all dangers. In weakness, it has not found the strength of my Passion which would sustain it. In impatience, it has not found the mirror of my patience which would infuse it with calm and resignation; and in the face of my patience, feeling ashamed, it would make it its duty to dominate itself. In pains it has not found the comfort of the pains of a God which, sustaining its pains, would infuse in it love of suffering. In sin, it has not found my sanctity which, placing itself in front of it, would infuse in it hate of sin. Ah! man has made an abuse of everything, because in everything he has moved away from the One who could help him. This is why the world has lost balance. It behaved like a child who no longer wanted to recognize his mother; or like a disciple who, denying his master, no longer wanted to listen to his teachings or learn his lessons. What will happen to this child and to this disciple? They will be the sorrow of themselves, and the terror and sorrow of society. Such has man become – terror and sorrow; but a sorrow without pity. Ah! man is getting worse and worse, I cry over him with tears of blood!”

October 21, 1921 Volume 13

I was thinking about the Passion of my sweet Jesus, and upon coming, He told me: “My daughter, every time the soul thinks about my Passion, remembers what I suffered, or compassionates Me, she renews the application of my pains within herself. My blood rises to inundate her, and my wounds place her on the path to heal her if she is wounded, to embellish her if she is healthy – and all my merits enrich her. The traffic she produces is amazing – it is as if she placed everything I did and suffered on a counter, earning twice as much. In fact, everything I did and suffered is in continuous act of giving itself to man, just as the sun is in the continuous act of giving light and heat to the earth. My work is not subject to exhaustion; if the soul just wants it so, and as many times as she wants it, she receives the fruit of my Life. So, if she remembers my Passion twenty, a hundred, a thousand times, so many more times will she enjoy its effects. But how few are those who make a treasure of it! With all the good of my Passion, one can see souls who are weak, blind, deaf, mute, crippled – living cadavers, such as to be disgusting. This because my Passion put into oblivion.

My pains, my wounds, my Blood are strength which removes weaknesses, light which gives sight to the blind, tongue which loosens tongues and opens the hearing, way which straightens the cripples, life which raises cadavers…. All the remedies needed for the whole of humanity are in my Life and Passion. But the creature despises the medicine and does not care about remedies; and so one can see, in spite of all my Redemption, the state of man perishing, as though affected by an incurable consumption. But that which grieves Me the most is to see religious people who tire themselves out in order to acquire doctrines, speculations, stories – but about my Passion, nothing. So many times my Passion is banished from churches, from the mouths of priests; therefore, their speech is without light, and the peoples remain more starved than before.”….

I could go on and cite more, but you get the picture of the power of meditating on the Passion. It will transform your soul personally. If we do it together as a nation, meditate on the Passion, it could transform the Nation.

So this is what I will be doing, meditating on the Passion. I hope you will join me. The link below is one I found online, the beginning is different than the one I have, but it has all of the Hours of the Passion in it.

The 24 Hours of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ by Luisa Piccarreta, Little Daughter of the Divine Will.