Considerations and Prayers for Every Day
First Day
Before Our Lord’s suffering took place, He disclosed to His disciples the story of the cross. It was good for them to understand and to remember what the sufferings of Jesus were to be. The prophets of the Old Testament had declared that the Son of man must suffer. Daniel, especially, describes the Passion of Our Lord very minutely. This was the future that was before Our Lord, and it was well that the disciples should know it and think of it. So it should be with ourselves. We, too, are the disciples and followers of Christ, and we, too, must make the Passion a subject of serious thought. The Church has chosen the Lenten time as the most appropriate for this exercise. She joins penance with this meditation, as being the most efficacious means of stirring ourselves up to a pious life. Let us approach these meditations with a conviction that we are really unworthy to be admitted to the graces of this holy contemplation; but Jesus will help us.
Prayer.
Look down upon me, good and gentle Jesus, whilst before Thy face I humbly kneel, and with burning soul pray and beseech Thee to fix deep in my heart lively sentiments of faith, hope, and charity, true contrition for my sins, and a firm purpose of amendment; the while I contemplate with great love and tender pity Thy five wounds, pondering over them within me, whilst I call to mind the words which David, Thy prophet, said of Thee, my Jesus: “They pierced My hands and My feet; they numbered all My bones.”—Ps. xxi. 17, 18.