What are we doing to our Family?

When I came for adoration, an inner recollection took hold of me immediately, and I saw the Lord Jesus tied to a pillar, stripped of his clothes, and the scourges began immediately. I saw four men who took turns at striking the Lord with scourges. My heart almost stopped at the sight of these tortures. The Lord said to me, I suffer even greater pain than that which you see. And Jesus gave me to know for what sins He subjected himself to the scourging: these are sins of impurity. Oh, how dreadful was Jesus’ moral suffering during the scourging! Then Jesus said to me, Look and see the human race in its present condition. In an instant, I saw horrible things: the executioners left Jesus, and other people started scourging Him; they seized the scourges and struck the Lord mercilessly. These were priests, religious men and women, and high dignitaries in the Church, which surprised me greatly. There were lay people of all ages and walks of life. All vented their malice on the innocent Jesus. Seeing this, my heart fell as if into mortal agony. And while the executioners had been scourging Him, Jesus had been silent and looking into the distance; but when those other souls I mentioned scourged Him, Jesus closed His eyes, and a soft, but most painful moan escaped from His heart. And Jesus gave me to know in detail the gravity of the malice of these ungrateful souls: You see, this is a torture greater than my death. Then my lips too fell silent, and I began to experience the agony of death, and I felt that no one would comfort me or snatch me from that state but the One who had put me into it.

Jesus has made all believers part of Heaven’s family. The Church has been freshly, sadly and anguishedly pondering, the in-house errors of the flesh for the better part of a year now. The shock is that such lack of discretion and discernment about holiness and the body has invaded the Church and that makes Sister Faustina’s vision prophetic.

For our part, addict and compulsive, are we the weak and destitute, also convicted by this scene? Can this in any way deter our continuing to choose stupidly what is a heinous pain for the Savior? As we know, it is one thing when strangers perpetrate evil, but what of when family members perpetrate?

Jesus is family. Whatever we are doing to ourselves we are also doing to Him and the effect is far worse than the sins of strangers and non-religious men. No one who has seen Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ has to mull over what is the most brutal, most wrenching, most scandalous sequence in the picture. Let us let this scene convict us and lead us to desire purity of heart, to stop doing what we know we should stop doing. Each one of us is the problem in the Church today. Let us each see to and commit to true conversion.

Lord Jesus we praise and thank the Father of all creation Who allowed your sorrowful passion and outpoured blood to save the whole world dead in sin. Help us see afresh our living and choosing, and though raised from the dead, how You suffer atrociously each time we re-seek stupidity. Grant true penitence O God that comes from the root of the heart and a firm resolve to do only what would ease the pains afflicting Your Sacred Heart. Savior of the world, make us suffer our chastity for love of You. Amen.