Abbey-Roads2

Love on another. 

There is a wonderful meditation from St. Catherine of Siena in today’s Magnificat.  She writes; “for the devil was holding onto us as his own property, as slaves and prisoners, and Jesus rescued us.  He assumed responsibility for us, paid our debt and tore up the bond…”

He assumed responsibility when he assumed our humanity, becoming like us, a slave…he paid the debt when in that supreme act of charity he meekly laid out his life upon the altar of the cross to give back to us the grace we had lost.

That is why we must settle our debts, our differences with one another before we bring the gift of our debts to the altar.  That is why we must cancel one another’s debts, forgetting whatever wrongs we may imagine our brother has done to us, cancelling whatever we think he owes us, before we can receive grace in abundance.

The remembrance of wrongs, the holding onto the debts others seem to owe us, only continues our slavery to the devil…keeping us imprisoned in contempt and the remembrance of wrongs.

St. Catherine cries out, “Oh, sweetest boundless charity!  You destroyed the bond by which the devil held us, and tore it up on the wood of the cross!”

Thus, I must cancel whatever debt I imagine my brother owes me, I must forget whatever wrongs I imagine he has done to me, since what I myself owe, along with the wrongs I have done - which exceed any wrong done to me, have been so wondrously cancelled for me.

“Love one another…as I have loved you, so you also should love one another.”  - John 13

Oh precious blood, flowing for us as a fountain of mercy from the side of Christ, I trust in you!