Mel Gibson's
The Passion of the Christ

The “Passion of the Christ", a Love Story 

I dare say that in all the movie reviews you have read or heard of or seen on TV, you have probably never heard this film described as a “love story” just adjectives such as “brutal”, “mind-numbing”, “intense”, “bloody”, “horrific”, and, for many, ”life-changing”.  It is all of these, (it was meant to be by its producer), yet it is still a love story, a story of a God-man who offered Himself and all His sufferings in one supreme Act of Love for the salvation of mankind and the remission of their sins, every last one of us Christians, Jews, Muslims, all faiths, even atheists who have no faith.

Our biggest problem: finding ways we can show our appreciation of the enormity of this act in proportion to the degree of HIS Sacrifice in our daily lives.  I submit that it is impossible for another human.  We couldn’t, if we tried!

Fortunately, He doesn’t ask this of us, but we can do a lot better than many of us are now doing!

IT IS NOT ENOUGH TO DO YOUR “DUTY”, attending Mass on Sundays and Holy Days, (if, in fact, you do attend every occasion required), and follow the Commandments and the Precepts of the Church faithfully.  If not, you must start HERE, to be a faithful follower.  This is only the minimum of what He expects.

He desires more, much, much more, more in proportion to what HE gave, as we are able.  To find out, CLICK HERE, (“Loving Him”).  After reading that page, return here.

What we should be seeking is a total conversion of our hearts to achieve perfect unity with His, so that we can continually imitate Him in all our actions throughout our lives.  We are then giving Him what He truly desires of us.  To find out how to achieve this, CLICK HERE, (“Conversion”).  After absorbing these thoughts, return here.

For further consideration, I reprint below a meditation by one who has achieved this total unity with His Heart of Love, thoughts to which I totally subscribe, and which you may find worthy of your thoughtful consideration:

I Believe
 
That God is so immense He can fill a universe easily, yet can be intimately
present to each individual who calls on Him, and all at the same time. That
this intimacy is so powerful that we feel that it is only us and Him, that
the rest of the universe is barely there, so lost in His Love we are and so
intimate and precious He makes us feel, when we love Him as He desires.

That the closer you get to the mountain, the bigger it becomes from your view
and the smaller you seem in comparison. And when you really comprehend “the
mountain” of God, you realize that you are truly nothing, and that is when
you become. And it is overwhelmingly enough to be nothing, if He is all, He
who saturates the universe with His Love and penetrates to the very core of
your soul and beyond.

That God speaks our language through His Son, that part of God that desires
to touch us and make us His own, no matter what the cost. That the Sacrifice
was ALL and the guarantee nothing. That God waits in longing for us to figure
out that it is God that we are searching for as we wander further away,
feeling God has deserted us, while we desert God.

That some people do not see God because they don’t look, or they don’t like
what they see when they do, when they see His Wounds suffered for our love.
They will not allow God to be Himself, giving all, suffering all, loving all,
tirelessly, passionately, with no holding back, nakedly vulnerable to all our
pain, our condescension, our pride and arrogance, thinking we know God better
than God; then we make Him up to be our golden calf, a God of our making, a
God not human like us. We put Him back in the sky instead of where He wants
to be, in our hearts, infinitely vulnerable to our will to love Him.

That God often allows us to be broken to be made whole in Him, to be
humiliated to be made humbly tender to His majestic Love, to be lost, alone
and confused, to have the birds eat the crumbs that showed the way home, so
we would need Him to show us the Way.

That eternity is a long time, but it begins in the present moment and that
moment can last forever. That when we live this moment for Him, in Him, when
He is all and we are nothing, when we love with all we are until we are
nothing, we step into the eternal moment and heaven comes to us wherever we
are…

…and that moment can last forever.

Ó2002 Caryn Brady

Another meditation by the same author is reprinted below:

The Human Heart Made Sacred

In the unfathomable benevolence of the Divine Heart lives a love that so longs to be expressed and responded to in the human heart, which It created to love, that this Heart drew close to humanity. The Divine Heart of the Father, breathing forth His Spirit, spoke the Word of His Love so deeply, so longingly, so completely that this Word became flesh, taking on the flesh of a human heart, and thus dwelt among us. This infinitely Divine Heart took on not only the flesh of a human,  but its emotions, its longings, and all that belongs to the human heart, and in this divination the human heart became holy. This Perfect Love, this Perfect Heart thus knew the human heart intimately and the longing of the Divine for the human heart became one with the longing of the human heart for the Divine. In this most Sacred of human Hearts was love perfected and the human heart made Sacred.

This Sacred Human Heart first knew the unity with the Mother, one in flesh, and deepest intimacy of Spirit, before His first breath was taken. This Sacred Human Heart knew the joys and sorrows and separations of growing up, knew the challenge of family life, of friends and relations, of those who would be threatened by His grace and those who would fall in love with It.

This Sacred Human Heart so longs to love and be loved in perfect, intimate unity and makes Sacred this Holy Desire of one heart for another.

This tender, human Sacred Heart feels the emptiness of a longing for love unfulfilled, of a love rejected, of a love simply not seen nor heard, nor cared about. This Heart of the Savior, though forsaking His Divine majesty for the humility of the human condition, and in this state, giving all for love, remains for the most part, except for the rare few, unloved in the deepest sense of His desire for the highest of human love. His Holy Desire for perfect unity, for perfect intimacy, for perfect, mutual surrender in love remains a passionate human and divine longing that pierces the Heart of God, a God that so loved the heart of the human as to become one and suffer all his humanity, all for this love. This leaves this Heart in sorrow and in an abandonment so immense as to be unfathomable to the human heart. Though loved in the shallow sense of human love by many, His desire is for the perfection of human love, of a love totally surrendered, totally sacrificing all for the Beloved, totally united in perfect love. When embraced by this completely selfless and passionate love, the love such as that of saints and martyrs, the Heart of our God is held in the perfect unity of the human heart’s highest love, responding fully to its Beloved, and is moved by all the highest and most passionate of human emotions. This Heart is not only one in flesh, but one in emotions as well. When held in love in this way, the Heart of our God is focused on this love and is comforted against the abandonment of the masses. He responds with His mercy and grace which pours forth upon not just the one who comforts Him, but on all His people. This is how our God desires to love us, completely surrendering His love and mercy to be completely responded to with a return of selfless abandonment of love. Though not responded to in this way by all His people, the rare soul who loves this Sacred Heart with such perfect human love stirs this Heart with such immense passion and unites with this Heart to such a high degree that the abandonment of the masses is forgotten in the perfect love of the one who loves beyond all human love. Thus protected from the abandonment of love, the Sacred Heart of our Lord is moved to perfect joy and an immense outpouring of grace.

(6-21-03 © 2003 Caryn Brady

May His Sacred Heart inspire you to live His life of Love.

Albert
Servant of His Heart