Third Word 

‘Woman, behold thy Son; behold thy mother.’ (John 19:26-27) 

‘Lust is an inordinate love of the pleasures of the flesh.’ ‘The pleasure becomes sinful at that point where, instead of using it as a means, we begin to use it as an end. To eat for the sake of eating is a sin, because eating is a means to an end which is health. Lust, in like measure, is selfish or perverted love. It looks not so much to the good of the other, as to the pleasure of the self.’

Lust ‘breaks the glass that holds the wine; it breaks the lute to snare the music.’

‘We are living in what might properly be called as era of carnality. As the appeal to the spiritual relaxes the demands of the flesh increase. Living less for God, human nature begin to live only for self, for ‘no man can serve two masters.’ 

‘Our Lord began making reparation for ‘the sins of lust’ at the moment of the Incarnation, for He chose to be born of a virgin.’ Original sin is transmitted by the martial act. The Son of God could become man ‘by dispensing with man as the active principle of generation-in other words, by being born of a virgin.’ 

Jesus made ‘atonement and reparation is made on Calvary, where, in reparation for all the impure desires and thought of men, our Lord is crowned with thorns where, in reparation for all the sins of shame. He is stripped of His garments; where, in reparation for all the lusts of the flesh. He is almost dispossessed of His flesh, for according to Sacred Scripture, the very bones of His body could be numbered.’ 

Jesus became ‘totally unfleshed, in order to atone of the abuse of the flesh, by giving away His Mothers and His best friend.’ …”Our Lord did not say, ‘I cannot give up my Mother.’ He gave her up. He loved her enough to give her away for her life’s plan and destiny-namely, to be our mother.’

‘The only real escape from the demands of the flesh, is to find something more than the flesh to love, and that Mary is the refuge of sinners…If we could ever find anything we love more than the flesh, the demands of the flesh would be less imperative.’ 

We love Mary more than the flesh. Have to love something greater. Need a greater love. ‘The vow of chastity is not a burden. But as Thompson has called it a ‘passionless passion, a wild tranquility. And so it is. A new passion is born with the vow of chastity.’

‘The only way love can be shown in this world is by sacrifice-namely, the surrender of one thing for another.’ ‘The pure…they have integrated their flesh with the divine; they have sublimated its craving with the Cross.’ 

Mary is the Refuge of Sinners not only because she knows sin through Calvary, but because she chose during her most terrifying hours of her life, a converted sinner as her companion. The measure of our appreciation of friends is our desire to have them around us in the moments of our greatest need….Mary chose the absolved harlot, Magdalen as her companion at the Cross.’ 

‘We almost seems to forget there is a Cross at all. He begins to look more like a red rose, and she begins to look like the stem. That stem reaches down from Calvary into all our wounded hearts of earth, sucking up our prayers and petitions and conveying them to Him. That is why roses have thorns in this life-to keep away every disturbing influence that might destroy our union with Jesus and Mary.’