Saturday, March 23 : Saint Robert Bellarmine

O Lord, everything you teach us might seem too difficult, too heavy to bear, if you were to speak to us from another level, but since you teach us more by example than in speech, you who are “Master and Teacher” (Jn 13:14), how could we venture to contradict you, we who are servants and pupils. What you say is perfectly true, what you command is perfectly just: the cross from which you speak is a proof of it. This blood flowing down in torrents is also its witness: it cries out with all its might (Gn 4:10). And finally, this death itself: if it could tear apart the veil of the Temple from a distance and split the hardest of rocks (Mt 27:51), how could it not do the same – and still more – to the hearts of believers? How could it not lead them to surrender themselves? Lord, we would repay you with love for love, and if our desire to follow you does not as yet come from our love for you, frail as it is, may it at least come from our love for your love. If you draw us after you “we will run to the fragrance of your sweet odors” (Sg 1:4 LXX). Not only do we wish to love and follow you but we are determined to despise this world… when we see how you, our leader, did not concern yourself with the enjoyments of this life. We behold you confronting death, not on your bed but on the wood that renders justice. King though you were, you wanted no other throne than this gallows… Drawn by the wisdom of your example as king we repel the call of this world and its pleasures and taking your cross on our shoulders we determine to follow you alone… Only grant us the help we need; make us strong enough to follow you.

Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team