Contemplation: The Suffering of Jesus

The Suffering of Jesus
    St. Bernard says, "In order to redeem the slave, the Father did not spare his own Son, nor did the Son spare himself." O infinite love of God! On the one hand the eternal Father required of Jesus Christ to satisfy for all the sins of men: The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:5-6) On the other hand, Jesus, in order to save men in the most loving way that he could, chose to take upon himself the utmost penalty due to divine justice for our sins. Wherefore, as St. Thomas asserts, he took upon himself in the highest degree all the sufferings and outrages that ever were borne. It was on this account that Isaias called him a man of sorrows, despised, and the most abject of men. (Isaiah 53:3) And with reason; for Jesus was tormented in all the members and senses of his body, and still more bitterly afflicted in all the powers of his soul; so that the internal pains which he endured infinitely surpassed his external sufferings. Behold him, then, torn, bloodless; treated as an impostor, as a sorcerer, a madman, abandoned even by his friends, and finally persecuted by all, until he finished his life upon an infamous gibbet.

The above excerpt was taken from the "Passion and Death of Jesus Christ" by Saint Alphonsus Liguori