4615 (Good Friday)

April 15, 1949: Book 53

Death of the cross.... work of redemption....

Jesus gave His life on the cross, He took upon Himself the most disgraceful death, which was punishment and atonement for the criminals, who were denied any improvement. He condescended to this death which He could have averted from Himself by virtue of His power and glory, for the fullness of God's spirit dwelled in Him which He, however, no longer used in view of the work of mercy He wanted to accomplish in order to help His fellow human beings. Out of His deepest love came the will for this deed, the love was so strong that the human will also experienced a strengthening through it which made Him capable of this work. Love drove Him and His human will carried out what love commanded Him to do. And thus He took torments and humiliations upon Himself which contradicted His divine nature and which therefore tormented Him unspeakably but which also strengthened His will to redeem people from this morass of sin. He took pity on the great spiritual hardship in which humanity languished, who, as a result of sin, no longer knew anything about their fate on earth and in the beyond, who were heading towards immense suffering in the kingdom of the beyond and were completely unaware of their state. He took pity on their lack of light and their complete dependence on the one who was to blame for their descent into the abyss. And He wanted to pull them back, He wanted to give them the opportunity to walk towards a blissful state in full freedom of will. He wanted to impart strength to them where they were too weak themselves, and He only acquired the gift of divine strength to strengthen the will through His death on the cross.... He wanted to distribute wealth into whose possession He first had to place Himself through His sacrifice of atonement for the whole of humanity. Sin weighed upon it, its effect had to be lessened; but God's righteousness did not allow for the redemption of the greatest guilt of sin without a sacrifice, if the eternal deity did not want to lower Himself towards His creatures. And in the realization of this eternal order the man Jesus decided to make a sacrifice to God as far as it was possible for His human body. His love for humanity motivated Him to do so, and therefore God accepted the sacrifice because love redeems everything, because love is the strongest power and appeases God's wrath, i.e. His justice is fully satisfied where love is the driving force of every action. But the sacrifice was excessive.... It exceeded the strength of a human being and was therefore also valued excessively, in that full forgiveness of the guilt of sin is assured to those who acknowledge Jesus Christ as redeemer of the world, who unite with Him in thought and will to follow Him...., who therefore seriously endeavour to live a life of love, just as Jesus did on earth, in order to show people the only path to eternal life, which is only recognizable through a life of love and which was crowned by Him through the most painful death on the cross....

Amen

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