A Treatise on the Ineffable Mystery of our Redemption

Abstract

Now let us see the effects of this love. Among them first, as 1 said, that Christ took upon himself the debts incurred by our sins and made satisfaction for them. As a figure of this, Holy Scripture tells us that when the whole land of Egypt was destroyed by a plague of locusts, and Moses prayed for a remedy, God sent a burning wind that blew the locusts into the Red Sea where they were all drowned. What does this mean but what the Prophet said of our Lord, “He will put away all our iniquities : and he will cast away all our sins into the bottom of the sea”? (Mich, vii, 19). This was the Red Sea, to show us they were drowned in the sea of Christ’s precious Blood.The second effect was that our Lord took for himself the sorrow and sufferings and gave us the fruit and merit gained by them. What follows must be told on our knees with eyes raised to heaven, for it was that the Lord did for men what a slave does for his Master. He works all day to earn money which he gives to his owner and is left unpaid for his labour. This is what our most pitiful Redeemer did for us. Could our Lord’s charity have reached further than this? Who could have done this but God, whose goodness and charity surpass our understanding?