533 part iv: meditations for weekly retreats eyes of the Divine Majesty and indeed does you no insignificant harm. Do this, so that in the future you may burn on the altar of your heart the purest incense of your holy actions in sacrifice to the most powerful, most generous, and most merciful Lord of hosts and of heavenly powers. 3. Ponder that there was no other reason for refreshing the disciples with the Lord’s Body during that last banquet of the ancient Passover than to strengthen them with new and divine strength after they consumed in the Passover of the New Testament the immaculate Lamb, God Himself, so that they might endure with strong and invincible spirit the imminent Passion of their Master, and that their faith would be unbroken and unscathed by it. At that time the immortal Commander armed them with the weapons of faith and perseverance against the attacks of Jewish treachery and persecution. He armed them with the power of love against the power of hatred; He armed them with divine strength against human strength and power. Similarly, [f.173v] it is for this reason that this spiritual food, I say the divine food, was granted and given to you today: that you may become stronger against the forces of temptations; that you may become more fervent in loving, more steady in suffering, and more stable and heartened in perseverance Indeed, today you may rightly say with the Apostle: “Who shall separate me from the love of God?” (cf. Rom 8:35), who shall separate me from the love of the true God and Man, the Redeemer of all men, whom I have received under the veil of bread? Would that be poverty, nakedness, and indigence? Would that be affliction, persecution, toils, sorrows, and fatigues? Would that be temptation, insults, the world, hell, some pleasure or mortification? Would that be the alluring persuasions of the evil spirit or the anger of men, bitter words, or something similar? Finally, would that be death itself, even the cruelest one? I am certain that none of these things shall separate me, nothing shall drag me away, nothing shall divert me from loving Jesus Christ forever, because I will brave, withstand, suffer, and embrace all these things out of the same love.
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