"Passion of Christ, strengthen me.”

“Passion of Christ, strengthen me.”
****--********-*********-********-

Usually after receiving Holy Communion, we pray,

“Passion of Christ, strengthen me.”

How can the  suffering Christ strengthen us

when He Himself seems

to have been been weak to the extent of being afraid of suffering,

to be unable to fight with His enemies,

to have fallen on the ground  thrice  being unable to bear the burden of the Cross,

to have asked His Father "why have you forsaken me?"

How can Jesus’ suffering and death strengthen anyone? 

Can weakness make us strong?

Such questions may be asked  by people who don't know the reality behind the passion of Christ.

Was Jesus weak or strong?

Jesus is the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity.

He is infinite in His love, power, wisdom and all other attributes.

Almighty God became man to deliver us from our sins by sacrificing Himself on the Cross.

Jesus is fully God and fully man.

So Jesus has two natures, Divine and human.

In His Divine nature He is Almighty.

In His human nature, He made Himself  like us in all respects, except sin.

He took upon Himself all our sins in order to atone for them.

As a Man

He was

weak like us, 

hungry like us,

afraid like us,

prone to feel sad, to weep and to suffer like us

and

subject to death like us.

But He took all these frailties with Him onto the Cross

and offered them,
along with Himself,

to His Father,

so that we may be freed from them.

At resurrection

Jesus defeated spiritual death completely

together with our frailties.

By 'spiritual death' I refer to our loss of relationship with God when we fall into mortal sin.

He won over this death

by amending for all the sins of humanity,

committed in the past,

being committed at present

and to be committed in future

and

by having opened the ways for the forgiveness of all our sins

through the sacrament of confession.

Jesus' physical death on the Cross has enabled us to recover from our spiritual death by contrition and confession.

We must make use of this Sacrament and get all our sins forgiven and rise  to spiritual life.

Without passion there could not have been resurrection.

By His Passion (Jesus' suffering and death)

He won over our spiritual  death and the frailties related to it.

When we say, "Passion of Christ, strengthen me,"

we say, "Jesus, who won over spiritual weakness by your passion,  strengthen me spiritually, so that I may win over 'sin and spiritual death'."

Jesus was afraid of the sufferings to the extent of requesting His Heavenly Father,

"Father, if it pleases thee, take away this chalice from before me."

But as He was spiritually strong, He said immediately,

"only as thy will is, not as mine is."

We ask Jesus to share with us His strength so that we may subject ourselves to Divine will at the times of temptations against it.

The “strength” of Jesus’s passion is the strength of His freely choosing to be obedient to the Father’s will.

Jesus' words,

“Greater love than this has no man that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

   show us another factor in the strength of the Passion.

We pray for this strength also,  to be ready to suffer and even die for our neighbours.

The strength we pray for is a supernatural strength, that is available only in Jesus.

Passion or suffering to be borne needs strength.

We are expected to suffer for Christ, to do which spiritual strength is a must.

As a man Jesus was physically weak just like us,

but spiritually very strong.

''Jesus,

give us strength

to suffer for You as you suffered for us,

to conquer our temptations,

to bear the sufferings sent by you

and offer them up to our Heavenly Father as amendment for the sins of the world,

and

to spread your word far and wide, to all the people and bring them into your fold.

Amen."

Lourdu Selvam