Page 59 - 聖母軍團員手冊（英文版，2014年5月-2022年1月更新版）

Legion HANDBOOK D10944_1 26/02/2014 15:53 Page 58

58 THE LEGIONARY AND THE MYSTICAL BODY OF CHRIST CHAPTER 9
the passion of our Lord overflows, as an inestimable privilege,
into the bodies of the sinless and the saintly in order to
conform them ever more perfectly to His own likeness. This
interchange and blending of sufferings is the basis of all
mortification and reparation.
A simple comparison with the circulation of blood through
the human body will make this place and purpose of suffering
more vivid. Consider the hand. The pulse which throbs in it
is the beat of the heart. The warm blood from the heart
courses through it. That hand is one with the body of which
it forms part. If the hand grows cold, the veins contract and
the flow of the blood is impeded. As it grows colder, the flow
diminishes. If the chill is such that the movement of blood
ceases, frost-bite sets in, the tissues begin to die, the hand
becomes lifeless and useless. It is as a dead hand, and if left in
that condition, gangrene will result. Those stages of cold
illustrate the possible states of members of the Mystical Body.
These may become so unreceptive of the Precious Blood
flowing through that body that they are in danger of dying,
like the gangrenous limb which must be cut off. It is plain
what must be done in the case of a frozen limb. The blood
must be induced to circulate again in order to restore it to life.
The forcing of the blood through the shrunken arteries and
veins is a painful process; yet that pain is a joyful sign. The
majority of practising Catholics are as limbs not actually frost-
bitten. Scarcely even in their self-satisfaction, do they regard
themselves as chilled. Yet they are not receiving the Precious
Blood to the degree that our Lord wills for them. So, he must
force his life upon them. The movement of his blood, dilating
their reluctant veins, gives pain; and this makes the sorrows
of life. Yet, when this idea of suffering is grasped, should it
not turn sorrow into joy? The sense of suffering becomes the
sense of Christ’s close presence.
“Jesus Christ has suffered all that he had to suffer. No more is
anything wanting to the measure of his sufferings. His Passion then is
finished? Yes: in the head; but there remains the Passion of his body.
With good reason therefore does Christ, still suffering in his Body,
desire to see us share in his expiation. Our very union with him
demands that we should do so. For as we are the Body of Christ and
members, one of the other, all that the head suffers, the members
ought to endure with it.” (St. Augustine)