The Redemptive Power of Christ

“The power upon which rests the spiritual life of all souls striving to be freed from evil and raised up to God is the redemptive action of Christ, His ever active and efficacious love directed to the Father and to us. He Himself told us: ‘As a branch cannot bear fruit all by itself, but must remain part of the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches’ (Jn. 15:4–5). The branches can live only if they are united to the vine and receive the sap from it. ‘Come to Me, all of you who labor and are overburdened, and I will give you rest’ (Mt. 11:28)—that is, burdened under the weight of your faults and sufferings. ‘And when I am lifted up from the earth, I shall draw all men to Myself’ (Jn. 12:32).

Life itself teaches us that the strength of a soul in the midst of trial and temptations comes from its practical and experiential consciousness of the infinite value of Redemption, of the omnipotent efficacy of Christ’s death on the Cross. In the confessional one day a poor woman was explaining to the priest the moral anguish in which she found herself. She was abandoned by her husband, her sons, and by all; she was seriously calumniated by those on whom she should have been able to rely; she was sick and tormented by hunger. The priest, seeing that he was dealing with a true Christian, said to her directly: ‘Our Lord suffered more than you, for love of you.’ That poor woman, with full conviction, exclaimed: ‘That’s true, it’s really true!’ She again found her strength and was able to continue on her way.”
~Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange