How should we follow the Passion of the Catholic Church - click to read

The sufferings inflicted on the Catholic Church in modern times by God's will should be treated with prayerful patience and offered to God in union with Christ's own suffering for the expiation of sins for which God has been willing to give them to us. I know it may sound repulsive, but in reality it is a lot of grace when suffering is received with proper attitude and certainly will produce fruits of conversion. We see the changes already.

...."Nothing in History has been so similar to the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ as the situation through which the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church is passing in our days. Therefore, the compassion we feel regarding the Passion of the God-Man should also stir us with regard to the present situation of the Church. The two Passions constitute one single thing.

The crime of Deicide – whether Cardinal Bea wants to use the term or not – that moved Catholics in all centuries toward solidarity with Our Lord, is recurring today. Only today the enemies of Christ are trying to kill the Catholic Church – a crime that perhaps could be qualified as Ecclesiocide, if it were possible to kill the Church. These two Passions are intertwined in such a way that one can say that the Passion of Christ is being repeated in our days.....
The liturgy of Holy Week sings one of the lamentations of Jeremiah that says: “O all ye that pass by the way, attend, and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow” (1:12). We should stop and meditate on the depths of the suffering of the Church today and compare it to her sufferings in times past. We should have a sorrow for this situation as well as the intent to do what we can to prevent more sufferings to come. We should be motivated to a more enthusiastic love for the Church, a more complete fidelity, a more unconditional dedication, a ceaseless activity, and a more acute combativeness. These are components of the state of spirit we should have to follow the Passion of Jesus Christ as it unfolds today.

The faithful souls of our times participate, in a mysterious way, in the consolation Our Lord received in His Passion 2,000 years ago. This should inspire us to make more acts of reparations for the offenses against His Mystical Body that we are witnessing. These acts should be made before God, Our Lady, and the entire Celestial Court of Angels and Saints in order to make amends to the glory of God, which is profoundly offended by the steps of this second Passion. It is the way to manifest our fidelity."....

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Apostolate of Suffering 2 - expiatory suffering to spread graces - click to read

...."We know that without the infinite merit of Our Lord Jesus Christ, we could not attain any good thing. But Christ desires, for a reason that is sublime, that our sufferings should also carry some weight in bringing the graces He wants to give to this or that soul. If Our Lord Jesus Christ desires a great conversion or a profound renovation in the life of the Catholic Church, He desires that we immerse ourselves completely into suffering in union with Him. He wants us to allow ourselves to be consumed by this suffering like a fire consumes the burning wood. Thus, for a certain soul, a particular social group, a family, a family of souls, a cycle of civilization, Our Lord Jesus Christ desires that certain souls suffer. He gives them sufferings so they can unite their sufferings to His in the Passion. Through the generosity of these expiatory souls, all the merits of His Passion are applied to those particular souls or that cycle of civilization. Remember that during the Mass the drop of water in the chalice symbolizes our human suffering, which is irrelevant in face of the Divine suffering. Nonetheless, the water is offered together with the Divine offering to God. Our suffering expresses this reality. It is a drop, a drop of water, of common water - not of wine – but it is offered together with the wine, the suffering of Our Lord Jesus Christ. It is the drop of our suffering united to the infinite ocean of suffering of Our Lord Jesus Christ. It expresses the value of our miserable, insignificant merit when united to the infinite merit of Our Lord Jesus Christ. United to His merit, what we offer can become instrumental in the conversion of a soul or a family of souls, or even in the inauguration of a new historical era. It is beautiful to consider how a soul disposed to suffer in this way has an expiatory character, a spirit of disinterested love and holocaust. "....

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Meditation for the fourth week of Lent with St Thomas Aquinas

CHRIST BY HIS PASSION MERITED TO BE EXALTED
He became obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross: for which God has exalted him. - Phil.2:8.

Merit is a thing which implies a certain equality of justice. Thus St. Paul says, To him that worketh, the reward is reckoned according to debt (Rom.4:4). Now since a man who commits an injustice takes for himself more than is due to himself, it is just that he suffer loss even in what is actually due to him. If a man steals one sheep, he shall give back four as it says in Holy Scripture (Exod. 22: 1). And this is said to be merited inasmuch as in this way the man's evil will is punished. In the same way the man who acts with such justice that he take less than what is due to him, merits that more shall be generously superadded to what he has, as a kind of reward for his just will. So, for instance, the gospel tells us, He that humbleth himself shall be exalted (Luke 14: 2). Now in His Passion Christ humbled himself below His dignity in four respects:

(i) In respect of His Passion and His death, things which He did now owe to undergo.
(ii) In respect to places, for His body was placed in a grave and his soul in hell.
(iii) In respect to the confusion and shame that He endured.
((iv) In respect to His being delivered over to human authority, as He said Himself to Pilate, Thou shalt not have any power against me, unless it were given thee from above. (John xix, 11).

Therefore, on account of His Passion, He merited a fourfold exaltation.
(i) A glorious resurrection.
It is said in the Psalm (Ps. 88: 1), Thou hast known my sitting down, that is, the humiliation of my Passion, and my rising up.
(ii) An ascension into heaven.
Whence it is said, He descended first into the lower parts of the earth: He that descended is the same also that ascended above all the heavens (Eph.4: 9,10).
(iii). To be seated at the right hand of the Father, with His divinity made manifest.
Isaias says, He shall be exalted, and extolled, and shall be exceeding high. As many have been astonished at thee, so shall his visage be inglorious among men, and St. Paul says, He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. For which cause God hath exalted him and hath given him a name which is above all names (Phil. ii. 8,9), that is to say, He shall be named God by all, and all shall pay Him reverence as God. And this is why St. Paul adds, That in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that art in heaven, on earth, and under the earth (ibid. X).
(iv) A power of judgement.
For it is said, Thy cause hath been judged as that of the wicked. Cause and judgement thou shalt recover (Job 26: 17).

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