Shrine Basilica of Our Lady of Health Vailankanni

We have an example in our Savior, who wanted to suffer so that he should know how to suffer with us, to become wretched so that he could learn mercy, as it is written: «He learned obedience from the things he suffered» (Heb 5:8). He learned mercy in the same way... But perhaps you find it hard to accept the idea that Christ, the Wisdom of God (l Cor 1:24) "learned" mercy...? You see, then, that Christ has two natures in one Person, one which always was and another which began to be. And according to that nature which was eternally his he always knew everything. But according to that which began in time, he experienced many things in time. In this way he began to know the miseries of the flesh, by that mode of cognition which the weakness of the flesh instructs. Our first parents were wiser and happier when they did not have this experience, but God their Creator, "seeking what was lost" (Lk 19:10), came down in mercy in pursuit of his wretched creatures, to where they had miserably fallen... He did not intend to remain wretched among them, but to free those who were wretched as one made merciful. "Made merciful", I say, not with that mercy which he who remained happy had had from eternity, but with that mercy which he discovered as a mediator who was one of us... Oh, supreme delicacy of thoughtfulness! Should we have been able to imagine that wonderful mercy if we had not seen it come to us in wretchedness? Should we have been able even to conceive of that unknown compassion toward us if the impassability which is everlasting had not come to us in the Passion?... He did not lose anything of his everlasting mercy. But he added this to it. He did not change it but he multiplied it, as it is written, "You will save man and beast, Lord. How you have multiplied your mercy, O God!" (Ps 36[35]:7-8 Vg).

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Those who had diseases were pressing upon him to touch him

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