Shrine Basilica of Our Lady of Health Vailankanni

"How shall I repay the Lord ?" (Ps 115[116B],12). Not with holocausts or sacrifices or the observances of the legal cult, but with my whole life itself. And this is why, says the psalmist, “The cup of salvation I will take” (v.13). The labor he underwent in the struggles of his filial devotion to God and the constancy with which he resisted sin even to death : this is what the psalmist calls his cup. It was concerning this cup that our Lord himself expressed himself in the Gospels : “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me” (Mt 26:39). And again, to his disciples: “Can you drink the cup that I shall drink?” He intended to speak of that death he desired to suffer for the salvation of the world. Therefore, he says: “The cup of salvation I will take up”, namely, my whole being is reaching out, parched, towards the consummation of martyrdom, even to the point of holding the torments endured in the struggles of filial love as rest, and not as suffering for soul and body. I too, he says, will offer myself to the Lord as a sacrifice and oblation. (…) And I am ready to pay these vows before all the people, for: “My vows to the Lord I will pay in the presence of all his people!” (v.14).

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Saint Basil (c.330-379) monk and Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, Doctor of the Church

" Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?"

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