"Prepare ye the way of the Lord" is the invitation given to contemplate the joyful mysteries. "Destroy the empire of sin and follow in the blood-stained footsteps of your Saviour." This is the invitation to contemplate the sorrowful mysteries. The first fruit proposed to us in the agony in the garden of Gethsemani is hatred of sin.
Jesus has taken upon Himself a frightful responsibility. He, who was innocence and purity itself, is become in the eyes of His Father the living embodiment of sin. "Him who knew no sin He hath made sin for us." (2 Corinthians 5) And thus has He been bruised without pity by the anger of God. "He was bruised for our iniquities."
Behold, Christian soul, in what state He presents Himself to you in the garden of Gethsemani! Feeble, languid, bent down to the earth, covered with a sweat of blood! Why these sorrowful complaints, this mysterious fear, this profound disgust, this sudden faintness that brings Him to the gates of death? Alas! He sees sin; He is in dread of it He feels Himself penetrated with sin; God shows Him all the frightful evils He will endure for sin.
Is not sin, then, a most shocking evil, since the Heavenly Father chastises so pitilessly His only Son, who has made Himself responsible for its atonement? Yes. It is the supreme evil; it is an evil that stands alone in its deformity; to speak truly, there is no real evil but sin.
The infirmities and deficiencies of nature insult none of the divine perfections; this insults them all. It insults the majesty which it contemns, the goodness which it abuses, the wisdom whose designs it opposes, the omnipotence whose yoke it would throw off, the justice which it sets at naught. If it were in the power of sin God would cease to be, for, as far as it can, it destroys Him. It substitutes in place of the supreme good an inferior good, towards which it directs all the aspirations of the human soul; it strives to make the infirm reason and dependent will of the creature prevail against the infinite wisdom and sovereign power of the Creator. Unable to pull down the great God from His throne, it imposes upon Him the terrible necessity of opening for its punishment the eternal abyss, in which He, so good, so sweet, so clement, will be constrained to chastise it without pity and without respite for ever.
Sin, the enemy of God, is no less the enemy of man. It debases his reason; it forms perverse habits which enchain his liberty; it dries up the sources of the divine life which was added to his nature to raise it to the summit of its eternal destiny; it nullifies the merits of the past; it withers the good works of the present; it cheats its miserable dupe, to whom it promises happiness in exchange for his rebellion; in a word, it drags us down from the sublime condition in which, without vanity, we might call ourselves divine beings, to the condition of the brutes whose gross nature we consent to share. Hence the Psalmist has truly said: "Man, when he was in honor, did not understand; he is compared to senseless beasts, and is become like to them." (48) Nay, more, the beast, by its instinct, acts the part which it can and ought to act; but this cannot be said of the sinner.
Sin being so great an evil, how comes it that such a vast multitude become guilty of it with so much facility and bear its yoke so lightly? The causes are ignorance, forgetfulness, blindness. But is the Christian, enveloped in so much light, often recalled to his duty, even at the moment in which he examines his conscience to confess his faults before God, indifferent, cold, or insensible? Why do I doubt the sincerity of his contrition? A servile fear, a shame entirely human, a paltry uneasiness, a movement of the will merely of routine - behold what I see in many a soul instead of earnest regret, generous indignation against sin, loving protestations to be true henceforth to God, and strong resolutions by which hatred of sin is best shown.
Christian soul, go to Gethsemani, and, throwing yourself at the feet of your agonizing Saviour, learn to hate sin as it deserves. Forget, if you can, the pain it has brought on you, the shame it has caused. Think only of the inestimable benefits of which it has deprived you: think of the grace and gifts of the Holy Ghost, the peace of heart, the consolations of Heaven, the fruit of your good works, the supernatural resources of the soul, the rightful claim to an eternal inheritance, the spiritual adoption by which you have become in Jesus Christ a true child of God; think of the blessed charity which enables you to say to God: My Friend! my Father! Nay, more, forget your own misfortunes in order to see only the infinite goodness of an offended God. He is the essential good, worthy of all love; you have abused His gifts; you have turned your back upon Him to run after lying goods. O miserable soul! speak to Him with a contrite and humble heart. O Father, so good, so amiable, so worthy of my love, it is I, and not Thy dear Son, that offended; it is I that ought to be chastised; it is I that ought to die of grief. Soften my hard heart; lacerate it with bitter regret; crush it with the weight of Thy anger; fill it with horror of all that in which it has offended Thee, and make it more an enemy of sin than sin has been its enemy.
- text taken from Fruits of the Rosary, by Father Jacques-Marie Louis Monsabre, O.P.