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Rh and every grief and trouble which the human race can know, pierced more keenly the Soul of Christ than the souls of those who actually suffer them.

For every separate suffering, great or small, of body or of mind, even to a slight headache or a prick of a needle, was clearly seen by our most Pitiful Lord, who of His boundless love was pleased to compassionate them and to engrave them on His Heart.

But who can express what He felt at the sight of the sorrows of His most holy Mother? For in every respect and in every way in which the Lord sorrowed and suffered, did the Holy Virgin sorrow and suffer, not with equal intensity, but most bitterly nevertheless.

And these her sorrows opened anew the inward wounds of her Blessed Son. These, like so many fiery darts of love, pierced His most loving Heart, which by reason of all the torments which have been mentioned, and of others unknown—yet infinite in number—which He endured, may be well described in the words of a devout soul, who in holy simplicity was wont to call it "a loving hell of voluntary sufferings."

Consider then, beloved, the cause of all this anguish, borne by our Crucified Redeemer and Lord, and you will find that it is nothing else