Teresa's meditiations on the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary - Second Mystery

Soul of a sinner - child of guilt and shame,
Now let another sight thy heart inflame!

With arms uplifted - merciless and bare,
See the sweet Victim in His love reveal'd,
By whose rich stripes alone our souls are healed:

Wrapt in His purple of descending gore,
He yields Him to the smiters more and more!

Dread Flagellation! shall its tortures tell
In vain - how we should have the doom of hell,

Had not for us the Word Incarnate trod,
The doleful winepress of the Wrath of God!

Hail, thou rejected Lamb! In all thy woe;
Let the hot tears of deep contrition flow:

Till sin, and self, and sense, be all abhorr'd,
Lost in the wounds of out once suffering Lord!

Teresa's meditiations on the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary - Third Mystery

Soul of a sinner - subject to a Lord
For Thee once mock'd & crown'd & yet adhorr'd;

Come to this coronation; lo! the scorn
With which they weave His diadem of thorn!

Eye the vile splendour of that scarlet robe
Vesting the veil'd Creator of the globe!

Hear the rude jest - behold the bended knee,
The mirth infernal - and the homage see:

That Hand - once reach'd to each one in his need,

Now spurned by all - and scepter'd with a reed;

That Brow of majesty and might divine,

A throne of woe - with love in every line!

Here let me linger through life's pensive day,
Till this poor heart in tears shall melt away;

And death approach with liberation sweet
To let me fall - and worship at His feet!

Teresa's meditiations on the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary - Fourth Mystery

Soul of a sinner - here without a home,
Art thou a pilgrim for the world to come?

See, then, thy Great Exemplar on His way
A path of dolours - cloth'd in red array!

The sight of Calvary His heart inspires
And lights eternal love with ardent fires.

Lo! where His Holy Mother stands opprest,
The sword of sorrow piercing through her breast!

See where the Cross - that purchase of the Crown

Weighs on His wounded frame, and sinks it down!

See when yon woman wipes His sacred face,

And wins a likeness of the King of Grace!

Hear where the daughters of sad Salem wail,

While Siloa's brook sighs softly through the vale;

These with sweet sympathy dissolve'd in fears,

That to be shortly swollen with their tears!

Lord! let each eye o'erflow with contrite grief,

And in the road to Calvary, seek relief!

Teresa's meditiations on the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary - Fifth Mystery

Soul of a sinner - turn with me once more
Upon a scene excelling all before!

And as the mighty Moses, when he saw
The Burning Bush with overwhelming awe,

Put off his shoes before the fire of God,
That he might worship on the sacred sod;

So thou from sin, and self, and sense set free,
Ascend the Holy Hill of Calvary!

Behold the Cross, in wreaths of sable furl'd,
The atoning Altar of a guilty world!

Look on thy Jesus in His final hour,
Till the look thrills thee with transforming power:

Hear His last words - the prayer - the bitter cry
That rends the Veil - and rocks the earth and sky:

Lo! how He Bows - when He resigns His breath,
That Head - which holds the crown of life and death.

And now the spear hath pierc'd His rifted side,
Whence flows for sinful man a double tide:

Oh! Glorious Cross! the "Tree of Lover" art Thou!
To Thee I kneel - beneath Thy shade I bow:

To Him - whom thou didst lift from earth to heaven;
Be my whole heart in sweet affection given!

Complaints of the Soul of our Blessed Lord

My Soul is not known.  My Soul is not loved.  Night and day I see lamps burning before My Altar.  My Sacrament of love finds worshippers and victims; but My Soul does not meet with sympathising souls.

Every day I give Myself to My creatures, and, swallowed up in this union, they praise everything in Me, but My Soul and My Sacred Head crowned with thorns, the Seat of Divine Wisdom.

Each day My Cross is bathed with tears, and the daughters of Zion cannot be comforted, because they see Me without brightness and beauty, but few there are who compassionate the anguish of My Soul, sorrowful unto death.

My Heart has found thousands of hearts, but My Soul remains solitary, and My Thorn-crowned Brow unhonoured, My Face besmeared, and My Eyes and Mouth filled with congealing Blood, and no one is there to wipe It away and refresh My parched Lips and swollen Tongue.

"My Soul is sorrowful even unto death, and I have looked for some one to comfort Me and there is none."

Teresa Higginson on Calvary

Another extract from the Passion of Our Lord that Teresa wrote to Fr. Edward Powell:

As Jesus is raised on the cross His Sacred Eye takes in at a glace every sinner from the first even to the last; then that the seamless robe is a figure of the unity of the Church, and Jesus saw every schism and heresy, every sin that should arise, every sacrilege that should be committed in or against His holy Catholic Church.  Then the vast numbers of souls lost to Him for ever, many and many of them often dyed deeply in that same most Precious Blood which He was shedding for them in vain...

Then an impetuous wave of infinite love swept over that sorrowful soul and rent it to pieces (as I may say) with an insatiable desire for souls...

...Then the sacred mind drank in that bitter torrent of doubt, caused by the sight of the impenitent thief and the incredulous Pharisees.  Will all this bitter Passion be of no avail?  Will all this love be in vain?  For so many?  And His Sacred Heart felt the keen smart of our cold indifference and ingratitude which pierced It far more deeply than the lance of Longinus.  Of course it was the human nature alone that was suffering or could suffer and His Holy Soul, Sacred Heart and adorable mind were all the time suffering an agony too awful for our puny minds to conceive..

...How can we picture the intense agony - the annihilation that Jesus suffered when He was forced as it were to cry aloud in anguish of soul: "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?"  This desolation commenced in the Garden of Olives and had been growing in intensity...

...This annihilation is the finger of God touching the soul and afflicting it beyond description.  Besides making atonement for mortal sins Jesus had to purchase grace to overcome temptations to each mortal sin.  He had an infinite atonement to make.  He had great heights of perfection to win, and each act of virtue must be purchased by distinct suffering of Jesus.  Here all consolations were cut off from the soul of our dear crucified Lord.  We speak of this as darkness, but it is not; the Light of lights could not for an instant be extinguished.  As we are blinded by looking at the sun, so it is here.  It is the perfect knowledge of clear light that is the cause of this excess of suffering...

Teresa Higginson on Our Lord's Agony in Gethsemane

This is an extract from a complete account Teresa wrote of Our Lord's Sacred Passion, which she wrote at the request of her director Fr. Edward Powell in Bootle.

How can I find words to express the overwhelming agony of soul, the anguish of heart and mental suffering, as mortal sin after mortal sin was presented to Thy gaze, and with Thy unsullied light of intellect Thou didst see each separate sin in all its filthy foulness, know all the horrors and the insult offered to the Almighty Creator, and feel the punishment to the full of each and every sin?

How couldst Thou bear them thus, knowing the ungrateful return that would be made Thee for loving us too much, and being thus clothed, Thou wert obliged to stand in the ineffable light of God?  For thou couldst not separate Thy human nature for an instant from the divine, hence this annihilation which forced the Precious Blood through every pore in Thy Sacred Body and laid Thee writhing on the ground.  For what human soul could stand in the awful purity of God with the light of the divinity shining on it revealing horrible mortal sins in all their heinous malice?