Good Catholics usually have special devotions that they privately have an affinity for and say every day over and above their daily prayers.  Third Order members of course have to say their Office and the Franciscan Crown Rosary but most of us say  additional prayers.

Every day since my profession, I've said the St. Bridget prayers.  For those who are not familiar with them, they consist of 15 prayers  that Our Lord dictated to her concerning His passion and death.  St. Bridget was focused almost entirely on the Passion and Death of Our Lord .  I confess that most of the time, I say them without thinking deeply on them but I've tried lately to really think about what I'm saying.  Many times, even though I'm not paying as close attention as I should, some phrases will pop out and make me stop and reflect.

The third prayer goes like this:

"O Jesus Creator of Heaven and Earth whom nothing can encompass or limit, Thou who dost enfold and hold all under Thy loving power, remember the very bitter pain Thou didst suffer when the Jews nailed Thy Sacred Hands and Feet to the Cross by blow after blow with big blunt nails and not finding Thee in a pitiable enough state to satisfy their rage, they enlarged Thy Wounds, and added pain to pain, and with indescribable cruelty stretched Thy Body on the Cross, pulled Thee from all sides, thus dislocating Thy Limbs.............

So the other day I was vacuuming, saying these prayers in my head when this particular phrase stopped me cold.  DISLOCATING THY LIMBS.  Ouch.  Just imagine for one brief moment what that must have felt like!  So my mind wandered back many, many years when a certain priest in the Franciscan order was a very young boy, probably about 3 years old.  We hired a babysitter so we could go out for a little while and relax together - a "date night" if you will.  The young lady lived right across the street and was a very reputable and wonderful girl.  (She still is by the way).  Evidently, as good sitters usually do, she was playing with the children and happened to be swinging our young lad around like an airplane by the arms.  Quite accidentally, she actually dislocated his elbow.

We received a FRANTIC phone call at the pub we were at and fortunately we were home in a flash.  His father scooped the poor, agonizing boy in his arms and drove him to the ER.  Several hours later the two weary travelers returned home.  The doctor said some children were more prone to this type of injury and showed my husband how to snap it back if it ever happened again. 

Now flash forward to the prayer of St. Bridget.  If someone can be in such agonizing pain over ONE dislocated elbow, how much more did Our Lord suffer from the dislocation of EVERY limb: shoulder, elbows, knees,and  hips!!  And it seems to me that I read somewhere that He wanted His sufferings to hurt more than our pains hurt.

The point of all of this is that we must be so grateful and thankful to Our Lord for all of His sufferings for us.  We certainly don't deserve it but because He loves us and wants us to spend eternity with Him in total happiness, He was willing to suffer every imaginable pain. 

How blessed we are!