The Passion of Our Lord
Our Lord’s sufferings were so great because his soul was in suffering. What shows this is that his soul began to suffer before his bodily passion, as we see in the agony in the garden.
The first anguish that came upon his body was not from without—it was not from the scourges, the thorns, or the nails, but from his soul. His soul was in such agony that he called it death: “My soul is sorrowful even unto death” (Mark 14:34). The anguish was such that it burst open his whole body, as it