Jesus loves us as a Brother and a Friend; consequently, all distinctions and distance disappear. With Him we share the same condition, the same name, the same table, the same life. And if He willed to be born an infant and to pass through all the ages of life, it was that in every state, at all periods of their life, all men may have in Him a Brother and behold God's love humanized and like unto their own. It was not enough for Him to become like unto us in nature. He would share our trials, our miseries, our sufferings, that we might be overcome by that evidence and forced to cry out "Yes, God has loved us! " And He has done so. He has taken all my sins on Himself, borne them alone, and accepted their terrible chastisement, interior trials, pains of soul, horrible sufferings of body, His interior and exterior Passion! Behold the proofs of His love. Is this enough? Shall we deny a love that is proved by suffering's and death? Ah! who would do what He has done? No one no one! Shall we be unjust toward God alone, and shall we not acknowledge that He loves us?
--St. Peter Julian Eymard
