seek faults in the very works of our Saviour himself. In the second
agony, Jesus beheld, to its fullest extent and in all its bitterness,
the expiatory suffering which would be required to satisfy Divine
Justice. This was displayed to him by angels; for it belongs not to
Satan to show that expiation is possible, and the father of lies and
despair never exhibits the works of Divine Mercy before men. Jesus
having victoriously resisted all these assaults by his entire and
absolute submission to the will of his Heavenly Father, a succession of
new and terrifying visions were presented before his eyes, and that
feeling of doubt and anxiety which a man on the point of making some
great sacrifice always experiences, arose in the soul of our Lord, as
he asked himself the tremendous question: 'And what good will result from
this sacrifice?' Then a most awful picture of the future was displayed
before his eyes and overwhelmed his tender heart with anguish.

When God had created the first Adam, he cast a deep sleep upon him,
opened his side, and took one of his ribs, of which he made Eve, his
wife and the mother of all the living. Then he brought her to Adam, who
exclaimed: 'This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh... Wherefore
a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and
they shall be two in one flesh.' That was the marriage of which it is
written: 'This is a great Sacrament. I speak in Christ and in the Church.'
Jesus Christ, the second Adam, was pleased also to let sleep come upon
him--the sleep of death on the cross, and he was also pleased to let his
side be opened, in order that the second Eve, his virgin Spouse, the
Church, the mother of all the living, might be formed from it. It was
his will to give her the blood of redemption, the water of
purification, and his spirit--the three which render testimony on earth--and
to bestow upon her also the holy Sacraments, in order that she might be
pure, holy, and undefiled; he was to be her head, and we were to be her