During the seventeenth century a nobleman was dying at Innsbruck, in the Tyrol. A great number of his friends and relatives had gathered around his deathbed to wait for the end which they saw was near.

While they were there, the doctor gave him a very bitter medicine to drink in hopes that it would restore his health, even if only a little bit. To encourage him to take it and to lessen the nausea it would cause, the doctor asked him to drink it in memory of the person he loved most.

The dying man looked around him from one person to another in silence; How much he loved them, how dear they were to him. Yet, dear as they were, there was One Who was cherished by this good man’s mind, heart, and soul completely.

Slowly, the man turned his eyes from the last of his beloved relatives and fixed them upon a picture hanging on the wall, which showed Jesus in the Garden of Olives. Raising the glass toward the image of his Saviour, he said,

"Ah, it is for You, my most beloved Friend, that I drink this bitter cup. You Who for my salvation drank the bitter chalice Your Heavenly Father sent You, even to the dregs."

How much easier it is to make a sacrifice when it is done in the memory of someone we love. Since dear Jesus went through so much pain and suffering out of love for us, let us return some of that infinite love to the Heart "which has so loved men…"