Hi, I'm Edward Sree, and welcome to all things Catholic Catholic where real faith meets real life.

Lent is the great season we have each year to reflect on and meditate upon and enter more deeply into the

story of Christ's passion.

But have you ever wondered why do we call it the passion of the Christ?

Why passion? Well it the passion of the Christ? Why passion? Well the word passion comes from

the Latin word passio which means suffering. So traditionally the churches use

this term to describe the suffering Christ endured for us on

holy Thursday night and good Friday for our sins but in our modern world we use the

word passion a little bit differently we describe someone being passionate meaning that they're

they have a lot of energy, they're excited, they're determined and maybe you can

see that with Jesus, right? He's determined to take on the cross and die for our sins so that we can be reconciled with him.

And I think that's okay to see that, but I think Pope Benedict takes us to an even deeper level.

Pope Benedict once reflected upon how the word passion can describe God's passionate

love for us. He once said, quote, God loves us with all the passion of a true love.

And I think that's beautiful that God is a lover, as St. Catherine of Siena once said,

God is madly in love with us. God is drunk with love, she even said. In other words, God is so in love with

us that he's willing to do the most unexpected thing to bring us back to be united with him. He brought us into existence

he didn't have to do that. We send and rejected him and yet he seeks us out. He's

calling us back to himself. he even comes down and becomes one of us,

takes on our humanity and offers himself up as a sacrifice for our sins.

That's how much he loves us. You see God's passionate love, Pope Benedict says,

is not meant to be understood merely as like some kind of like romantic love or like merely

...