He took on our sins
Some years ago a girl wrote to me telling me that at the age of eighteen she went to her first dance, in company with her cousin. After the dance, her cousin dropped her at the gate. Her house was some distance from the gate, and in the distance between the gate and the front porch, she was attacked by a stranger. In due time, she found herself with a child. The only ones who would believe her were her mother and her pastor. Neighbor women said, “Oh, isn’t it terrible; the poor woman has one bad daughter.” Some girls in the choir would not allow her to sing because she was wicked. She told me of all of this torture that she endured, and she said, “What’s the answer?” I wrote back to her and I said, “My dear girl, all of this suffering has come upon you because you bore the sin of one man. If you ever bore the sins of ten men, you probably would suffer ten times more. And if you ever took upon yourself the sins of a hundred men, the sufferings would be a hundred times worse. And if you ever took upon yourself the sins of all the world, you might have had a bloody sweat.” That’s where your sin was, and mine: in that bloody sweat on Calvary, in this human nature that so loved us that we call it the Sacred Heart.