Preparation for Death - Consideration II

All Ends with Death

“An end, the end is come.” Ezek. vii. 2.

FIRST POINT.

By the worldly, those only are considered happy who enjoy the things of this world. its pleasures, its riches, its pomps; but death puts an end to all these joys of earth, “For what is your life? it is even a vapour that appeareth for a little time.” (S. James iv. 14.) The vapours which arise from the earth, sometimes when raised in the air and clothed with the light of the sun, cause a beautiful appearance; but how long does it last? It vanishes with a little wind. Behold that great man, who to-day is courted, feared, and almost adored; to-morrow, when he is dead, he will be despised, reviled, and scorned. When death comes, all must be left. The brother of that great servant of God, Thomas à Kempis, boasted of having made a beautiful house; but a friend told him one day that there was one great defect. What is it? he demanded. “The defect,” replied the other, “is, that you have had a door made in it.” “Indeed!” exclaimed he; “is the door a defect?” “Yes,” replied the friend, “because one day you will have to be carried out of that door dead, and thus will you have to leave your house and all that is in it.”

Death, in short, despoils man of all the things in this world. What a sad sight it is to see a prince carried forth from his palace, never more to enter it, and to see others take possession of his furniture, his money, and of all his other goods! He is left in the grave with a garment on that will scarcely cover his body. There is no one now to prize and to flatter him; neither are there any who take account of his last commands. Saladin, who acquired many kingdoms in Asia, when dying, said, that when his body was taken to be buried, a man should go before it, with his shirt suspended to a pole, crying, “This is all that Saladin carries to the grave.”

When the body of that prince is shut up in the grave, the flesh will soon fall off, and his skeleton will no longer be distinguished from other skeletons. S. Basil crys, “Contemplate the sepulchre, and see whether you can distinguish who was the servant and who was the lord.”

Diogenes was one day observed by Alexander the Great to be anxiously seeking for something amidst certain skulls. “What dost thou seek?” inquired Alexander, with curiosity. “I am seeking,” he replied, “the skull of thy father, King Philip, and I cannot distinguish it; if thou canst find it, show it to me.” In this world, men are born of unequal rank, but after death all will be equal, observes Seneca. And Horace said, that death makes the spade equal to the sceptre.

Finally, when death comes, “the end comes; “everything is ended, and everything must be left, and nothing is taken to the grave, of all the things of this world.

Affections and Prayers.

Since, my dear Lord, Thou dost grant me understanding to know, that all that the world esteems, is but vanity and foolishness, give me strength to leave all its allurements before death may come to snatch me from them. Alas I wretched me, how often, because of the miserable pleasures and possessions of this world, have I not offended, and lost Thee. O Thou Infinite Good, O my Jesus, O my Heavenly Physician, look upon my poor miserable soul, and upon the heavy wounds I have made with my sins, and do Thou have mercy upon me. “If Thou wilt Thou canst make me clean.” I know Thou wilt make me clean; but in order to cleanse me, Thou desirest that I should repent of all the injuries I have done Thee. I do indeed repent of them with my whole heart; heal me, therefore, now that Thou canst do so. “Heal my soul, for I have sinned against Thee.” (Ps. xli. 4.) I have often been forgetful of Thee, but Thou hast never been forgetful of me; and now make me feel that Thou wilt also forget those offences which I have committed against Thee, if only I abhor them. “If the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed .... he shall surely live, he shall not die.” (Ezek. xviii. 21.) I do, indeed, detest them, and hate them above every other evil. Forget Thou, O my Redeemer, the sins I have committed against Thee. In future, I would rather lose all, even life itself, than Thy grace. And of what use are all the world’s treasures to me without Thy grace?

Ah, help me! for Thou knowest how weak I am. Satan will never cease to tempt me; he is now preparing to assault me, in order to make me his slave once more. No, my Jesus, I know Thou wilt not abandon me. I wish to be the slave of Thy love from this day forth. Thou alone art my Lord; Thou hast created me, Thou hast redeemed me, Thou hast loved me beyond all others; Thou alone deservest to be loved; Thee only will I love.

SECOND POINT.

Philip II, King of Spain, being near death, called his son to him, and casting aside his royal robe, and showing him his breast, which was all gnawed by worms, said to him, “Prince, see how we die, and see how all the grandeur of this world is finished.” Theodoret spoke truly when he said, that “death fears neither riches nor guards, nor the purple; rottenness follows, and health fails.” So that every one who dies, although he may be a prince, takes nothing with him to the grave; all the glory remains upon the bed where he died. “For he shall carry nothing away with him when he dieth: neither shall his pomp follow him.” (Ps. xlix. 17.)

S. Antoninus relates, that when Alexander the Great was dead, a certain philosopher, exclaiming, said, ‘’ Behold he who was treading upon the earth yesterday, now by that same earth is possessed. Yesterday, the whole earth was not enough for him, now, he lies in about seven spans thereof. Yesterday, he conducted his armies over the earth, and now he is taken by a few men to be put under the earth.” But rather let us listen to God, when He says: “Why is earth and ashes proud?” (Ecclus. x. 9.) Man, dost thou not see, that thou art nothing but dust and ashes; and of what, therefore, art thou proud? Why, therefore, dost thou spend thy years, and thy thoughts, in seeking to make thyself great in this world? Death will soon come, and then all thy grandeur will come to an end, and also all thy designs. “And then all his thoughts perish.” (Ps. cxlvi. 3.)

Oh how much happier was the death of S. Paul the hermit, who lived sixty years shut up in a cave, than the death of Nero, who was emperor of Rome? How much happier was the death of Felix, a Capuchin lay brother, than the death of Henry VIII., who lived in royal splendour, but who was the enemy of God? But we must consider, that these holy men, in order to die such a happy death, gave up everything—their country, the hopes and pleasures which the world offered them; and they embraced a life which was poor and despised. They buried their lives in this world, so that they might not be buried when dead, in hell. But how can the worldly, who are living in sin—in worldly pleasure, in dangerous occasions—how can they, I repeat, hope to die a happy death? God now threatens those who are living in sin, that when they are on the bed of death they will seek Him, but they will not find Him. “Ye shall seek me and shall not find me” (S. John vii. 34.) God says, that that will be the time for vengeance, but not for mercy. “To me belongeth vengeance and recompense.” (Deut. xxxii. 35.) Reason tells us the same; for at the hour of death, a worldly man will find his mind fail him; his heart dark and hardened, because of his evil habits; his temptations will be very strong; how can he, who in life has been wont to yield to sin and to let sin conquer him—how can such an one, I say, ever expect to be able to resist temptation at the hour of death? An all-powerful Divine grace is then needed to change his heart; but will God give him this Divine grace? Has he deserved it, during the unholy life he has led? And does he deserve it now, that he is dying? And yet this is a question concerning his eternal happiness or his eternal misery. How is it then that he who thinks upon this, and believes in the truths of faith, does not give up everything, so as to give himself entirely to God, who, according to our works, so will He judge us?

Affections and Prayers.

Ah, Lord, how many nights have I, wretched one that I am, laid me down to sleep at enmity with Thee? O God, what a wretched state was my soul then in! It was hated by Thee, and it did not mind Thy hatred. Once I was condemned to hell, the sentence only remained to be executed. But Thou, my God, hast never ceased to seek me, and to invite me to pardon. But who is it who can assure me that I am pardoned now? Must I live, my Jesus, in this fear until the time shall come for me to be judged? But the grief that I feel at having offended Thee; the desire which I have to love Thee; and much more, Thy great compassion, my loved Redeemer; make me hope to remain in Thy blessed favour. I am very sorry for having offended Thee, O Thou Sovereign Good, and I love Thee beyond all things. I have resolved to lose all rather than lose Thy grace and Thy holy love. Thou desirest that heart which seeks Thee to rejoice. “Let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord.” (I Chron. xvi. 10.) O Lord, I detest my offences against Thee; give me courage and confidence; do not reproach me with my ingratitude, for I am very conscious of it; I detest it. Thou hast said, “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked tum from his way and live.” (Ezek. xxxiii. 11.) Yes, my God, I will leave all and be converted to Thee. I seek Thee; I desire Thee; and I love Thee more than all things. Give me Thy holy love, and I ask for nothing more.

THIRD POINT.

David likened the happiness of this present life to a dream, when one awakens. “Yea even like as a dream, when one awaketh.” (Ps. lxxiii. 19.) A certain author observes, “In a dream the senses being at rest, great things appear, and are not, and quickly vanish away.” The goods of this world appear great, but in truth they are nothing; like sleep, they last but a short time, and then they all vanish away. This thought—namely, that all things end with death—made S. Francis Borgia give himself up entirely to God. This saint was obliged to accompany the body of the Empress Isabella to Granada. When the coffin was opened, all those present fled, because of the dreadful sight and smell; but S. Francis, led by Divine light, remained to contemplate, in that body, the vanity of the world; and looking upon it, he said, “Art thou then my empress? Art thou that great one to whom so many great ones bowed the knee? O my mistress, Isabella, where is now thy majesty and thy beauty?” “Even thus,” he concluded within himself, “do the grandeurs and the crowns of this world end. From this day forward I will therefore serve a Master Who can never die!” Therefore, from that time he gave himself entirely to the love of Jesus crucified; and then he formed this resolution, that if his wife should die he would become a religious, which resolution he afterwards fulfilled by entering the Society of Jesus.

Truly, then, did one disabused of the world write these words on a skull: Cogitanti vilescunt omnia. It is impossible for him who thinks upon death to love the world, and therefore are there so many unhappy lovers of this world; because they do not think upon death. “O ye sons of men, how long will ye blaspheme mine honour: and have such pleasure in vanity, and seek after leasing?” (Ps. iv. 2.) O miserable children of Adam, the Holy Spirit warns us; why therefore do you not drive away from your hearts that affection for the world which causes you to love vanity and deceit? That which happened to your forefathers will one day happen to you; they, at one time were living in the same houses, and many slept upon the same beds that you do now; but now they are no more: the same will happen to you.

Therefore, my brother, give thyself now to God, before death shall come to Thee. “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.” (Eccles. ix. 10.) Whatsoever thou canst do to-day do it, and wait not until to-morrow, because this day will pass away, and will never return, and to-morrow death might overtake you, so that you would then be able to do nothing at all. Quickly remove yourself from all that separates, or that may separate you from God. Let us now give up all our love for this world’s goods, before death takes them away from us by force. “Blessed are die dead which die in the Lord.” (Rev. xiv. 13.) Blessed are those, who, when dying, are found dead to the affection of this world. By such as these, death is not feared—it is desired, it is joyfully embraced; for instead of separating them from all that they love, it then unites them to their Sovereign Good, Who is alone loved by them, and Who will make them blessed for evermore.

Affections and Prayers.

My dear Redeemer, I indeed thank Thee for having waited for me. What would have become of me if I had died when I was far from Thee? For ever blessed be Thy mercy, and Thy patience, which Thou hast exercised towards me, during the many years that are past I thank Thee for the light and grace with which Thou dost now assist me. At one time I did not love Thee, and then I cared little for being loved by Thee. Now I love Thee with all my heart, and now I have no greater grief, than what I feel, for having once displeased a God so gracious. This grief torments me, but the torment is sweet, because this grief gives me confidence that Thou hast indeed pardoned me. My sweet Saviour, would that I had died over and over again, rather than once even, to have given Thee offence. I tremble and fear, lest at any time I should ever again displease Thee. Ah, rather let me die a most painful death, than that I should ever again lose Thy grace. Once I was the slave of hell, but now I am Thy servant, O God of my soul. Thou hast said that Thou wilt love those who love Thee. I love them that love me. I do love Thee, therefore Thou art mine, and I am Thine. I might lose Thee at some time, but this is the grace that I seek, namely, that it would be better for me to die, than to lose Thee again. Thou hast given me so many graces that I have not asked Thee for, therefore I cannot fear that Thou wilt fail to grant me this grace, for which I am now asking Thee. Never again let me lose Thee; give me Thy holy love, and nothing more can I desire.

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Preparation for Death - Consideration I

Description of one who has Departed this Life

“Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” Gen. iii. 19.

FIRST POINT.

Consider that thou art dust, and unto dust thou must return. The day will come when thou must die, and be placed in a grave where “the worms” shall “cover thee.” (Isa. xiv. 11.) The same fate awaits all, both nobles and plebeians, both princes and vassals. Directly the soul shall leave the body, with the last gasp, it will go into eternity, and the body will return to its dust. “When Thou takest away their breath they die, and are turned again to their dust.” (Ps. civ. 29.)

Imagine to yourself a person, whose soul has just departed. Behold that pale corpse, which is still upon the bed, the head fallen upon the breast; the hair dishevelled and bathed in the sweat of death; the eyes sunken; the cheeks hollow; the face of ashy paleness; the tongue and the lips of a leaden hue; the body cold and heavy. Those who see it grow pale and tremble. How many there are who, upon seeing a relation or friend in this condition, have changed their life, and have left the world! But still more dreadful is it when the body begins to decay. A few hours or days will hardly have passed ere it will become offensive. The Windows will have to be opened; incense will have to be burned—nay, it must be sent in haste to the church to be buried, that the whole house be not infected. Behold to what that proud, that voluptuous man is reduced? In life he was the favourite, the one who was sought after in society; now he makes all those who look upon him shudder. His relations hasten to have him removed from the house, and men are hired to bear him, shut up in a coffin, to his grave. He was once famous for his great talent—for his great politeness—for his courteous behaviour, and for his facetiousness; but now that he is dead, his memory will soon pass away, “their memorial is perished with them.” (Ps. ix. 6.)

Upon hearing the news of his death, some people say he was of great dignity—others, that he left his family well-provided for; some grieve because he had done them good, and others rejoice because they derive some benefit from his death. Within a short time, however, he is spoken of by no one. And his nearest relations, even from the hour of his death, will not bear him mentioned, lest their grief should be renewed. When the visits of condolence are made, other things form the subject of conversation; and if any one by chance alludes to the departed one, the relations immediately exclaim, “In kindness, do not mention him to me.”

You must consider that what you have done at the death of your friends and relations, others will do at your death. Those who are living, enter upon the stage of life, to occupy the wealth and the position of the dead, and little or no esteem is paid to the dead, and very little mention is ever made of them. Your relations will at first mourn for you for some days, but they will soon be consoled with that share of property which will fall to them, so that they will shortly rejoice because of your death, and in the same room in which your soul has gone forth, to be judged by Jesus Christ, they will dance and eat, laugh and play, as they did before; and your soul, where will it be then?

Affections and Prayers.

Jesus, my Redeemer, I thank Thee that Thou didst not let me die when I was in disgrace with Thee. During how many of the past years have I not deserved to be cast into hell? If I had died on such a day, or on such a night, what would have become of me for all eternity? I thank Thee for this, O my God. I accept my death as a satisfaction for my sins; and I accept it in whatever manner it may please Thee to send it to me. But since Thou hast waited for me until now, wait for me yet a little longer. “Let me alone, that I may take comfort a little.” (Job x. 20.) Give me time to weep over the offences which I have committed against Thee, before Thou comest to judge me.

I will no longer resist Thy sweet voice that calls me. Perhaps these words which I have just read may be the last call for me. I confess that I do not deserve pity, for Thou hast so often pardoned me; and I, ungrateful one that I am, have again offended Thee; but “a broken and contrite heart, O God, shalt Thou not despise.” (Ps. li. 17.) O Lord, since Thou wilt not despise a broken and contrite heart, look upon a traitor, who being repentant, flees unto Thee. “Cast me not away from Thy presence.” (Ps. li. 11.) In mercy, do not cast me from Thee, for Thou hast said, “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” (S. John vi. 37.) It is true that I have offended Thee more than many others, because I have been favoured by Thee with light and grace; but the blood which Thou hast shed for me gives me courage, and gives me pardon, if only I repent Yes, O my Sovereign Good, I do repent with my whole heart for having despised Thee. Pardon me, and give me grace to love Thee for the time to come. I have offended Thee too many times already. I will not spend the life that remains to me, O my Jesus, in giving Thee offence, but I will spend it ever weeping over the displeasure I have caused Thee, and in loving Thee with all my heart, Thou, O God, who art so worthy of infinite love.

SECOND POINT.

In order more clearly to see what indeed thou art, my Christian soul, S. John Chrysostom observes, “Go to a sepulchre, contemplate dust, ashes, worms, and sigh.” See how that corpse becomes at first yellow, and then black. Afterwards there is seen upon the body a white and unpleasant mould. Then there issues forth a foul and corrupt matter, which sinks into the ground. In that corruption many worms are generated, which feed upon the flesh. The rats then come to feast upon the body, some on the outside, others entering into the mouth and bowels. The cheeks, the lips, and the hair fall in pieces; the ribs are the first to become bare of flesh, then the arms and the legs. The worms after having consumed the flesh eat each other, and, in the end nothing remains of that body but a fetid skeleton, which, in course of time, is divided, the bones being separated, and the head falling from the body: they “become like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors, and the wind carried them away,” (Dan. ii. 35.) Behold, then, what man is—a little dust upon a threshing-floor, which is carried away by the wind.

Behold that nobleman, who was considered to be the life and soul of society, where is he? Go into his room, he is not there; if you look into his bed, it belongs to another; his clothes, his arms, others have already taken and divided them. If you wish to see him, you must seek for him in that grave where he is changed into all that is unpleasant, and into fleshless bones. O my God, that that body fed with so many delicacies, clothed with so much pomp, attended by so many servants, should be reduced to this! O ye saints, ye, who for the love of that God whom ye loved alone, upon this earth, knew how to mortify your bodies;—and now your bones are kept and prized as sacred relics in golden shrines; and your souls which are beatified, rejoice in the presence of God, waiting for the final Day, when your bodies even, will again become the companions of your souls in glory, as they were once the companions of your souls, in hearing the cross of this world. This is the true love of the body, so to burden it with mortifications here, that it may be happy in eternity; and to deny it those pleasures here which would render it unhappy in eternity.

Affections and Prayers.

Behold, therefore, O my God, to what my body will become reduced, through which I have so often offended Thee, it will be reduced even to worms and corruption. But this does not grieve me, O my God, nay, it rather cheers me, for this my flesh to become putrid and consumed, which made me lose Thee, O my Sovereign Good. But it does grieve me very much, to think that I should have taken so much delight in those wretched pleasures which have so often displeased Thee. But I will not distrust Thy mercy. Thou hast waited for me to give me pardon. “Therefore will the Lord wait that He may be gracious unto you.” (Isa. xxx. 18.) And Thou wilt pardon me if I repent. Yes, Thou wilt, for I do repent with all my heart for having despised Thee, O God of infinite goodness. I will repeat to Thee as did S. Catherine of Genoa, “No more sins, my Jesus, no more sins.” No, I will no longer abuse Thy patience; neither will I wait to embrace Thee until the hour of death. O my Crucified Love, now will I embrace Thee, now will I commend my soul into Thy keeping. “Into Thy hands I commend my spirit.” My soul has been many years in this world without loving Thee; give me light and strength to love Thee during the life that remains to me. I will not wait until the hour of death to love Thee; from this moment, I will love Thee, and embrace Thee, and unite myself to Thee, and I promise never more to leave Thee.

THIRD POINT.

My brother, in this description of death, thou seest thyself, and that, which one day thou wilt be, “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” Reflect, for in a few years, nay, perhaps in a few months, and even days, thou wilt become a mass of corruption and worms. By thinking upon this, Job became a Saint, “I have said to corruption, Thou art my father, to the worm, Thou art my brother and sister.” (Job xvii. 14.)

Everything must have an end; and if, when the hour of death arrives, thy soul is lost, everything will be lost for thee. S. Lawrence Justinian says, “Consider thyself as dead already, since thou knowest thou must die. If now the hour of thy death were approaching, what is there of good, that thou wouldst not like to have done? Now, that thou art living, reflect, that one day thou must die. Bonaventure observes, that in order to guide the vessel aright, the pilot must place himself at the helm: even so must a man, if he wishes to lead a holy life, reflect that death is ever nigh. Therefore, S. Bernard observes, “Look upon the sins of youth, and blush; look on the sins of manhood, and weep; look upon the present evil habits of thy life, and tremble, and hasten to make amends.”

When Camillus de Lellis beheld the graves of the dead, he said within himself, “If all these dead bodies could come back again to life, what would they not do to gain eternal life? and I, who have now the opportunity—what am I doing for my soul?” Yet it was humility on the part of this saint which caused him to say this. But perhaps, my brother, thou mightst with reason fear, lest thou shouldst be like that barren fig-tree, concerning which our blessed Lord said, “Behold these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig-tree, and find none.” (S. Luke xiii. 7.) Thou, who for many more years than three hast been living in this world, what fruit hast thou yielded? Take care, remarks S. Bernard, for the Lord does not require flowers only, but seeks for fruit also; that is to say, not only good desires and resolutions, but also good works. Therefore, take care to make good use of the time which God in His mercy grants to you; do not wait until “time shall be no longer” to desire to do good—when it shall be said unto you: “Time shall be no longer, depart.” Make haste, it is now almost time to leave the world; make haste, what is done, is done.

Affections and Prayers,

Look upon me, O my God, for I am that tree which for so many years deserved to bear these words, “Cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground?” (S. Luke xiii. 7;) yes, because during the many years that I have been in the world, I have yielded no other fruit than the briars and thorns of sin. But Thou, O Lord, dost not wish me to despair. Thou hast said to all those that seek Thee, that they shall find Thee. “Seek and ye shall find.” I do seek Thee, my God, and I do desire Thy grace. I am indeed sorry for all the sins I have committed against Thee. I would grieve even to death because of them. During the past years, I have often fled from Thee; but now I value Thy friendship more than all the kingdoms of the world. I will no longer resist Thy calls. Thou dost wish me to be Thine alone. I yield myself wholly to Thee, without any reserve. Thou didst give Thyself entirely for me, upon the Cross; now I give myself entirely to Thee.

Thou hast said: “If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it.” (S. John xiv. 14.) My Jesus, I trust in this Thy great promise, and in Thy name; and through Thy merits I seek of Thee Thy grace and Thy holy love. Let Thy grace and Thy most holy love abound in my soul, where sin did once abound. I thank Thee greatly, for having given me the Spirit to make this prayer to Thee. Whilst Thou dost inspire me to pray, it is a sign that Thou wilt graciously hear me. Hear me, O my Jesus, and give me a great love towards Thee, and give me a great desire to please Thee, and then the strength to follow the desire.

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Considerations on the passion of Jesus Christ - Chapter 11

THE PATIENCE THAT WE MUST EXERCISE IN COMPANY WITH JESUS CHRIST, IN ORDER TO OBTAIN ETERNAL SALVATION.

I.

It is Necessary to suffer, and to suffer with Patience.

To speak of patience and suffering is a thing neither practised nor understood by those who love the world. It is understood and practised only by souls who love God. “O Lord,” said St. John of the Cross to Jesus Christ, “I ask nothing of Thee but to suffer and to be despised for Thy sake.” St. Teresa frequently exclaimed, “O my Jesus, I would either suffer or die.” St. Mary Magdalene of Pazzi was wont to say, “I would suffer and not die.” Thus speak the saints who love God, because a soul can give no surer mark to God of love for him than voluntarily to suffer to please him. This is the great proof which Jesus Christ has given of his love to us. As God he loved us in creating us, in providing us so many blessings, in calling us to enjoy the same glory that he himself enjoys; but in nothing else has he more fully shown how much he loves us than in becoming man, and embracing a painful life, and a death full of pangs and ignominies, for love of us. And how shall we show our love for Jesus Christ? By leading a life full of pleasures and earthly delights?

Let us not think that God delights in our pains; the Lord is not of so cruel a nature as to be delighted to see us, his creatures, groan and suffer. He is a God of infinite goodness, who desires to see us fully content and happy, so that he is full of sweetness, affability, and compassion to all who come to him.¹ But our unhappy condition, as sinners, and the gratitude we owe to the love of Jesus Christ, require that, for his love, we should renounce the delights of this earth, and embrace with affection the cross which he gives us to carry during this life, after him who goes before, bearing a cross far heavier than ours; and all this in order to bring us, after our death, to a blessed life, which will never end. God, then, has no desire to see us suffer, but, being himself infinite justice, he cannot leave our faults unpunished; so that, in order that they may be punished, and yet we may one day attain eternal happiness, he would have us purge away our sins with patience, and thus deserve to be eternally blessed. What can be more beautiful and sweet than this rule of divine Providence, that we see at once justice satisfied, and ourselves saved and happy?

All our hopes, then, we must derive from the merits of Jesus Christ, and from him we must hope for all aid to live holily, and save ourselves; and we cannot doubt that it is his desire to see us holy: This is the will of God, your sanctification.² But true as this is, we must not neglect to do our part to satisfy God for the injuries we have done to him, and to attain with our good works to eternal life. This the Apostle expressed when he said, I fill up that which is wanting of the Passion of Christ in my flesh.³ Was the Passion of Christ, then, not complete, not enough alone to save us? It was most complete in its value, and most sufficient to save all men; nevertheless, in order that the merits of the Passion may be applied to us, says St. Teresa, we must do our part, and suffer with patience the crosses which God sends us, that we may be like our head, Jesus Christ, according to what the Apostle writes to the Romans: Whom He foreknew, them He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren.⁴ Still we must ever remember, as the Angelic Doctor warns us, that all the virtue of our good works, satisfactions, and penances, is communicated to them by the satisfaction of Jesus Christ: The satisfaction of man has its efficacy from the satisfaction of Christ.⁵ And thus we reply to the Protestants, who call our penances injurious to the Passion of Jesus Christ, as if it were not sufficient to satisfy for our sins.

What we say is, that in order that we may be partakers in the merits of Jesus Christ, it is necessary that we labor to fulfil the divine precepts, even by doing violence to ourselves, in order that we may not yield to the temptations of hell. And this is what our Lord meant when he said, The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent seize upon it.⁶ It is necessary, when occasions occur, that we do violence to ourselves by continence, by the mortification of our senses, that we may not be conquered by our enemies. And when we find ourselves guilty through the sins we have committed, we must do violence to God with our tears, says St. Ambrose, in order to obtain pardon.⁷ And then, to console us, the saint adds, “O blessed violence, which is not punished with the wrath of God, but is welcomed and rewarded with mercy!”⁸ The more violent any man is with Christ, the more religious is he accounted by Christ. For we must first rule over ourselves by conquering our passions, that we may one day seize upon heaven. which our Saviour has merited for us.⁹ And therefore we must do violence to ourselves by suffering contradictions and persecutions, and by conquering the temptations and passions which, without violence, are never conquered.

God teaches us that, in order not to lose our souls, we must be prepared to suffer the agonies of death, and to die; but, at the same time, he says that for him who is thus prepared he himself will fight, and will destroy his enemies.¹⁰ St. John saw before the throne of God a great multitude of saints clothed in white garments (because into heaven nothing defiled can enter), and he beheld that every one of them bore in his hand a palm, the token of martyrdom.¹¹ What, then, are all the saints martyrs? Yes, Lord, all grown-up persons who are saved must either be martyrs in blood or martyrs in patience, in conquering the assaults of hell and the inordinate desires of the flesh. Bodily pleasures send innumerable souls to hell, and, therefore, we must resolve with courage to despise them. Let us be assured that either the soul must tread the body under foot, or the body the soul.

We must, then (I repeat), do ourselves violence in order to be saved. But this violence is such (it will be said by some one) that I cannot do it of myself, if God does not give it me through his grace. To such a one St. Ambrose says, “If you look to yourself, you can do nothing; but if you trust in God, strength will be given you.”¹² But, in doing this, we must suffer, and it is impossible to avoid it; if we would enter into the glory of the Blessed, says the Scripture, we must, through much tribulation, enter into the kingdom of God.¹³ Thus St. John, beholding the glory of the saints in heaven, heard a voice saying, These are they who have come out of great tribulation, and-have washed their garments, and have made them white in the blood of the Lamb.¹⁴ It is true that they all attained heaven by being washed in the blood of the Lamb, but they all went there after suffering great tribulation.

Be assured, St. Paul wrote to his disciples, that God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above what you are able.¹⁵ God has promised to give us sufficient help to conquer every temptation, if only we ask him. Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find.¹⁶ He cannot, therefore, fail of his promise. It is a fatal error of the heretics to say that God commands things which it is impossible for us to observe. The Council of Trent says: God does not command impossible things; but when He commands, He bids us do what we can, and seek help for what we cannot do, and He will help us.¹⁷ St. Ephrem writes, “If men do not put upon their beasts a greater burden than they can bear, much less does God lay greater temptations upon men than they can endure.”¹⁸

Thomas à Kempis writes, “The cross everywhere awaits thee; it is needful for thee everywhere to preserve patience, if thou wouldst have peace. If thou willingly bearest the cross, it will bear thee to thy desired end.”¹⁹ In this world, we all of us go about seeking peace; and would find it without suffering; but this is not possible in our present state; we must suffer; the cross awaits us wherever we turn. How, then, can we find peace in the midst of these crosses? By patience, by embracing the cross, which presents itself to us. St. Teresa says “that he who drags the cross along with feels its weight, however small it is; but he who willingly embraces it, however great it is, does not feel it.”

The same Thomas à Kempis says, “Which of the saints is without a cross? The whole life of Christ was a cross and a martyrdom, and dost thou seek for pleasure?”²⁰ Jesus, innocent, holy, and the Son of God, was willing to suffer through his whole life, and shall we go about seeking pleasures and comforts? To give us an example of patience, he chose a life full of ignominies and pains within and without; and shall we wish to be saved without suffering, or to suffer without patience, which is a double suffering, and without fruit, and with increase of pain? How can we think to be lovers of Jesus Christ, if we will not suffer for love of him who has so much suffered for love of us? How can he glory in being a follower of the Crucified who refuses or receives with ill-will the fruits of the cross, which are sufferings, contempt, poverty, pains, infirmities, and all things that are contrary to our self-love?

II.

The Sight of Jesus Crucified consoles us and sustains us in Sufferings.

Let us not lose courage, but keep our eyes ever fixed on the crucified one, because from him we shall draw strength to endure the evils of this life not only with patience, but even with joy and gladness, as the saints have done: Ye shall draw waters in joy from the fountains of the Saviour;²¹ that is, says St. Bonaventure, from the wounds of Jesus Christ.²² Therefore, the saint exhorts us ever to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus dying upon the cross, if we would live always united to God.²³ “Devotion,” says St. Thomas, “consists in being ready to accomplish in ourselves whatever God demands of us.”²⁴

Observe the excellent advice which St. Paul gives us, that we may live ever united with God, and may patiently endure the troubles of this present life: Think diligently upon Him who endured contradiction against Himself for sinners, that ye be not weary and faint in your minds.²⁵ He says, think diligently; for in order to suffer with resignation and peace present troubles, it is not enough to give a hasty glance, a few times in the year, at the Passion of Jesus Christ; we must often think of it, and every day turn our eyes to the pain which the Lord suffered for love of us. And what were the pains he suffered? The Apostle says, He endured such contradiction. The contradiction which Jesus Christ endured from his enemies was such as to make him, as it had been foretold by the Prophet, the vilest of men, and the man of sorrows,²⁶ until he died of agony, and overwhelmed with insults, upon a gibbet belonging to the most reprobate. And why did Jesus Christ embrace this load of pains and insults? That ye might not be weary and faint in your minds; that seeing how much a God has been willing to endure, in order to give us an example of patience, we might be patient, and endure all to be delivered from our sins.

Thus the Apostle goes on to encourage us, saying, Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.²⁷ Think, he says, that Christ poured forth for you all his blood in his Passion through torments, and that the holy martyrs, after the example of him, their king, have courageously endured hot plates, and iron nails, which have torn open their very bowels; but you have not shed a single drop of blood for Jesus Christ, while we ought to be ready to give our life rather than offend God, as St. Edmund said, “I would rather leap into a burning pile than commit a sin against my God.”²⁸ And thus St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, said, “If I must either endure all the bodily pains of hell, or else commit a sin, rather than commit it I would choose hell.”²⁹

The infernal lion ceases not through all our life to go about seeking to devour us; therefore St. Peter tells us that, by thinking of the Passion of Christ, we ought to arm ourselves against his attacks.³⁰ St. Thomas says that the mere recollection of the Passion is a great defence against all the temptations of hell.³¹ And St. Ambrose, or some other saint,³² says, “If there had been any better way of salvation for men than the way of suffering, Christ would have shown it to us both by word and example;³³ but now, going before us with the cross upon his shoulders, he has shown us that there is no better way of obtaining salvation than suffering with patience and resignation; and he himself has given us the example in his own person.

St. Bernard says that when we look upon the afflictions of the Lord, we will find our own lighter to bear.³⁴ And in another place, “What more can be given to thee, since thou hast the bitternesses of thy Lord?”³⁵ St. Eleazar, being one day asked by his good wife, Delphina, how he bore so many injuries with a calm mind, replied, “When I see myself injured, I think on the injuries of my crucified Saviour, and cease not to think of them until I am calmed.”³⁶ “Sweet is the ignominy of the cross to him who is not ungrateful to the Crucified,” says St. Bernard.

To souls that desire to be grateful to Jesus Christ, the contempt they receive is not displeasing, but welcome.³⁷ Who will not gladly embrace opprobrium and ill-treatment when he thinks of the ill-treatment which Jesus endured in the commencement of his Passion, when, in the house of Caiphas, he was on that night struck with blows and stripes, spit upon in the face, and, with a cloth spread before his eyes, derided as a false prophet?³⁸

And how did it ever happen that the martyrs endured with such patience the torments of executioners? They were torn with iron, they were burned upon hot gratings. Were they not made of flesh and blood, or had they lost all sense? No; when the martyr sees his blood, he thinks not of his own wounds, but of those of his Redeemer; he does not feel pain; not that there is no pain, but that for Christ’s sake it is contemned. There is nothing so bitter, even to death, which is not sweetened by the death of Christ.³⁹

The Apostle writes that through the merits of Jesus Christ we are all made rich.⁴⁰ But Jesus Christ chooses that, in order to obtain the graces we desire, we should ever have recourse to God with prayer, and beseech him to hear us through the merits of his Son; and Jesus himself promises that whatever we ask the Father in his name, he will give it us. Thus did the martyrs; when the pain of their torments was too sharp and bitter, they went to God, and God gave them patience to endure. The martyr St. Theodore, in the midst of all the cruelties inflicted on him, feeling at one time a most terrible torture from the balls of hot chalk which the tyrant had put upon the wounds they had caused him, besought Jesus Christ to give him strength to suffer, and thus remained conqueror, ending his life in the torments.

We need not fear the attacks we must endure from the world and from hell; if we take heed ever to have recourse to Jesus Christ with prayer, he will obtain for us every blessing;⁴¹ he will obtain for us patience in all our labors, perseverance, and, in the end, will grant us a good death.

III.

The Passion of our Saviour will give us Strength when at the Point of Death.

Great is the bitterness we endure at the point of death; Jesus Christ only can give us constancy to suffer with patience and meritoriously. Especially great are then the temptations of hell, which vehemently strive to destroy us, seeing us near our end. Rinaldus relates that St. Eleazar, at the point of death, endured horrible attacks from the devils, after leading a most holy life, so that he said, “Great are the temptations of hell at this moment, but Jesus Christ, by the merits of his Passion, destroys all their power.”⁴² St. Francis desired that at the hour of his death the Passion should be read to him. In like manner, St. Charles Borromeo, seeing himself near death, had himself taken near the images of the Passion, that in sight of these he might breathe out his blessed soul.

St. Paul writes that Jesus Christ chose to endure death, that through death he might destroy him who had the power of death; that is, the devil; and might deliver those who, through fear of death, were through their whole life subject to bondage.⁴³ And he adds, Wherefore it was necessary that He should be in all things like His brethren, that He might be merciful. For in that He Himself suffered, and was tempted, He is able to succor those who are tempted.⁴⁴ He chose to take on him all the circumstances and passions of human nature (except ignorance, concupiscence, and sin); and wherefore? That he might be merciful, that by taking on himself our miseries, he might be more compassionate to us, because misery is much better known by experience than by reflection; and thus he became more ready to help us when we are tempted during life, and especially at the hour of death. To this the saying of St. Augustine refers, “If you are disturbed at the time of death, do not think yourself a reprobate, nor give yourself up to despair; for Christ himself was thus disturbed at the prospect of his own death.”⁴⁵

Hell, therefore, at the time of our death, will put forth all its strength to make us distrust the divine mercy, by placing before our eyes all the sins of our life; but the memory of the death of Jesus Christ will give us courage to trust in his merits, and not to fear death. St. Thomas remarks on St. Paul’s words, Christ, by death, took away the fear of death: “When a man reflects that the Son of God chose to die, he does not fear death.”⁴⁶ To the Gentiles death was an object of the greatest terror, because they thought that with death every blessing ceased; but the death of Jesus Christ gives us a firm-hope that, dying in the grace of God, we shall pass from death to eternal life. Of this hope St. Paul gives us a sure confidence, saying that the Eternal Father did not spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all; and how has he not with him given us all things?⁴⁷ For giving us Jesus Christ, he gives us pardon, final perseverance, his love, a good death, eternal life, and every blessing.

Thus, when the devil frightens us in life or in death, by representing to us the sins of our youth, let us answer him with St. Bernard, “What is wanting to me of myself, I take to myself from the bowels of my Lord.”⁴⁸ St. Paul writes, It is God who justifieth; who is He that shall condemn? It is Jesus Christ who died, and who also is risen again, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.⁴⁹ These words of the Apostle are of great comfort to us sinners; it is God who justifies us sinners, and pardons us with his grace; and if God makes us just, who can condemn us as guilty. Will Jesus Christ, who died for us, and gave himself for our sins, that he might redeem us from the present evil world?⁵⁰

He burdened himself with our sins, and gave himself to death to deliver us from this wicked world, and to bring us with himself to his kingdom, where (as St. Paul goes on to say) he performs the office of our advocate, and intercedes for us with the Father. St. Thomas explains this, saying that Jesus Christ intercedes for us in heaven, by presenting to his Father his wounds which he endured for love of us. And St. Gregory does not hesitate to assert (in opposition to what some say) that the Redeemer, as truly man, ever after his death, prays for the Church militant, that we may be faithful to him: “Christ daily prays for his Church.”⁵¹ And St. Gregory Nazianzen before had said, “He intercedes, that is, he prays for us in the way of meditation.”⁵² And St. Augustine,⁵³ on the thirty-ninth Psalm, says that Jesus prays for us in heaven, not that he may now obtain for us any fresh grace, for during his life he obtained all that he could obtain; but he prays, inasmuch as he begs of the Father, through his merits, the salvation already obtained and promised to us. And though to Christ all power is committed by the Father, yet, as man, he only possesses this power as depending upon God. For the rest, the Church is not accustomed to ask him to intercede for us, because she regards that which is most exalted in him, that is, his divinity; and therefore she prays to him as God to grant her what she asks.

IV.

Confidence in Jesus Christ, and Love for Him.

But let us return to the confidence we ought to have in Jesus Christ for our salvation. St. Augustine encourages us, saying that this Lord, who has delivered us from death by shedding all his blood, desires not that we should perish; and that if our sins separate us from God, and make us worthy of being rejected, our Saviour, on the other hand, cannot reject the price of the blood which he has shed for us.⁵⁴ Let us, then, follow with boldness the counsel of St. Paul, who says, Let us run with patience the race that is put before us, looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of faith; who, for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross and despised the shame.⁵⁵ He says, “Let us run with patience the race before us,” because it profits little to begin, if we do not struggle to the end; while patience in enduring labor will obtain for us the victory, and the crown that is promised to him who conquers.

This patience will be the cuirass which will defend us from the swords of our foes; but how shall we obtain it? “By looking,” says the Apostle, “to Jesus, the author and finisher of the faith,” who, says St. Augustine, despised all earthly goods, that he might show that they are to be despised; who endured all earthly evils, which he taught us were to be endured, that in these we might neither seek happiness nor fear unhappiness.⁵⁶ Then with his glorious resurrection he animated us not to fear death; because, if we are faithful to him even to death, after it we shall obtain eternal life, which is free from all evil, and full of every good thing. This is signified by the Apostle’s words, “Jesus, the author and finisher of faith;” for Jesus Christ is the author of the faith, in teaching us what to believe, and giving its grace to believe it; and so also is he the finisher of faith, by promising that we shall one day enjoy that blessed life which now he teaches us to believe in. And that we may be sure of the love which this Saviour bears to us, and of the will he has that we should be saved, St. Paul adds, “Who for the joy set before Him, endured the cross;” on which words St. John Chrysostom remarks that Jesus might have saved us by leading a life of joy upon earth; but that to make us more certain of the love he bears to us, he chose a life of pain, and a death of shame, dying as a malefactor upon a cross.

Let us, then, give ourselves, O souls that love the Crucified, for the life that remains to us, to love this loving Redeemer, so worthy of love, to our utmost power; and also to suffer for him, because he has been willing to suffer for love of us; and let us not cease to ask him continually to grant us the gift of his holy love. Happy are we if we attain to a great love for Jesus Christ! The Venerable Father Vincent Carafa, an eminent servant of God, in a letter which he wrote to some studious and devout young men, said as follows: “To reform ourselves in our whole life, we must give all our study to the exercise of the divine love; the love of God alone, when it enters a heart, and obtains possession of it, purifies it from all inordinate love, and makes it at once obedient and pure.” St. Augustine says, a pure heart is a heart emptied of every desire; and St. Bernard, he that loves, loves and desires nothing more; meaning that he who loves God desires nothing but to love him, and banishes from his heart everything which is not God. And thus it is that, from being empty, the heart becomes full, that is, full of God, who brings with himself every good thing; and then earthly blessings, finding no place in such a heart, have no power to move it. What power can earthly pleasures have over us if we enjoy divine consolations? What power is there in ambition for vain honors, and the desire of earthly riches, if we have the honor of being loved by God, and begin to possess in part the riches of paradise? To measure, therefore, the advance we have made in the ways of God, let us observe what advance we have made in loving him; whether we often during the day make acts of love towards God; often speak of the love of God; whether we take pains to produce it in others; whether we perform our devotions solely to please God; whether we suffer with full resignation all adversities, infirmities, pains, poverty, slights, and persecutions, in order to please God. The saints say that a soul that truly loves God ought not more to breathe than to love, since the life of the soul, both in time and eternity, consists in the love of our sovereign good, which is God.

But let us be sure that we shall never attain to a great love for God, except through Jesus Christ, and unless we have a special devotion to his Passion, by which he procured the divine grace for us. The Apostle writes, Through Him we have access to the Father.⁵⁷ The way to ask for grace would be closed to us sinners, were it not for Jesus Christ. He opens the gate to us, he introduces us to the Father, and, by the merits of his Passion, he obtains for us from the Father pardon for our sins, and all the graces that we receive from God. Miserable we should be if we did not possess Jesus Christ. And who can ever sufficiently praise and thank the love and goodness which this merciful Redeemer has shown to us poor sinners, in being willing to die to deliver us from eternal death? Scarcely, says the Apostle, will any die for a just man, but for a good man perhaps some would dare to die; but when we were sinners, Christ died for us.⁵⁸

Wherefore the Apostle teaches us that if we are resolved to seek the love of Jesus Christ at all costs, we ought to expect from him every help and favor; and he thus reasons, For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. He thus warns those who love Jesus Christ, that they do injustice to the love which this our merciful Saviour bears to us, if they fear that he will deny them any of the graces necessary to salvation and to make them holy. And that our sins may not not cause us to fail in trusting him, St. Paul goes on to say, For not according to the fault so is the gift; for if by the fault of one man many have died, much more has the grace and gift of God abounded by the grace of one man, Jesus Christ, to many more;⁵⁹ giving us to understand that the gift of grace obtained by the Redeemer through his Passion brings us blessings far greater than the loss we sustained in the sin of Adam; for the merits of Christ have a greater power to cause us to be loved by God than the sin of Adam had to make him hate us. “We obtained,” say St. Leo, “greater things by the unspeakable grace of Christ than we lost by the malice of the devil.”⁶⁰

Let us, then, conclude. O devout souls, let us love Jesus Christ; let us love this Redeemer who is so worthy of being loved, and has so loved us that it seems as if he could not have done more to gain our love. It is enough for us to know that, for love of us he has been willing to die, consumed by griefs upon a cross; and, not satisfied with this, has left us himself in the sacrament of the Eucharist, where he gives us for food the very same body which he sacrificed for us, and gives us to drink the very same blood that he poured forth for us in his Passion. Most ungrateful shall we be to him, not merely if we offend him, but if we love him little, and do not consecrate to him all our love.

O my Jesus, may I be all consumed with love for Thee, as Thou wast all consumed for me! And since Thou hast so much loved me, and bound me to love Thee, help me now not to be ungrateful to Thee; and most ungrateful should I be if I loved anything apart from Thee. Thou hast loved me without reserve; without reserve I also would love Thee. I leave all, I renounce all, to give myself wholly to Thee, and to have in my heart no love but Thine. Accept my love in pity, without taking account of the offences that I have committed against Thee during the time past. Behold, I am one of the sheep for whom Thou hast shed Thy blood; we therefore pray Thee, help Thy servants, whom Thou hast redeemed with Thy precious blood.⁶¹ Forget, O my dear Saviour, the many offences that I have committed against Thee. Chastise me as Thou wilt, deliver me only from the punishment of not being able to love Thee, and then do with me whatever pleases Thee. Deprive me of everything, O my Jesus, but deprive me not of Thyself, my only good. Teach me to know what Thou wilt have from me, that, by Thy grace, I may fulfil all Thy will. Make me forget everything, that I may remember Thee alone, and all the pains Thou hast suffered for me. Grant that I may think of nothing but of pleasing Thee, and loving Thee. Look upon me with that love with which Thou didst look upon me at Calvary, when dying for me upon the cross, and hear me. In Thee I place all my hopes, O my Jesus, my God, and my all.⁶²

O holy Virgin Mary, my mother and my hope, recommend me to thy Son, and obtain for me faithfulness to love him until my death.

1“Quoniam tu, Domine, suavis et mitis, et multæ misericordiæ omnibus invocantibus te.” – Ps. lxxxv. 5.

2“Hæc est enim voluntas Dei, sanctificatio vestra.” – 1 Thess. iv. 3.

3“Adimpleo ea quæ desunt passionum Christi in carne mea.” – Col. i. 24.

4“Nam quos præscivit, et prædestinavit conformes fieri imaginis Filii sui, ut sit ipse primogenitus in multis fratribus.” – Rom. viii. 29.

5“Hominis satisfactio efficaciam habet a satisfactione Christi.”

6“Regnum cœlorum vim patitur, et violenti rapiunt illud.” – Matt. xi. 12.

7“Vim faciamus Domino, non compellendo, sed lacrymis exorando.”

8“O beata violentia, quæ, non indignatione percutitur, sed misericordia condonatur!”

9“Quisquis enim violentior Christo fuerit, religiosior habebitur a Christo. Prius enim ipsi regnare debemus in nobis, ut regnum possimus diripere Salvatoris.” – Serm. 15.

10“Pro justitia agonizare pro anima tua, et usque ad mortem certa pro justitia; et Deus expugnabit pro te inimicos tuos.” – Ecelus. iv. 33.

11“Vidi turbam magnam . . . , stantes ante thronum in conspectu Agni amicti stolis albis; et palmæ in manibus eorum.” – Apoc. vii. 9.

12“Si te respicis, nihil poteris; sed, si in Domino confidis, dabitur tibi fortitudo.”

13“Per multas tribulationes oportet nos intrare in regnum Dei.” – Acts, xiv. 21.

14“Hi sunt qui venerunt de tribulatione magna, et laverunt stolas suas et dealbaverunt eas in sanguine Agni.” – Apoc. vii. 14.

15“Fidelis autem Deus est, qui non patietur vos tentari supra id quod potestis.” – 1 Cor. x. 13.

16“Petite, et dabitur vobis; quærite, et invenietis.” – Matt. vii. 7.

17“Deus impossibilia non jubet; sed jubendo monet, et facere quod possis, et petere quod non possis; et adjuvat ut possis.” – Sess. vi. c. 11.

18“Si homines suis jumentis non plus oneris imponunt, quam ferre possint, multo minus hominibus plus tentationum imponet Deus, quam ferre queant.” – De Patientia.

19“Crux ubique te exspectat; necesse est te ubique tenere patientiam, si internam vis habere pacem. Si libenter crucem portas, portabit te ad desideratum finem.” – Imit. Chr. l. 2, c. 12.

20“Quis Sanctorum sine cruce fuit? Tota vita Christi crux fuit et martyrium; et tu tibi quæris gaudium?”

21“Haurietis aquas in gaudio de fontibus Salvatoris.” – Isa. xii. 3.

22“ ‘De fontibus Salvatoris,’ hoc est, de vulneribus Jesu Christi.”

23“Semper oculis cordis sui Christum in cruce tamquam morientem videat, qui devotionem in se vult conservare.” – De Perf. vit. c. 6.

242. 2, q. 82, a. 1.

25“Recogitate enim eum qui talem sustinuit a peccatoribus adversus semetipsum contradictionem, ut ne fatigemini, animis vestris deficientes.” – Heb. xii. 3.

26“Novissimum virornm, virum dolorum.” – Isa. liii. 3.

27“Nondum enim usque ad sanguinem restitistis, adversus peccatum repugnantes.” – Heb. xii. 4.

28“Malim insilire in rogum ardentissimum. quam peccatum ullum admittere in Deum meum.” – Vit. c. 19, ap. Sur. 16 Nov.

29Simil. c. 190.

30“Christo igitur passo in carne, et vos eadem cogitatione armamini.” – 1 Pet. iv. 1.

31“ ‘Armamini,’ quia memoria passionis contra tentationes munit et roborat.”

32(Thomas à Kempis, Imit. Chr. l. 2, c. 12. §15.)

33“Si quid melius saluti hominum quam pati fuisset, Christus utique verbo et exemplo ostendisset.”

34“Videntes angustias Domini, levius vestras portabitis.” – In Cant. s. 43.

35“Quid non suave tibi esse poterit, cum tibi collegeris omnes amaritudines Domini?” – De Divers. s. 22.

36Vit. c. 23, ap. Sur. 27 Sept.

37“Grata ignominia crucis ei qui Crucifixo ingratus non est.” – In Cant. s. 25.

38“Tunc exspuerunt in faciem ejus, et colaphis eum ceciderunt; alii autem palmas in faciem ejus dederunt, dicentes: Prophetiza nobis, Christe, quis est qui te percussit?” – Matt. xxvi. 67.

39“Martyr, videns sanguinem suum, non sua, sed Redemptoris vulnera attendit, dolores non sentit; nec deest dolor, sed pro Christo contemnitur. Nihil enim tam amarum ad mortem est, quod morte Christi non sanetur.”

40“In omnibus divites facti estis in illo.” – 1 Cor. i. 5.

41“Amen, amen, dico vobis: si quid petieritis Patrem in nomine meo, dabit vobis.” – John, xvi. 23.

42Ann. 1323, n. 68.

43“Ut per mortem destrueret eum qui habebat mortis imperium, id est, diabolum, et liberaret eos qui, timore mortis, per totam vitam obnoxii erant servituti.” – Heb ii. 14, 15.

44“Unde debuit per omnia fratribus similari, ut misericors fieret . . .; in eo enim in quo passus est ipse et tentatus, potens est et eis, qui tentantur, auxiliari.” – Ibid. 17.

45“Si imminente morte turbaris, non te existimes reprobum, nec desperationi te abjicias; ideo enim Christus turbatus est in conspectu sum mortis.”

46“Christus, per mortem suam, abstulit timorem mortis; quando enim considerat homo quod Filius Dei mori voluit, non timet mori.” – In Heb. ii. lect. 4.

47“Proprio Filio suo non pepercit, sed pro nobis omnibus tradidit illum; quomodo non etiam cum illo omnia nobis donavit?” – Rom. viii. 32.

48“Quod ex me mihi deest, usurpo mihi ex visceribus Domini.” – In Cant. s. 61.

49“Deus qui justificat, quis est qui condemnet? Christus Jesus, qui mortuus est, imo qui et resurrexit. qui est ad dexteram Dei, qui etiam interpellat pro nobis.” – Rom. viii. 34.

50“Qui dedit semetipsum pro peccatis nostris, ut eriperet nos de præsenti sæculo nequam.” – Gal i. 4.

51“Quotidie orat Christus pro Ecclesia.” – In Ps. pœn. v.

52“ ‘Interpellat,’ id est, pro nobis mediationis ratione supplicat.” – De Theol. or. 4.

53In Ps. xxix. en. 2.

54“Qui nos canto pretio redemit, non vult perire quos emit . . .: si peccata nostra superant nos, pretium suum non contemnit Deus.” – Serm. 22, E. B.

55“Per patientiam curramus ad propositum nobis certamen, aspicientes in Auctorem fidei et Consummatorem Jesum, qui, proposito sibi gaudio, sustinuit crucem, confusione contempta.” – Heb. xii. 1.

56“Omnia bona terrena contempsit Christus, ut contemnenda demonstraret; omnia terrena sustinuit mala, quæ sustinenda præcipiebat: ut neque in illis quæreretur felicitas, neque in istis infelicitas timeretur.” – De catech. rud. c. 22.

57“Per ipsum habemus accessum . . . ad Patrem.” – Eph. ii. 18.

58“Vix enim pro justo quis moritur; nam pro bono forsitan quis audeat mori.—Cum adhuc peccatores essemus, secundum tempus, Christus pro nobis mortuus est.—Si enim, cum inimici essemus, reconciliati sumus Deo per mortem Filii ejus, multo magis, reconciliati, salvi erimus in vita ipsius.” – Rom. v. 7–10.

59“Sed non sicut delictum, ita et donum; si enim unius delicto multi mortui sunt, multo magis gratis Dei et donum in gratis unius hominis Jesu Christi in plures abundavit.” – Ibid. 15.

60“Amphora adepti per ineffabilem Christi gratiam, quam per diaboli amiseramus invidiam.” – De Asc. Dom. s. 1.

61“Te ergo quæsumus, tuis famulis subveni, quos pretioso sanguine redemisti.”

62“Jesus meus, Deus meus, et omnia!”

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Considerations on the passion of Jesus Christ - Chapter 10

WE MUST PLACE ALL OUR HOPES IN THE MERITS OF JESUS CHRIST.

I.

Jesus Crucified is our only Hope in all our Wants.

There is no salvation in any other.¹ St. Peter says that all our salvation is in Jesus Christ, who, by means of the cross, where he sacrificed his life for us, opened us a way for hoping for every blessing from God, if we would be faithful to his commands.

Let us hear what St. John Chrysostom says of the cross: “The cross is the hope of Christians, the staff of the lame, the comfort of the poor, the destruction of the proud, the victory over the devils, the guide of youth, the rudder of sailors, the refuge of those who are in danger, the counsellor of the just, the rest of the afflicted, the physician of the sick, the glory of martyrs.”² The cross, that is, Jesus crucified, is—

The hope of the faithful, because if we had not Jesus Christ we should have no hope of salvation.

It is the staff of the lame, because we are all lame in our present state of corruption. We should have no strength to walk in the way of salvation except that which is communicated to us by the grace of Jesus Christ.

It is the comfort of the poor, which we all are, for all we have we have from Jesus Christ.

It is the destruction of the proud, for the followers of the Crucified cannot be proud, seeing him dead as a malefactor upon the cross.

It is victory over the devils, for the very sign of the cross is sufficient to drive them from us.

It is the instructor of the young, for admirable is the teaching which they who are beginning to walk in the ways of God learn from the cross.

It is the rudder of mariners, and guides us through the storms of this present life.

It is the refuge of those in danger, for they who are in peril of perishing, through temptations of strong passions, find a secure harbor by flying to the cross.

It is the counsellor of the just, for how many saints learn wisdom from the cross, that is, from the troubles of this life.

It is the rest of the afflicted, for where can they find greater relief than in contemplating the cross, on which a God suffers for love of them?

It is the physician of the sick, for when they embrace it, they are healed of the wounds of the soul.

It is the glory of martyrs, for to be made like Jesus Christ, the King of Martyrs, is the greatest glory they can possess.

In a word, all our hopes are placed in the merits of Jesus Christ. The Apostle says, I know how to be humbled, and I know how to abound; how to be satisfied, and how to hunger; how to abound, and how to suffer poverty. I can do all things in Him who strengthens me.³ (In the Greek text, In Christ who is strengthening me.⁴) Thus St. Paul, instructed by the Lord, says, I know how I ought to conduct myself: when God humbles me, I resign myself to his will; when he exalts me, to him I give all the honor; when he gives me abundance, I thank him; when he makes me endure poverty, still I bless him; and I do all this not by my own strength, but by the strength of the grace which God gives me. For he that trusts in Jesus Christ is strengthened with invincible power.

The Lord, says St. Bernard, makes those who hope in him all-powerful.⁵ The saint also adds that a soul which does not presume upon its own strength, but is strengthened by the Word, can govern itself, so that no evil shall have power over it;⁶ and that no force, no fraud, no snare can cast it down.⁷

The Apostle prayed thrice to God that the impure temptations which troubled him might be driven away, and he was answered, My grace is sufficient for thee, for My strength is accomplished in weakness.⁸ How is this that the virtue of perfection consists in weakness? St. Thomas, with St. Chrysostom, explains it, that the greater our weakness and inclination to evil, the greater is the strength given us by God. Therefore, St. Paul himself says, I will gladly, therefore, glory in my infirmities, that the strength of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore, I take pleasure in my infirmities, in insults, in necessities, in persecutions, in straits for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.⁹

For the word of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but to those who are saved it is the power of God.¹⁰ Thus St. Paul warns us not to follow after worldly men, who place their trust in riches, in their relatives and friends in the world, and account the saints fools for despising those earthly helps; yet men ought to place all their hopes in the love of the cross,—that is, of Jesus crucified, who gives every blessing to those who trust in him. We must further remark that the power and strength of the world is altogether different from that of God; it is exercised in worldly riches and honors, but the latter in humility and endurance. Wherefore St. Augustine says that our strength lies in knowing that we are weak, and in humbly confessing what we are.¹¹ And St. Jerome says, that this one thing constitutes the perfection of the present life, that we should know that we are imperfect.¹² For then we distrust our own strength, and abandon ourselves to God, who protects and saves those who trust in him. He is the protector of all who hope in Him, says David. Thou savest those who hope in Thee.¹³ He that trusts in the Lord is like the Mount Sion, which is never removed.¹⁴ Therefore St. Augustine reminds us that, when we are tempted, we must hasten and abandon ourselves in Jesus Christ, who will not suffer us to fall, but will embrace and hold us up, and thus remedy our weakness.¹⁵

When Jesus Christ took upon himself the weaknesses of humanity, he merited for us a strength which conquers our weakness: For in that He Himself hath suffered and been tempted, He is powerful to help those who are tempted.¹⁶ How is this, that the Saviour in being himself tempted, became able to strengthen us in our temptations? It is meant that Jesus Christ, by being afflicted by temptations, became more ready to feel for us and help us when we are tempted. To this corresponds that other text of the same Apostle, We have not a High Priest who cannot feel compassion for our infirmities; but was in all things tempted like us, though without sin. Therefore let us go with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace in the help we need.¹⁷

Jesus himself, in enduring fears, weariness, and sorrows, as the Evangelists bear witness, speaking especially of the afflictions that he endured in the garden of Gethsemani the night before he suffered,¹⁸ has merited for us a courage to resist the threats of those who would corrupt us, a strength to overcome the weariness we experience in prayer, in mortifications, and other devout exercises, and a power of enduring with peace of mind that sadness which afflicts us in adversity.

We must also know that he himself in the garden, at the sight of all the pains and the desolate death that he was about to endure, chose to suffer this human weakness. The spirit indeed is ready, but the flesh is weak;¹⁹ and he prayed to his divine Father that, if it were possible, the cup might pass from him.²⁰ But immediately he added, Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt.²¹ And for the whole time that he continued praying in the garden, he repeated the same prayer, Thy will be done; and the third time he prayed, saying the same thing. With those words, Thy will be done,²² Jesus Christ merited and obtained for us resignation in all adversity, and gained for his martyrs and confessors a strength to resist all the persecutions and torments of tyrants. “This word,” says St. Leo, “inflamed all the confessors, it crowned all the martyrs.”²³

Thus also by the horror that he experienced through our sins, which caused him to fall into a bitter agony in the garden,²⁴ he merited for us contrition for our sins. By the abandonment by the Father which he suffered on the cross, he merited for us strength to retain our courage in all desolations and darknesses of spirit. By bowing his head in death upon the cross, in obedience to the will of the Father,²⁵ he merited for us all the victories which we gain over passions and temptations; and patience in the pains of life, and especially in the bitternesses and straits which we endure in death. In a word, St. Leo writes that Jesus Christ came to take our infirmities and distresses, in order to communicate to us his strength and constancy.²⁶

St. Paul says, that though he was the Son of God, he learned obedience in the things that he suffered;²⁷ from which we are to understand, not that Jesus in his Passion learned the virtue of obedience, and did not know it beforehand, but, as St. Anselm says, he learned not only by the knowledge which he had before, but by actual experience, how grievous was the death he endured in order to obey his Father. And at the same time he experienced how great is the merit of obedience, for by this he obtained for himself the utmost height of glory, which is the seat at his Father’s right hand, and eternal salvation for us. Therefore the Apostle adds, Being perfected, He became Me cause of eternal life to all them that obey Him.²⁸ He says, being perfected, because, having completely fulfilled all obedience, by suffering patiently what he endured in his Passion, Jesus Christ became the cause of eternal life to all those who obediently suffer with patience the troubles of this present life.

By this patience of Jesus Christ the holy martyrs were animated and strengthened to embrace with patience the most cruel torments that the cruelty of tyrants could devise; and not only with patience, but with joy and desire to suffer for the love of Jesus Christ. In the celebrated letter which St. Ignatius the martyr wrote to the Romans after he had been condemned to be thrown to the wild beasts, and before he went to the place of his martyrdom, we read, “Suffer me, my children, to be ground down by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may become corn for my Redeemer. I seek only him who died for me. He who is the only object of my love was crucified for me, and the love I bear to him makes me desire to be crucified for him.” St. Leo²⁹ writes of St. Laurence the martyr, that when he lay upon the gridiron, the flames which burned him without were less hot than the fire that burned within him. Eusebius³⁰ and Palladius³¹ relate of St. Potamena, a virgin of Alexandria, that when she was condemned to be thrown in a caldron of boiling pitch, that she might suffer the more for the love of her crucified Spouse, she prayed the tyrant to have her thrust in little by little, that her death might become more torturing; and she had her desire, for they began by thrusting her feet into the pitch, so that she was for three hours in this torment, and did not die till the pitch reached her neck. Such was the patience, such the fortitude which the martyrs gained from the Passion of Jesus Christ.

It was this courage which the Crucified infuses into those who love him, that made St. Paul say, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or hunger, or nakedness, or perils, or persecution, or the sword?³² And at the same time he says, In all these things we are conquerors through Him who loved us.³³ The love of the martyrs for Jesus Christ was unconquerable, because it gained its strength from him who is unconquerable, who strengthened them to suffer. And let us not imagine that the torments of the martyrs were miraculously deprived of their power of torturing, or that their heavenly consolations lulled the pains of the torments; this perhaps may sometimes have happened, but ordinarily they truly felt all their pains, and many through weakness yielded to the pangs; so that in the case of those who were constant in suffering, their patience was entirely the gift of God, who gave them their strength.

The first object of our hopes is eternal blessedness, that is, the blessedness of God,—the fruition of God, as St. Thomas teaches.³⁴ And all the means which are necessary for obtaining this salvation, which consists in the enjoyment of God,—such as the pardon of our sins, final perseverance in divine grace, and a good death,—we must hope for, not from our own strength, nor our good resolutions, but solely from the merits and grace of Jesus Christ. That our confidence, therefore, may be firm, let us believe with infallible certainty that we must look for the accomplishment of all these means of salvation only from the merits of Jesus Christ.

II.

The Hope that We have in Jesus Christ that He will pardon our Sins.

And first, in speaking of the pardon of sins, we must remember that for this very end our Redeemer came upon earth, that he might pardon sinners: The Son of Man came to save that which was lost.³⁵ Therefore the Baptist, when he showed to the Jews that their Messiah was already come, said, Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world.³⁶ As it was foretold by Isaias, As a sheep before her shearers, He shall be dumb;³⁷ and also by Jeremias, I am as a lamb that is carried to be a victim.³⁸ And first, he was foreshadowed by Moses in the paschal lamb, and by the sacrifice of a lamb to God under the law every morning, and by other evening sacrifices. All these lambs, however, could not take away a single sin; they served only to represent the sacrifice of the divine Lamb Jesus Christ, who with his blood would wash our souls, and thus free them both from the stain of sin and from the eternal punishment of sin, for this is implied by the words take away; taking upon himself the duty of satisfying the divine justice for us by his death, according to what Isaias wrote, The Lord hath laid upon Him the iniquity of us all.³⁹ Wherefore St. Cyril writes, “One is slain for all, and the whole human race is restored to God the Father.”⁴⁰ By dying, Jesus desired to regain for God all mankind who were lost.

Oh, how great is the debt we owe to Jesus Christ! If a criminal condemned to death were already standing at the gibbet with the rope around his neck, and a friend were to come and take the rope, and bind it round himself, and die in place of the guilty man, how great would be his obligation to love him! This is what Jesus Christ has done; He has been willing to die on the cross to deliver us from eternal death.

Jesus bore our sins, says St. Peter, in His body on the tree, that, being dead to sin, we might live to justice; by whose stripes we were healed.⁴¹ “What can be more wonderful,” cries St. Bonaventure, “than that wounds should heal, and death give life?”⁴² St. Paul says that God has graced us in His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the remission of sins, according to the riches of His grace, which have superabounded in us.⁴³ And this resulted from the covenant made by Jesus Christ with his divine Father, that he would pardon us our offences, and receive us into his favor for the sake of the Passion and death of his Son.

And in this sense the Apostle called Jesus Christ the mediator of the New Testament. In the Holy Scriptures the word Testament has two senses; that of a covenant, or an agreement between two parties formerly disagreed; and that of a promise, or disposition by will, by which the testator leaves an inheritance to his heirs; and this testament is not valid until the testator’s death. We have formerly spoken of the Testament as a promise; we now speak of it as a covenant, in the sense in which the Apostle uses it when he calls Jesus Christ the Mediator of the New Testament.⁴⁴

Man, by reason of his sin, was a debtor to the divine justice, and an enemy of God; the Son of God came on earth and took man’s flesh; and thus, being God and man, he became a mediator between God and man, acting on behalf of both; and in order that he might bring about peace between them, and obtain for man the divine grace, he offered himself to pay with his blood and his death the debt due by man. This was the reconciliation prefigured in the Old Testament by all the sacrifices and symbols ordained by God, such as the tabernacle, the altar, the veil, the candlestick, the censer, the ark, wherein were contained the rod and the tables of the law. All these things were signs and figures of the promised redemption; and because this redemption was to be accomplished by the blood of Jesus Christ, therefore God appointed that all the sacrifices should be offered with the pouring-forth of the blood of the animals (which was a figure of the blood of the Lamb of God), while all the instruments above named were sprinkled with the blood: Wherefore, not even the Old Testament was dedicated without blood.⁴⁵

St. Paul says that the first Testament—that is, the first alliance, covenant, or mediation—which was accomplished by the old law, and which prefigured the mediation of Jesus Christ under the old law, was celebrated with the blood of goats and calves; and that with this blood were sprinkled the book, the people, the tabernacle, and all the sacred vessels: When the commandment of the law of Moses was read to all the people, the priest taking the blood of calves and goats with water and with scarlet wool⁴⁶ (the scarlet wool signified Jesus Christ, for as wool is by nature white, and becomes red by being dyed, thus Jesus, who was white by nature and innocence, appeared on the cross all red with blood, being condemned as a malefactor, and thus fulfilled in himself the words of the Spouse in the Canticles, My beloved is white and is ruddy)⁴⁷ and with hyssop (a lowly herb, which expressed the humility of Jesus Christ), sprinkled both the book and all the people, saying, This is the blood of the covenant, which God has commanded; and in like manner he sprinkled the tabernacle and all the vessels of ministration with blood.⁴⁸ For all things are purged with blood according to the law, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.⁴⁹ The Apostle repeats the word blood several times, in order to fix in the hearts of the Jews, and of all men, that without the blood of Jesus Christ we have no hope of pardon for our sins. As, then, in the old law, by the blood of the victims the outward defilement of sin was taken away, and the temporal punishment due to them was remitted; so, in the new law, the blood of Jesus Christ washes away the inward stain of sin, according to St. John’s words, He loved us, and washed us with His own blood.⁵⁰

St. Paul thus explains the whole truth in the same chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Christ being a High Priest of coming good things, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is, not of this creation, neither by the blood of goats, but by His own blood, entered once into the Holies, having obtained eternal redemption.⁵¹ The high-priest entered by the tabernacle into the Holy of Holies, and, by sprinkling the blood of animals, purged sinners from their outward defilement and from temporal punishment; for in order to the pardon of the sin, and for their liberation from eternal punishment, contrition, faith, and hope in the coming Messiah, who was about to die to obtain pardon for them, were absolutely necessary for the Jews. Jesus Christ, on the other hand, by means of his own body (which was the greater and more perfect tabernacle spoken of by the Apostle), which was sacrificed on the cross, entered into the Holy of Holies of heaven, which was closed to us, and opened it to us by means of this redemption.

Therefore St. Paul, in order to encourage us to hope for the pardon of all our sins, by trusting in the blood of Jesus Christ, goes on to say: If the blood of goats and bulls, and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkled on the unclean, sanctifies to the purification of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who, by the Holy Spirit, offered Himself without stain to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God!⁵² This he says because Jesus offered himself to God without shadow of sin, for otherwise he would not have been a worthy mediator, fit to reconcile God with sinful man, nor would his blood have had virtue to purge our consciences from dead works—that is, from sins, from the works without merit, and deserving of eternal punishment, to serve the living God. God pardons us for no other end than that for the rest of our life we should devote it wholly to loving and serving him.

Finally, the Apostle concludes, Therefore He is the mediator of the new covenant. Because our Redeemer, through the boundless love he bore us, was willing by the price of his blood, to deliver us from eternal death, therefore he obtained for us from God pardon, grace, and eternal blessedness, if we are faithful to love him until death. This was the mediation or covenant accomplished between Jesus Christ and God, by the terms of which pardon and salvation are promised us.

This promise of pardon for our sins by the blood of Jesus Christ was confirmed to us by Jesus himself the day before his death, when, leaving to us the sacrament of the Eucharist, he said, This is My blood of the new covenant, which shall be poured forth for many for the remission of sins.⁵³ He says, poured forth, because in the sacrifice which was at hand he was about to shed not only a part, but the whole of his blood, to satisfy for our sins, and obtain pardon for us. Therefore he desired that the sacrifice should be renewed every day at every Mass that is celebrated, in order that his blood might continually plead in our favor. And therefore he is called a priest after the order of Melchisedech: Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchisedech.⁵⁴ Aaron offered sacrifices of animals, but Melchisedech offered bread and wine, which was a figure of the sacrifice of the altar, in which our Saviour, under the species of bread and wine, offered at his last supper his body and blood to God, as he was about to sacrifice it on the following day in his Passion; and which he constantly offers by the hands of his priests, renewing by them the sacrifice of the cross. Therefore David called Jesus Christ an eternal priest, as St. Paul explains it, saying, He that remaineth forever hath an eternal priesthood.⁵⁵ The ancient priests came to an end by their death, but Jesus, being eternal, has an eternal priesthood. But how does he exercise his priesthood in heaven? The Apostle explains this, adding, Wherefore he is able to save forever those who come to God by Him, ever living to intercede for us.⁵⁶ The great sacrifice of the cross, represented still in that of the altar, has power forever to save those who, by means of Jesus Christ (being rightly prepared by faith and good works), approach to God; and this sacrifice, as St. Ambrose and St. Augustine write, Jesus, as man, continues to offer to the Father for our benefit, performing there, as he did on earth, the office of our advocate and mediator, and also of our priest, which is to intercede for us.

St. John Chrysostom says that the wounds of Jesus Christ are so many mouths,⁵⁷ which continually implore from God pardon for us sinners. Oh, how much better, says St. Paul, does the blood of Jesus Christ plead for us in calling down the divine mercy than the blood of Abel,⁵⁸ which called for vengeance against Cain! In the revelations of St. Mary Magdalene of Pazzi it is recorded that one day God spoke to her as follows: “My justice is changed into mercy through the vengeance that was taken upon the innocent flesh of Jesus Christ. The blood of my Son does not call for vengeance like the blood of Abel, but for mercy only, and at this voice my justice is necessarily appeased. The blood binds my hands, so that they cannot move to take that revenge upon sins which they would otherwise have taken.”

St. Augustine writes that God has promised us the remission of our sins and eternal life, but he has done more than he promised.⁵⁹ To give us pardon and paradise cost Jesus Christ nothing, but to redeem us cost him his blood and his life. The Apostle St. John exhorts us to flee from sin; and, in order that we may not despair of pardon for the sins we have committed, if we have a firm resolution not to commit them again, he gives us courage to hope for pardon, saying that we have to do with Jesus Christ, who not only died to pardon us, but, since his death, is become our advocate with the divine Father.⁶⁰ To our sins were due disgrace with God and eternal damnation; but the Passion of our Saviour has acquired for us grace and eternal salvation; and justice itself requires this, since, on account of his merits, the Eternal Father has promised to pardon and save us, if we are only disposed to receive his grace and to obey his commands, as St. Paul writes, Being made perfect, He is the cause of eternal salvation to-all that obey Him.⁶¹ Wherefore the Apostle exhorts us to run with patience the race that is before us, looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of faith; who, for the sake of the joy that was before him, endured the cross, and despised shame.⁶²

O precious blood! Thou art my hope. O blood of the innocent one! wash the stains of the guilty.⁶³ O my Jesus! my foes having betrayed me into offending Thee, now tell me that I have no more hope of salvation in Thee; many say unto my soul, There is no salvation for him in his God.⁶⁴ But I trust in Thy blood that Thou hast shed for me. I will say with David, Thou, O Lord, wilt lift me up.⁶⁵ My foes terrify me, and say that if I go to Thee, after so many sins, Thou wilt drive me from Thee; but I read in St. John Thy promise, that him who cometh to Thee, Thou wilt not cast out.⁶⁶ To Thee, therefore, I come, full of confidence. We pray Thee, help Thy servants, whom Thou hast redeemed with Thy precious blood.⁶⁷ Thou, O my Saviour, who hast poured forth all Thy blood in such agonies, and with such love, that Thou mightest not see me perish, do Thou have mercy on me, pardon me, and save me.

III.

The Hope that we have in Jesus Christ that He will grant us Final Perseverance.

To obtain perseverance in good, we must not trust in our resolutions and in the promises we have made to God; if we trust in our own strength, we are lost. All our hope of preserving the grace of God must be placed in the merits of Jesus Christ, and thus, trusting in his help, we shall persevere till death, though we were attacked by all our enemies in earth and hell. Sometimes we find ourselves so cast down in mind, and so assaulted by temptations, that we seem almost lost; let us not then lose courage, nor abandon ourselves to despair; let us go to the Crucified, and he will hold us up.

The Lord permits his saints sometimes to find themselves in tempests and fears. St. Paul says that the afflictions and terrors which he suffered in Asia were so overpowering that he became weary of life;⁶⁸ meaning that he was so, so far as he depended on his own strength, in order to teach us that God, from time to time, leaves us in desolations, in order that we may know our misery, and, distrusting ourselves, may humbly have recourse to his goodness, and gain from him strength not to fall.⁶⁹ More clearly he expresses the same in another place, We are cast down, but we perish not.⁷⁰ We find ourselves oppressed with sadness and passions, but do not abandon ourselves to despair; we are tossed about on the water, but do not sink, because the Lord, by his grace, gives us strength against our enemies. But the Apostle exhorts us ever to bear before our eyes that we are weak, and prone to lose the treasure of divine grace, and that all our strength for preserving it comes not from ourselves but from God: We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the loftiness of the power may be of God, and not of ourselves.⁷¹

Let us, then, be firmly persuaded that in this life we must ever beware of placing any confidence in our own works. Our strongest armor with which we shall ever win the victory over the assaults of hell is prayer. This is the armor of God of which St. Paul speaks: Put on the armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in high places. Therefore, take unto you the armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and to stand in all things perfect. Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of justice, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; in all things taking the shield of faith, wherewith you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one; and take unto you the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit (which is the word of God), by all prayer and supplication, praying at all times in the Spirit.⁷²

Let us pause and weigh well these various expressions.

Stand, having your loins girl about with truth.⁷³ There the Apostle alludes to the military girdle with which soldiers gird themselves as a token of the fidelity which they have sworn to their sovereign. The girdle which the Christian must put on is the possession of the truth of the doctrine of Jesus Christ, in accordance with which we must repress all inordinate passions, especially those of impurity, which are the most dangerous of all.

Having on the breastplate of justice.⁷⁴ The Christian’s breastplate is a good life, without which he will have little strength to resist the assaults of his foes.

And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.⁷⁵ The military shoes which the Christian ought to wear, in order that he may go speedily where it is necessary, unlike those whose feet are bare, and who walk slowly, is the possession of a mind prepared to embrace in practice, and to teach by example, the holy maxims of the Gospel.

In all things taking the shield of faith.⁷⁶ The shield with which the soldier of Christ must defend himself against the fiery darts (that is, darts which pierce like fire) of the enemy is a steady faith, strengthened with holy hope, and especially with divine charity. The helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit.⁷⁷ The helmet, as St. Anselm teaches us, is the hope of eternal salvation; and, lastly, the sword of the Spirit, our spiritual sword, is the divine word, by which God repeatedly promises to hear those who pray to him. Seek, and it shall he given you.⁷⁸ He that seeketh, receiveth.⁷⁹ Call to Me, and I will hear thee.⁸⁰ Call Me, and I will deliver thee.⁸¹

Wherefore the Apostle continues, By all prayer and supplication, praying at all times in the spirit; and in the same watching with all instance and supplication for all the saints.⁸² Thus, prayer is the most powerful of the arms with which the Lord gives us victory over our evil passions and the temptations of hell; but this prayer must be made in the spirit; that is, not with the mouth only, but with the heart. Moreover, it must last through our life,—“at all times;” for as the struggle endures, so must our prayers. It must be urgent and repeated; if the temptation does not yield at the first prayer, we must repeat it a second, third, or fourth time; and if it still continues, we must add sighs, tears, importunity, vehemence, as if we would do violence to God, that he may give us the grace of victory. This is what the Apostle’s words, “with all instance and supplication,” mean. The Apostle adds, “for all saints,” which means that we are not to pray for ourselves alone; but for the perseverance of all the faithful who are in the grace of God, and especially of priests, that they may labor for the conversion of unbelievers and all sinners, repeating in our prayers the words of Zacharias, To give light to them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death.⁸³

It is of great use for resisting our enemies in spiritual combats, to anticipate them in our meditations, by preparing ourselves to do violence to them to our utmost power, on all occasions when they may suddenly come upon us. Thus the saints have been able to preserve the greatest mildness, or at least not to reply by a single word, and not to be disturbed when they have received a great injury, a violent persecution, a severe pang in body or in mind, the loss of property of great value, the death of a much-loved relative. Such victories are ordinarily not acquired without the aid of a life of long discipline, without frequenting sacraments, and a continual exercise of meditation, spiritual reading, and prayer. Therefore these victories are with difficulty obtained by those who have not taken great heed to avoid dangerous occasions, or who are attached to the vanities or pleasures of the world, and practise very little the mortification of the senses; by those, in a word, who live a soft and easy life. St. Augustine says that in the spiritual life, “first, pleasures are to be conquered, then pains;”⁸⁴ meaning that a person who is given to seek the pleasures of the senses will scarcely resist a great passion or temptation which assails him; a man who loves too much the esteem of the world will scarcely endure a grave affront without losing the grace of God.

It is true that we must look for all our strength to live without sin, and to do good works, not from ourselves, but from the grace of Jesus Christ; but we must take great care not to make ourselves weaker than we are by nature through our own fault. The defects of which we take no account will cause the divine light to fail, and the devil will become stronger against us. For example, a desire to display to the world our learning, rank, or vanity in dress, or the seeking of any superfluous pleasure, or resentment at every inattentive word or action, or a wish to please every one, though at the loss of our spiritual profit, or neglect of works of piety through the fear of man, or little acts of disobedience towards our Superiors, little murmurings, trifling but cherished aversions, trivial falsehoods, slight attacks upon our neighbor, loss of time in gossip, or the indulgence of curiosity,—in a word, every attachment to earthly things, and every act of inordinate self-love, can serve as a help to our enemy to drag us over some precipice; or, at least, this defect deliberately consented to will deprive us of that abundance of divine help without which we may find ourselves fallen into ruin.

We grieve when we find ourselves so dry in spirit and desolate in prayer, in Communions, and in all our devout exercises; but how can God make us enjoy his presence and loving visits while we are thus niggardly and inattentive to him? He that sows sparingly shall reap also sparingly.⁸⁵ If we cause him so much displeasure, how can we expect to enjoy his heavenly consolations? If we do not detach ourselves in everything from earth, we shall never wholly belong to Jesus Christ, and where shall we go to protect ourselves? Jesus, by his humility, merited for us the grace of conquering pride; by his poverty he merited strength for us to despise earthly goods; and by his patience, constancy in overcoming slights and injuries. “What pride,” writes St. Augustine, “could have been healed, if not healed by the humility of the Son of God? what avarice, except by the poverty of Christ? what anger, except by the Saviour’s patience?”⁸⁶ But if we are cold in the love of Jesus Christ, and neglect to pray continually to him to help us, and nourish in our hearts any earthly affection, with difficulty shall we persevere in a good life. Let us pray, let us pray always. With prayer we shall obtain everything.

O Saviour of the world! O my only hope! by the merits of Thy Passion, deliver me from every impure desire which may hinder me from loving Thee as I ought. May I be stripped of all desires that savor of the world; grant that the only object of my desires may be Thyself, who art the sovereign good, and the only good that is worthy of love. By Thy sacred wounds heal my infirmities, give me grace to keep far from my heart every love which is not for Thee, who deservest all my love. O Jesus, my love! Thou art my hope. O sweet words! sweet consolation! Jesus, my love, Thou art my hope!

IV.

The Hope that we have in Jesus Christ that He will grant us Eternal Happiness.

And therefore He is the mediator of Me New Testament, that by means of His death . . . they that are called may receive the promise of eternal inheritance.⁸⁷ Here St. Paul speaks of the New Testament not as a covenant, but as a promise, or testamentary disposition, by which Jesus Christ left us heirs of the kingdom of heaven. And because a testament is not in force until the death of the testator, therefore it was necessary that Jesus Christ should die, that we might become his heirs, and enter into the possession of paradise. Wherefore the Apostle adds, For where there is a testament, the death of the testator must of necessity come in. For a testament is of force after men are dead; otherwise it is as yet of no strength whilst the testator liveth.⁸⁸

Through the merits of Jesus Christ our mediator we have received grace in baptism to become the sons of God; unlike the Jews, who, under the old covenant, though they were the elect, were yet all servants. Whence the Apostle writes, For there are two covenants, of which one on Mount Sina engendereth to bondage.⁸⁹ The first mediation was made with God by Moses on Mount Sina, when God, through Moses, promised to the Jews the abundance of temporal blessings, if they observed the laws which he gave them; but this mediation, says St. Paul, only produced servants, unlike the mediation of Jesus Christ, which produces sons: We, brethren, like Isaac, are the children of promise.⁹⁰ If, then, being Christians, we are the sons of God, by consequence, says the Apostle, we are also heirs;⁹¹ for a portion of the father’s inheritance is given to all sons, and this is the inheritance of eternal glory in paradise, which Jesus Christ has merited for us by his death.

St. Paul nevertheless adds, in the same place, If we suffer with Him, we shall also be glorified with Him.⁹² It is true that, by our sonship to God, which Jesus Christ has obtained for us by his death, we have acquired a right to paradise; but this is on the supposition that we are faithful to correspond to the divine grace by our good works, and especially by holy patience. Therefore the Apostle says that in order to obtain eternal glory, as Jesus Christ has obtained it, we must suffer upon earth as Jesus Christ suffered. He goes before, as our captain, with his cross; under this standard we must follow him, each bearing his own cross, as the same Lord admonishes us, He that will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.⁹³

St. Paul also exhorts us to suffer with courage, strengthened by the hope of paradise, reminding us that the glory which will be given us in the next life will be infinitely greater than all our sufferings, if we suffer here with good will, in order to fulfil the divine pleasure: I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come that shall be revealed in us.⁹⁴ What beggar would be so foolish as not to give gladly all his rags for a great kingdom? We do not as yet enjoy this glory, because we are not yet saved, not having finished our life in the grace of God; but hope in the merits of Jesus Christ, says St. Paul, will save us: We are saved by hope.⁹⁵ He will not fail to give us every help to save us, if we are faithful to him, and continue to pray; and the promise of Jesus Christ assures us that he hears every one who prays: Every one that seeketh, receiveth.⁹⁶ Some one will say, I fear, not that God will refuse to hear me, if I pray to him, but I fear for myself, that I should not know how to pray as I ought. No, says St. Paul, fear not this, for when we pray, God himself aids our weakness, and makes us pray so as to be heard. The Spirit helpeth our infirmity, and asketh for us.⁹⁷ He asks, explains St. Austin, that is, he helps us to ask.⁹⁸

The Apostle would still further increase our confidence; he says, We know that all things work together for good to those that love God.⁹⁹ By this he teaches us that shame, sickness, poverty, persecutions, are not evils, as men of the world account them; for God turns them all into blessings and glory for those who suffer with patience. Finally, he says, Those whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son.¹⁰⁰ With these words he would persuade us that, if we would be saved, we must resolve to suffer everything rather than lose the divine grace, for no one can be admitted to the glory of the blessed, unless at the day of judgment his life be found conformed to the life of Jesus Christ. And that sinners may not, through these words, abandon themselves to despair on account of their guilt, St. Paul encourages them to hope for pardon, telling them that for this end the Eternal Father has not spared his own son, who was offered to satisfy for our sins, but gave him up to death,¹⁰¹ that he might pardon us sinners; and still further to increase the hope of penitent sinners, he says, Who is he that shall condemn? Is it Jesus Christ who died?¹⁰² as though he had said, Sinners, you who detest your sins, why do you fear to be condemned to hell? Tell me who is your judge,—who is to condemn you? Is it not Jesus Christ? How, then, can you fear that you will be condemned to death by this loving Redeemer, who, that he might not condemn you, has been willing to condemn himself to die as a malefactor upon the infamous gibbet of the cross? He speaks, indeed, of those sinners who, being contrite, have washed their souls in the blood of the Lamb, according to the words of St. John.¹⁰³

O my Jesus! if I look at my sins, I am ashamed to seek for paradise, after the many times that I have openly renounced Thee, for the sake of short and miserable pleasures; but looking to Thee upon this cross, I cannot cease to hope for paradise, knowing that Thou hast been willing to die upon this tree to atone for my sins, and to obtain for me this paradise which I had despised. O my sweet Redeemer! I hope, through the merits of Thy death, that Thou hast already pardoned me the sins I have committed against Thee, for which I repent, and now I would rather die for grief of them; and yet, O my God, I see that, with all that Thou bast pardoned me, it will ever be true, that, in my ingratitude, I have had the heart to cause Thee so much displeasure, who hast so much loved me. But what is past is past. At least for the rest of my life, O my Lord, I would love Thee with all my powers; I would live only for Thee; I would be wholly Thine; wholly, wholly, wholly Thine. But Thou must accomplish this. Detach me from every earthly thing, and give me light and strength to seek Thee alone, my only good, my love, my all.

O Mary, hope of sinners! thou must help me with thy prayers. Pray, pray for me, and cease not to pray, until thou seest me wholly given to God.

1“Non est in alio aliquo salus.” – Acts, iv. 12.

2“Crux, Spes Christianorum, clandorum Baculus, Consolatio pauperum, Destructio superborum, contra dæmones Triumphus, adolescentum Pædagogus, navigantium Gubernator, periclitantium Portus, justorum Consiliarius, tribulatorum Requies, agrotantium Medicus, martyrum Gloriatio.” – Hom. de Cruce.

3“Scio et humiliari, scio et abundare (ubique et in omnibus institutus sum); et satiari, et esurire; et abundare, et penuriam pati: omnia possum in eo qui me confortat.” – Phil. iv. 12.

4“Omnia possum in corroborante me Christo.”

5“Omnipotentes facit omnes qui in se sperant.”

6“Ita animus, si non præsumat de se, sed confortetur a Verbo, poterit dominari sui, ut non dominetur ei omnis iniquitas.”

7“Ita Verbo innixum nulla vis, nulls fraus, nulls illecebra, poterit stantem dejicere.” – In Cant. s. 85.

8“Sufficit tibi gratia mea; nam virtus in infirmitate perficitur.” – 2 Cor. xii. 9.

9“Libenter igitur gloriabor in infirmitatibus meis, ut inhabitet in me virtus Christi. Propter quod placeo mihi in infirmitatibus meis, in contumeliis, in necessitatibus, in persecutionibus, in angustiis pro Christo; cum enim infirmor, tunc potens sum.” – Ibid. 9, 10.

10“Verbum enim crucis pereuntibus quidem stultitia est; iis autem qui salvi fiunt, id est nobis, Dei virtus est.” – 1 Cor. i. 18.

11“Fortidudo nostra est infirmitatis in veritate cognitio et in humilitate confessio.”

12“Hæc hominibus sola perfectio, si imperfectos esse se noverint.” – Epist. 43. E. B.

13“Protector est omnium sperantium in se. – Qui salvos facia sperantes in te.” – Ps. xvii. 31; xvi. 7.

14“Qui confidunt in Domino, sicut mons Sion; non commovebitur in æternum, qui habitat in Jerusalem.” – Pi. cxxiv. 1.

15“Projice te in eum; non se subtrahet, ut cades; excipiet et sanabit te.” – Conf. l. 8, c. 11.

16“In eo enim, in quo passus est ipse et tentatus, potens est et eis, qui tentantur. auxiliari.” – Heb. ii. 18.

17“Non enim habemus Pontificem qui non possit compati infirmitatibus nostris; tentatum autem peromni a pro similitudine absque peccato. – Heb. iv. 15. — Adeamus ergo cum fiducia ad thronum gratiæ, ut misericordiam consequamur, et gratiam inveniamus in auxilio opportuno.” – Ibid. 16.

18“Cœpit pavere, et tædere,—contristari et mœstus esse.” – Mark, xiv. 33; Matt. xxvi. 37.

19“Spiritus quidem promptus est, caro autem infirma.” – Matt. xxvi. 41.

20“Pater mi! si possibile est, transeat a me calix iste.”

21“Verumtamen, non sicut ego volo, sed sicut tu.” – Matt. xxvi. 39.

22“Fiat voluntas tua! . . . Et oravit tertio, eundem sermonem dicens.” – Ibid. 44.

23“Hæc vox (Fiat) omnes Confessores accendit, omnes Martyres coronavit.” – De Pass. s. 7.

24“Factus in agonia, prolixius orabat.” – Luke, xxii. 43.

25“Factus obediens usque ad mortem, mortem autem crucis.” – Phil. ii. 8.

26“Venit nostra accipiens, et sua retribuens.” – De Pass. s. 3.

27“Et quidem cum esset Filius Dei, didicit, ex iis quæ passus est, obedientiam.” – Heb. v. 8.

28“Et consummatus, factus est omnibus obtemperantibus sibi causa salutis æternæ.” – Heb. v. 9.

29S. in fest. S. Laur.

30Hist. Eccl. l. 6. c. 5.

31Hist. Laus, c. 3.

32“Quis ergo nos separabit a charitate Christi? tribulatio? an angustia? an fames? an nuditas? an periculum? an persecutio? an gladius?” – Rom. viii. 35.

33“Sed in his omnibus superamus propter eum qui dilexit nos.” – Ibid. 37.

34“Fruitio Dei.” – 2. 2, q. 17, a. 2.

35“Venit enim Filius hominis salvare quod perierat.” – Matt. xviii. 11.

36“Ecce Agnus Dei, ecce qui tollit peccatum mundi.” – John, i. 29.

37“Et quasi agnus coram tondente se, obmutescet.” – Isa. liii. 7.

38“Et ego quasi agnus mansuetus, qui portatur ad victimam.” – Jer. xi. 19.

39“Posuit Dominus in eo iniquitatem omnium nostrum.” – Isa. liii. 6.

40“Unus pro omnibus occiditur, ut omne genus hominum Deo Patri lucrifaciat.”

41“Qui peccata nostra ipse pertulit in corpore suo super lignum, ut, peccatis mortui, justitiæ vivamus; cujus livore sanati sumus.” – 1 Pet. ii. 24.

42“Quid mirabilius quam quod mors vivificet, vulnera sanent?” – Stim. div. am. p. 1, c. 1.

43“Gratificavit nos in dilecto Filio suo, in quo habemus redemptionem per sanguinem ejus. remissionem peccatorum, secundum divitias gratiæ ejus, quæ superabundavit in nobis.” – Eph. i. 6.

44“Et ideo Novi Testamenti Mediator est.” – Heb. ix. 15.

45“Unde nec primum quidem (Testamentum) sine sanguine dedicatum est.” – Heb. ix. 18.

46“Lecto enim omni mandato Legis a Moyse universo populo, accipiens sanguinem vitulorum et hircorum cum aqua et lana coccinea et hyssopo. . . .” – Heb. ix. 19.

47“Dilectus meus candidus et rubicundus.” – Cant. v. 10.

48“Ipsum quoque librum et omnem populum aspersit, dicens: Hic sanguis Testamenti quod mandavit ad vos Deus.” – Heb. ix. 19, 20.

49“Et omnia pene in sanguine secundum Legem mundantur; et sine saxiguinis effusione, non fit remissio.” – Ibid, 22.

50“Lavit nos a peccatis nostris in sanguine suo.” – Apoc. i. 5.

51“Christus autem assistens Pontifex futurorum bonorum, per amplius et perfectius tabernaculum non manufactum, id est, non hujus creationis, neque per sanguinem hircorum aut vitulorum, sed per proprium sanguinem, introivit semel in Sancta, æterna redemptione inventa.” – Heb. ix. 11, 12.

52“Si enim sanguis hircorum et taurorum, et cinis vitulæ aspersus, inquinatos sanctificat ad emundationem carnis; quanto magis sanguis Christi, qui per Spiritum Sanctum semetipsum obtulit immaculatum Deo, emundabit conscientiam nostram ab operibus mortuis, ad serviendum Deo viventi!” – Ibid. 13, 14.

53“Hic est enim Sanguis meus Novi Testamenti, qui pro multis effundetur in remissionem peccatorum.” – Matt. xxvi. 28.

54“Tu es Sacerdos in æternum secundum ordinem Melchisedech.” – Ps. cix. 4.

55“Hic autem, eo quod maneat in æternum, sempiternum habet sacerdotium.” – Heb. vii. 24.

56“Unde et salvare in perpetuum potest accedentes per semetipsum ad Deum, semper vivens ad interpellandum pro nobis.” – Ibid. 25.

57“Tot vulnera, tot ora.”

58“Accessistis ad . . . Mediatorem Jesum, et sanguinis aspersionem melius loquentem, quam Abel.” – Heb. xii. 22.

59“Plus fecit, quam promisit.” – Enarr. in Ps. cxlviii.

60“Filioli mei, hæc scribo vobis ut non peccetis; sed et si quis peccaverit, Advocatum habemus apud Patrem, Jesum Christum justum” – 1 John, ii. 1.

61“Et consummatus, factus est omnibus obtemperantibus sibi causa salutis æternæ.” – Heb. v. 49.

62“Per patientiam curramus ad propositum nobis certamen, aspicientes in Auctorem fidei et Consummatorem Jesum, qui, proposito sibi gaudio, sustinuit crucem, confusione contempta.” – Ibid. xii. 1.

63“O Sanguis Innocentis! lava sordes pœnitentis.”

64“Multi dicunt animæ meæ: non est salus ipsi in Deo ejus.” – Ps. iii. 3.

65“Tu autem, Domine, susceptor meus es.” – Ibid. 4.

66“Eum, qui venit ad me, non ejiciam foras.” – John, vi. 37.

67“Te ergo quæsumus, tuis famulis subveni, quos pretioso sanguine redemisti.”

68“Supra modum gravati sumus supra virtutem, ita ut tæderet nos etiam vivere.” – 2 Cor. i. 8.

69“Ut non simus fidentes in nobis, sed in Deo, qui suscitat mortuos.” – Ibid. 9.

70“Aporiamur, sed non destituimur; . . . dejicimur, sed non perimus.” – Ibid. iv. 8.

71“Habemus autem thesaurum istum in vasis fictilibus, ut sublimitas sit virtutis Dei, et non ex nobis.” – 2 Cor. iv. 7.

72“Induite vos armaturam Dei, ut possitis stare adversus insidias diaboli. Quoniam non est nobis colluctatio adversus carnem et sanguinem, sed adversus principes et potestates.” – Eph. vi. 11-15.

73“State ergo succincti lumbos vestros in veritate.” – Ibid. 14.

74“Et induti loricam justitiæ.”

75“Et calceati pedes in præparatione Evangelii pacis.”

76“In omnibus sumentes scutum fidei, In quo possitis omnia tela nequissimi ignea extinguere.” – Eph. vi. 16.

77“Et galeam salutis assumite, et gladium spiritus, quod est verbum Dei.” – Ibid. 17.

78“Petite et dabitur vobis.” – Matt. vii. 7.

79“Omnis enim qui petit, accipit.” – Luke, xi. 10.

80“Clama ad me, et exaudiam te.” – Jer. xxxiii. 3.

81“Invoca me . . ., eruam te.” – Ps. xlix. 15.

82“Per omnem orationem et obsecrationem orantes omni tempore in spiritu, et in ipso vigilantes in omni instantia et obsecratione pro omnibus sanctis.” – Eph. vi. 18.

83“Illuminare his qui in tenebris et in umbra mortis sedent.” – Luke, i. 79.

84“Primo vincendæ stint delectationes, postea dolores.” – Serm. 335. E. B.

85“Qui parce seminat, parce et metet.” – 2 Cor. ix. 6.

86“Qua superbia sanari potest, si humilitate Filii Dei non sanatur? quæ avaritia, si paupertate Filii Dei non sanatur? quæ iracundia, si patientia Filii Dei non sanatur?” – De Ag. Chr. c. 11.

87“Et ideo Novi Testamenti Mediator est, ut, morte intercedente, . . . repromissionem accipiant, qui vocati sunt, æternæ hereditatis.” – Heb. ix. 15.

88“Ubi enim Testamentum est, mors necesse est intercedat testatoris Testamentum enim in mortuis confirmatum est; alioquin, nondum valet, dum vivit qui testatus est.” – Ibid. 16, 17.

89“Hæc enim sunt duo Testamenta: unum quidem in monte Sina in servitutem generans.” – Gal. iv. 24.

90“Nos autem, fratres, secundum Isaac, promissionis filii sumus.” – Gal. iv. 28.

91“Si autem filii, et hæredes; hæredes quidem Dei, cohæredes autem Christi.” – Rom. viii. 17.

92“Si tamen compatimur, ut et conglorificemur.” – Ibid.

93“Si quis vult post me venire, abneget semetipsum, et tollat crucem suam, et sequatur me.” – Matt. xvi. 24.

94“Existimo enim quod non sunt condignæ passiones hujus temporis ad futuram gloriam, quæ revelabitur in nobis.” – Rom. viii. 18.

95“Spe enim salvi facti sumus.” – Rom. viii. 24.

96“Omnis enim qui petit, accipit.” – Luke, xi. 10.

97“Spiritus adjuvat infirmitatem nostram, . . . postulat pro nobis.” – Rom. viii. 26.

98“ ‘Postulat,’ id est, postulare facit.” – Ep. 194, c. 4. E. B.

99“Scimus autem quoniam, diligentibus Deum, omnia cooperantur in bonum.” – Rom. viii. 28.

100“Nam quos præscivit, et prædestinavit conformes fieri imaginis FIlii sui.” – Ibid. 29.

101“Qui etiam proprio Filio suo non pepercit, sed pro nobis omnibus tradidit illum.” – Rom. viii. 32.

102“Quis est qui condemnet? Christus Jesus, qui mortuus est.” – Ibid. 34.

103“Hi sunt qui . . . laverunt stolas suas et dealbaverunt eas in sanguine Agni.” – Apoc. vii. 14.

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Considerations on the passion of Jesus Christ - Chapter 9

THE GRATITUDE THAT WE OWE TO JESUS CHRIST FOR HIS PASSION.

I.

Jesus died for us; we ought to live and die for Him.

St. Augustine says that Jesus Christ, having first given his life for us, has bound us to give our life for him; and, further, that when we go to the Eucharistic table to communicate, as we go to feed there upon the body and blood of Jesus Christ, we ought also, in gratitude, to prepare for him the offering of our blood and of our life, if there is need for us to give either of them for his glory.¹

Full of tenderness are the words of St. Francis de Sales on this text of St. Paul: The charity of Christ presseth us.² To what does it press us? To love him. But let us hear what St. Francis de. Sales says: “When we know that Jesus has loved us even to death, and that the death of the cross, is not this to feel our hearts constrained by a violence as great as it is full of delight?”³ And then he adds, “My Jesus gives himself wholly to me, and I give myself wholly to him; I will live and die upon his breast, and neither death nor life shall ever separate me from him.”

St. Peter, in order that we might remember to be ever grateful to our Saviour, reminds us that we were not redeemed from the slavery of hell with gold or silver, but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ, which he sacrificed for us, as an innocent lamb, upon the altar of the cross.⁴ Great, therefore, will be the punishment of those who are thankless for such a blessing, if they do not correspond to it. It is true that Jesus came to save all men who were lost;⁵ but it is also true what was said by the Venerable Simeon, when Mary presented the child Jesus in the temple: Behold, this child is placed for the fall and the rising again of many in Israel, and as a sign which shall be spoken against.⁶ By the words for the rising again he expresses the salvation which all believers should receive from Jesus Christ, who by faith should rise from death to the life of grace. But first, by the words he is set for the fall, he foretells that many shall fall into a greater ruin by their ingratitude to the Son of God, who came into the world to become a contradiction to his enemies, as the following words imply: He shall be a sign which shall be spoken against; for Jesus Christ was set up as a sign, against which were hurled all the calumnies, the injuries, and the insults which the Jews devised against him. And this sign is spoken against not only by the Jews of the present day, who deny him to be the Messiah, but by those Christians who ungratefully return his love with offences, and by neglecting his commands.

Our Redeemer, says St. Paul, went so far as to give his life for us, in order to make himself the Lord of all our hearts, by displaying to us his love in dying for us. For this Christ both died and rose again, that He might be Lord of the dead and of the living.⁷ No, writes the Apostle, we are no longer our own, since we have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. Whether we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lords.⁸ Wherefore, if we do not love him and obey his precepts, of which the first is that we should love him, we are not only ungrateful, but unjust, and deserve a double punishment. The obligation of a slave rescued by Jesus Christ from the hands of the devil is, to devote himself wholly to love and serve him, whether he live or die.

St. John Chrysostom makes an excellent reflection upon the above-quoted text of St. Paul, saying that God has more care for us than we have for ourselves; and therefore regards our life as his own riches, and our death as his own loss; so that if we die, we die not to ourselves, but also to God.⁹ Oh, how great is our glory while we live in this valley of tears, in the midst of so many dangers of perishing, that we should be able to say, “We are the Lord’s,” we are his possession; he will take care to preserve us in his grace in this life, and to keep us with himself throughout eternity in the life that is to come!

II.

What it is to live and die for Jesus.

Jesus Christ, then, died for every one of us, in order that every one of us might live only to his Redeemer, who died for love of him. Christ died for us all, that both they who live should live no longer to themselves, but to Him who died for them and rose again.¹⁰ He that lives for himself directs all his desires, fears, and pains, and places all his happiness in himself. But he that lives to Jesus Christ places all his desires in loving and pleasing him; all his joys in gratifying him; all his fears are that he should displease him. He is only afflicted when he sees Jesus despised, and he only rejoices in seeing him loved by others. This it is to live to Jesus Christ, and this he justly claims from us all. To gain this he has bestowed all the pains which he suffered for love of us. Does he ask too much in this? No, says St. Gregory, he cannot ask too much, when he has given such tokens of his love to us, that he seems to have become a fool for our sake.¹¹ Without reserve he has given himself wholly for us; he has, therefore, a right to require that we should give ourselves wholly to him, and should fix all our love upon him; and if we take from him any portion of it, by loving anything either apart from him or not for his sake, he has reason to complain of us; for then we do not love him as we should, says St. Augustine.¹²

And what but creatures can we love except Jesus Christ? And, in comparison with Jesus Christ, what are creatures but worms of the earth, dust, smoke, and vanity? To St. Clement, Pope, was offered a heap of silver, gold, and gems, if he would renounce Jesus Christ; the saint, however, gave only a sigh, and then exclaimed, “O my Jesus, Thou infinite good! how dost Thou endure to be esteemed by men as less than the rubbish of this earth?” “No,” says St. Bernard, “it was not rashness which made the martyrs encounter hot irons, nails, and the most cruel deaths; it was love for Jesus Christ, when they saw him dead upon the cross.”¹³ For us all the example of St. Mark and St. Marcellian is of value, who, when they were fastened with nails through their hands and feet, were rebuked by the tyrants as fools for suffering so cruel a torment rather than renounce Jesus Christ; while they replied that they had never known greater delights than they now experienced when transfixed with these nails.¹⁴ And all saints, in order to give pleasure to Jesus Christ, who was thus tormented and despised for our sake, gladly embrace poverty, persecutions, contempt, infirmities, pains, and death. Souls betrothed to Jesus Christ upon the cross know nothing more glorious to them than to bear the signs of the crucified, which are his sufferings. Let us hear what St. Augustine says to us: “To you it is not lawful to love a little; let him who was wholly fixed upon the cross for you be wholly fixed in your hearts.”¹⁵ Let us, therefore, unite ourselves wholly to St. Paul, and say with him, I am crucified with Christ. I live, and yet not I, for Christ liveth in me, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.¹⁶ On this St. Bernard remarks, “It is as if he had said, To all other things I am dead; I have no sensation, I pay no regard; but the things which are of Christ, these find me a living man, and prepared to act upon them.¹⁷ Therefore St. Paul says, To me to live is Christ;¹⁸ meaning by these brief words, “Jesus Christ is my life, for he is all my thoughts, all my intentions, all my hope, all my desire, because he is all my love.” “It is a sure promise; if we are dead with him, we shall also live with him; if we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him; if we deny him, he will also deny us.” The kings of the earth, after a victory over their enemies, confer a part of all they have gained upon those who have fought on their side. Thus does Jesus Christ on the day of judgment; he gives a share of the blessings of heaven to all who have toiled and suffered for his glory.

The Apostle says, If we are dead with Him, we shall also live with Him.¹⁹ To die with Christ means the denial of ourselves, that is, of our own inclinations, which, if we do not deny, we shall come to deny Jesus Christ, who will justly deny us on the day of account. And here we must remark, that we not only deny Jesus Christ when we deny the faith, but also when we refuse to obey him in anything he desires of us; as, for example, when, for love of him, we will not forgive an injury we have received, when we give way to the love of vain honor, when we will not break through a friendship which imperils the friendship of Jesus Christ, or yield to the fear of being counted ungrateful, while our first gratitude is due to Jesus Christ, who has given his blood and life for us, which no creature whatever has done for us.

O divine love! how is it that thou art despised by men? O man! look at this cross of the Son of God, who, as an innocent lamb, sacrifices himself to pay for thy sins, and thus to gain thy love! Look at him, look at him and love him!

O my Jesus, O infinitely lovely! grant that I may no longer live ungrateful to so great a good! For the past I have lived in forgetfulness of Thy love, and of all Thou hast suffered for me; but henceforth I would think of nothing but loving Thee. O wounds of Jesus, stricken with love! O blood of Jesus, inebriated with love! O death of Jesus! cause me to die to every love which is not love for him. O Jesus! I love Thee above everything. I love Thee with all my soul; I love Thee more than myself. I love Thee, and because I love Thee, I would die of grief because I have so often turned my back upon Thee, and have despised Thy grace. By Thy merits, O my crucified Saviour, give me Thy love, and make me all Thine own.

O Mary, my hope! make me love Jesus Christ, and I ask nothing more.

1“Debitores nos fecit, qui primus exhibuit. Mensa qua sit, nostis; ibi eat corpus et sanguis Christi; qui accedit ad talem mensam, præparet talia.” – In Jo. tr. 47.

2“Charitas Christi urget nos.” – 2 Cor. v. 14.

3Love of God, B. 7. ch. 8.

4“Scientes quod non corruptibilibus auro vel argento redempti estis . . . , sed pretioso sanguine, quasi agni immaculati, Christi” – 1 Pet. i. 18.

5“Venit enim Filius hominis quærere et salvum facere quod perierat.” – Luke, xix. 10.

6“Ecce positns est hic in ruinam et in resurrectionem multorum in Israel, et in signum cui contradicetur.” – Ibid. ii. 34.

7“In hoc enim Christus mortuus est et resurrexit, ut et mortuorum et vivorum dominetur.” – Rom. xiv. 9.

8“Sive ergo vivimus, sive morimur, Domini sumus.” – Ibid. 8.

9“Majorem nostri habet curam Deus, quam nos ipsi; vitam nostram divitias suas, et mortem damnum, æstimat; non enim nobis ipsis tantum morimur, sed si morimur, Domino morimur.”

10“Pro omnibus mortuus est Christus, ut, et qui vivant, jam non sibi vivant, sed ei qui pro ipsis mortuus est et resurrexit.” – 2 Cor. v. 15.

11“Stultum visum est in pro hominibus Auctor vita moreretur.” – In Evang. hom. 6.

12“Minus te amat, qui tecum aliquid amat, quod non propter te amat.” – Conf. l. 10, c. 20.

13“Neque hoc facit stupor, sed amor.” – In Cant. s. 61.

14“Nunquam tam jucunde epulati sumus, quam cum hic fixi esse cœpimus.”

15“Parum vobis amare non licet; toto vobis figatur in corde, qui pro vobis est fixus in cruce.” – De S. Virginit. c. 55.

16“Christo confixus sum cruci; vivo autem jam non ego, vivit vero in me Christus . . . , qui dilexit me, et tradidit semetipsum pro me.” – Gal. ii. 19.

17“Vivo jam non ego, vivit vero in me Christus. Ac si diceret: Ad alia omnia mortuus sum; non sentio, non attendo; si quæ vero sunt Christi, hæc me vivum inveniunt et paratum.” – In Quadr. s. 7.

18“Mihi enim vivere Christus est.” – Phil. i. 21.

19“Fidelis sermo; nam si commortui sumus, et convivemus; si sustinebimus, et conregnabimus; si negaverimus, et ille negabit nos.” – 2 Tim. ii. 11.

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Considerations on the passion of Jesus Christ - Chapter 8

THE LOVE SHOWN TO US BY JESUS CHRIST IN HIS PASSION.

I.

God so loved men, that He gave His own Son to redeem them.

St. Francis de Sales called Mount Calvary “the mountain of lovers,” and says that the love which springs not from the Passion is weak;¹ meaning, that the Passion of Jesus Christ is the most powerful incentive to inflame us to love our Saviour. To be able to comprehend a part (for to comprehend the whole is impossible) of the great love which God has shown us in the Passion of Jesus Christ, it is sufficient to glance at what is said of it in the divine Scriptures, of which I shall here set forth some of the principal passages. Nor let any one complain that I thus repeat the texts which I have already repeated several times in my other works when speaking of the Passion. Many writers of mischievous books constantly repeat their immodest jests, in order the more to excite the passions of their thoughtless readers; and shall it not be permitted to me to repeat those holy texts which most inflame souls with divine love?

Speaking of this love, Jesus himself said, God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son.² The word so expresses much. It teaches us that when God gave his only-begotten Son, he displayed to us a love which we can never attain to comprehend. Through sin we were all dead, having lost the life of grace; but the Eternal Father, in order to make known his goodness to the world, and to show us how much he loved us, chose to send on earth his Son, that by his death he might restore to us the life we had lost. In this appeared the love of God to us, in that God sent His only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live by Him.³ Thus, in order to pardon us, God refused that pardon to his own Son, desiring that he should take upon him to satisfy the divine justice for all our faults; He spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all.⁴ The words delivered up are used because God gave him into the hands of the executioners, that they might load him with insults and pains, until he died of agony on a shameful tree. Thus he first loaded him with all our sins. The Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all. And then he chose to see him consumed with the most bitter inward and outward pangs and afflictions: For the wickedness of My people I have stricken Him. The Lord bruised Him in infirmity.⁵

St. Paul, considering this love of God, goes on to say: On account of the too great love with which He loved us, when we were dead in sins, He raised us up in Christ.⁶ The Apostle calls it his too great love. Could there be anything indeed in excess in God? Yes; by this he means us to understand that God has done such things for us, that if faith had not assured us of them, none could have believed them. And therefore the Church cries out in astonishment, “Oh, wonderful is that which Thy love towards us has thought fit to do! O inestimable Love of love! that Thou mightest redeem Thy servant, Thou hast delivered up Thy Son.”⁷ Remark here the expression of the Church, Love of love; for the love of God to us is more than that he has shown to any other creatures. God, being love itself,⁸ as St. John says, he loves all his creatures; Thou lovest all things that are, and hatest nothing that Thou hast made.⁹ But the love that he bears to man seems to be that which is the dearest and most beloved to him, for it appears as though, in love, he had preferred man to the angels, since he has been willing to die for men and not for the fallen angels.

IL

The Son of God offered Himself for the Love of us.

Speaking. then, of the love of the Son of God for man, let us remember that when he saw on one side man lost through sin, and on the other the divine justice requiring a perfect satisfaction for the offences committed by man, who was himself unable to offer such a satisfaction, he voluntarily offered himself to make satisfaction: He was offered, because he willed it.¹⁰ And this humble lamb gave himself to the torturers, suffering them to lacerate his flesh, and to lead him to death, without lamenting or opening his mouth, as it was foretold: He shall be brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep is dumb before its shearer, and openeth not its mouth.¹¹ St. Paul writes that Jesus Christ accepted the death of the cross to obey his Father.¹² But let us not imagine that the Redeemer was crucified solely to obey his Father, and not with his own full will; he freely offered himself to this death, and of his own will chose to die for man, moved by the love he bore him, as he himself declares by St. John: I lay down My life; no man will take it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself.¹³ And he said that it was the work of the Good Shepherd, to give his life for his sheep.¹⁴ And why was this? what obligation was there on the shepherd to give his life for the sheep? He loved us, and gave Himself for us.¹⁵

This, indeed, our loving Redeemer himself declared, when he said, If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto Me;¹⁶ thereby showing the kind of death that he would die upon the cross, as the Evangelist himself explains it: He said this, signifying by what death He would die.¹⁷ On these words St. John Chrysostom remarks, that he draws them as it were from the hands of a tyrant.¹⁸ By his death he draws us from the hands of Lucifer, who, as a tyrant, keeps us enchained as his slaves, to torment us after our death forever in hell.

Miserable had we been if Jesus Christ had not died for us! We should all have been imprisoned in hell. For us who had deserved hell, it is a great motive to us to love Jesus Christ, to think, that by his death, he has delivered us from this hell, by pouring forth his blood.

Let us, then, in passing, glance at the pains of hell, where at this hour are so many wretched souls. Oh, miserable beings! there they are sunk in a sea of fire, where they endure ceaseless agony, since in this fire they experience pains of all kinds. There they are given into the hands of devils, who, full of fury, are busied only in tormenting these miserable condemned ones. There, still more than by the fire and the other tortures, are they tormented by remorse of conscience in recollecting the sins of their life, which were the cause of their damnation. There they see the way of escape from this abyss of torments ever closed. There they find themselves forever excluded from the company of the saints, and from their country, heaven, for which they were created. But what most afflicts them, and constitutes their hell, is to see themselves abandoned by God, and condemned to be unable evermore to love him, and to look upon themselves with hatred and madness.

From this hell Jesus Christ has delivered us, redeeming us not with gold or any earthly good thing, but by giving his own life and blood upon the cross.¹⁹ The kings of the earth send their subjects to die in war to preserve their own security; Jesus Christ chose himself to die, in order to give safety to his creatures.

III.

Jesus died not only for us all, but for each one of us.

Behold Jesus, then, presented by the scribes and priests to Pilate as a malefactor, that he might judge him and condemn him to the death of the cross; and see how they follow him, in order to see him condemned and crucified. Oh, marvellous thing, cries St. Augustine, to see the judge judged; to see justice condemned; to see life dying!²⁰ And for what cause were these marvels accomplished, except through the love which Jesus Christ bore to men? He loved us, and gave Himself for us.²¹ Oh that these words of St. Paul were ever before our eyes! Truly then would every affection for earthly things depart from our heart. and we should think only of loving our Redeemer, reflecting that it was love which brought him to pour forth all his blood, to make for us a bath of salvation. He hath loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood.²² St. Bernardine of Sienna says that Jesus Christ from the cross looked at every single sin of every one of us, and offered his blood for every one of them.²³ In a word, love brought the Lord of all to appear the most vile and low of all things upon earth.

“O power of love!” cries St. Bernard; “the Supreme God of all is made the lowest of all! Who hath done this? Love, forgetting its dignity, powerful in its affections. Love triumphs over divinity.”²⁴ Love hath done this, because, in order to make itself known to the beloved, it hath brought the loving one to lay aside his dignity, and to do that alone which aids and pleases the beloved. Therefore, St. Bernard says that God, who can be conquered by none, causes himself to be conquered by the love which he bore for men.

We must further reflect that whatever Jesus Christ suffered in his Passion, he suffered for each one of us individually; on which account St. Paul says, I live in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself for me.²⁵ And what the Apostle said, every one of us may say; wherefore St. Augustine writes that man was redeemed at such a price that he seems to be of equal value with God.²⁶ The saint also goes on to say, “Thou hast loved me, not as Thyself, but more than Thyself, since, to deliver me from death, Thou hast been willing to die for me.”²⁷

But since Jesus could have saved us by a single drop of his blood, why did he pour it all forth in torments, even so as to die of mere agony upon the cross? “Yes,” says St. Bernard, “what a drop might have done, he chose to do with a stream, in order to show us the excessive love he bore us.”²⁸ He calls it excessive, as Moses and Elias on Mount Thabor called the Passion of the Redeemer an excess,—an excess of mercy and love; They spoke of His excess, which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.²⁹ St. Augustine, speaking of the Passion of our Lord, says “that his mercy exceeded the debt of our sins.”³⁰ Thus, the value of the death of Jesus Christ being infinite, infinitely exceeded the satisfaction due by us for our sins to the divine justice. Truly had the Apostle cause to say, God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.³¹ And what St. Paul says, we may all say; what greater glory can we have, or hope for in the world, than to see a God dying for love of us?

O Eternal God, I have dishonored Thee by my sins; but Jesus, by making satisfaction for me by his death, has more than abundantly restored the honor due to Thee; for the love of Jesus, then, have mercy upon me. And Thou, my Redeemer, who hast died for me, in order to oblige me to love Thee, grant that I may love Thee. For, having despised Thy grace and Thy love, I have deserved to be condemned to be able to love Thee no more. But, O my Jesus, give me every punishment but this. And therefore, I pray Thee, consign me not to hell, for in hell I cannot love Thee. Cause me to love Thee, and then chastise me as Thou wilt. Deprive me of everything, but not of Thyself. I accept every infirmity, every ignominy, every pain that Thou willest me to suffer; it is enough that I love Thee. Now, I know, by the light Thou hast given me, that Thou art most worthy of love, and hast so much loved me: I trust to live no longer without loving Thee. For the time past I have loved creatures, and have turned my back upon Thee, the infinite good; but now I say to Thee, that I would love Thee alone, and nothing else. O my beloved Saviour, if Thou seest that at any future time I should cease to love Thee, I pray Thee to cause me first to die; and I shall be content to die before I am separated from Thee.

O holy Virgin Mary and Mother of God, help me with thy prayers; obtain for me, that I may never cease to love my Jesus, who died for me and thee, my queen, who hast already obtained for me so many mercies.

1Love of God, b. 12, ch. 13.

2“Sic enim Deus dilexit mundum, ut Filium suum unigenitum daret.” – John, iii. 16.

3“In hoc apparuit charitas Dei in nobis, quoniam Filium suum unigenitum misit Deus in mundum, ut vivamus per eum.” – 1 John, iv. 9.

4“Qui etiam proprio Filio suo non pepercit, sed pro nobis omnibus tradidit illum.” – Rom. viii. 32.

5“Posuit Dominus in eo iniquitatem omnium nostrum. – Propter scelus populi mei percussi eum . . . et Dominus voluit conterere eum in infirmitate.” – Isa. liii. 6-8.

6“Propter nimiam charitatem suam qua dilexit nos, et cum essemus mortui peccatis, convivificavit nos in Christo.” – Eph. ii. 5.

7“O mira circa nos tuæ pietatis dignatio! o inæstimabilis dilectio charitatis! ut servum redimeres, Filium tradidisti.” – In Sabb. S.

8“Deus charitas est.” – 1 John, iv. 8.

9“Diligis enim omnia, quæ sunt, et nihil odisti eorum, quæ fecisti.” – Wisd. xi. 25.

10“Oblatus est, quia ipse voluit.” – Isa. liii. 7.

11“Sicut ovis ad occisionem ducetur, et quasi agnus coram tondente se obmutescet, et non aperiet os suum.” – Ibid.

12“Factus obediens usque ad mortem, mortem autem crucis.” – Phil. ii. 8.

13“Ego pono animam meam. . . . Nemo tollit eam a me, sed ego pono eam a meipso.” – John, x. 17.

14“Ego sum Pastor bonus. Bonus pastor animam suam dat pro ovibus suis.” – John, x. 11.

15“Dilexit nos, et tradidit semetipsum pro nobis.” – Eph. v. 2.

16“Et ego, si exaltatus fuero a terra, omnia traham ad meipsum.” – John, xii. 32.

17“Hoc autem dicebat significans qua morte easel moriturus.” – Ibid.

18“ ‘Omnia traham,’ quasi a tyranno detenta.”

19“Non pro te dedit aurum, non prædia, sed proprium cruorem, in crucis moriendo patibulo.” – De Cont. m. c. 7.

20“Ut judex judicaretur, Justitia damnaretur, Vita moreretur.” – Serm. 191, E. B.

21“Dilexit nos, et tradidit semetipsum pro nobis.” – Eph. v. 2.

22“Qui dilexit nos, et lavit nos a peccatis nostris in sanguine suo.” – Apoc. i. 5.

23“Ad quamlibet culpam singularem habuit aspectum.” – T. ii. s. 56, a. 1, c. 1.

24“O Amoris vim! Summus omnium imus factus est omnium. Quis hoc fecit? Amor, dignitatis nescius, affectu potens. Triumphat de Deo Amor.” – In Cant. s. 64.

25“In fide vivo Filii Dei, qui dilexit me, et tradidit semetipsum pro me.” – Gal. ii. 20.

26“Tam copioso munere redemptio agitur, ut homo Deum valere videatur.” – De Dilig. D. c. 6.

27“Dilexisti me plus quam te, quia voluisti mori pro me.” – Sol. an, ad D. c. 13.

28“Quod potuit gotta, voluit unda.”

29“Et dicebant excessum ejus, quem completurus erat in Jerusalem.” – Luke, ix. 31.

30“Misericordiam magnam invenimus, pretium majus omni debito.” – Cur D. H. l. 3, c. 21.

31“Mihi autem absit gloriari, nisi in cruce Domini nostri Jesu Christi.” – Gal. vi. 14.

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Considerations on the passion of Jesus Christ - Chapter 7

THE PRODIGIES WHICH HAPPENED AT THE DEATH OF CHRIST.

I

Mourning of all Nature – Darkness.

It is reported (as Cornelius à Lapide relates) that St. Dionysius the Areopagite, being at the time at Heliopolis in Egypt, at the time of the death of Jesus Christ exclaimed, “Either the God of nature is suffering, or the fabric, of the world is being dissolved.”¹ Others, such as Syncellus and Suidas, relate the story differently, and state that he said, “God, unknown, is suffering in the flesh, and therefore the universe is hidden in this darkness.”²

Eusebius³ writes that Plutarch, being in the isle of Praxos, heard a voice say, “The great Pan is dead,”⁴ and immediately afterwards heard a cry of many persons wailing. Eusebius considers that Pan means the devil, who being, as it were, killed by the death of Jesus, was stripped of the power he had possessed over men; but Barrada⁵ thinks that it means Jesus Christ himself, because in Greek the word Pan means All, which Jesus Christ, being the Son of God, and truly God, really was; that is, all that is good.

What we have in the Gospels is, that on the day of the death of the Saviour, the whole earth was covered with darkness, from the sixth to the ninth hour. And when Jesus breathed his last, the veil of the temple was rent, and a great earthquake shook the mountains.⁶

Speaking of the darkness, St. Jerome says that this darkness was foretold by the prophet Amos in these words: It shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord, that the sun shall go down at mid-day; and I will make the earth dark in the day of light.⁷ On which St. Jerome remarks that the sun seemed to have withdrawn its light, in order that the enemies of Jesus Christ might not rejoice in it;⁸ and that the sun hid itself, because it dared not look upon the Lord hanging on the cross.⁹ But St. Leo more justly says that then all creatures groaned, when the Creator hung upon the cross.¹⁰ With this Tertullian agrees, saying that from the sixth hour the world was darkened, and celebrated the obsequies of the Lord.¹¹

St. Athanasius, St. Chrysostom, and St. Thomas remark that this darkness was altogether miraculous, because it could not have happened as an eclipse of the sun, by the interposition of the moon between the earth and the sun, as this eclipse always takes place at the new moon, and not the full moon, as astronomers say. And, further, as the sun is much larger than the moon, the moon could not hide the whole of its light; while the Gospel relates that darkness was spread over the whole earth. Further still, even if the moon could have darkened the whole light of the sun, we know that the course of the sun is so swift that such darkness could only have lasted a few minutes, while the Gospel relates that it lasted from the sixth to the ninth hour.

This miraculous darkness Tertullian especially pointed out, in his Apology to the heathen, reminding them that in their own archives this prodigy of the darkness of the sun was recorded.¹² Eusebius, confirming this statement, relates in his chronicle the words of Phlegon, the freedman of Augustus, an author of that period, who thus writes: “In the fourth year of the second Olympiad, the sun was completely darkened, more than at any other recorded time; and night came on at the sixth hour, so that the stars were visible.”¹³

II.

The Rending of the Veil of the Temple.

In the Gospel of St. Matthew it is said, The veil of the temple was rent in two parts, from the top to the bottom.¹⁴ The Apostle writes¹⁵ that in the temple, as in the tabernacle, there was the Holy of Holies, where was the ark of the covenant, which contained the manna, the rod of Aaron, the tables of the law; and this ark was the Propitiatory. Into the first tabernacle, which was outside the Holy of Holies, and was covered with the first veil, the priests went to offer sacrifices; and the priest who sacrificed, dipping his finger into the blood of the victim that was offered, sprinkled the veil seven times.¹⁶ But into the second tabernacle, the Holy of Holies, which was always shut, and covered with the second veil, the high-priest went solemnly once a year, carrying the blood of the victim which was sacrificed by himself.¹⁷

The whole was a mystery: the sanctuary ever closed, represented the separation of men from the divine grace, which they would never have received but for the sacrifice of himself which Jesus Christ was one day to offer, and which was typified in all the old sacrifices; and therefore he is called by St. Paul, a High-Priest of good things to come, who by a more perfect tabernacle, that is, by his own sacred body, would enter into the Holy of Holies of the presence of God, as the mediator between God and men: offering the blood, not of goats and calves, but his own blood, with which he completed the work of human redemption, and thus opened to us the way of heaven.¹⁸

The Apostle says, he was a Priest of good things to come, unlike the high-priest Aaron, who obtained present and earthly blessings; while Jesus Christ came to obtain for us future blessings, which are heavenly and eternal. He says, also, that he came by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, which was the sacred humanity of the Lord, which was the tabernacle of his divinity; it was not made with hands, because the body of Jesus was not formed by the work of man, but by the Holy Ghost. Nor did he come with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood; for the blood of goats and calves effected merely a carnal purification, while the blood of Jesus effected the purification of the soul by the remission of sins. It is said, also, that he entered once into the Holies, having obtained eternal redemption; which implies that this redemption could never have been obtained by ourselves, nor expected except from the divine promises: it was the work of the divine goodness; and it is called eternal, because, while the high-priest of the Hebrews went into the Holy of Holies once every year, Jesus Christ, once only accomplishing the sacrifice of his death, merited for us an eternal redemption, which would be sufficient to atone for all our sins; as the same Apostle writes, By one offering He perfected forever those who are sanctified.¹⁹

The Apostle adds, And therefore he is the Mediator of the New Testament.²⁰ Moses was the mediator of the Old Testament, that is, the old covenant, which had no power to obtain for men reconciliation with God and salvation; for, as St. Paul explains in another place, the old law made nothing perfect.²¹ But by the new covenant, Jesus Christ, fully satisfying the divine justice for the sins of men, by his merits obtained for men pardon and the divine grace. The Jews were offended at perceiving that the Messiah had wrought the redemption of man by so shameful a death; saying that they had read in the law that the Messiah would not die, but live forever.²² But they were completely in error; for death was the means by which Jesus Christ made himself the Mediator and Saviour of men, since by the death of Jesus Christ the promise of the eternal inheritance was made to those who are called.²³ Therefore St. Paul exhorts us to place all our hopes in the merits of the death of Jesus Christ: Having a confidence in the entering into the Holies by the blood of Christ, a new and living way which He hath dedicated for us through the veil, that is to say, His flesh.²⁴ We, he says, have a strong foundation for our hope of eternal life in the blood of Jesus Christ, who has opened to us the new way to paradise. He calls it a new way, because it was trodden by no one before; while Jesus, by treading it, has opened it to us through his flesh, which was sacrificed on the cross, of which the veil was a figure; because (as St. John Chrysostom writes), as when the veil was rent, the Holy of Holies continued open, so the body of Christ, when torn in his Passion, opened to us the heaven which was closed. The Apostle therefore exhorts us to go with confidence to the throne of grace to obtain the divine mercy.²⁵ This throne of grace is Jesus Christ, to whom, when we miserable sinners go in the midst of the dangers of destruction in which we stand, we find that mercy which we do not deserve.

Let us return to the text quoted from St, Matthew, Jesus, crying with a loud voice, yielded up His spirit; and behold the veil of the temple was rent in two parts, from the top to the bottom. This rending took place at the moment of the death of Jesus Christ, which, as was remarked by all the priests and the people, could not have taken place except as a supernatural. prodigy; for by the mere shaking of the earthquake the veil would not thus have been torn from the top to the bottom. It took place in order to show that God no longer desired to keep this sanctuary closed, as it had been commanded by the law, but that he himself desired to be henceforth the sanctuary opened by means of Jesus Christ.

St. Leo writes²⁶ that the Lord, by this rending, showed us plainly that the old priesthood was ended, and the eternal priesthood of Jesus Christ was begun; and that the old sacrifices were abolished, and a new law set up, according to what the Apostle says: A change being made in the priesthood, it is necessary that there should be also a change in the law.²⁷ And by this we are assured that Jesus Christ is the founder both of the first law and of the second; and that the old law, the tabernacle, the priesthood, and the old sacrifices had regard to the sacrifice of the cross, which was to accomplish the redemption of man. And thus everything which had been obscure or mysterious in the old law, in the sacrifices, festivals, and promises, became clear through the death of the Saviour. Lastly, Euthymius says that the rent veil showed that the wall which divided heaven and earth was taken away, so that the way for man to reach heaven lay open without any obstacle.²⁸

III.

The Earthquake.

It is further said in the Gospel, The earth was shaken, and the rocks cleft asunder.²⁹ It is reported that at the death of Jesus Christ there happened a trembling so great and universal that it shook the whole globe of the earth, as Paul Orosius writes.³⁰ Didymus³¹ also says that the earth was then shaken to its centre. Further, Phlegon, as quoted by Origen and by Eusebius,³² says that in the year 33 after the birth of Christ, many buildings were thrown down by this earthquake at Nice in Bithynia. Pliny also, who lived in the time of Tiberius, under whom Christ was put to death, and Suetonius, attest that at this time twelve cities in Asia were prostrated by this earthquake; and thus the learned believe that the prophecy of Aggeus was fulfilled, Yet a little while, and I will move the heaven and the earth.³³ Upon this St. Paulinus writes that Jesus Christ, though fixed upon the cross, to show who he was, even from his cross struck terror into the world.³⁴

Agricomius³⁵ relates that even to his day the signs of this earthquake were visible on the left side of Mount Calvary, where there was a fissure large enough to contain a man’s body, and so deep that the bottom could not be reached. Baronius,³⁶ writing upon A.D. 34, says that in many other places the mountains were laid open by the earthquake; especially at the present time there is to be seen at Gaeta a hill of rock which, it is said, was split open from the top to the bottom at the time of our Lord’s death; and it is clear that the aperture was prodigiously large, for the sea flows through it, and another portion of the hill is enlarged in an equal proportion. The same tradition is attached to Mount Colombo, near Rieti; to Monserrat in Spain; and to several mountains in Sardinia near Cagliari; while still more remarkable is that which happened to Mount Alvernia in Tuscany, where St. Francis received the gift of the sacred stigmata, and where large masses of rock heaped one upon another are to be seen, of which it is said that it was revealed to St. Francis by an angel that these rocks were thus thrown together at the death of Jesus Christ, as Wading³⁷ relates.

St. Ambrose on this exclaims, “O Jewish hearts, harder than rocks! the mountains are cleft, but the hearts of these men are hardened.”³⁸

IV.

Resurrection of the Dead, and Conversions.

St. Matthew goes on to describe the prodigies which happened at the death of Christ, and says, The graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints that had slept arose; and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection, came into the holy city, and appeared to many.³⁹ Upon this, St. Ambrose says “What else is meant by this opening of the graves, but the resurrection of the dead?”⁴⁰ Thus the opening of the graves signified the discomfiture of death, and the restoration of life to man by the resurrection. St. Jerome, Venerable Bede, and St. Thomas say that though the graves were opened at the death of Christ, yet the dead did not rise till after the resurrection of the Lord.⁴¹ And this is conformable to what the Apostle says when he calls Christ the first begotten of the dead, and the first of them that rise.⁴² For it was not fitting that any man should rise before Him who had triumphed over death.

It is said in St. Matthew that many saints then arose, and, leaving the graves, appeared to many. These were the just, who had believed and hoped in Jesus Christ; and God desired thus to honor them, as a reward for their faith and confidence in the future Messiah, according to the prediction of Zacharias, Thou also, by the blood of Thy testament, hast sent forth Thy prisoners out of the pit, wherein is no water;⁴³ that is, from what is called Limbo by the Fathers, in which there was none of the water of joy.

St. Matthew goes on to say that the centurion, and the other soldiers who were under him, who had put the Saviour to death, though the Jews continued obstinately to rejoice in his death, were themselves moved with the miracles of the darkness and earthquake, and recognized him as the Son of God.⁴⁴ These soldiers were the first-fruits of the Gentiles, who embraced the faith of Jesus Christ after they had put him to death, though, through his merits, they had grace to understand their sin and to hope for pardon.

St. Luke adds that all the others who had either taken part in or applauded the death of Jesus Christ, when they saw the prodigies, smote their breasts in sign of repentance, and returned home.⁴⁵ And then, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, many other Jews, being touched by the preaching of St. Peter, asked of him what they should do to be saved; and St. Peter bade them repent and be baptized; and they who received his words and were baptized were about three thousand.⁴⁶

V.

The Heart of Jesus is pierced.

The soldiers then came, and broke the legs of the two thieves; but when they came to Jesus, they saw that he was already dead, and abstained from doing the same to him. One of them, however, with a spear pierced his side, from which immediately came forth blood and water.⁴⁷

St. Cyprian says that the spear pierced straight into the heart of Jesus Christ; and the same thing was revealed to St. Bridget.⁴⁸ From which we understand that, as both blood and water flowed forth, the spear, in order to strike the heart, must first have pierced the pericardium.

St. Augustine says that St. John used the words opened the side, because in the heart of the Lord the way of life was opened, whence came forth the sacraments, by means of which we enter upon eternal life.⁴⁹ Further, it is said that the blood and water which came from the side of Jesus were figures of the sacraments; the water, of baptism, which is the first of the sacraments; and the blood, of the Eucharist, which is the greatest.

St. Bernard further says that, by receiving this visible stroke, Jesus Christ wished to signify the invisible stroke of love, by which his heart was pierced for us.⁵⁰

St. Augustine also, speaking of the Eucharist, says that the holy sacrifice of the Mass at this day is not less efficacious before God than the blood and water which flowed on that day from the side of Jesus Christ.⁵¹

VI.

Burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We will conclude this chapter with some reflections on the burial of Jesus Christ.

Jesus came into the world, not only to redeem us, but by his own example to teach us all virtues, and especially humility and holy poverty, which is inseparably united with humility. On this account he chose to be born in a cave; to live, a poor man, in a workshop for thirty years; and finally to die, poor and naked, upon a cross, seeing his garments divided among the soldiers before he breathed his last; while after his death he was compelled to receive his winding-sheet for burial as an alms from others. Let the poor be consoled, thus seeing Jesus Christ, the King of heaven and earth, thus living and dying in poverty in order to enrich us with his merits and gifts; as the Apostle says, For your sake He became poor, when He was rich, that by His poverty you might be rich.⁵² For this cause the saints, to become like Jesus in his poverty, have despised all earthly riches and honors, that they might go one day to enjoy with Jesus Christ the riches and honors prepared by God in heaven for them that love him; of which blessings the Apostle says that eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the mind of man to conceive what God has prepared for them that love him.⁵³

Jesus Christ, then, rose with the glory of possessing all power in heaven and earth, not as God alone, but as a man; wherefore all angels and men are subject to him. Let us rejoice in thus seeing in glory our Saviour, our Father, and the best friend that we possess. And let us rejoice for ourselves, because the resurrection of Jesus Christ is for us a sure pledge of our own resurrection, and of the glory that we hope one day to have in heaven, both in soul and in body. This hope gave courage to the holy martyrs to suffer with gladness all the evils of this life, and the most cruel torments of tyrants. We must rest assured, however, that none will rejoice with Jesus Christ but they who are willing to suffer in this world with him; nor will he obtain the crown who does not fight as he ought to fight. He that striveth in a wrestling is not crowned unless he has striven lawfully.⁵⁴ At the same time let us be sure of what the same Apostle says, that all the sufferings of this life are short and light in comparison with the boundless and eternal joys which we hope to enjoy in Paradise.⁵⁵ Let us labor the more to continue in the grace of God, and continually to pray for perseverance in his favor; for without prayer, and that persevering, we shall not obtain this perseverance; and without perseverance we shall not obtain salvation.

O sweet Jesus, worthy of all love, how hast Thou so loved men that, in order to show Thy love, Thou hast not refused to die wounded and dishonored upon an infamous tree! O my God, how is it that there are so few among men who love Thee with their heart? O my dear Redeemer, of these few I would be one! Miserable that I am, for my past life I have forgotten Thy love, and given up Thy grace for miserable pleasures. I know the evil I have done; I grieve for it with all my heart; I would die for grief. Now, O my beloved Redeemer, I love Thee more than myself; and I am ready to die a thousand times rather than lose Thy friendship. I thank Thee for the light Thou hast given me. O my Jesus, my hope, leave me not in my own hands; help me until my death.

O Mary, Mother of God, pray to Jesus for me.

1“Aut Deus, nature Auctor, patitur, aut mundi machina dissolvitur.”

2“Deus ignotus in carne patitur; ideoque universum hisce tenebris obscuratur.” – Enc. B. Dion.

3Præp. ev. l. 5, c. 17.

4“Magnus Pan mortuus est.”

5T. iv. l. 7, c. 21.

6“A sexta autem hora, tenebræ factæ sunt super universam terram usque ad horam nonam. Et ecce velum Templi scissum est in duas partes a summo usque deorsum; et terra mota est, et petræ scissæ sunt.” – Matt. xxvii. 45, 51.

7“Et erit in die illa, dicit Dominus Deus: occidet aol in meridie, et tenebrescere faciam terram in die luminis.” – Amos, viii. 9.

8“Videtur luminare majus retraxisse radios suos, ne impii sua luce fruerentur.” – In Matt. xxvii.

9“Retraxit radios suos, pendentem in cruce Dominum spectare non ausus.” – In Am. viii.

10“Pendente in patibulo Creatore, universa creatura congemuit.” – De Pass. s. 6.

11“A Beata hors contenebratus orbis defuncto Domino lugubre fecit officium.” – De Jejunio.

12“Eodem momento diei, medium orbem signante sole, lux subducta est. Eum mundi casum relatum in archivis vestris habetis.” – Aplog. c. 21.

13“Quarto anno Olympiadis 202, factum est deliquium solis omnibus cognitis majus, et nox facia est hors diei sexta, ita ut stellæ in cœlo conspicerentur.” – Chron. l. 2.

14“Et velum Templi scissum est in duas partes a summo usque deorsum.” – Matt. xxvii. 51.

15Heb. ix. 1.

16Lev. iv. 6-17

17Lev. xvi. 13, 14; Heb. ix. 7.

18“Christus autem assistens Pontifex futurorum bonorum, per amplius et perfectius tabernaculum non manufactum, id est, non hujus creationis: neque per sanguinem hircornm ant vitulorum, sed per proprium sanguinem, introivit semel in Sancta, æeterna Redemptione inventa.” – Heb. ix. 11.

19“Una enim obiatione consummavit in sempiternum sanctificatos.” – Heb. x. 14.

20“Et ideo Novi Testamenti Mediator est.” – Ibid. ix. 15.

21“Nihil enim ad perfectum adduxit Lex.” – Ibid. vii. 19.

22“Nos audivimus ex Lege, quia Christus manet in æternum.” – John, xii. 34.

23“Et ideo Novi Testamenti Mediator est, ut morte intercedente in redemptionem earum prævaricationum quæ erant sub priori Testamento, repromissionem accipiant, qui vocati sunt, æterna hereditatis.” – Heb. ix. 15.

24“Habentes itaque, fratres, fiduciam in introitu Sanctorum in sanguine Christi, quam initiavit nobis viam novam et viventem per velamen, id est, carnem suam.” – Heb. x. 19.

25“Adeamus ergo cum fiducia ad thronum gratiæ, ut misericordiam consequamur, et gratiam inveniamus in auxilio opportuno.” – Ibid. iv. 16.

26De Pass. s. 10.

27“Translato enim sacerdotio, necesse est ut et legis translatio fiat.” – Heb. vii. 12.

28“Scissum velum significavit divisum jam esse parietem inter cœlum et terram. qui inter Deum erat et homines, et factum esse hominibus cœlum pervium.” – In Matt. c. 67.

29“Et terra mota est, et petræ scissor sunt.” – Matt. xxvii. 51.

30Hist. l. 7, c. 4.

31Fragm. in Job, 9.

32Chron. l. 2.

33“Adhuc unum modicum est, et ego commovebo cœlum et terram.” – Agg. ii. 7.

34“In cruce fixus homo est, Deus e cruce terruit orbem.” – De Ob. Celsi.

35Jerus. Descr. n. 252.

36Ann. 34.

37Ann. 1215, n. 15.

38“O duriora saxis pectora Judæorum! finduntur petræ, sed horum corda durantur.” – In Luc. xxiii.

39“Et monumenta aperta sunt, et multa corpora Sanctorum, qui dormierant, surrexerunt; et exeuntes de monumentis, post resurrectionem ejus, venerunt in Sanctam Civitatem et apparuerunt multis.” – Matt. xxvii. 52.

40“Monumentorum reseratio quid aliud nisi, claustris mortis effractis, resurrectionem significat mortuorum?” – In Luc. xxiii.

41“Tamen, cum monumenta aperta sunt, non antea resurrexerunt quam Dominus resurgeret, ut esset primogenitus resurrectionis ex mortuis.”

42“Principium, primogenitus ex mortuis, ut sit in omnibus ipse primatum tenens.” – Col. i. 18.

43“Tu quoque, in sanguine Testamenti tui, emisisti vinctos tuos de lacu in quo non est aqua.” – Zach. ix. 11.

44“Centurio autem et qui cum eo cram custodientes Jesum, viso terræ motu et his quæ fiebant, timuerunt valde, dicentes: Vere Filius Dei erat iste.” – Matt. xxvii. 54.

45“Et omnis turba eorum qui simul aderant ad spectaculum istud, et videbant quæ fiebant, percutientes pectora sua revertebantur.” – Luke, xxiii. 48.

46“Qui ergo receperunt sermonem ejus, baptizati sunt; et appositæ sunt in die illa animæ circiter tria milia.” – Acts, ii. 41.

47“Sed unus militum lancea latus ejus aperuit, et continuo exivit sanguis et aqua.” – John. xix. 34.

48“Lancea attigit costam, et ambæ partes cordis fuerunt in lancea.” – Rev. l. 2, c. 21.

49“Ut illic quodam modo vita ostium panderetur, unde sacramenta Ecclesiæ manaverunt, sine quibus ad vitam non intratur.” – In Jo. tr. 120.

50“Propterea vulneratum est, ut, per vulnus visibile, vulnus amoris invisibile videamus; carnale ergo vulnus vulnus spirituale ostendit.” – Lib. de Pass. c. 3.

51“Non minus hodie in conspectu Patris oblatio illa est efficax, quam die qua de saucio latere sanguis et aqua exivit.”

52“Propter vos egenus factus est, cum esset dives, ut illius inopia vos divites essetis.” – 2 Cor. viii. 9.

53“Oculus non vidit, nec auris audivit, nec in cor hominis ascendit, quæ præparavit Deus iis qui diligunt illum.” – 1 Cor. ii. 9.

54“Nam et qui certat in agone, non coronatur, nisi legitime certaverit.” – 2 Tim. ii. 5.

55“Id enim quod in præsenti est momentaneum et leve tribulationis nostræ, supra modum in sublimitate æternum gloriæ pondus operatur in nobis.” – 2 Cor. iv. 17.

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