St. Robert Bellarmine: The Seven Words on the Cross

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CHAPTER VIII. The literal explanation of the third Word “Behold thy Mother: Behold thy Son.”

The last of the three words, which have special reference to charity for one’s neighbour, is, “Behold thy Mother: Behold thy son.”[1] But before we explain the meaning of this word we must dwell a little on the preceding passage of St. John’s Gospel. “Now there stood by the Cross of Jesus His Mother, and His Mother’s sister, Mary, the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus, therefore, saw His Mother, and the disciple standing by, whom He loved, He saith unto His Mother: Woman, behold thy son! Then saith He to the disciple: Behold thy Mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own.” Two out of the three Marys that stood near the Cross are known, namely, Mary, the Mother of our Lord, and Mary Magdalene. About Mary, the wife of Cleophas, there is some doubt; some suppose her to have been the daughter of St. Anne, who had three daughters, to wit, Mary, the Mother of Christ, Mary, the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Salome. But this opinion is almost exploded. For, in the first place, we cannot suppose three sisters to be called by the same name. Moreover, we know that many pious and erudite men maintain that our Blessed Lady was St. Anne’s only child; and there is no other Mary Salome mentioned in the Gospels. For where St. Mark[2] says that “Mary Magdalene, and Mary, the mother of James, and Salome, had brought sweet spices,” the word Salome is not in the genitive case, as if he wished to say Mary, the mother of Salome, as just before he said Mary, the mother of James, but it is of the nominative case and of the feminine gender, as is clear from the Greek version, where the word is written [Salome]. Moreover, this Mary Salome was the wife of Zebedee,[3] and the mother of the Apostles, St. James and St. John, as we learn from the two Evangelists, St. Matthew and St. Mark,[4] just as Mary, the mother of James was the wife of Cleophas, and the mother of St. James the Less and St. Jude. Wherefore the true interpretation is this, that Mary, the wife of Cleophas, was called the sister of the Blessed Virgin because Cleophas was the brother of St. Joseph, the Spouse of the Blessed Virgin, and the wives of two brothers have a right to call themselves and be called sisters For the same reason St. James the Less is called the brother of our Lord, although he was only His cousin, since he was the son of Cleophas, who, we have said, was the brother of St. Joseph. Eusebius gives us this account in his ecclesiastical history, and he quotes, as a trustworthy authority, Hegesippus, a contemporary of the Apostles. We have also St. Jerome’s authority for the same interpretation, as we may gather from his work against Helvidius.

There is also an apparent disagreement in the Gospel narratives, which it would be well briefly to dwell upon. St. John says that these three women stood near the Cross of our Lord, whereas both St. Mark[5] and St. Luke[6] say they were afar off. St. Austin in his third book on the Harmony of the Gospels, makes the three texts harmonize in this way. These holy women may be said to have been both a long way from the Cross, and near the Cross. They were a long way from the Cross in reference to the soldiers and executioners, who were in such close proximity to the Cross as to touch it, but they were sufficiently near the Cross to hear the words of our Lord, which the crowd of spectators who were the furthest of all removed, could not hear. We may also explain the texts thus. During the actual nailing of our Lord to the Cross, the concourse of soldiers and people kept the holy women at a distance, but as soon as the Cross was fixed in the ground many of the Jews returned to the city, and then the three women and St. John drew nearer. This explanation does away with the difficulty as to the reason why the Blessed Virgin and St. John applied to themselves the words, “Behold thy Son; Behold thy Mother,” when so many others were present, and Christ addressed neither His Mother nor His disciple by name. The real answer to this objection is that the three women and St. John were standing so near the Cross as to enable our Lord to designate by His looks the persons whom He was addressing. Besides, the words were evidently spoken to His personal friends, and not to strangers. And amongst His personal friends who were on the spot there was no other man to whom he could say, “Behold thy Mother,” except St. John, and there was no other woman who would be rendered childless by His death except His Virgin Mother. Wherefore He said to His Mother: “Behold thy Son,” and to His disciple, ” Behold thy Mother.” Now this is the literal meaning of these words: I indeed am on the point of passing from this world to the bosom of My Heavenly Father, and since I am fully aware that you My Mother, have neither parents, nor a husband, nor brothers, nor sisters, in order not to leave you utterly destitute of human succour, I commend you to the care of My most beloved disciple John: he will act towards you as a son, and you will act towards him as a Mother. And this counsel or command of Christ, which showed Him to be so mindful of others, was alike welcome to both parties, and both we may believe to have bowed their heads in token of their acquiescence, for St. John says of himself; “And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own,” that is, St. John immediately obeyed our Lord, and reckoned the Blessed Virgin, together with his now aged parents Zebedee and Salome amongst the persons for whom it was his duty to care and provide.

There still remains another question which may be asked. St. John was one of those who had said;[7] “Behold we have forsaken all, and followed Thee; what shall we have therefore?” And among the things which they had abandoned, our Lord enumerates father and mother, brothers and sisters, house and lands; and St. Matthew, when speaking of St. John and his brother St. James, said: “And they immediately left their nets and their father and followed Him.”[8] Whence comes it then that he who had left one mother for the sake of Christ, should be told by our Lord to look upon the Blessed Virgin in the light of a Mother? We have not far to go for an answer. When the Apostles followed Christ they left their father and mother, in so far as they might be an impediment to their evangelical life, and inasmuch, as any worldly advantage and carnal pleasure might be derived from their presence. But they did not forego that solicitude which a man is justly bound to show for his parents or his children, if they want either his direction or his assistance. Whence some spiritual writers affirm that that son cannot enter a religious order, whose father is either so stricken with age, or oppressed with poverty as to be unable to live without his aid. And as St. John left his father and mother when they stood not in need of him, so when Christ ordered him to take care of and provide for His Virgin Mother, she was destitute of all human succour. God indeed, without any assistance from man, might have provided His Mother with all things necessary by the ministry of angels, just as they ministered to Christ Himself in the desert: but He wished St. John to do this in order that whilst the Apostle took care of the Virgin, she might honour and help the Apostle. For God sent Elias to the assistance of a poor widow, not that He could not have supported her by means of a raven, as He had done before, but in order, as St. Austin observes, that the prophet might bless her. Wherefore it pleased our Lord to intrust His Mother to the care of St. John for the twofold purpose of bestowing a blessing upon him, and to prove that he above all the rest was His beloved disciple. For truly in this transfer of His Mother was fulfilled that text: ” Every one that hath forsaken father or mother shall receive a hundred-fold, and shall inherit life everlasting.”[9] For certainly he received a hundred-fold, who leaving his mother, the wife of a fisherman, received as a mother, the Mother of the Creator, the Queen of the world, who was full of grace, blessed among women, and shortly to be raised above all the choirs of angels in the heavenly kingdom.


ENDNOTES

1. St. John xix. 26, 27.
2. St. Mark xvi. 1.
3. St. Matt. xxvii. 56.
4. St. Mark xv. 40.
5. St. Mark xv. 40.
6. St. Luke xxiii. 49.
7. St. Matt. xix. 27.
8. St. Matt. iv. 22.
9. St. Matt. xix. 29.

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CHAPTER IX. The first fruit to be drawn from the consideration of the third Word spoken by Christ upon the Cross.

If we examine attentively all the circumstances under which this third word was spoken, we may gather many fruits from its consideration First of all, we have brought before us the intense desire which Christ felt of suffering for our salvation in order that our redemption might be copious and plentiful For in order not to increase the pain and sorrow they feel, some men take measures to prevent their relatives being present at their death, particularly if their death is to be a violent one, accompanied by disgrace and infamy But Christ was not satiated with His own most bitter Passion, so full of grief and shame, but wished also that His Mother and the disciple whom He loved, should be present, and should even stand near the Cross in order that the sight of the sufferings of those most dear to Him might augment His own grief. Four streams of Blood were pouring from the mangled Body of Christ on the Cross, and He wished that four streams of tears should flow from the eyes of His Mother, of His disciple, of Mary His Mother’s sister, and of Magdalene, the most cherished of the holy women, in order that the cause of His sufferings might be due less to the shedding of His own Blood, than to the copious flood of tears which the sight of His agony wrung from the hearts of those who were standing near. I imagine that I hear Christ saying to me “The sorrows of death surround Me,”[1] for the sword of Simeon rends and mangles My Heart, as cruelly as it passes through the soul of My most innocent Mother It is thus that a bitter death should separate not only the soul from the body, but a mother from a son, and such a Mother from such a Son! For this reason He said, “Woman, behold thy son,” for His love for Mary would not permit Him at such a moment to address her by the endearing name of Mother. God has so loved the world as to give His Only-Begotten Son for its redemption, and the Only-Begotten Son has so loved the Father as to shed profusely His very Blood for His honour, and not satisfied with the pangs of His Passion, has endured the agonies of compassion, so that there might be a plentiful redemption for our sins. And that we may not perish but may enjoy life everlasting, the Father and the Son exhort us to the imitation of Their charity by pourtraying it in its most exquisite beauty; and yet the heart of man still resists this so great charity, and consequently deserves rather to feel the wrath of God, than to taste the sweetness of His mercy, and fall into the arms of Divine love We should be indeed ungrateful, and should deserve everlasting torments, if we would not for His love endure the little purging which is necessary for our salvation, when we behold our Redeemer loving us to that extent, as to suffer for our sakes more than was necessary, to endure countless torments, and to shed every drop of His Blood, when one single drop would have been amply sufficient for our redemption The only reason that can be assigned for our sloth and folly is, that we neither meditate on the Passion of Christ, nor consider His immense love for us with that earnestness and attention we ought to do We content ourselves with reading the Passion hastily, or hearing it read, instead of securing fitting opportunities to penetrate ourselves with the thought of it. On that account the holy Prophet admonishes us: “Attend and see if there be sorrow like unto my sorrow.”[2] And the Apostle says: “Consider Him that endureth such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.”[3] But the time will come when our ingratitude towards God and listlessness in the affair of our own salvation will be a subject of sincere sorrow to us. For there are many who at the Last Day “will groan for anguish of spirit,” and will say: “Therefore we have erred from the way of truth, and the light of justice hath not shined upon us.”[4] And they will not feel this fruitless sorrow for the first time in hell, but before the Day of Judgment, when their mortal eyes shall be shut in death, and the eyes of their soul shall be opened, will they behold the truth of those things to which during their life they were wilfully blind.


ENDNOTES

1. Psalm xvii.
2. Lament. i. 10.
3. Heb. xii. 3.
4. Wisdom v. 6.

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CHAPTER X: The second fruit to be drawn from the consideration of the third Word spoken by Christ upon the Cross.

We may draw another fruit from the consideration of the third word spoken by Christ on the Cross from this circumstance, that there were three women who stood near the Cross of our Lord Mary Magdalene is the representative of the penitent sinner, or of one who is making a first attempt to advance in the way of perfection. Mary the wife of Cleophas is the representative of those who have already made some advance towards perfection; and Mary the Virgin Mother of Christ is the representative of those who are perfect We may couple St. John with our Lady, who was shortly to be, if he were not already, confirmed in grace These were the only persons who were found near the Cross, for abandoned sinners who never think of penance are far removed from the ladder of salvation, the Cross Moreover, it was not without a purpose that these chosen souls were near the Cross, since even they were in need of the assistance of Him Who was nailed thereon. Penitents, or beginners in virtue, in order to carry on the war against their vices and concupiscences require help from Christ, their Leader, and this help to fight with the old serpent they receive in the encouragement which His example gives them, for He would not descend from the Cross until He had gained a complete victory over the devil, which is what we are taught by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Colossians: ” Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His Cross; and having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.”[1] Mary the wife of Cleophas, and the mother of children who were called the brothers of our Lord, is the representative of those who have already made some progress on the path of perfection These also want assistance from the Cross, lest the cares and anxieties of this world, with which they are necessarily mixed up, choke in them the good seed, and a night of labour will result in the capture of nothing Therefore souls in this stage of perfection must still work and cast many a glance on Christ nailed to His Cross, Who was not satisfied by the great and manifold good deeds He performed during His life, but wished by means of His death to advance to the most heroic degree of virtue, for until the enemy of mankind had been thoroughly vanquished and put to flight, He would not come down from His Cross. To grow weary in the pursuit of virtue, and to cease from performing acts of virtue, are the greatest impediments to our spiritual advancement, for as St. Bernard truly notes in his Epistle to Garinus, “not to advance in virtue is to go back;” and in this same epistle he refers to the ladder of Jacob, whereon all the angels were either ascending or descending, but none were standing still. Moreover, even in the perfect who live a life of celibacy and are virgins, as were our Blessed Lady and St. John, who for this reason was the chosen Apostle of Christ, even these, I say, greatly need the assistance of Him that was crucified, since their very virtue exposes them to the danger of falling through spiritual pride, unless they are well grounded in humility During the course of His public ministry, Christ gave us many lessons in humility, as when He said “Learn of Me, for I am meek and humble of Heart.”[2] And again “Sit ye down in the lowest place;”[3] and “Every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”[4] Still all His exhortations on the necessity of this virtue are not so persuasive as the example He set us on the Cross For what greater example of humility can we conceive than that the Omnipotent should allow Himself to be bound with ropes and nailed to a Cross ? And that He “in Whom are hid all the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God”[5] should permit Herod and his army to treat Him as a fool and clothe Him with a white robe, and that “He Who sitteth on the cherubim”[6] should suffer Himself to be crucified between two thieves? Well might we say after this, that the man who should kneel before a crucifix, and should look into the interior of his own soul, and should come to the conclusion that he was not deficient in the virtue of humility, would be incapable of learning any lesson.


ENDNOTES

1. Coloss. ii. 14-15.
2. St. Matt. xi. 29.
3. St. Luke xiv. 10.
4. St. Luke xviii. 14.
5. Coloss. ii. 3.
6. Psalm xcviii. 1.

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CHAPTER XI: The third fruit to be drawn from the consideration of the third Word spoken by Christ upon the Cross.

We learn in the third place from the words which Christ addressed to His Mother and to His disciple from the pulpit of the Cross, what are the relative duties of parents towards their children, and of children towards their parents We will treat in the first place of the duties which parents owe their children. Christian parents should love their children, but in such a manner that the love of their children should not interfere with their love of God. This is the doctrine that our Lord lays down in the Gospel “He that loveth son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.”[1] It was in obedience to this law that our Lady stood near the Cross to her intense agony, yet with great constancy of soul. Her grief was a proof of the great love she bore her Son, Who was dying on the Cross beside her, and her constancy was a proof of her subservience to the God Who was reigning in heaven. The sight of her innocent Son, Whom she passionately loved, dying in the midst of such torments, was enough to break her heart; but even had she been able, she would not have hindered the crucifixion, since she knew that all these sufferings were being inflicted on her Son according to “the determinate council and fore-knowledge of God.”[2] Love is the measure of grief, and because this Virgin Mother loved much, therefore was she afflicted beyond measure at beholding her Son so cruelly tortured And how could this Virgin Mother help loving her Son, when she knew that He excelled the rest of mankind in every kind of excellence, and when He was related to her by a closer tie than other children are related to their parents? There is a twofold reason why parents love their offspring; one, because they have begotten them, and the other, because the good qualities of their children redound on themselves There are some parents, however, who feel but a slight attachment to their children, and others who positively hate them if they are deformed or wicked, or have the misfortune of being illegitimate Now for the aforesaid twofold reason, the Virgin Mother of God loved her Son more than any other mother could love her child In the first place, no woman has ever given birth to a child without the cooperation of her husband, but the Blessed Virgin brought forth her Son without any contact with man; as a Virgin she conceived Him, and as a Virgin she brought Him forth, and as Christ our Lord in the Divine generation has a Father without a Mother, so in the human generation He has a Mother without a Father. When we say that Christ our Lord was conceived of the Holy Ghost, we do not mean that the Holy Spirit is the Father of Christ, but that He formed and moulded the Body of Christ, not out of His own substance, but from the pure flesh of the Virgin. Truly then has the Virgin alone begotten Him, she alone can claim Him as her own Son, and therefore has she loved Him with more than a mother’s love In the second place, the Son of the Virgin not only was and is beautiful beyond the children of men but surpasses in every way all angels also, and as a natural consequence of her great love, the Blessed Virgin mourned over the Passion and Death of her Son more than others, and St. Bernard does not hesitate to affirm in one of his sermons, that the sorrow our Lady felt at the crucifixion was a martyrdom of the heart, according to the prophecy of Simeon “A sword shall pierce through thy own soul.”[3] And since the martyrdom of the heart is more bitter than the martyrdom of the body, St. Anselm in his work on the “Excellence of the Virgin,” says that the grief of the Virgin was more bitter than any bodily suffering Our Lord, in His Agony in the Garden of Gethsemani, suffered a martyrdom of the heart by passing in review all the sufferings and torments He was to endure on the morrow, and by opening on to His soul the floodgates of grief and fear He began to be so afflicted, that a Sweat of Blood diffused from His Body, an occurrence which we are not informed ever resulted from his corporal sufferings Therefore, beyond a doubt, our Blessed Lady carried a most heavy cross, and endured most poignant grief, from the sword of sorrow which pierced her soul, but she stood near the Cross the very model of patience, and beheld all His sufferings without manifesting a sign of impatience, because she sought the honour and glory of God rather than the gratification of her maternal love She did not fall to the ground half dead with sorrow, as some imagine; nor did she tear her hair, nor sob and cry aloud, but she bravely bore the affliction which it was the will of God she should bear She loved her Son vehemently, but she loved the honour of God the Father and the salvation of mankind more, just as her Divine Son preferred these two objects to the preservation of His life Moreover, her unwavering faith in the resurrection of her Son increased her confidence of soul to such an extent that she stood in no need of consolation from any man She was aware that the Death of her Son would be like a short sleep, according to what the Royal Psalmist said “I have slept and have taken my rest, and I have risen up, because the Lord hath protected me.”[4]

All the faithful should imitate this example of Christ by deferring the love of their children to the love of God, Who is the Father of all, and loves all with a greater and more beneficial love than we can bear ourselves. In the first place, Christian parents should love their children with a manly and prudent love, not encouraging them if they do wrong, but educating them in the fear of God, and correcting them, even chastising and punishing them if they either offend God or neglect their studies For this is the will of God, as it is revealed to us in Holy Writ, in the Book of Ecclesiasticus, “Hast thou children? instruct them, and bow down their neck from their childhood.”[5] And we read of Tobias that “from his infancy he taught his son to fear God and to abstain from all sin.”[6] The Apostle warns parents not to provoke their children to anger, lest they be discouraged, but to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, that is, to treat them not as slaves, but as children.[7] Parents who are too severe with their children, and who rebuke and punish them even for a small fault, treat them as slaves, and such treatment will discourage them and make them hate the paternal roof; and on the contrary, those parents who are too indulgent will rear up immoral children, who will become victims of hell- fire instead of possessing an immortal crown in heaven.

The right method for parents to adopt in the education of their children is to teach them to obey their superiors, and when they are disobedient to correct them, but in such a manner as to make it evident that the correction proceeds from a spirit of love and not of hatred. Moreover, if God calls a child to the priesthood or to the religious life, no impediment should be offered to his vocation, for parents should not oppose the will of God, but should say with holy Job “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord.”[8] Lastly, if parents lose their children by an untimely death, as our Blessed Lady lost her Divine Son, they should trust in the good judgment of God, Who sometimes takes a soul to Himself if He perceives that it may lose its innocence and so perish forever Truly if parents could penetrate into the designs of God in the death of a child, they would rejoice rather than weep: and if we had a lively faith in the Resurrection, as our Lady had, we should no more repine because a person dies in his youth, than we should weep because a person goes to sleep before night-time, since the death of the faithful is a kind of sleep, as the Apostle tells us in his Epistle to the Thessalonians: “But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them who are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others who have no hope”.[9] The Apostle speaks rather of hope than of faith, because he does not refer to an uncertain resurrection, but to a happy and glorious resurrection, similar to that of Christ, which was a waking up to true life. For the man who has a firm faith in the resurrection of the body, and trusts that his dead child will rise again to glory, has no cause for sorrow, but great reason for rejoicing, because his child’s salvation is secured.

Our next point is to treat of the duty which children owe their parents Our Lord in His Death gave us a most perfect example of filial respect. Now, according to the words of the Apostle, the duty of children is “to requite their parents.”[10] Children requite their parents when they provide all necessary conveniences for them in their old age, just as their parents procured food and raiment for them in their infancy. When Christ was at the point of death He entrusted His aged Mother, who had no one to care for her, to the protection of St. John, and told her to look upon him in future as her son, and commanded St. John to reverence her as his mother And thus our Lord perfectly fulfilled the obligations which a son owes his mother. In the first place, in the person of St. John He gave His Virgin Mother a son who was of the same age as Himself, or perhaps a year younger, and therefore was in every way capable to provide for the comfort of the Mother of our Lord. Secondly, He gave her for a son the disciple whom He loved more than the rest, and who ardently returned Him love for love, and consequently our Lord had the greatest confidence in the diligence with which His disciple would support His Mother. Moreover He chose the disciple whom He knew would outlive the other apostles, and would consequently survive His parent Lastly, our Lord was mindful of His Mother at the most calamitous moment of His life, when His whole Body was the prey of sufferings, when His whole Soul was racked by the insolent taunts of His enemies, and He had to drink the bitter chalice of approaching death, so that it would seem He could think of nothing but His own sorrows Nevertheless, His love for His Mother triumphed over all, and forgetting Himself, His only thought was how to comfort and help her, nor was His hope in the promptitude and fidelity of His disciple deceived, for “from that hour he took her unto his own.”[11]

Every child has a greater obligation than our Lord had to provide for the temporal wants of his parents, since every man owes more to his parents than Christ owed to His Mother. Each infant receives a greater favour from his parents than he can ever hope to repay, for he has received from their hands what it is impossible for him to bestow on them, namely, a being “Remember,” says Ecclesiasticus, “that thou hadst not been born but through them.”[12] Christ alone is an exception to this rule He indeed received from His Mother His life as a man, but He bestowed on her three lives; her human life, when with the cooperation of the Father and the Holy Ghost He created her; her life of grace, when He forestalled her in the sweetness of His blessings by creating her Immaculate, and her life of glory when she was assumed into the kingdom of glory, and exalted above all the choirs of angels. Wherefore if Christ, Who gave His Blessed Mother more than He had received from her in His birth, wished to requite her, certainly the rest of mankind are still more obliged to requite their parents Moreover, we only do our duty in honouring our parents, and yet the goodness of God is such as to reward us for this In the Ten Commandments the law is laid down- -“Honour thy father and thy mother, that thou mayst be long-lived upon the land.”[13] And the Holy Ghost says: “He that honoureth his father shall have joy in his own children, and in the day of his prayer he shall be heard.”[14] And God does not only reward those who reverence their parents, but punishes those who are disrespectful to them, for these are the words of Christ: “God hath said He that curseth father or mother let him die the death.”[15] “And he is cursed of God that angereth his mother.[16] Hence we may conclude that a parent’s curse will bring ruin in its train, for God Himself will ratify it. This is proved by many examples; and one which St. Augustine relates in his City of God we will briefly narrate. In Caesarea, a town of Cappadocia, there were ten children, namely seven boys and three girls, who were cursed by their mother, and were immediately struck by heaven with such an infliction that all their limbs shook, and, in this pitiable plight, wheresoever any of them went, they were unable to bear the gaze of their fellow-citizens, and thus they wandered throughout the whole Roman world. At last two of them were cured by the relics of St. Stephen the Proto-martyr, in the presence of St. Augustine.


ENDNOTES

1. St. Matt. x. 37.
2. Acts. ii. 23.
3. St. Luke ii. 35.
4. Psalm iii. 6.
5. Ecclus. vii. 24.
6. Tobias i. 10.
7. Coloss. iii. 21; Ephes. vi. 4.
8. Job i. 21.
9. 1 Thess. iv. 12.
10. 1 Tim. v. 4.
11. St. John xix. 27.
12. Ecclus. vii. 30.
13. Exodus xx. 12.
14. Ecclus. iii. 6.
15. St. Matt. xv. 4.
16. Ecclus. iii. 18.

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CHAPTER XII: The fourth fruit to be drawn from the consideration of the third Word spoken by Christ upon the Cross.

The burden and yoke our Lord imposed on St. John, in entrusting to his care the protection of His Virgin Mother, was indeed a yoke that was sweet, and a burden that was light Who indeed would not esteem it a happiness to dwell under the same roof with her, who for nine months had borne in her womb the Incarnate Word, and for thirty years enjoyed the most sweet and happy communication of sentiments with Him? Who does not envy the chosen disciple of our Lord, whose heart in the absence of the Son of God was gladdened by the constant presence of the Mother of God? Yet if I mistake not it is in our power to obtain by our prayers that our most kind Lord, Who became Man for our sakes and was crucified for love of us, should say to us in reference to His Mother, “Behold thy Mother,” and should say to His Mother for each one of us “Behold thy son!” Our good Lord is not avaricious of His graces, provided we approach the throne of grace with faith and confidence, with true and open but not dissembling hearts He Who wishes to have us coheirs in the kingdom of His Father, will not disdain to have us coheirs in the love of His Mother Nor will our most benign Lady take it amiss to have a countless host of children, since she has a heart capable of embracing us all, and ardently desires that not one of those sons should perish whom her Divine Son redeemed with His precious Blood and His still more precious Death Let us therefore with confidence approach the throne of the grace of Christ, and with tears humbly beg of Him to say to His Mother for each of us, “Behold thy son,” and to us in reference to His Mother, “Behold thy Mother.” How secure should we be under the protection of such a Mother! Who would dare to drag us from beneath her mantle? What temptations, what tribulations could overcome us if we confide in the protection of the Mother of God and of our Mother? Nor should we be the first who had secured such powerful patronage. Many have preceded us, many I say have placed themselves under the singular and maternal protection of so powerful a Virgin, and no one has been cast off by her with his soul in a perplexed and despondent state, but all who confide in the love of such a Mother are happy and contented. Of her it is written “She shall crush thy head.”[1] Those who trust in her will safely “walk upon the asp and the basilisk, and will trample under foot the lion and the dragon.”[2] Let us, however, listen to the words of a few distinguished men out of the vast array who acknowledged that they had placed their hope of salvation in the Virgin, and to whom we may believe our Lord had said “Behold thy Mother,” and of whom He had said to His Mother, “Behold thy son.”

The first shall be the Syrian, St. Ephrem, an ancient Father of such renown that St. Jerome informs us his works were publicly read in the churches after the Holy Scriptures. In one of his sermons on the praises of the Mother of God, he says, “The undefiled and pure Virgin Mother of God, the Queen of all, and the hope of those in despair.” And again “Thou art a harbour for those who are tossed by storms, the comfort of the world, the liberator of those in prison; thou art the mother of orphans, the redeemer of captives, the joy of the sick, and the star of safety for all.” And again “Under thy wing, guard and protect me, have mercy on me who am defiled with sin. I have confidence in none other but thee, O Virgin most sincere. Hail peace, joy, and safety of the world!” We will next quote St. John Damascene, who was one of the first to show the greatest honour and place the greatest confidence in the protection of the most holy Virgin. He thus discourses in a sermon on the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin: “O daughter of Joachim and Anne, O Lady, receive the prayers of a sinner who ardently loves and honours you, and looks up to you as his only hope of joy, as the priestess of life, and the leader of sinners back to grace and favour with your Son, and the secure depositary of safety, lighten the burden of my sins, overcome my temptations, make my life pious and holy, and grant that under thy guidance I may come to the happiness of heaven.” We will now select a few passages from two Latin Fathers. St. Anselm, in his work on the “Excellence of the Virgin,” somewhere says: “I consider it a great sign of predestination for any one to have had the favour granted him of frequently thinking of Mary.” And again: “Remember that we sometimes obtain help by invoking the name of the Virgin Mother sooner than if we had invoked the Name of the Lord Jesus, her only Son, and this not because she is greater or more powerful than He, nor because He is great and powerful through her, but she is so through Him. How is it then that we obtain assistance sooner by invoking her than by invoking her Son? I say that I think this is so, and my reason is that her Son is the Lord and Judge of all, and is able to discern the merits of each. Consequently when His Name is invoked by any one, He may justly turn a deaf ear to the entreaty, but if the name of His Mother is invoked, even supposing that the merits of the supplicant do not entitle him to be heard, still the merits of the Mother of God are such that her Son cannot refuse to listen to her prayer.” But St. Bernard, in language which is truly wonderful, describes on the one hand the holy and maternal affection with which the Blessed Virgin cherishes those who are devout to her, and on the other hand the tender and filial love of those who regard her as their Mother. In his second sermon on the text, “The Angel was sent,” he exclaims: “O thou, whoever thou art, that knowest thou art exposed to the dangers of the tempestuous sea of this world more than thou enjoyest the security of dry land, do not withdraw thy eyes from the splendour of this Star, from Mary the Star of the Sea, unless thou wishest to be swallowed up in the tempest. If the winds of temptations arise, if thou art thrown upon the rocks of tribulations, look up to this Star, call upon Mary. If thou art tossed hither and thither on the billows of pride, ambition, detraction, or envy, look up to this Star, call on Mary. If thou, terrified at the enormity of thy crimes, perplexed at the unclean state of thy conscience, and stricken with awe for thy Judge, beginnest to be engulphed in the abyss of sadness or the pit of despair, think of Mary; in all thy dangers, in all thy difficulties, in all thy doubts think of Mary, call upon Mary. Thou wilt not go astray if thou followest her, thou wilt not despair if thou prayest to her, thou wilt not err if thou thinkest of her.” The same Saint in his sermon on the Nativity of the Virgin, speaks as follows. “Raise your thoughts and judge with what affection He wishes us to honour Mary, Who has filled her soul with the plenitude of His goodness, so that whatever hope, whatever grace, whatever preservation from sin is ours we may recognize as flowing from her hands.” “Let us then venerate Mary with our whole hearts and all our votive offerings, for such is His will Who would have us receive everything through Mary.” “My children, she is the ladder for sinners, she is my greatest confidence, she is the whole foundation of my hope.” To these extracts from the writings of two holy Fathers, I will add some quotations from two holy theologians. St. Thomas, in his essay on the Angelical salutation, says: “She is blessed among women because she alone has removed the curse of Adam, brought blessings to mankind, and opened the gates of Paradise. Hence she is called Mary, which name signifies ‘Star of the Sea,’ for as sailors steer their ship to port by watching the stars, so Christians are brought to glory by the intercession of Mary.” St. Bonaventure in his Pharetra writes: “O most Blessed Virgin, as every one that hates you and is forgotten by you must necessarily perish, so every one that loves you and is loved by you must necessarily be saved.” The same Saint in his Life of St. Francis speaks of that Saint’s confidence in the Blessed Virgin in the following terms. “He loved the Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ with an unspeakable love, by her our Lord Jesus Christ became our brother, and by her we have obtained mercy. Next to Christ he placed all his confidence in her, he regarded her as his own and his Order’s advocate, and in her honour devoutly fasted from the feast of St. Peter and Paul to the Assumption.” With these saints we will couple the name of Pope Innocent III, who was eminently distinguished for his devotion to the Virgin, and not only extolled her in his sermons, but built a monastery in her honour, and what is more admirable, in an exhortation he made to his flock to induce them to trust in her, he used words the truth of which was afterwards exemplified in his own person. Thus he spoke in his second sermon on the Assumption: “Let the man who is sitting in the darkness of sin look up to the moon, let him invoke Mary that she may intercede with her Son, and bring him to compunction of heart. For who has ever called upon her in his distress and has not been heard?” The reader should consult cap. ix. book 2, on the “Tears of the Dove,” and see what we have there written about Pope Innocent III. From these extracts, and from these signs of predestination, it is abundantly evident that a hearty devotion to the Virgin Mother of God is not a modern introduction. For it seems incredible that that man should perish in whose favour Christ had said to His Mother, “Behold thy son,” provided that he has not turned a deaf ear to the words which Christ had addressed to himself, “Behold thy Mother.”


ENDNOTES

1. Gen. iii. 15.
2. Psalm xc. 13.

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BOOK II: ON THE LAST FOUR WORDS SPOKEN ON THE CROSS


CHAPTER I. The literal explanation of the fourth Word, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”

We have explained in the preceding Part the three first words which were spoken by our Lord from the pulpit of the Cross, about the sixth hour, soon after His crucifixion. In this Part we will explain the remaining four words, which, after the darkness and silence of three hours, this same Lord from this same pulpit proclaimed with a loud voice. But first it seems necessary briefly to explain what, and whence, and for what end arose the darkness which intervened between the three first and the four last words, for thus does St. Matthew speak: “Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over the whole earth, until the ninth hour; and about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lamma sabacthani? that is, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”[1] And that this darkness arose from an eclipse of the sun is expressly told us by St. Luke: “And the sun was darkened,”[2] he says.

But here three difficulties present themselves. In the first place, an eclipse of the sun takes place at new moon, when the moon is between the earth and the sun, and this could not be at the death of Christ, because the moon was not in conjunction with the sun, as it is when there is a new moon, but was opposite to the sun as at full moon, as the Passion occurred at the Pasch of the Jews, which, according to St. Luke, was on the fourteenth day of the lunar month. In the second place, even if the moon had been in conjunction with the sun at the time of the Passion, the darkness could not have lasted three hours, that is, from the sixth to the ninth hour, since an eclipse of the sun does not last long, particularly if it is a total eclipse, when the sun is so entirely hidden that its obscuration is called darkness. For as the moon moves quicker than the sun, according to its own proper motion, it consequently darkens the whole surface of the sun for a short time only, and, being constantly in motion, the sun, as the moon recedes, begins to give its light to the earth. Lastly, it can never happen that through the conjunction of the sun and moon the whole earth should be left in darkness. For the moon is smaller than the sun–smaller even than the earth, and therefore by its interposition the moon cannot so obscure the sun as to deprive the universe of its light. And if any one should maintain the opinion that the Evangelists speak of the whole land of Palestine, and not of the whole world absolutely, he is refuted by the testimony of St. Dionysius the Areopagite, who, in his Epistle to St. Polycarp, declares that in the city of Heliopolis, in Egypt, he himself saw this eclipse of the sun, and felt this horrid darkness. And Phlegon, a Greek historian and a Gentile, refers to this eclipse when he says: ” In the fourth year of the two hundred and second Olympiad, there took place a greater and more extraordinary eclipse than had ever happened before, for at the sixth hour the light of day was changed into the darkness of night, so that the stars appeared in the heavens.” This historian did not write in Judaea, and he is quoted by Origen against Celsus, and Eusebius in his Chronicles for the thirty-third year of Christ. Lucian the martyr bears witness to the fact thus: “Look into our annals, and you will find that in the time of Pilate the sun disappeared, and the day was invaded by darkness.” Ruffinus quotes these words of St. Lucian in the Ecclesiastical history of Eusebius, which he himself translated into Latin. Tertullian, also, in his “Apologeticon,” and Paul Orosius, in his history–all, in fact, speak of the whole globe, and not of Judaea only. Now for the solution of the difficulties. What we said above, that an eclipse of the sun happens at new moon, and not at full moon, is true when a natural eclipse takes place; but the eclipse at the death of Christ was extraordinary and unnatural, because it was the effect of Him Who made the sun and the moon, the heaven and the earth. St. Dionysius, in the passage to which we have just referred, asserts that the moon at mid-day was seen by himself and Apollophanes to approach the sun by a rapid and unusual motion, and that the moon placed itself before the sun and remained in that position till the ninth hour, and in the same manner returned to its own place in the east. To the objection that an eclipse of the sun could not last three hours, so that throughout that time darkness should overspread the earth, we may reply, that in a natural and ordinary eclipse this would be true; this eclipse, however, was not ruled by the laws of nature, but by the will of the Almighty Creator, Who could as easily make the moon remain, as it were, stationary before the sun, moving neither quicker nor slower than the sun, as He could bring the moon in an extraordinary manner and with great velocity from its position in the east to the sun, and after three hours make it return to its proper place in the skies. Finally, an eclipse of the sun could not be perceived at the same moment in every part of the world, since the moon is smaller than the earth and much smaller than the sun. This is most true if we regard the interposition of the moon alone; but what the moon could not of itself do, the Creator of the sun and moon did, merely by not cooperating with the sun in illuminating the globe. Nor, again, can it be true, as some suppose, that this universal darkness was caused by dense and dark clouds, as it is evident, on the authority of the ancients, that during this eclipse and darkness the stars shone in heaven, and dense clouds would obscure not only the sun, but also the moon and stars.

Various are the reasons given why God desired this universal darkness during the Passion of Christ. There are two special ones. First, to show the very great blindness of the Jewish people, as St. Leo tells us in his tenth sermon on the Passion of our Lord, and this blindness of the Jews lasts till this moment, and will last, according to the prophecy of Isaias: “Arise, be enlightened, O Jerusalem: for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and a mist the people:”[3] darkness, forsooth, the most dense shall cover the people of Israel, and a mist which is lighter and easily dissipated shall cover the Gentiles. The second reason, as St. Jerome teaches, was to show the enormity of the sin of the Jews. Formerly, indeed, wicked men were wont to harass, and persecute, and kill the good; now impious men have dared to persecute, and crucify God Himself, Who had assumed our human nature. Formerly men disputed with one another; from disputes they came to oaths; from oaths to blood and slaughter; now servants and slaves have risen up against the King of men and angels, and with unheard-of audacity have nailed Him to a Cross. Therefore the whole world is filled with horror, and in order to show its detestation of such a crime, the sun has withdrawn its rays and has covered the universe with a terrible darkness.

Let us now come to the interpretation of the words of our Lord: “Eli, Eli, lamma sabacthani.” These words are taken from the twenty-first Psalm: “O God, my God, look upon me; why hast Thou forsaken me?”[4] The words “look upon me,” which occur in the middle of the verse, were added by the Septuagint interpreters: but in the Hebrew text those words only are found which our Lord pronounced. We must remark that the Psalms were written in Hebrew, and the words spoken by Christ were partly Syriac, which was the language then in use amongst the Jews. These words: “Tabitha cumi–“Damsel, I say to thee, Arise,” and Ephphetha–“Be thou opened,” and some other words in the Gospel are Syriac and not Hebrew. Our Lord then complains that He has been abandoned by God, and He complains crying out with a loud voice. Both these circumstances must be briefly explained. The abandonment of Christ by His Father might be interpreted in five ways, but there is only one true interpretation. There were indeed five unions between the Father and the Son: one the natural and eternal union of the Person of the Son in essence: the second, a new bond of union of the Divine nature with the human nature in the Person of the Son, or what is the same thing, the union of the Divine Person of the Son with the human nature: the third was the union of grace and will, for Christ as man was “full of grace and truth,”[5] as He testifies in St. John: “I do always the things that please Him:”[6] and of Him the Father spoke: “This is My beloved Son in Whom I am well pleased.”[7] The fourth was the union of glory, since the soul of Christ from the moment of conception enjoyed the beatific vision: the fifth was the union of protection to which He refers when He says: “And He that sent Me is with Me, and He hath not left Me alone.”[8] The first kind of union is inseparable and eternal, because it is founded in the Divine Essence, so our Lord says: “I and the Father are One:”[9] and therefore Christ did not say: My Father, why hast Thou forsaken Me? but “My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” For the Father is called the God of the Son only after the Incarnation and by reason of the Incarnation. The second kind of union never has nor can be dissolved, because what God has once assumed He can never lay aside and so the Apostle says: “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all;[10] and, St. Peter, “Christ suffered for us,” and “Christ therefore having suffered in the flesh:”[11] all which proves that it was not a mere man, but the true Son of God, and Christ the Lord Who was crucified. The third kind of union also still exists and ever will exist: “Because Christ also died once for our sins, the just for the unjust,”[12] as St. Peter expresses it; for the death of Christ would have profited us nothing had this union of grace been dissolved. The fourth union could not be disturbed, because the beatitude of the soul cannot be lost, since it embraces the enjoyment of every good, and the superior part of the soul of Christ was truly happy.[13]

There remains then the union of protection only, which was broken for a short period, in order to allow time for the oblation of the bloody sacrifice for the redemption of mankind. God the Father indeed could in many ways have protected Christ, and have hindered the Passion, and for this reason in His Prayer in the Garden Christ says: “Father, all things are possible to Thee: remove this chalice from Me, but not what I will, but what Thou wilt:”[14] and again to St. Peter: “Thinkest Thou that I cannot ask My Father, and He will give Me presently more than twelve legions of angels?”[15] Christ also as God could have saved His Body from suffering, for He says “No man taketh” My life “away from Me, but I lay it down of Myself[16] and this is what Isaias had foretold: “He was offered because it was His own will.”[17] Finally, the blessed Soul of Christ could have transmitted to the Body the gift of impassibility and incorruption; but it was pleasing to the Father, and to the Word, and to the Holy Spirit, for the accomplishment of the decree of the Blessed Trinity, to allow the power of man to prevail for a time against Christ. For this was that hour to which Christ referred when He said to those who had come to apprehend Him: “This is your hour and the power of darkness.”[18] Thus then God abandoned His Son when He allowed His Human flesh to suffer such cruel torments without any consolation, and Christ crying out with a loud voice manifested this abandonment so that all might know the greatness of the price of our redemption, for up to that hour He had borne all His torments with such patience and equanimity as to appear almost bereft of the power of feeling. He did not complain of the Jews who accused Him, nor of Pilate who condemned Him, nor of the soldiers who crucified Him. He did not groan: He did not cry out: He did not give any outward sign of His suffering; and now at the point of death, in order that mankind might understand, and that we, His servants, might remember so great a grace, and value the price of our redemption, He wished publicly to declare the great suffering of His Passion. Wherefore these words: “My God, why hast Thou abandoned Me?” are not words of one who accuses, or who reproaches, or who complains, but, as I have said, they are the words of One who declares the greatness of His suffering for the best of reasons, and at the most opportune of moments.


ENDNOTES

1. St. Matt. xxvii. 45, 46.
2. St. Luke xxiii. 45.
3. Isaias lx. 1, 2.
4. Psalm xxi. 1.
5. St. John i. 14.
6. St. John viii. 29.
7. St. Matt. iii. 17.
8. St. John viii. 29.
9. St. John x. 30.
10. Romans viii. 32.
11. 1 St. Peter ii. 21; iv. 1.
12. 1 St. Peter iii. 18.
13. St. Thomas, 3. p. q. 46. art 8.
14. St. Mark xiv. 36.
15. St. Matt. xxvi. 53.
16. St. John x. 18.
17. Isaias liii. 7.
18. St. Luke xxii. 53

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CHAPTER II: The first fruit to be drawn from the consideration of the fourth word spoken by Christ upon the Cross.

We have briefly explained what has reference to the history of the fourth word: we must now gather some fruits from the tree of the Cross. The first thought that presents itself is that Christ wished to drain the chalice of His Passion even to the dregs. He remained on the Cross for three hours, from the sixth to the ninth hour. He remained for three full and entire hours, for even more than three hours, since He was fastened to the Cross before the sixth hour, and He did not die till the ninth hour, as is proved thus. The eclipse of the sun began at the sixth hour, as the three Evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke show; St. Mark expressly says: “And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole earth until the ninth hour.”[1] Now, our Lord uttered His three first words on the Cross before the darkness began, and consequently before the sixth hour. St. Mark explains this circumstance more clearly by saying: “And it was the third hour, and they crucified Him;” and by adding shortly afterwards; “And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness.”[2] When he says that our Lord was crucified at the third hour, he means that He was nailed to the Cross before the completion of that hour, and therefore before the commencement of the sixth hour. We must here notice that St. Mark speaks of the three principal hours, each of which contained three ordinary hours, just as the householder summoned workmen to his vineyard at the first, the third, the sixth, the ninth, and the eleventh hours,[3] and as the Church calls the canonical hours Prime, Terce, Sext, Nones and Vespers, which correspond to the eleventh hour. Therefore St. Mark says that our Lord was crucified at the third hour, because the sixth hour had not yet come.

Our Lord wished then to drink the full and overflowing chalice of His Passion to teach us to love the bitter chalice of penance and labour, and not to love the cup of consolations and worldly pleasures According to the law of the flesh and the world we ought to choose small mortifications, but great indulgences; little labour, but much joy; to take a short time for our prayers, but a long time for idle conversations. Truly we know not what we ask, for the Apostle warns the Corinthians: “And every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour:”[4] and again: “He is not crowned unless he strive lawfully.”[5] Eternal happiness ought to be the reward of eternal labour, but because we could never enjoy eternal happiness if our labour here was to be eternal, so our good Lord is satisfied, if during the life which passes as a shadow we strive to serve Him by the exercise of good works; besides those who spend this short life in idling, or what is still worse, in sinning and provoking their God to anger, are not so much children as infants who have no heart, no understanding, no judgment.” For if Christ ought to suffer, and so to enter His glory,”[6] how can we enter into a glory which is not our own by losing our time in the pursuit of pleasures and the gratification of the flesh? If the meaning of the Gospel was obscure, and could only be understood after great labour, there might perhaps be some excuse; but its meaning has been rendered so clear by the example of the life of Him Who first preached it, that the blind cannot fail to perceive it. And not only has the teaching of Christ been exemplified by His own life, but there have been as many commentaries on His doctrine apparent to all, as there are apostles and martyrs and confessors and virgins and saints whose praises and triumphs we celebrate every day. And all these proclaim aloud that not through many pleasures, but “through many tribulations,” it behoveth us “to enter into the kingdom of heaven.”[7]


ENDNOTES

1. St. Mark xv. 33.
2. St. Mark xv. 25.
3. St. Matt. xx.
4. 1 Cor. iii. 8.
5. 2 Tim. ii. 5.
6. St. Luke xxiv. 26.
7. Acts xiv. 21.

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CHAPTER III. The second fruit to be drawn from the consideration of the fourth Word spoken by Christ upon the Cross.

Another and very profitable fruit may be gathered from the consideration of the silence of Christ during those three hours which intervened between the sixth and the ninth hour. For, O my soul, what was it thy Lord did during those three hours? Universal horror and darkness had overspread the world, and thy Lord was reposing, not on a soft bed, but on a Cross, naked, overwhelmed with sorrows, without any one to console Him. Thou, O Lord, Who alone knowest what Thou sufferedst, teach Thy servants to understand what a debt of gratitude they owe Thee, to condole with Thee with their tears, and to suffer for Thy love, if it should so please Thee, the loss of every kind of consolation in this their place of banishment.

“O My son, during the whole course of My mortal life, which was nothing else but a continued labour and sorrow, I never experienced such anguish as during those three hours, nor did I ever suffer with greater willingness than then. For then through the weakness of My Body, My Wounds became every moment more open, and the bitterness of My pains increased. Then, too, the cold, which was intensified by the absence of the sun, made the sufferings from the head to the foot of My naked Body greater. Then, too, the very darkness which shut out from view the sky and the earth and all other things, forced, as it were, My thoughts to dwell on nothing but the torments of My Body, so that on this account those three hours seemed to be three years. But because My Heart was inflamed with a longing desire to honour My Father, to show My obedience to Him, and to procure the salvation of your souls, and the more the pains of My Body increased the more was this desire satiated, so these three hours seemed but three short moments, so great was My love in suffering.”

“O dear Lord, if such indeed was the case, we are very ungrateful if we find it hard to spend one hour in thinking of Thy pains, when Thou didst not find it hard to hang on a Cross for our salvation for three full hours, during a frightful darkness, in cold and nakedness, suffering an intolerable thirst and most bitter pangs. But, O lover of men, I beseech Thee answer me this. Could the vehemence of Thy sufferings withdraw Thy Heart from prayer for one moment during those three long and silent hours? Because when we are in distress, particularly if we suffer any bodily pain, we find the greatest difficulty in praying.”

“It was not so with Me, My son, because in a weak Body I had a Soul ready for prayer. Indeed during those three hours, when not a word escaped My lips, I prayed and supplicated the Father for you with My Heart. And I prayed not with My Heart only, but also with My Wounds and with My Blood. For there were as many mouths crying out for you to the Father as there were Wounds in My Body, and My Wounds were many; and there were as many tongues beseeching and begging for you from this same Father, Who is your Father as well as Mine, as there were drops of Blood trickling to the ground.”

“Now at last, O Lord, Thou hast plainly confounded the impatience of Thy servant, who if perchance he comes to pray worn out with work, or weighed down with affliction, can scarcely raise up his mind to God to pray for himself; or if through Thy grace he does lift up his mind, he cannot keep his attention fixed, but his thoughts must wander back to his labour or his sorrow. Therefore, O Lord, have mercy on Thy servant according to Thy great mercy, that imitating the great example of Thy patience he may walk in Thy footsteps and learn to despise his slight afflictions, at least during his prayer.”

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CHAPTER IV. The third fruit to be drawn from the consideration of the fourth Word spoken by Christ upon the Cross.

When our Lord exclaimed on the Cross, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” He was not ignorant of the reason why God had forsaken Him. For what could He be in ignorance of, Who knew all things? And thus St. Peter, when he was asked by our Lord, “Simon, son of John, lovest thou Me?” replied, ” Lord, Thou knowest all things: Thou knowest that I love Thee.”[1] And the Apostle St. Paul, speaking of Christ, says, “In Whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”[2] Christ therefore asked, not in order that He might learn anything, but to encourage us to inquire, so that by seeking and finding we might learn many things that would be useful, perhaps even necessary for us. Why, then, did God abandon His Son in the midst of His trials and bitter anguish? Five reasons occur to me, and these I will mention in order that those who are wiser than I may have the opportunity of investigating better and more useful ones.

The first reason that occurs to me is the greatness and the multitude of the sins which mankind have committed against their God, and which the Son of God undertook to expiate in His own Flesh: “Who His own self,” writes St. Peter, “bore our sins in His Body upon the tree; that we being dead to sins, should live to justice; by Whose stripes you were healed.”[3] Indeed, the enormity of the offences which Christ undertook to atone for in His Passion is in a certain sense infinite, by reason of the Person of infinite majesty and excellence which has been offended; but, on the other hand, the Person of Him Who atones, which Person is the Son of God, is also of infinite majesty and excellence, and consequently every suffering willingly undertaken by the Son of God, even if He spilt but one drop of His Blood, would be a sufficient atonement. Still it was pleasing to God that His Son should suffer innumerable torments, and sorrows most severe, because we had committed not one but manifold offences, and the Lamb of God, Who taketh away the sins of the world, took upon Himself not the sin of Adam only, but all the sins of all mankind. This is shown in that abandonment of which the Son complains to the Father: ” Why hast Thou forsaken Me?” The second reason is the greatness and the multitude of the pains of hell, and the Son of God shows how great they are by wishing to quench them in the torrents of His Blood. The prophet Isaias teaches us how terrible they are, that they are clearly intolerable, for he asks: ” Which of you can dwell with devouring fire? Which of you shall dwell with everlasting burnings?”[4] Let us therefore return thanks to God with our whole heart, Who was willing to abandon His Only-Begotten Son to the greatest torments for a time, to free us from flames which would be eternal. Let us return thanks, too, from the bottom of our heart to the Lamb of God, Who preferred to be abandoned by God under His chastising sword than abandon us to the teeth of that beast, who would ever gnaw and would never be satisfied with gnawing us. The third reason is the high value of the grace of God, which is that most precious pearl which Christ, the wise merchant, purchased by the sale of everything He had, and restored to us. The grace of God, which had been given to us in Adam, and which we lost through Adam’s sin, is so precious a stone that whilst it adorns our souls, and renders them pleasing to God, it is also a pledge of eternal felicity. No one could restore to us that precious stone, which was the gem of our riches, and of which the cunning of the serpent had deprived us, except the Son of God, Who overcame by His wisdom the wickedness of the devil, and Who gave it back to us at His own great cost, since He endured so many labours and sorrows. The dutifulness of that Son prevailed, Who took on Himself a most laborious pilgrimage to recover for us that precious gem. The fourth cause was the exceeding greatness of the kingdom of heaven, which the Son of God opened for us by His immense toil and suffering, and to Whom the Church gratefully sings, “When Thou hadst overcome the sting of death, Thou didst open the kingdom of heaven to believers.” But in order to conquer the sting of death it was necessary to sustain a hard contest with death, and that the Son might triumph the more gloriously in this contest, He was abandoned by His Father. The fifth cause was the immense love which the Son had for His Father. For in the redemption of the world and in the wiping away of sin, He proposed to make an abundant and a superabundant satisfaction to the honour of His Father. And this could not have been done if the Father had not abandoned the Son, that is, had not allowed Him to suffer all the torments which could be devised by the malice of the devil, or could be endured by a man. If, therefore, any one asks why God abandoned His Son on the Cross when He was suffering such an extremity of torments, we can answer that He was abandoned in order to teach us the greatness of sin, the greatness of hell, the greatness of Divine grace, the greatness of eternal life, and the greatness of the love which the Son of God had for His Father. From these reasons there arises another question: Why, forsooth, has God mixed the martyrs’ chalice of suffering with such spiritual consolation as that they preferred to drain their chalice sweetened with these consolations, than be without the suffering and the consolation, and allowed His dearly beloved Son to drain to the dregs the bitter chalice of His suffering without any consolation? The answer is, that in the case of the martyrs none of the reasons which we have given above in reference to our Lord have any place.


ENDNOTES

1. St. John xxi. 17.
2. Coloss. ii. 3.
3. 1 St. Peter ii. 24.
4. Isaias xxxiii. 14.

[Stone]

CHAPTER V: The fourth fruit to be drawn from the consideration of the fourth Word spoken by Christ upon the Cross.

Another fruit may be gathered, not so much from the fourth word itself, as from the circumstances of the time in which it was spoken: that is, from the consideration of the terrible darkness that immediately preceded the speaking of the word. The consideration of this darkness would be most proper, not only for enlightening the Hebrew nation, but for strengthening Christians themselves in the faith, if they would seriously apply their minds to the force of the truths which we propose to found on it.

The first truth is that whilst Christ was on the Cross the sun was so totally obscured that the stars were as visible as they are in the night time. This fact is vouched for by five witnesses, most worthy of credibility, who were of different nations, and wrote their books both at different times and in different places, so that their writings could not have been the result of any comparison or collusion. The first is St. Matthew, a Jew, who wrote in Judaea, and was one of those who saw the sun darkened. Now certainly a man of his caution and prudence would not have written what he has written, and as is probable in the very city of Jerusalem, unless the fact he described was true. For otherwise he would have been ridiculed and laughed at by the inhabitants of the city and country for writing what everybody knew to be false. Another witness is St. Mark, who wrote at Rome; he also saw the eclipse; for he was in Judaea at the time with the other disciples of our Lord. The third is St. Luke, who was a Greek who wrote in Greece: he also saw the eclipse at Antioch. For since Dionysius the Areopagite saw it at Heliopolis in Egypt, St. Luke could more easily see it at Antioch, which city is nearer Jerusalem than Heliopolis. The fourth and fifth witnesses are Dionysius and Apollophanes, both Greeks, and at the time Gentiles, and they distinctly assert that they saw the eclipse and were filled with astonishment at it. These are the five witnesses who bear testimony to the fact because they saw it. To their authority we may add that of the Annals of the Romans, and Phlegon, the chronicler of the Emperor Adrian, as we have shown above in the first chapter. Consequently this first truth cannot without great rashness be denied either by Jews or Pagans. Amongst Christians it is regarded as part of the Catholic faith.

The second truth is, that this eclipse could only be brought about by the Almighty power of God: that therefore it could not be the work of the devil, or of men through the agency of the devil, but proceeded from the special Providence and will of God, the Creator and Ruler of the world. The proof is this. The sun could only be eclipsed by one of three methods: either by the interposition of the moon between the sun and earth; or by some vast and dense cloud; or through the absorption or extinction of the sun’s rays. The interposition of the moon could not by the laws of nature have happened, since it was the Pasch of the Jews, and the moon was at its full. The eclipse then must have happened either without the interposition of the moon, or the moon, by some extraordinary and great miracle, must have passed in a few hours over a space which naturally it would take fourteen days to accomplish, and then by a repetition of the miracle have returned to its proper place. Now it is admitted by every one that God alone can influence the motions of the heavenly spheres, for the devils have power only in this globe, and so the Apostle calls Satan “The prince of the power of this air.”

The eclipse of the sun could not have happened in the second method, for a dense and thick cloud could not hide the rays of the sun without at the same time concealing the stars. And we have the authority of Phlegon for saying that during this eclipse the stars were as visible in the sky as they are during the night. As for the third method, we must remember that the rays of the sun could not be absorbed or extinguished but by the power of God Who created the sun. Therefore this second truth is as certain as the first, and cannot be denied without an equal degree of rashness.

The third truth is that the Passion of Christ was the cause of this eclipse which was brought about by the special Providence of God, and is proved by the fact that the darkness overshadowed the earth just as long as our Lord remained alive on the Cross, that is from the sixth to the ninth hour. This is attested by all those who speak of the eclipse; nor could it happen that an eclipse which was itself miraculous should by chance coincide with the Passion of Christ. For miracles are not the result of chance, but of the power of God. Nor am I aware of any author who could assign another cause for this so wonderful an eclipse. Those then that know Christ acknowledge that it was brought about for His sake, and those who do not know Him confess their ignorance of its object, but remain in admiration of the fact.

The fourth truth is, that so terrible a darkness could only show the sentence of Caiphas and Pilate to be most unjust, Jesus to be the true and only Son of God, the Messias promised to the Jews. This was the reason why the Jews demanded His death. For when in the council of the Priests, the Scribes, and the Pharisees, the High Priest saw that the evidence produced against Him proved nothing, he arose and said: “I adjure Thee by the living God that Thou tell us if Thou be the Son of God.”

And on our Lord acknowledging and confessing Himself to be so, he “rent his garments saying He hath blasphemed what further need have we of witnesses? Behold, now you have heard the blasphemy; what think you? But they answering said: He is guilty of death.”[2] Again when He was before Pilate, who wished to liberate Him, the Chief Priests and people cried out: “We have a law; and according to the law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God.”[3] This was the principal reason why Christ our Lord was condemned to the death of the Cross, and it was foretold by Daniel the prophet when he said: “Christ shall be slain: and the people that shall deny Him shall not be His.”[4] For this cause, then, during the Passion of Christ, God allowed a horrible darkness to overspread the whole world, to show most clearly that the High Priest was wrong: that the Jewish people was wrong: that Herod was wrong, and that He Who was hanging on the Cross was His only Son, the Messias. And when the Centurion saw these heavenly manifestations he exclaimed, “Indeed this was the Son of God;”[5] and again, “Indeed this was a just Man.”[6] For the Centurion recognized such celestial signs as the voice of God annulling the sentence of Caiphas and Pilate, and declaring that this Man was condemned to death contrary to all law, since He was the author of life, the Son of God, the promised Christ. For what else could God mean by this darkness, by the secret splitting of the rocks, and the rending of the veil of the Temple, but that He withdrew Himself from a people who were once His own, and was wrathful with a great wrath because they had not known the time of their visitation.

Certainly if the Jews would consider these things, and at the same time turn their attention to the fact that from that day they have been scattered through every nation, have had neither kings nor pontiffs, nor altars, nor sacrifices, nor miracles, nor prophets, they must conclude that they have been abandoned by God, and what is worse, have been given over to a reprobate sense, and that that is now being accomplished in them what Isaias foretold when he introduces the Lord as saying: “Hearing hear and understand not: and see the vision and know it not. Blind the heart of this people and make their ears heavy and shut their eyes: lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and be converted and I heal them.[7]


ENDNOTES

1. Ephes. ii. 2.
2. St. Matt xxvi. 63, 65, 66.
3. St. John xix. 7.
4. Dan. ix. 26.
5. St. Matt. xxvii. 54.
6. St. Luke xxiv. 47.
7. Isaias vi. 9, 10.