St. Robert Bellarmine: The Seven Words on the Cross

[Stone]

CHAPTER II: The first fruit to be drawn from the consideration of the first Word spoken by Christ on the Cross.

Having given the literal meaning of the first word spoken by our Lord on the Cross, our next endeavour must be to gather some of its most eligible and advantageous fruits. What strikes us most in the first part of Christ’s sermon on the Cross is His ardent charity, which burns with a more brilliant lustre than we can either know or conceive, according to that which St. Paul wrote to the Ephesians, saying, “To know also the charity of Christ which surpasseth all knowledge.”[1] For in this passage the Apostle informs us by the mystery of the Cross how the charity of Christ surpasseth our understanding because it extends beyond the compass of our limited intellect. For when we suffer any grievous pain, as for example a toothache, or a headache, or a pain in the eyes, or in any other member of our body, our mind is so rivetted on this as to be incapable of any exertion; hence we are in no humour either to receive our friends, or carry on our business. But when Christ was nailed to the Cross He wore His diadem of thorns, as is clearly shown in the writings of the ancient Fathers; by Tertullian amongst the Latin Fathers in his book against the Jews, and amongst the Greek Fathers by Origen in his work upon St. Matthew, and hence it followed that He could neither lean His Head back, nor move it from side to side without additional pain. Rough nails held fast His Hands and Feet, and from the manner in which they tore their way through His flesh occasioned a most acute and lasting torment. His Body was naked, worn out with the cruel scourging and the journeyings to and fro, ignominiously exposed to the gaze of the vulgar, and by its weight was widening with a barbarous and continual agony the wounds in His Hands and Feet; all which things combined were the source of much suffering, and as it were of additional crosses. Yet, O charity! truly surpassing our understanding, He thought no more of His torments than if He were suffering nothing, and is solicitous only for the salvation of His enemies; and desiring to screen them from the penalty of their crimes, cries aloud to His Father, “Father, forgive them.” What would He have done if these wretches had been the victims of an unjust persecution, or had been His friends, His relations, or His children, and not His enemies, His betrayers and abandoned parricides? Truly, O most benign Jesus! your charity surpasses our understanding. I behold your Heart in the midst of such a storm of injuries and sufferings, like a rock in the midst of the ocean which remains immovable and at rest, though the billows dash themselves in fury against it. For you see your enemies are not satisfied with inflicting mortal wounds on your Body, but must scoff at your patience, and howl in triumph at your ill-treatment; you look upon them, I say, not as a foe scans his antagonists, but as a father regards his wandering children, as a doctor listens to the ravings of a delirious patient. Wherefore you are not angry with them but pity them, and intrust them to the care of your all-powerful Father, that He would cure them and make them whole. This is the effect of true charity, to be on good terms with all men, to consider no one your enemy, and to live at peace with those who hate peace.

This is what is sung in the Canticle of love about the virtue of perfect charity. “Many waters cannot quench charity, neither can the floods drown it.”[2] The many waters are the many sufferings which our spiritual miseries, like storms of hell, let loose on Christ through the instrumentality of the Jews and Gentiles, who represented the dark passions of our heart. Still this deluge of waters, that is of dolours, could not extinguish the fire of charity which burnt in the breast of Christ. Therefore the charity of Christ was greater than this deluge of many waters; and it shone brilliantly in His prayer, “Father, forgive them.” And not only were these many waters incapable of extinguishing the charity of Christ, but neither in after ages were the storms of persecution able to overwhelm the charity of the members of Christ. Thus the charity of Christ, which possessed the heart of St. Stephen, could not be crushed out by the stones wherewith he was martyred; it was alive there, and he prayed, “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.”[3] In fine, the perfect and invincible charity of Christ which has been propagated in the hearts of many thousands of martyrs and confessors, has so stoutly combated the attacks of visible and invisible persecutors, that it may be said with truth even to the end of the world, that a sea of suffering shall not extinguish the flame of charity.

But from the consideration of the Humanity of Christ let us ascend to the consideration of His Divinity. Great was the charity of Christ as Man towards His executioners, but greater still will be the charity of Christ as God, and of the Father, and of the Holy Ghost, at the last day towards all mankind who have been guilty of acts of enmity towards their Creator, and would, had they been able, have cast Him out of heaven, have nailed Him to a cross, and have slain Him. Who can conceive the charity which God bears towards such ungrateful and wicked creatures ? God did not spare the angels when they sinned, nor did He give them time for repentance, but He often bears patiently with sinful men, with blasphemers, and with those who enrol themselves under the standard of the devil, His enemy; and He not only bears with them, but meanwhile feeds them and nourishes them, even supports and sustains them, for “in Him we live and move and are,”[4] as the Apostle says. Nor does He preserve the good and the just only, but likewise the ungrateful and the wicked, as our Lord informs us in the Gospel of St. Luke. Nor does our good Lord merely feed and nourish, support and sustain His enemies, but He often heaps His favours upon them, gives them talent, increases their riches, makes them honourable, and raises them to temporal thrones, whilst He all the while patiently awaits their return from the path of iniquity and perdition.

And to pass over several characteristics of the charity which God feels towards wicked men, the enemies of His Divine Majesty, each one of which would require a volume if we dwelt upon them singly, we will confine ourselves at present to that singular kindness of Christ of which we were treating. “For has not God so loved the world as to give His only-begotten Son?”[5] The world is the enemy of God, for “the whole world is seated in wickedness,”[6] as St. John tells us: and ” if any man love the world the charity of the Father is not in him,”[7] as he says again in another place. St. James writes, ” Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God,” and “the friendship of this world is the enmity of God.”[8] God therefore in loving this world cherishes His enemy with the intention of making it His friend. For this purpose has He sent His Son, “the Prince of Peace,”[9] that by His means the world might be reconciled to God. Therefore at the birth of Christ the angels sang, ” Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace.”[10] Thus God has loved the world, His enemy, and has taken the first step towards peace, by giving to it His Son, Who might bring about the reconciliation by suffering the penalty due to His enemy. The world received not Christ, increased its guilt, rebelled against the one Mediator, and God inspired this Mediator to return good for evil by praying for His persecutors. He prayed and ” was heard for His reverence.[11] God patiently awaited to see what progress the Apostles would make by their preaching in the conversion of the world; those who did penance received pardon; those who repented not after such patient forbearance were exterminated by God’s just judgment. Therefore from this first word of Christ we really learn that the charity of God the Father, Who ” so loved the world as to give His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him may not perish but may have life everlasting,”[12] surpasses all knowledge.



ENDNOTES

1. Ephes. iii. 19.
2. Cant. viii. 7.
3. Acts vii. 59.
4. Acts xvii. 28.
5. St. John iii. 16.
6. I St. John v. 19.
7. I St. John ii. I[5].
8. St. James iv. 4.
9. Isaias ii. 6.
10. St. Luke ii. 14.
11. Heb. v. 7.
12. St. John iii. 16.