St. Robert Bellarmine: The Seven Words on the Cross

[Stone]

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

A third fruit can be drawn from the second word of our Lord by adverting to the fact that there were three persons crucified at the same time, one of whom, namely, Christ, was innocent; another, namely, the good thief, was a penitent; and the third, namely, the bad thief, remained obstinate in his sin: or to express the same idea in different words, of the three who were crucified at the same time, Christ was always and transcendently holy, one of the thieves was always and notably wicked, and the other thief was formerly a sinner but now a saint. From which circumstance we are to infer that every man in this world has his cross and that those who seek to live without having a cross to carry, aim at something which is impossible, whilst we should hold those persons to be wise who receive their cross from the hand of the Lord, and bear it even to death, not only patiently but cheerfully. And that each pious soul has a cross to carry can be deduced from these words of our Lord: “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me,”[1] and again, “Whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple,”[2] which is precisely the doctrine of the Apostle: “All that will live godly,” he says, “in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.”[3] The Greek and Latin Fathers give their entire adhesion to this teaching, and that I may not be prolix I will give but two quotations. St. Augustine in his commentary on the Psalms writes; “This short life is a tribulation: if it is not a tribulation it is not a journey: but if it is a journey you either do not love the country towards which you are journeying, or without doubt you would be in tribulation.” And in another place; “If you say you have not yet suffered anything, then you have not begun to be a Christian.” St. John Chrysostom, in one of his homilies to the people of Antioch, says, “Tribulation is a chain which cannot be unlinked from the life of a Christian.” And again; “You cannot say that that man is holy who has not made trial of tribulation.” Indeed this doctrine can be demonstrated by reason. Things of a contrary nature cannot be brought into each other’s presence without a mutual opposition; thus fire and water, as long as they are kept apart, will remain quiet; but bring them together, and the water will begin to hiss, to form itself into globules, and pass off into steam until either the water is consumed, or the fire is extinguished. “Good is set against evil,” says Ecclesiasticus, “and life against death: so also is the sinner against the just man.” Just men are compared to fire. Their light is shining, their zeal is burning, they are ever ascending from virtue to virtue, ever working, and whatever they undertake they efficaciously accomplish. On the other hand sinners are compared to water. They are cold, ever moving on the earth, and forming mire on all sides. Is it therefore strange that wicked men should persecute just souls? But because, even to the end of the world, wheat and cockle will grow in the same field, chaff and corn be collected in the same barn, good and bad fish found in the same net, that is, upright and wicked men in the same world, and even in the same Church; it therefore necessarily follows that the good and the holy shall be persecuted by the bad and the impious.

The wicked also have their crosses in this world. For although they are not persecuted by the good, nevertheless they will be tormented by other sinners, by their own vices, and by their evil consciences. The most wise Solomon, who certainly would have been happy in this world, had happiness been possible here, acknowledged that he had a cross to carry when he said: “I saw in all things vanity and vexation of mind, and therefore I was weary of my life, when I saw that all things under the sun are evil, and all vanity and vexation of spirit.”[4] And the writer of the Book of Ecclesiasticus, who was likewise a most prudent man, pronounces this general sentence: “Great labour is created for all men, and a heavy yoke is upon the children of Adam.”[5] St. Augustine in his commentary on the Psalms says, that “the greatest of all tribulations is a guilty conscience.” St. John Chrysostom in his homily on Lazarus shows at length how the wicked must have their crosses. If they are poor, their poverty is their cross; if they are not poor, cupidity is their cross, which is a heavier one than poverty; if they are stretched on a bed of sickness, the bed is their cross. St. Cyprian tells us that every man from the moment of his nativity is destined to carry a cross and suffer tribulation, which is foreshadowed by the tears shed by every infant. “Each one of us,” he writes, “at his birth, and at his very entrance into the world, sheds tears. And although we are then unconscious and ignorant of everything, we nevertheless know, even at our nativity, what it is to cry: by a natural foresight we lament the anxieties and labours of the life we are commencing, and the untutored soul by its moaning and weeping proclaims the bustling commotions of the world which it is entering.”

Since such is the case there can be no doubt but that a cross is in store for the good as well as for the wicked, and it only remains for me to prove that the cross of a saint lasts for a short time, is light and fruitful, whilst that of a sinner is eternal, heavy and sterile. In the first place there can be no question as to the fact that a saint suffers for a brief period only, since he can endure nothing when this life has passed. “From henceforth now, saith the Spirit,” to the departing just souls, “that they may rest from their labours;”[6] “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.”[7] The sacred Scriptures say most positively, that our present life is short, although to us it may appear long. “The days of man are short,”[8] and “Man born of a woman, living for a short time,”[9] and ” What is your life? It is a vapour which appeareth for a little while, and afterwards shall vanish away.”[10] The Apostle, however, who carried a most heavy cross from his youth even to his old age, writes in these terms in his Epistle to the Corinthians, “For that which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation, worketh for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory;”[11] in which passage he speaks of his sufferings as of no account, and compares them to an indivisible moment, although they had extended over a period of more than thirty years. And his sufferings consisted in being hungry, thirsty, naked, struck, in being thrice beaten with rods by the Romans, five times scourged by the Jews, once stoned, and thrice shipwrecked; in undergoing many journeys, in being often imprisoned, in receiving stripes beyond measure, in being frequently reduced to the last extremity.[12] What tribulations then would he call heavy if he considers these light, as they really are. And what will you, kind reader, say, if I insist that the cross of the just is not only light, but even sweet and agreeable on account of the superabundant consolations of the Holy Spirit? Christ says of His yoke, which may be called a cross: “My yoke is sweet and My burden light:”[13] and elsewhere He says, “You shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice, and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.[14] And the Apostle writes: “I am filled with comfort; I exceedingly abound with joy in all our tribulation.”[15] In a word, we cannot deny but that the cross of the just is not only light and temporary, but fruitful, useful, and the bearer of every good gift, when we hear our Lord saying: “Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,”[16] St. Paul, exclaiming that, “The sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come, that shall be revealed in us,”[17] and St. Peter exhorting us to rejoice if “we partake of the suffering of Christ, that when His glory shall be revealed we may also be glad with exceeding joy.”[18]

On the other hand there is no need of a demonstration to show that the cross of the wicked is eternal in its duration, most heavy and unmeritorious. Of a surety the death of the wicked thief was not a descent from the cross, as the death of the good thief was, for even now that wretched man is dwelling in hell, and will dwell there for ever, since “the worm” of the wicked, “shall not die, and the fire of hell shall not be quenched.”[19] And the cross of the rich glutton, that is the cross of those who store up riches, which are most aptly compared by our Lord to thorns that cannot be handled or kept with impunity, does not cease with this life as the cross of poor Lazarus did, but it accompanies him to hell, where it unceasingly burns and torments him, and forces him to cry out for a drop of water to cool his burning tongue “for I am tormented in this flame.”[20] Therefore the cross of the wicked is eternal in its duration, and the lamentations of those of whom we read in the book of Wisdom, testify that it is heavy and rough. “We wearied ourselves in the way of iniquity and destruction, and have walked through hard ways.”[21] What! are not ambition, avarice, luxury, difficult paths to tread? Are not the accompaniments of these vices, anger, quarrelling, envy, difficult paths to tread? Are not the sins which spring from these accompaniments, treachery, brawls, affronts, wounds and murder, difficult paths to tread? They are certainly such and not unfrequently force men to commit suicide in despair, and thereby seeking to avoid one cross, prepare for themselves a much heavier one.

And what advantage or fruit do the wicked derive from their cross? It can no more bring them an advantage than thorns can produce grapes, or thistles figs. The yoke of our Lord brings peace, according to His own words: ” Take up My yoke upon you, and you shall find rest to your souls.” 22 Can the yoke of the devil, which is diametrically opposed to that of Christ, bring anything but care and anxiety ? And this is of still greater importance, that whereas the Cross of Christ is the step to eternal felicity, “for it behoveth Christ to suffer and so to enter into His glory,”[23] the cross of the devil is the step to eternal torments, according to the sentence pronounced on the wicked: “Depart from Me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, which was prepared for the devil and his angels.”[24] If there be any wise men who are crucified in Christ, they will not seek to come down from the cross, as the impenitent thief foolishly sought, but will rather remain close to His side with the good thief, and will ask pardon of God and not a deliverance from the cross, and thus suffering alone with Him they will likewise reign with Him, according to the words of the Apostle: “Yet so if we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified with Him.”[25] If, however, there be any wise amongst those who are weighed down by the devil’s cross, they will take care to shake it off at once, and if they have any sense will exchange the five yoke of oxen for the single yoke of Christ. By the five yoke of oxen are meant the labours and weariness of sinners who are the slaves of their five senses; and when a man labours in doing penance instead of sinning, he barters the five yoke of oxen, for the single yoke of Christ. Happy is the soul which knows how to crucify the flesh with its vices and concupiscences, and distributes the alms which might be spent in gratifying its passions, and spends in prayer and spiritual reading, in soliciting the grace of God and the patronage of the Heavenly Court, the hours which might be lost in banqueting and in satisfying the restless ambition of becoming the friends of the powerful. In this manner the cross of the bad thief, which is heavy and barren, may be profitably exchanged for the Cross of Christ, which is light and fruitful.

We read in St. Austin how a distinguished soldier argued with one of his comrades about taking up the cross. “Tell me, I pray, to what goal will all the labours we undertake bring us? What object do we present to ourselves? For whose sake do we serve as soldiers? Our greatest ambition is to become the friends of the Emperor; and is not the road that leads us to his honour full of dangers, and when we have gained our point are we not then placed in the most perilous position of all? And through how many years shall we have to labour to secure this honour. But if I desire to become the friend of God, I can become His friend at this moment.” Thus he argued, that since to secure the friendship of the Emperor he must undertake many long and fruitless toils, he would be acting more wisely if he undertook fewer and lighter and more useful labours to secure the friendship of God. Both soldiers made their resolve on the spot, both left the army in order to serve their Creator in earnest, and what increased their joy on taking this step was the fact that the two ladies whom they were on the point of marrying, spontaneously offered their virginity to God.


ENDNOTES

1. St. Matt xvi. 24.
2. St. Luke xiv. 27.
3. 2 Tim. iii. 12.
4.Eccles. ii 11, 17.
5. Ecclus. xl. 1.
6. Apoc. xiv. 13.
7. Apoc. xxi. 4.
8. Job xiv. 5.
9. Job xiv. 1.
10. St. James iv. 15.
11. 2 Cor. iv. 17.
12. 2 Cor. xi. 24.
13. St. Matt. xi. 30.
14. St. John xvi. 20.
15. 2 Cor. vii. 4.
16. St. Matt. v. 10.
17. Rom. viii. 18.
18. 1 St. Peter iv. 13.
19. Isaias lxvi. 24.
20. St. Luke xvi. 24.
21. Wisdom v. 7.
22. St. Matt. xi. 29.
23. St. Luke xxiv. 26.
24. St. Matt. xxv. 41.
25. Rom. viii. 17.