St. Robert Bellarmine: The Seven Words on the Cross

[Stone]

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.