St. Robert Bellarmine: The Seven Words on the Cross

[Stone]

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

Another and most profitable fruit would be gathered from the consideration of this word if we could form the habit of frequently repeating to ourselves the prayer which Christ our Master taught us on the Cross with His dying breath; “Into Thy hands I commend my spirit.”[1] Our Lord was under no such necessity as we are for making such a prayer. He was the Son of God and the Most Holy. We are servants and sinners, and consequently our holy Mother and Mistress the Church, teaches us to make a constant use of this prayer, and to repeat not only the part which our Lord used, but the whole of it as it is found in the Psalms of David: “Into Thy hands I commend my spirit: Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, the God of truth.”[2] Our Lord omitted the last part of the verse because He was the Redeemer and not one of the redeemed, but we who have been redeemed with His precious Blood must not omit it. Moreover, Christ, as the Only-Begotten Son of God, prayed to His Father, we, on the other hand, pray to Christ as our Redeemer, and consequently we do not say: “Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit,” but, “Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit, Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, the God of truth.” The Proto-martyr St. Stephen was the first to use this prayer when at the point of death he exclaimed: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”[3]

Our holy Mother the Church teaches us to make use of this ejaculation on three different occasions. She teaches us to say it daily at the beginning of Complin, as those who recite the Divine Office can bear me out. Secondly, when we approach the Holy Eucharist, after the “Domine non sum dignus,” the priest says first for himself and then for the other communicants, “Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.” Lastly, at the point of death, she recommends all the faithful to imitate their dying Lord in the use of this prayer. There can be no doubt that we are ordered to say this versicle at Complin, because that part of the Divine Office is recited at the end of the day, and St. Basil in his rules explains how easy it is when darkness first comes on, and night sets in to commend our spirit to God, so that if a sudden death overtake us we may not be found unprepared. The reason why the same ejaculation should be used at the moment we receive the Blessed Eucharist is clear, for the reception of the Blessed Eucharist is perilous and at the same time so necessary that we cannot approach too often nor altogether absent ourselves without danger: “Whoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the Body and of the Blood of our Lord,” and “eateth and drinketh judgment to himself.”[4] And he who does not receive the Body of Christ our Lord does not receive the bread of life, even life itself. So we are surrounded with perils like starved and famished men who are uncertain whether the food that is offered them is poisoned or not. With fear and trembling then ought we to exclaim, Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof, unless Thou in Thy goodness makest me worthy, and therefore say only the word and my soul shall be healed. But since I have no reason to doubt whether Thou wouldst deign to heal my wounds, I commend my spirit into Thy hands, so that in an affair of such moment Thou mayest be near and assist my soul which Thou hast redeemed with Thy precious Blood.

If some Christians would seriously think of these things they would not be so eager to receive the priesthood with the object of gaining their livelihood from the stipends they receive for their Masses. Such priests are not as anxious to approach this great Sacrifice with a fitting preparation, as they are anxious to obtain the end they propose to themselves, which is to secure food for their bodies and not for their souls. There are others also, attendants at the palaces of prelates or princes, who approach this tremendous mystery through human respect, lest perchance they should incur the displeasure of their masters by not communicating at the regularly constituted times. What then is to be done? Is it more advantageous seldom to approach this Divine Banquet? Certainly not. Far better is it to approach often but with due preparation, for, as St. Cyril says, the less often we approach the less prepared are we to receive the heavenly manna.

The approach of death is a time when it behoves us with great ardour to repeat over and over again the prayer: “Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit; Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, the God of truth.” For if our soul when it leaves the body falls into the hands of Satan, there is no hope of salvation; if on the contrary, it falls into the paternal hands of God, there is no longer any cause for fearing the power of our enemy. Consequently with intense grief, with true and perfect contrition, with unbounded confidence in the infinite mercy of our God we must at that dread moment over and over again cry out: “Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.” And as in that last moment, those who during life thought little of God are most severely tempted to despair, because they have now no longer time for repentance, they must take up the shield of faith, by remembering that it is written, “The wickedness of the wicked shall not hurt him in what day soever he shall turn from his wickedness,”[5] and the helmet of hope, by trusting in the goodness and compassion of God, and continually repeat, “Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit,” nor fail to add that part of the prayer which is the foundation of our hope, “for Thou hast redeemed us, O Lord, the God of truth.” Who can give back to Jesus Christ the innocent Blood He has shed for us? Who can repay the ransom with which He purchased us? St. Augustine, in the ninth book of his Confessions, encourages each Christian soul to place unlimited confidence in our Redeemer, because the work of redemption being once accomplished can never be useless or invalid, unless we place an unsurmountable barrier to its effect by our impenitence and despair.


ENDNOTES

1. St. Luke xxiii. 46.
2. Psalm xxx. 6.
3. Acts vii. 58.
4. 1 Cor. xi. 27, 29.
5. Ezech. xxxiii. 12.