St. Robert Bellarmine: The Seven Words on the Cross

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

A fourth fruit can be drawn from a fourth explanation of the word “It is finished.” For if it is true, as most certainly it is, that God by the merits of Christ has withdrawn us from the servitude of the devil, and placed us in the kingdom of His Beloved Son, let us inquire, and not desist from our inquiry till we have found the reason, why so many men prefer the slavery of the enemy of mankind to the service of Christ, our most kind Master, and choose rather to burn for ever in the flames of hell with Satan, than reign most happy in eternal glory with our Lord Jesus Christ. The only reason I can find is that the service of Christ begins with the Cross. It is necessary to crucify the flesh with its vices and concupiscences. This bitter draught, this chalice of gall, naturally produces a nausea in frail man, and is often the sole reason why he would rather be the slave of his passions than be the master of them by such a remedy. A man without reason, indeed, or rather not a man but a beast, for a man bereft of his reason is such, might be ruled by his desires and appetites: but since man is endowed with reason, he certainly knows or ought to know that he who is commanded to crucify his flesh with its vices and concupiscences should insist on keeping this precept, particularly as he is assisted by God’s grace to do so, and that our Lord, like a wise physician, so prepares this bitter potion that it may be drunk without difficulty. Moreover, if any one of us individually was the first person to whom these words were addressed, “Take up your cross and follow Me,” we might have an excuse for hesitating and mistrusting our own strength, and not daring to lay our hands on a cross which we considered ourselves unable to carry. But since not only men but even children of tender years have boldly taken up the Cross of Christ, have patiently carried it, and have crucified their flesh with its vices and concupiscences, why should we fear, why should we hesitate? St. Augustine was vanquished by this argument, and at once mastered his carnal concupiscence which for years he had regarded as unconquerable. He placed before the eyes of his soul many men and women who had led chaste lives, and said to himself: “Why cannot you do what so many of both sexes have done who trusted not in their own strength, but in the Lord their God?” What has been said about the concupiscence of the flesh, may be said with equal force about the concupiscence of the eyes–which is avarice, and the pride of life. There is no vice which with God’s assistance cannot be overcome, and there is no reason to fear that God will refuse to help us. St. Leo says: “Almighty God justly insists on our keeping His commandments since He prevents us by His grace.” Miserable and mad and foolish, then, are those souls who prefer rather to carry five yoke of oxen under the command of Satan, and with labour and sorrow be the slaves of their senses, and at last be tortured for ever with their leader, the devil, in the flames of hell, than to submit to the yoke of Christ, which is sweet and light, to find rest for their souls in this life, and in the life to come an eternal crown with their King in everlasting glory.

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CHAPTER XVII: The fifth fruit to be drawn from the consideration of the sixth Word spoken by Christ upon the Cross.

A fifth fruit may be gathered from this word, since we may apply it to the building of the Church which was perfected on the Cross. The Church was formed from the Side of Christ as He was expiring on the Cross, like another Eve formed from the rib of another Adam. And this mystery should teach us to love the Cross, to honour the Cross, and to be closely united to the Cross. For who does not love his mother’s birth place? All the faithful have an extraordinary veneration for the holy house of Loreto, because it is the birthplace of the Virgin Mother of God, and there in her virginal womb she conceived Jesus Christ our Lord, as the Angel announced to St. Joseph: “For that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.”[1] So the Holy Roman Church, mindful of the place of her nativity, has the Cross planted everywhere and everywhere exhibited. We are taught to make it on ourselves; we see it in churches and houses; she confers no Sacrament without the Cross, blesses nothing without the sign of the cross; and we, the children of the Church, show our love for the Cross when we patiently endure adversities for the love of our crucified God. This is to glory in the Cross. This is to do what the Apostle did “when they went from the presence of the council rejoicing that they were accounted worthy to suffer reproach for the Name of Jesus.”[2] St. Paul plainly gives us to understand what he means by glorying in the Cross when he says: “We glory also in tribulations, knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience trial, and trial hope, and hope confoundeth not, because the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, Who is given to us.”[3] And again in his Epistle to the Galatians: “God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom the world is crucified to me and I to the world.”[4] This is indeed the triumph of the Cross, when the world with its pomps and pleasures is dead to the Christian soul that loves Christ crucified, and the soul is dead to the world by loving tribulations and contempt which the world hates, and hating the pleasures of the flesh, and the empty applause of men which the world loves. In this manner is the true servant of God rendered so perfect that it may also be said of him: “It is finished.”


ENDNOTES

1. St. Matt. i. 20.
2. Acts v. 41.
3. Rom. v. 3-5.
4. Gal vi. 14.

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

The last fruit to be drawn from the consideration of this word is to be gathered from the perseverance which our Lord exhibited on the Cross. We are taught by this word, “It is finished,” how our Lord so perfected the work of His Passion from the beginning to the end that nothing was wanting to it: “The works of God are perfect.”[1] And as God the Father completed the work of creation on the sixth day and rested on the seventh, so the Son of God completed the work of our redemption on the sixth day and rested in the sleep of death on the seventh. In vain did the Jews taunt Him, “If He be the King of Israel let Him come down from the Cross and we will believe Him.”[2] With more truth does St. Bernard exclaim: “Because He is the King of Israel, He will not desert the ensign of His royalty. He would not give us an excuse for failing in perseverance, which alone is crowned: He would not make the tongues of preachers dumb, nor the lips of those who console the weak mute, nor the words of those void whose duty it is to say to every one, Do not abandon your cross, for without doubt each individual soul would answer if it could: I have abandoned my cross, because Christ first deserted His.” Christ then persevered on His Cross even unto His Death, in order so to perfect His work that nothing should be wanting to it, and to leave us an example of perseverance in every way worthy of our admiration. It is easy indeed to stay in places which are agreeable to us, or to persevere in duties which are pleasant, but it is very difficult to remain at one’s post where there is much grief to be allayed, or to continue in an occupation where there is much anxiety attached to it. But if we could understand the reason which induced our Lord to persevere on the Cross, we should be thoroughly convinced that we ought to bear our cross with constancy, and if need be, to bear it with courage even unto death. If we fix our eyes on the Cross alone we cannot but be filled with horror at the sight of such an instrument of death. But if we fix our eyes on Him Who bids us carry the Cross, and on the place whither the Cross will lead us, and on the fruit which the Cross will produce in us, then instead of appearing full of difficulties and obstacles, it will be easy and agreeable to persevere in carrying it, and even to remain with constancy nailed to it.

Why then did Christ hang upon His Cross with such perseverance even unto death without a sigh and without a murmur? The first reason was the love He bore His Father: “The chalice which My Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it?”[3] Christ loved His Father and the Father loved His Only-Begotten Son, with an equally ineffable love. And when He saw the chalice of suffering offered to Him by His all-good and all-loving Father in such a manner that He could not but conclude it was presented to Him for the best of purposes, we cannot wonder at His drinking it to the dregs with the utmost readiness. The Father had made a marriage feast for His Son, and had given Him for His Spouse the Church–disfigured and deformed indeed, but which He was lovingly to cleanse in the bath of His Precious Blood and render beautiful, “not having spot nor wrinkle.”[4] Christ on His side dearly loved the Spouse given Him by His Father, and hesitated not to pour out His Blood to render her fair and comely. Now if Jacob toiled for seven years in feeding the flocks of Laban, suffered from heat and cold and want of sleep in order to marry Rachel, and if these seven years of labour passed so quickly that “they seemed but a few days because of the greatness of his love,”[5] and a second seven years seemed equally as short, we cannot be surprised that the Son of God desired to hang on the Cross for three hours for His Spouse, the Church, who was to be the mother of so many thousands of saints and the parent of so many children of God. Moreover, in drinking the bitter chalice of His Passion, Christ was influenced not only by His love for His Father and His Spouse, but also by the exalted glory and the boundless and never-ending happiness He was to secure by means of His Cross: “He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the Cross. For which cause God also hath exalted Him, and hath given Him a Name which is above all names: that in the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father.”[6]

To the example which Christ has set us, let us add also the examples which the Apostles hold out for our imitation. St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans, after enumerating his own crosses and those of his fellow- labourers, asks: “Who then shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation? or distress? or famine? or nakedness? or danger? or persecution? or the sword? As it is written: For Thy sake we are put to death all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” And he answers his own questions. “But in all these things we overcome because of Him that hath loved us.”[7] We must not regard the suffering which crosses entail if we wish to persevere unflinchingly in bearing them, but rather encourage ourselves by the love of that God Who so loved us as to give His only Son for our ransom, or even keep our eyes fixed on that Son of God Who loved us and “gave Himself for us.”[8] In his Epistle to the Corinthians the same Apostle says: “I am filled with comfort. I exceedingly abound with joy in all our tribulations.”[9] Whence arose this consolation and this joy which rendered him, so to speak, impassible in every affliction? He supplies us with the answer. “For that which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation, worketh for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory.”[10] Thus the contemplation of the crown which awaited him, and the thought of which he ever kept before him, rendered all the trials of this life momentary and trivial. “What persecution,” cries out St. Cyprian, “can prevail against such thoughts as these? what torments can overcome such a vision?[11] As a second model we will take the conduct of St. Andrew, who looked upon the cross, on which he was to hang for two days, not as a gibbet, but embraced it as a friend, and when the spectators of his execution wished to take him down, he would by no means consent to it, as he desired to remain fastened to his cross even to death. And this is not the action of a crazy or foolish person, but of an enlightened Apostle and of a man filled with the Holy Ghost.

All Christians can learn from the example of Christ and His Apostles how to conduct themselves when they cannot descend from their cross, that is, when they cannot free themselves from some particular affliction or suffering without sin. In the first place the life of each religious who is bound by the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, is compared to a martyrdom from which he must not shrink. Again, if a husband is wedded to a wife who is quarrelsome, morose, and peevish, or a wife is married to a husband whose temper and character is not a whit the less difficult to put up with, as St. Augustine in his “Book of Confessions” assures us was the disposition of his father, the husband of St. Monica, the cross must courageously be borne as the bond is indissoluble. Slaves who have lost their liberty, prisoners condemned to a life-long servitude, the sick who are suffering from an incurable disease, the poor who are tempted to secure a momentary relief by theft or robbery, each and all must turn their thoughts, not to the cross they are carrying, but to Him Who has placed the cross upon them, if they wish to persevere in carrying it with internal peace, and desire to gain the immense reward which is promised to them in heaven when their sufferings here shall be over. Without doubt it is God Who afflicts us with crosses, and He is our most loving Father, and without His concurrence neither sorrow nor joy can befall us. Without doubt, too, whatever happens to us by His will is the best for us, and ought to be so agreeable to us as to force us to say with Christ: “The chalice which My Father has given Me shall I not drink it?”[12] and with the Apostle: “But in all those things we overcome because of Him that hath loved us.”[13] Consequently those who cannot lay aside their cross without sin must consider, not their present suffering, but the crown which awaits them, and the possession of which will more than counterbalance all the afflictions, all the griefs of this life. “For I reckon that all the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come that shall be revealed in us,”[14] is what St. Paul said of himself, and the judgment he passed on Moses was, “Rather choosing to be afflicted with the people of God, than to have the pleasure of sin for a time, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasure of the Egyptians. For he looked unto the reward.”[15]

For the consolation of those who are forced to bear the heavy weight of a cross through a long series of years, it will not be out of place briefly to relate the story of two souls who failed to persevere, and found a far heavier and eternal cross awaiting them. When the traitor Judas began to reflect upon and detest the enormity of his treachery, he felt unable to bear the shame and confusion of again meeting any one of the Apostles or disciples of Christ, and he hanged himself with a halter. Far from escaping the shame which he dreaded, he has only exchanged one cross for a heavier one. For his confusion will be much greater when, at the Day of Judgment, he will have to stand before all Angels and men, not only as the convicted betrayer of his Master, but also as a self-murderer. What folly it was on his part to avoid a little shame before the then little flock of Christ, who would all have been meek and kind towards him like their Master, and would all have had him trust in the mercy of his Redeemer, and not to have avoided the infamy and the ignominy which he must suffer when he stands forth in the sight of all creatures as a traitor to his God and a suicide! The other example is taken from the panegyric of St. Basil on the forty martyrs. In the persecution of the Emperor Licinius, forty soldiers were condemned to death for their steadfast belief in Christ. They were ordered to be exposed naked during the night on a frozen lake, and to gain their crown by the slow agony of being frozen to death. Beside the frozen lake there was prepared a hot bath, into which any one who denied his faith had liberty to plunge. Thirty-nine of the martyrs turned their thoughts to the eternal happiness which awaited them, regarded not their present suffering, which would soon be over, persevered with ease in their faith, and deserved to receive from the hands of Jesus Christ their crown of everlasting glory. But one pondered and brooded over his torments, could not persevere, and plunged into the hot bath beside him. As the blood began to flow again through his frozen limbs, he breathed forth his soul, which, branded with the disgrace of being a denier of its God, forthwith descended to the eternal torments of hell. By seeking to avoid death, this unhappy wretch found it, and exchanged a transitory and comparatively light cross for one which is unbearable and eternal. The imitators of these two miserable men are to be found among those who abandon their religious life, who cast from them the yoke which is sweet and the burden which is light, and when they least expect it, find themselves bound as slaves to the heavier yoke of their various appetites which they can never satisfy, and pressed down under the galling burden of innumerable sins. Those who refuse to carry the Cross of Christ, are obliged to carry the bonds and the chains of Satan.



ENDNOTES

1. Deut. xxxii. 24.
2. St. Matt. xxvii. 42.
3. St. John xviii. 11.
4. Ephes. v. 27.
5. Genesis xxix. 20.
6. Philipp. ii. 8-11.
7. Rom. viii. 35-37.
8. Titus ii. 14.
9. 2 Cor. vii. 4.
10. 2 Cor. iv. 17.
11. Cyprian. Lib. de Exhort. Martyr.
12. St. John xviii. 11.
13. Rom. viii. 37.
14. Rom. viii. 18.
15. Heb. xi. 25, 26.

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CHAPTER XIX: The literal explanation of the seventh Word, “Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit.”

We have come to the last word which our Lord pronounced. At the point of death Jesus, “crying with a loud voice said, Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.”[1] We will explain each word separately. “Father.” Deservedly does He call God His Father, for He was a Son who had been obedient to His Father even unto death, and it was proper that His last dying request, which was certain to be heard, should be prefaced by such a tender name. “Into Thy hands.” In the Sacred Scriptures the hands of God signify the intelligence and will of God, or in other words His wisdom and power, or, again, the intelligence of God which knows all things, and the will of God which can do all things. With these two attributes as with hands, God does all things, and stands not in need of any instruments in the accomplishment of His will. St. Leo says: “The will of God is His omnipotence.”[2] Consequently, with God to will is to do. “He hath done all things, whatsoever He would.”[3] “I commend.” I hand over to your keeping My life, with the sure faith of its being restored when the time of My resurrection shall come. “My Spirit.” There is a diversity of opinion as to the meaning of this word. Ordinarily the word spirit is synonymous with soul, which is the substantial form of the body, but it can also mean life itself, since breathing is the sign of life. Those who breathe live, and those die who cease to breathe. If by the word spirit we here understand the Soul of Christ, we must take care not to think that His Soul at the moment of it’s separation from the Body was in any danger. We are accustomed to commend with many prayers and much anxiety the souls of the agonizing, because they are on the point of appearing at the tribunal of a strict Judge to receive the reward or the punishment of their thoughts, words, and deeds. The Soul of Christ was in no such need, both because it enjoyed the Beatific Vision from the time of its creation, was hypostatically united to the person of the Son of God, and could even be called the Soul of God, and also because it was leaving the body victorious and triumphant, an object of terror to the devils, not a soul to be scared by them. If the word spirit then is to be taken as synonymous with soul, the meaning of these words of our Lord, “I commend my spirit,” is that the Soul of Christ which was enclosed in the body as in a tabernacle was about to throw itself into the hands of the Father as into a place of trust until it should return to the body, according to the words of the Book of Wisdom: “The souls of the just are in the hand of God.”[4] However, the more generally accepted meaning of the word in this passage is the life of the body. With this interpretation the word may be thus amplified. I now give up My breath of life, and as I cease to breathe I cease to live. But this breath, this life I intrust to you, My Father, that in a short time you may again restore it to My Body. In your keeping nothing perishes. In you all things live. By a word you call into existence things which were not, and by a word you give life to those who had it not.

We may gather that this is the true interpretation of the word from the thirtieth Psalm, one of the verses of which our Lord was quoting: “Thou wilt bring me out of this snare which they have hidden for me, for Thou art my protector. Into Thy hands I commend my spirit.”[5] In this verse the prophet clearly means to signify life by the word spirit, since he beseeches God to preserve his life, and not to suffer him to be killed by his enemies. If we consider the context in the Gospel, it is clear that this is the meaning our Lord also intended to convey. For after He had said, “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit,” the Evangelist adds: “And saying this He gave up the ghost.”[6] Now to expire is the same as to cease breathing, which is the characteristic of those only who live. It cannot be said of the soul, which is the substantial form of the body, as it can of the air we inhale, that we breathe it as long as we live, and we cease breathing it as soon as we die. Lastly, our interpretation is strengthened by the words of St. Paul: “Who in the days of His flesh with a strong cry and tears offering up prayers and supplications to Him that was able to save Him from death, was heard for His reverence.”[7] Some authors refer this passage to our Lord’s prayer in the Garden: “Abba, Father, all things are possible to Thee, remove this chalice from Me.”[8] But the reference is incorrect, as our Lord on that occasion neither prayed with a loud cry, nor was His prayer heard, and He Himself did not wish to be heard in order to be delivered from death. He prayed that the chalice of His Passion might pass from Him to show His natural repugnance to death, and to prove He was really man whose nature it is to dread its approach. And after this prayer He added: “But not what I will, but what Thou wilt.”[9] Consequently the prayer in the Garden was not the prayer to which the Apostle alludes in his Epistle to the Hebrews. Others, again, refer this text of St. Paul to the prayer which Christ made on the Cross for those who were crucifying Him. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”[10] On that occasion, however, our Lord did not pray with a loud cry, and He did not pray for Himself, neither did He pray to be delivered from death, and both these objects the Apostle distinctly mentions as being the ends of our Lord’s prayer. It remains then, that the words of St. Paul must refer to the prayer Christ made with His dying breath: “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.”[11] This prayer, St. Luke says, He gave forth with a loud voice: “And Jesus crying with a loud voice, said.” The words of both St. Paul and St. Luke agree in this interpretation. Moreover, as St. Paul says, our Lord prayed to be saved from death, and this cannot mean that He prayed to be saved from death on the Cross, for in that case His prayer was not heard, and the Apostle assures us it was heard. The true meaning is that He prayed not to be swallowed up by death, but merely to taste death and then return to life again. This is the evident explanation of the words: “With a strong cry and tears offering up prayers and supplications to Him that was able to save Him from death.”[12] Our Lord could not but know that He must die as He was already so near death, and He desired to be delivered from death in the sense only of not being held captive by death. In other words, He prayed for His speedy resurrection, and this prayer was readily granted, as He rose again triumphant on the third day. This interpretation of the passage of St. Paul proves beyond doubt that when our Lord said: “Into Thy hands I commend my Spirit,” the word spirit is synonymous with life and not with the soul. Our Lord was not anxious about His soul, which He knew to be in safety, as it already enjoyed the Beatific Vision, and had beheld its God face to face from the moment of its creation, but He was anxious for His Body, which He foresaw would soon be deprived of life, and He prayed that His body might not long be kept in the sleep of death. This prayer was tenderly listened to and abundantly granted.


ENDNOTES

1. St. Luke xxiii. 46.
2. Serm. ii. “De Nativ.”
3. Psalm cxiii. 3.
4. Wisdom iii. 1.
5. Psalm xxx. 5, 6.
6. St. Luke xxiii. 46.
7. Heb. v. 7.
8. St. Mark xiv. 36.
9. St. Mark xiv. 36.
10. St. Luke xxiii. 34.
11. St. Luke xxiii. 46.
12. Heb. v. 7.

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

According to the practice we have so far pursued, we will gather a few fruits from the consideration of the last word spoken by Christ on the Cross, and from His Death, which immediately followed. And first we will show the wisdom, the power, and the infinite charity of God from the very circumstance which seems attended with such weakness and folly. His power is clearly shown in this, that our Lord died whilst He was crying out with a loud voice. From this we conclude that had it been His will He need not have died, but He died because He willed. As a rule, people at the point of death gradually lose their strength and voice, and at the last gasp are not able to articulate. And so it was not without reason that the Centurion, on hearing such a loud cry proceed from the lips of Christ, Who had lost almost every drop of blood in His veins, exclaimed, “Indeed, this was the Son of God.”[1]

Christ is a mighty Lord, inasmuch as He showed His power even in His Death, not only by crying aloud with His last breath, but also by making the earth tremble, by splitting rocks asunder, by opening graves, and rending the veil of the Temple. We know, on the authority of St. Matthew, that all these things happened at the Death of Christ, and each and all of these events has its hidden meaning wherein is manifested His Divine wisdom. The earthquake and the splitting of the rocks showed that His Death and Passion would move men to penance, and would soften the hardest hearts. St. Luke gives this interpretation to these mysterious omens, for after having mentioned them he adds, that the Jews returned from the sight of the Crucifixion, “striking their breasts.”[2] The opening of the graves foreshadowed the glorious resurrection of the dead, which was one of the results of the Death of Christ. The rending of the veil of the Temple, whereby the Holy of Holies could be seen, was a pledge that Heaven would be opened by the merits of His Death and Passion, and that all the predestined should there behold God face to face. Nor was His wisdom exhibited merely in these signs and wonders. It was exhibited also by producing life out of death, as was prefigured by Moses producing water from the rock,[3] and by the simile in which Christ compared Himself to a grain of wheat.[4] For as it is necessary for the seed to be crushed in order to produce the ear of corn, so by His Death on the Cross Christ enriched a countless multitude of all nations by the life of grace. St. Peter expresses the same idea when he speaks of Jesus Christ as “swallowing down death that we might be made heirs of life everlasting.”[5] As though he would say: The first man tasted the forbidden fruit and subjected all his posterity to death; the Second Man tasted the bitter fruit of death, and all who are born again in Him receive everlasting life. Lastly, His wisdom was manifested in the manner of His Death, as from that moment the Cross, than which previously nothing was more ignominious and disgraceful, became an emblem so dignified and glorious that even kings consider it an honour to wear it as an ornament. In her adoration of the Cross the Church sings–

“Sweet are the nails, and sweet the wood, That bears a weight so sweet and good.”

St. Andrew, on beholding the cross on which he was to be crucified, exclaimed: “Hail, precious cross, that hast been adorned by the precious limbs of my Lord. Long have I desired thee, ardently have I sought thee, uninterruptedly have I loved thee, and now I find thee ready to receive my longing soul. Secure and full of joy I come to thee, and do thou receive me into thy embrace, for I am the disciple of Christ my Lord, Who redeemed me by hanging upon thee.”

Now what shall we say of the infinite charity of God. Previously to His Death our Lord said, “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”[6] Christ literally laid down His life, for against His will no one could deprive Him of it. “No man taketh it away from Me; but I lay it down of Myself.”[7] A man cannot show greater love for his friends than by giving his life for them, since nothing is more precious or dearer than life, as it is the foundation of every happiness. “For what doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul?”[8] that is, his life. Each one instinctively repels with all his strength an attack made upon his life. We read in Job: “Skin for skin, and all that a man hath will he give for his life.”[9] So far, however, we have looked upon this fact in a general way; we will now descend to particulars. In many ways, and in an ineffable manner, Christ showed His love towards the whole human race, and to each individual, by dying on the Cross. In the first place, His life was the most precious of all lives, since it was the life of the Man-God, the life of the most mighty of Kings, the life of the wisest of Doctors, the life of the best of men. In the second place He laid down this life for His enemies, for sinners, for ungrateful wretches. Moreover, He laid down His life in order that at the price of His own Blood, these sinners, these ungrateful wretches, should be snatched from the flames of hell. And lastly, He laid down His life to make these enemies, these sinners, these ungrateful wretches, His brothers, co-heirs and joint possessors with Him of eternal happiness in the kingdom of heaven. Shall there now be one soul so callous and so ungrateful as not to love Jesus Christ with its whole heart? Shall there be one Christian soul unwilling to bear any affliction to secure His grace and live? O God, turn our hardened stony hearts to Thee, and not our hearts only, but the hearts of all Christians, the hearts of all men, even the hearts of infidels who have never known Thee, and of atheists who have denied Thee.


ENDNOTES

1. St. Matt. xxvii. 54.
2. St. Luke xxiii. 48.
3. Numb. xx. 11.
4. St. John xii. 24.
5. 1 Peter iii. 22.
6. St. John xv. 13.
7. St. John x. 18.
8. St. Matt. xvi. 26.
9. Job ii. 4.

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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.

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

The third fruit to be gathered is this. At the approach of death we must not rely too much on the alms, the fastings, and the prayers of our relations and friends. Many during life forget all about their souls, and think of nothing else and do nothing else than heap up money so that their children or nephews may abound in riches. When death approaches they begin for the first time to think of their own souls, and as they have left all their worldly substance to their relatives, they also commend to them their souls to be assisted by their alms, their prayers, the Sacrifice of the Mass, and other good works. The example of Christ does not teach us to act in this manner. He commended His Spirit not to His relations but to His Father. St. Peter does not tell us to act in this manner, but to “commend” our “souls in good deeds to the faithful Creator.”[1]

I do not find fault with those who order or seek or desire that alms should be given and the holy Sacrifice offered for the repose of their souls, but I blame those who place too much confidence in the prayers of their children and relatives, since experience shows us the dead are soon forgotten. I complain also that in an affair of such moment as eternal salvation Christians should not work for themselves, should not themselves bestow their alms, and secure friends by whom according to the Gospel they may be received “into everlasting dwellings.”[2] Lastly I severely reprehend those who do not obey the Prince of the Apostles, who orders us to commend our souls to our faithful Creator not by our words only but by our good deeds. The deeds which will be of advantage to us in the sight of God are those which efficaciously and truly render us pious Christians. Let us listen to the voice from Heaven which sounded in the ears of St. John: “And I heard a voice from Heaven, saying to me: Write, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. From henceforth now, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours, for their works follow them.”[3] The good works therefore that are done whilst we are living, and not those which are done for us after death by our children and relatives, are the good works which will follow us, particularly if they are not only good in themselves, but, as St. Peter not without a hidden meaning expresses it, are well done. Many can enumerate countless good works of their own–many sermons, daily Masses, recitation of the Divine Office for years, the annual fast of Lent, frequent almsgiving; but when these are weighed in the Divine scales, and there is a rigid scrutiny whether they have been well done, with a right intention, with due devotion, at their proper time and place, with a heart full of gratitude to God, oh, how many things which appeared meritorious will turn to our detriment? how many things which to the judgment of men appeared gold and silver and precious stones, will be found to be wood and straw and stubble fit only for the fire? This consideration alarms me not a little, and the nearer I approach death, for the Apostle warns me, “That which decayeth and groweth old is near its end,”[4] the clearer do I see the necessity of following the advice of St. John Chrysostom. That holy doctor tells us not to think much of our good works, because if they are really good, that is well performed, they are written by God in the Book of Life, and there is no danger of our being defrauded of our just merits, but he encourages us to think rather of our evil deeds, and endeavour to make atonement for them with a contrite heart and a humble spirit, with many tears and a serious penance.”[5] Those who follow this advice may exclaim with great confidence at the moment of death: “Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit: Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, the God of truth.”


ENDNOTES

1. 1 St. Peter iv. 19.
2. St. Luke xiv. 9.
3. Apoc. xiv. 13.
4. Heb. viii. 13.
5. Hom. xxxviii. “Ad Popul. Antioch.”

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

There follows a fourth fruit to be gathered from the most happy manner in which this prayer of Jesus Christ was heard, which should animate us to greater fervour in commending our spirits to God. With great truth does the Apostle say that our Lord Jesus Christ “was heard for His reverence.”

Our Lord prayed to His Father, as we have shown above, for the speedy resurrection of His Body. The prayer was granted, for the resurrection was not prolonged longer than was necessary to establish the fact that the Body of our Lord was really separated from His Soul. Unless it could be proved that His Body had been really deprived of life, the resurrection and the structure of Christian faith which is built upon that mystery would fall to the ground. Christ ought to have laid in the tomb for at least forty hours to accomplish the sign of the Prophet Jonas which He Himself said was a figure of His own Death. In order that the resurrection of Christ might be hastened as much as possible, and that it might be evident His prayer had been heard, the three days and the three nights which Jonas spent in the whale’s belly, were, as regards the resurrection of Christ, reduced to one full day and parts of two other days. So the time our Lord’s Body was in the tomb cannot properly, but by a figure of speech only, be called three days and three nights. God the Father not only heard the prayer of Christ by accelerating the time of His resurrection, but by giving to His dead Body a life incomparably better than it enjoyed before. Before His Death the life of Christ was mortal; the life restored to Him was immortal. Before His Death the life of Christ was passible, and subject to hunger and thirst, fatigue and wounds; the life restored to Him was impassible. Before His Death the life of Christ was corporeal; the life restored to Him was spiritual, and the Body was so subject to the spirit that in the twinkling of an eye it could be borne wherever the Soul wished. The Apostle gives the reason why the prayer of Christ was so readily granted by saying that “He was heard for His reverence.” The Greek word conveys the idea of reverential fear which was a distinguishing trait of the regard which Christ felt for His Father. Thus Isaias in enumerating the gifts of the Holy Ghost which were to adorn the Soul of Christ says: “And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of fortitude, the spirit of knowledge and of godliness, and He shall be filled with the spirit of the fear of the Lord.”[2] In proportion as the Soul of Christ was filled with a reverential fear for His Father, the Father was filled with complacency in His Son: “This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.”[3] And as the Son reverenced the Father, so the Father ever heard His prayer and granted what He asked.

It follows then that if we desire to be heard by our Heavenly Father, and have our prayers granted, we must imitate Christ in approaching our Father Who is in heaven with great reverence, and prefer His honour before all things else. It will thus come to pass that our petitions will be heard, and especially the one on which our lot for eternity depends, that at the approach of death God should preserve our souls, which have been commended to His keeping, from the roaring lion which is standing ready to receive its prey. Let no one think, however, that reverence to God is shown merely in genuflections, in uncovering the head, and such external marks of worship and honour. In addition to all this, reverential fear implies a great dread of offending the Divine Majesty, an intimate and continual horror of sin not from the fear of punishment, but from the love of God. He was endowed with this reverential fear who dared not even to think of sinning against God: “Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord, he shall delight exceedingly in His commandments.”[4] Such a man truly fears God, and may consequently be called blessed, since he strives to observe all His commandments. The holy widow Judith “was greatly renowned among all because she feared the Lord very much.”[5] She was both young and rich but never gave or yielded to any occasion of sin. She remained with her maidens secluded in her chamber, and ” wore haircloth upon her loins, and fasted every day except on the feasts of the House of Israel.”[6] Behold with what zeal, even under the Old Law, which allowed greater freedom than the Gospel, a young and rich woman avoided sins of the flesh and for no other reason than ” because she feared the Lord very much.” The Sacred Scripture mentions the same of holy Job who made a compact with his eyes not to look at a virgin, that is, he would not look at a virgin lest any shadow of an impure thought should cross his mind. Why did Holy Job take such precautions? “I made a covenant with my eyes that I would not so much as think upon a virgin. For what part should God from above have in me, and what inheritance the Almighty from on high?”[7] Which means that if any impure thought should defile him he would no longer be the inheritance of God, nor would God be his portion. If I wished to mention the examples of the saints of the New Law I should never finish. This, then, is the reverential fear of the saints. If we were filled with the same fear there would be nothing which we could not easily obtain from our Heavenly Father.


ENDNOTES

1. Heb. v. 7
2. Isaias xi. 2, 3.
3. St. Matt. xvii. 5.
4. Psalm cxi. 1.
5. Judith viii. 8.
6. Judith viii. 6.
7. Job xxxi. 1, 2.

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

The last fruit is drawn from the consideration of the obedience shown by Christ in His last words and in His Death upon the Cross. The words of the Apostle: “He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross,”[1] received their complete fulfilment when our Lord expired with these words upon His lips: “Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit.” In order to gather the most precious fruit from the tree of the holy Cross it must be our endeavour to examine everything that can be said about the obedience of Christ. He, the Master and the Pattern of every virtue, tendered to His heavenly Father an obedience so ready and so perfect as to render it impossible to imagine or conceive anything greater.

In the first place, the obedience of Christ to His Father began with His Conception and continued uninterruptedly to His Death. The life of our Lord Jesus Christ was one perpetual act of obedience. The Soul of Christ from the moment of its creation enjoyed the exercise of its free will, was full of grace and wisdom, and consequently, even when inclosed in His Mother’s womb, was capable of practising the virtue of obedience. The Psalmist speaking in the Person of Christ says: “In the head of the book it is written of Me that I should do Thy will. O My God, I have desired it, and Thy law in the midst of My Heart.”[2] These words may be thus simplified: ” In the head of the book”–that is from the beginning to the end of the inspired writings of Scripture–it is shown that I was chosen and sent into the world “to do Thy will. O My God, I have desired it,” and freely accepted it. I have placed “Thy law,” Thy commandment, Thy desire, “in the midst of My Heart,” to ponder upon it constantly, to obey it accurately and promptly. The very words of Christ Himself mean the same. “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, that I may perfect His work.”[3] For as a man does not take food now and again and at distant intervals during life, but daily eats and takes a pleasure in it, so Christ our Lord was intent upon being obedient to His Father every day of His life. It was His joy and His pleasure. “I came down from Heaven not to do My own will, but the will of Him that sent Me.”[4] And again. “He that sent Me is with Me, and He hath not left Me alone; for I do always the things that please Him.”[5] And since obedience is the most excellent of all sacrifices, as Samuel told Saul,[6] so every action which Christ performed during His life was a sacrifice most pleasing to the Divine Majesty. The first prerogative then of our Lord’s obedience is that it lasted from the moment of His Conception to His Death upon the Cross.

In the second place, the obedience of Christ was not confined to one particular kind of duty, as is sometimes the case with other men, but it extended to everything which it pleased the Eternal Father to order. From this arose the many vicissitudes in our Lord’s life. At one time we see Him in the desert neither eating nor drinking, perhaps even depriving Himself of sleep, and living “with the beasts.”[7] At another time we see Him mixing up with men, eating and drinking with them. Now He is living in obscurity and silence at Nazareth. Now He appears before the world endowed with eloquence and wisdom, and working miracles. On one occasion He exerts His authority and drives those from the temple who were defiling it by bartering within its precincts. On another occasion He hides Himself, and like a weak powerless man withdraws from the crowd. All these different actions required a soul devoid of self, and devoted to the will of another. Unless He had previously set the example of renouncing everything which human nature cherishes, He would not have said to His disciples: “If any man will come after Me let him deny himself,”[8] let him give up his own will, renounce his own judgment. Unless He had been prepared to lay down His life with such willingness as to make it appear He really hated it, He would not have encouraged His disciples with such words as, “If any man come to Me, and hate not his father and mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.”[9] This renunciation of self, which was so conspicuous in our Lord’s character, is the true root and, as it were, mother of obedience, and those who are not prepared for this self-sacrifice will never acquire the perfection of obedience. How can a man promptly obey the will of another if he prefers his own will and judgment to that of another? The vast orbs of heaven obey the laws of nature both in their rising and in their setting. The Angels are obedient to the will of God. They have no will of their own in opposition to that of God, but are happily united with God, and are one spirit with Him. And so the Psalmist sings: “Bless the Lord, all ye His Angels: you that are mighty in strength and execute His word, hearkening to the voice of His orders.”[10]

In the third place, the obedience of Christ was not only infinite in its length and breadth, but in proportion as by suffering it was humble in the lowest degree, so as to its reward is it exalted. The third characteristic then of the obedience of Christ is that it was tried by suffering and humiliations. To accomplish the Will of His heavenly Father, the Infant Christ, with the full use of every faculty, consented to be inclosed for nine months in the dark prison of His Mother’s womb. Other infants feel not this privation as they have not the use of reason, but Christ had the use of reason and must have dreaded the confinement in the narrow womb, even of her whom He had chosen to be His Mother. Through obedience to His Father, and from the love He bore to man, He overcame this dread, and the Church says: “When Thou didst take upon Thee to deliver Man, Thou didst not abhor the Virgin’s womb.” Again, our dear Lord needed no small amount of patience and humility, to assume the manners and the weaknesses of a child, when He was not only wiser than Solomon, but was the Man ” in Whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

Consider, moreover, what must have been His forbearance and meekness, His patience and humility, to have remained for eighteen years, from His twelfth to His thirtieth year, hidden in an obscure house at Nazareth, to have been regarded as the son of a carpenter, to have been called a carpenter, to have been thought an ignorant uneducated man, when at the same time His wisdom surpassed that of all Angels and men together. During His public life He acquired great renown by His preaching and miracles, but He suffered great wants and endured many hardships. “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His Head.”[12] Footsore and fatigued He would sit Himself down at the side of a well. And yet He could easily have surrounded Himself with an abundance of all things by the ministry of men or Angels, had He not been restrained by the obedience He owed His Father. Shall I dwell on the contradictions He suffered, on the insults He endured, on the calumnies which were spoken against Him, on the scourges and the crown of thorns of His Passion, on the ignominy of the Cross itself? His humble obedience has taken such deep root that we can only wonder at it and admire it; we cannot perfectly imitate it.

There is yet a deeper depth to His obedience. The obedience of Christ finally reached this stage, that with a loud voice He cried out: “Father into Thy hands I commend My Spirit. And saying this He gave up the ghost.”[13] It would appear that the Son of God wished to address His Father in this wise: “This commandment have I received of you, My Father,”[14] to lay down My life in order to receive it again from Your hands. The time has now come for Me to execute this last commandment of Yours. And although the separation of My Soul and Body will be a bitter separation, because from the moment of their creation they have remained united in great peace and love, and although death found an entrance into this world through the malice of the devil, and human nature rebels against death, nevertheless Thy commandment is fixed deep in the inmost recesses of My Heart, and shall prevail even over death itself. Therefore am I prepared to taste the bitterness of death, and drink to the dregs the chalice you have prepared for Me. But as it is your wish that I should lay down My life in such a manner as to receive it back again from You, so “into Your hands I commend My Spirit,” in order that You may restore it to Me at Your pleasure. And then, having received His Father’s permission to die, He bowed down His Head in token of His obedience, and gave up the ghost. His obedience conquered and prevailed. Not only did it receive its reward in the Person of Christ, Who, because He humbled Himself beneath all, and obeyed all for the sake of His Father, has been assumed into heaven, and from His throne there governs and rules all, but it has its reward also in this, that all who imitate Christ shall ascend the highest heavens, shall be placed as masters over all the goods of their Lord, and shall be sharers of His royal dignity and possessors of His kingdom for ever. On the other hand, the virtue of obedience has gained such a signal victory over rebellious, disobedient, and proud spirits, as to make them tremble and fly from the sight of the Cross of Christ.

Whosoever desires to attain to the glory of heaven, and to find true peace and rest for his soul, must imitate the example of Christ. Not only religious who have bound themselves by a vow of obedience to their Superior, who holds the place of God in their regard, but all men who wish to be the disciples and brothers of Christ must aspire to gain this spiritual victory over themselves, otherwise they will be miserable for ever with the proud demons of hell. Inasmuch as obedience is a Divine precept, and has been imposed upon all, it is necessary for all. To all without exception were the words of Christ addressed: “Take up My yoke upon you.”[15] To all preachers of the Gospel does He say; “Obey your prelates and be subject to them.”[16] To all kings does Samuel say: “Doth the Lord desire holocausts and victims, and not rather that the Voice of the Lord should be obeyed? For obedience is better than sacrifices.”[17] And to show the enormity of the sin of disobedience he added: “Because it is like the sin of witchcraft to rebel “against the commands of the Lord, or the commands of those who hold the place of the Lord.

For the sake of those who voluntarily devote themselves to the practice of obedience, and submit their wills to that of their Superior, I will say a few words on their happy state of life. The prophet Jeremias, inspired by the Holy Ghost, says: “It is good for a man, when he hath borne the yoke from his youth. He shall sit solitary and hold his peace, because he hath taken it up upon himself.”[18] How great is the happiness contained in these words: “It is good!” From the rest of the sentence we may conclude that they embrace everything that is useful, honourable, agreeable, in fact, everything in which happiness may consist. The man that has been accustomed from his youth to the yoke of obedience, will be free throughout life from the crushing yoke of carnal desires. St. Augustine, in the eighth book of his Confessions, acknowledges the difficulty which a soul, that for years had obeyed the concupiscence of the flesh, must experience in shaking off the yoke, and on the other hand he speaks of the facility and of the bliss we experience in carrying the yoke of the Lord if the snares of vice have not entrapped the soul. Moreover, it is no inconsiderable gain to obtain merit for every action in the sight of God. The man who performs no action of his own free will, but does everything through obedience to his Superior, offers to God in each action a sacrifice most pleasing to Him, because as Samuel says: “Obedience is better than sacrifices.”[19] St. Gregory gives a reason for this. “In offering victims,” he says, “we sacrifice the flesh of another; by obedience our own will is sacrificed.”[20] And what is still more admirable in this is, that even if a Superior commits a sin in giving any order, a subject not only does not sin, but even obtains merit by his obedience provided the command itself is not manifestly against the law of God. The Prophet goes on to say; “He shall sit solitary and hold his peace.” The words mean that the solitary or the obedient man is at rest because he has found peace for his soul. He who has renounced his own will, and has devoted himself entirely to accomplish the Divine will which is manifested to him by the voice of his Superior, desires nothing, seeks for nothing, thinks of nothing, longs for nothing, but is free from all anxious cares, and “with Mary sits at the Lord’s feet hearing His word.”[21] The solitary sits down, both because he dwells with those who “have but one heart and one soul,”[22] and because he loves none with a private, individual love, but all in Christ and for the sake of Christ. He is silent because he quarrels with no one, disputes with no one, has litigation with no one. The reason of this great tranquillity is “because he hath taken it up upon himself” and is translated from the ranks of men to the ranks of Angels. There are many who busy themselves about themselves, and act like animals devoid of reason. They seek after the things of this world, esteem only those things which delight the senses, feed their carnal desires, and are avaricious, impure, gluttonous, and intemperate. Others lead a purely human life, and remain entirely shut up within themselves, such as those who endeavour to peer into the secrets of nature, or rest satisfied with delivering precepts of morals. Others, again, raise themselves above themselves, and with the special help and assistance of God lead a life that is rather angelical than human. These abandon all they possess in this world, and by denying their own wills can say with the Apostle: “Our conversation is in heaven.”[23] Emulating the purity, the contemplation, and the obedience of the Angels, they lead the life of Angels in this world. The Angels are never sullied with the stain of sin, “always see the face of My Father, Who is in heaven,”[24] and, disengaged from all things else, are wholly intent on accomplishing the will of God. “Bless the Lord, all ye His Angels, you that are mighty in strength, and execute His word, hearkening to the voice of His orders.”[25] This is the happiness of religious life. Those who on earth imitate as far as possible the purity and obedience of the Angels, shall undoubtedly become partakers of their glory in Heaven, especially if they follow Christ, their Lord and Master, Who “humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross:”[26] and “whereas indeed He was the Son of God, He learned obedience by the things which He suffered:”[27] that is, He learned by His own experience that genuine obedience is tried by suffering, and consequently His example not only teaches us obedience, but teaches us that the foundation of true and perfect obedience is humility and patience. It is no proof that we are truly and perfectly obedient in obeying in things that are honourable and pleasant. Such commands do not prove whether it is the virtue of obedience or some other motive that impels us to act. But a man who shows a promptitude and alacrity in obeying in all things that are humiliating and laborious, proves that he is a true disciple of Christ, and has learnt the meaning of true and perfect obedience.

St. Gregory skilfully shows what is necessary to the perfection of obedience in different circumstances. He says: “Sometimes we may receive agreeable, at other times disagreeable commands. It is of the greatest importance to remember that in some circumstances, if anything of self-love creeps into our obedience, our obedience is null; in other circumstances our obedience is less virtuous in proportion as there is less self- sacrifice. For example: a religious is placed in some honourable post, is appointed Superior of a monastery; now if he undertakes this office through the mere human motive of liking it, he will be altogether wanting in obedience. That man is not directed by obedience, who in undertaking agreeable duties is the slave of his own ambition. Again, a religious receives some humiliating order, if, for example, when his self-love urges him to aspire to superiority he is ordered to fulfil some office to which neither distinction nor dignity is attached, he will lessen the merit of his obedience in proportion as he fails in forcing his will to desire the post, because unwillingly and by constraint he obeys in a matter which he considers unworthy of his talents or his experience. Obedience invariably loses some of its perfection if the desire for lowly and humble occupations does not in some manner or another accompany the forced obligation of undertaking them. In commands, therefore, which are repugnant to nature, there must be some self-sacrifice, and in commands which are agreeable to nature there must be no self-love. In the former case obedience will be the more meritorious the closer it is united to the Divine will by desires; in the latter case obedience will be the more perfect the more it is separated from any longing for worldly renown. We shall better understand the different marks of true obedience by considering the actions of two saints who are now in Heaven.[28] When Moses was pasturing sheep in the desert, he was called by the Lord, Who spoke to him through the mouth of an Angel from the burning bush, to command the Jewish people in their exodus from the land of Egypt. In his humility Moses hesitated about accepting so glorious a command. ‘I beseech Thee, Lord,’ he said, ‘I am not eloquent from yesterday and the day before, and since Thou hast spoken to Thy servant I have more impediment and slowness of tongue.'[29] He wished to decline the office himself, and begged that it might be given to another. ‘I beseech Thee, Lord, send Whom Thou wilt send.'[30] Behold! he urges his want of eloquence as an excuse to the Author and Giver of speech, to be exonerated from an employment which was honourable and authoritative. St. Paul, as he tells the Galatians,[31] was Divinely admonished to go up to Jerusalem. On his journey he meets the Prophet Agabus, and learns from him what he will have to suffer in Jerusalem. ‘Agabus, when he was come to us, took Paul’s girdle, and binding his own feet and hands he said: Thus saith the Holy Ghost: The man whose girdle this is, the Jews shall bind in this manner in Jerusalem, and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.'[32] Whereupon St. Paul immediately answered, ‘I am ready not only to be bound, but to die also in Jerusalem for the Name of the Lord Jesus.'[33] Undaunted by the revelation he received of the sufferings in store for him, he proceeded to Jerusalem. He really longed to suffer, yet as a man he must have felt some dread; but this very dread was overcome, and rendered him more courageous. Self-love, then did not find a place in the honourable duty which was imposed upon Moses, because he had to overcome himself in order to assume the command of the Jewish people. Voluntarily did St. Paul set out to meet adversity. He was aware of the persecutions which awaited him, and his fervour made him long for still heavier crosses. The one wished to decline the renown and glory of being the leader of a nation, even when God visibly called him; the other was prepared and willing to embrace hardships and tribulations for the love of God. With the example of these two saints before us, we must resolve, if we desire to obtain the perfection of obedience, to allow the will of our Superior only to impose honourable employments upon us, and to force our own will to embrace difficult and humiliating offices.”[34] Thus far St. Gregory. Christ our Lord, the Master of all, had previously approved by His conduct the doctrine which St. Gregory here lays down. When He knew the people were coming to take Him away by force and make Him their King, “He fled into the mountains Himself alone.”[35] But when He knew that the Jews and soldiers with Judas at their head were coming to make Him a prisoner and to crucify Him, according to the command which He had received from His Father, He willingly went forth to meet them, and allowed Himself to be captured and bound. Christ, therefore, our good Master, has given us an example of the perfection of obedience, not by His preaching and words only, but by His deeds and in truth. He reverenced His Father by an obedience which was founded on suffering and humiliations. The Passion of Christ exhibits the most brilliant example of the most exalted and ennobling of virtues. It is a model which they should ever have before their eyes, who have been called by God to aspire to the perfection of obedience and the imitation of Christ.


ENDNOTES

1. Philipp. ii. 8.
2. Psalm xxxix. 8, 9.
3. St. John iv. 34.
4. St. John vi. 38.
5. St. John viii. 29.
6. 1 Kings xv. 22. 7. St. Mark i. 13.
8. St. Matt. xvi. 24.
9. St. Luke xiv. 26.
10. Psalm cii. 20.
11. Coloss. ii. 3.
12. St. Luke ix. 58.
13. St. Luke xxiii. 46.
14. St. John x. 18.
15. St. Matt. xi. 29.
16. Heb. xiii. 17.
17. 1 Kings xv. 22, 23.
18. Lament. iii. 27, 28.
19. 1 Kings xv. 23.
20. “Lib. Mor.” xxxv. c. x.
21. St. Luke x. 39.
22. Acts iv. 32.
23. Philipp. iii. 20.
24. St. Matt. xviii. 10.
25. Psalm cii. 20.
26. Philipp. ii. 8.
27. Heb. v. 8.
28. Exod iii.
29. Exod. iv. 10.
30. Exod. iv. 13.
31. Gal. ii. 2.
32. Acts xxi. 11.
33. Acts xxi. 13.
34. “Lib. Mor.” xxxv. c. x.
35. St. John vi. 15.

[Stone]

A reminder ...