Thursday in Passion Week — Our Lord is shown to the people, with Ecce Homo! Behold the Man!

Consider, first, how Pilate, hoping now that the malice of the Jews would be so far abated as to insist no longer on our Saviour’s death, after they should see in what a barbarous manner he had been treated, in compliance with their passion, leads him out, just as he was, with his crown of thorns upon his head, and his ragged purple on his shoulders, and, from an eminence, shows him to the people, with these words, Ecce homo! Behold the man! As much as to say. Take a view of him now, from head to foot; see how he is all covered with wounds, how his whole body is rent, lorn, and mangled with scourges, his head and temples pierced with bloody thorns, his face all black and blue, and his person quite disfigured. See how cruelly he has been handled in complaisance to you; though neither I, nor Herod, could find any crime in him. Let, then, this outrageous treatment he has received from the soldiers, let all this blood he has shed, satisfy you; take pity on him, now at least, and cease to seek his death. But O! how vain it is to expect that men’s oassions should be abated by giving way to them! Pilate imagined the sight of so much innocent blood already shed would extinguish the thirst of the Jews; whereas it did but increase it, and make them the more eager after our Lcu-d’s death. See, my soul, thou never suffer thyself to be imposed upon in the like manner, by thinking to rid thyself the easier hereafter of thy troublesome temptations or passions, by making a kind of composition, and giving them at present what they crave. The more thou givest them, the more they will demand, and the more they will tyrannise over thee. It is not by yielding, Dut by fighting resolutely against them, thou art to con? quer.

Consider, secondly, my soul, thy Saviour presenting himself to thee on this occasion, with all his wounds, and all the disgrace fill attire of his ragged robes and thorny crown, with an Ecce homo! Behold the man! But see thou look upon him with other eyes than those unhappy miscreants did, who only took oc casion from the sight of his sufferings to cry out more eagerly. Away with him, away with him; crucify him, crucify him. O, behold the man, even the eternal Word of the Father, made man for the love of thee. Behold his head, crowned with a wreath of sharp thorns, piercing and entering in on all sides, with excessive pains; behold his face, bruised beyond measure, and all coveted with blood and spittle; behold, through his ragged purple, the innumerable stripes and wounds of his mangled body. Behold and see to what a condition thy sins and his own infinite charity have reduced the Lord of glory. Then see and consider what return thou wilt make him for all his sufferings, and for all his love. He desires no other return but that of thy heart; but then it must be an humble and a contrite heart; it must be a loving and an obedient heart.

Consider, thirdly, the eternal Father presenting his Son to us in his passion, all covered with wounds, and imbrued in his blood, with another Ecce homo! Behold'the man! — setting before our eyes all that he has suffered out of pure love for us; representing to us his infinite goodness and mercy, and the heinousness of our sins and ingratitude to him; encouraging us to hope in him; inviting us to love him, and to detest our sins for the love of him; and offering us all good things through him; only desiring that we would cease to persecute him by sin. O give attention, my soul, to this loving voice of thy God, and to all the sufferings of his Son; but, in return, do thou also present him to his Father, with the like Ecce homo! Behold the man 1 — laying before him all that his Son has endured for thee, in the whole course of his passion; and putting in thy claim to all that mercy, grace, and ssilvation, which he has purchased for thee, by sdj these sufferings. In particular, insist upon this one favour to be Ipanted thee, through his passion and death, that thon mayest never more be disloyal to him.

Conclude by representing all thy miseries and sins to thy Redeemer, and, through him, to his Father, with another Ecce homo f Behold the man! and begging a redress from him, and through his precious blood, of all thy miseries, and the remission oJ ■i) thy sins.