« Christ loved the Church and delivered Himself up for it, that He might sanctify it »

Summary. — [. Love is the motive power which urges Christ to undergo the sufferings of the Passion. — II. Christ delivers Himself up wholly to sorrow and death. — III. How, by His immolation, Christ sanctifies the Church. — IV. Necessity for us of communicating in the sufferings of Jesus ; different ways of sharing in them : — to contemplate, with faith, Christ in His Passion ; to assist at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass which reproduces the oblation of Calvary ; to unite our sufferings with His. The strength that Christ has merited for us to carry our cross with Him. — V. The Passion does not terminate the cycle of the mysteries of Jesus ; by His sufferings Christ merits to enter into eternal glory. This law is likewise ours : if we share in the sufferings of Jesus on the Cross, we shall share too in His glorious life : Ego dispono vobis regnurn.

N narrating the account of the Transfiguration, St. Luke brings up this detail that Moses and Elias spoke with Jesus of His death *.

Thus, at the moment when Christ raises, for His chosen disciples, a corner of the veil that hides the splendours of His Divinity from the multitude, He speaks of His Passion and Death. This may seem strange, and yet it is not so in reality, for the Passion marks the culminating point of the work that Christ came to do here below. It is the hour wherein Jesus consummates the sacrifice that is to give infinite glory to His Father, to redeem humanity, and reopen to mankind the fountains of everlasting life. Moreover Our Lord Who, from the first moment of His Incarnation, delivered Himself up wholly to His Father’s good-pleasure, ardently desired to see arrive what He called “His hour”?. Baptismo habeo baptizari, et quomodo coarctor usquedum perficiatur?! “IT have a baptism whereby to be baptized—a baptism of blood—and how am I straitened until it be accomplished”! Jesus longed for the hour to come when He might be plunged in suffering and undergo death in order to give life to us.¹

Certainly, He will not advance this hour. Jesus is fully submissive to His Father’s Will. St. John more than once notes that the Jews try to take Jesus by surprise and put Him to death ; Our Lord ever escapes them, even by miracle, “ because His hour was not yet come” : Nondum venerat hora ejus *.

But when it does come, Jesus delivers Himself up with the greatest ardour, although He knows in advance all the sufferings that He is to bear in body and soul : Desiderio desideravi hoc Pascha manducare vobiscum antequam patiar*. “ With desire I have desired to eat this Pasch with you, before I suffer”. It has at last come, that hour so long awaited.

Let us contemplate Jesus at this hour. The mystery of His Passion is ineffable, even to the smallest details, as, moreover, everything is in the life of the Man-God. Here especially we are on the threshold of a sanctuary where we can only enter with living faith and deepest reverence.

A text of the Epistle of St. Paul to the Ephesians resumes the essential points that we have to consider in this mystery. “Christ”, he says, “loved the Church, and delivered Himself up for it... that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or | any such thing ; but that it should be holy and without © blemish ” °.

The mystery of the Passion itself is indicated by these words : Jesus “delivered Himself up” : Seipsum tradidit.

²

And what urged Him to deliver Himself up ? Love is the deep meaning of the mystery : Dilexit Ecclestam. And the fruit of this oblation of His entire self, through love, is the sanctification of the Church : Ut illam sanctificaret... ut sit sancta et immaculata.

Each of these truths revealed by the Apostle contains many treasures and fruits of life for our souls. Let us contemplate them for some moments ; we shall afterwards see how we ought to share in the Passion of Jesus so as to draw from this treasury and gather these fruits.

I

St. Paul tells us that Christ “loved the Church”.

The Church here means the kingdom of those who, as the Apostle likewise says’, are to form the Mystical Body of Jesus. Christ loved the Church, and because He loved it, He gave Himself up for it. Love ordained the Passion.

Doubtless, first and above all, it was out of love of His Father that Jesus willed to undergo the death of the Cross. He says so Himself explicitly : Ut cognoscat mundus quia diligo Patrem, sic facto *, ‘““ That the world may know, that I love the Father”, I do His will which is to deliver Myself up to death.

Behold Christ during His agony. During three hours, weariness, sadness, sorrow and anguish sweep over His soul like a torrent, and take possession of it to such a point that the blood escapes from His sacred veins. What an abyss of sorrow there is in this agony! And what does Jesus say to His Father ? “ Father, if Thou wilt, remove this chalice from me”. Is it, then, that Christ no longer accepts His Father’s Will ? Certainly He does accept it. But this prayer is the cry of the sensitive part of poor human nature crushed by disgust and suffering. At this moment, Christ is above all Vir sciens infirmitatem®: a Man of Sorrows. Our Lord feels the terrible burden of agony weigh upon His shoulders ; He would have us know this, and therefore He thus prays.

TL Cor, x, 27> bphes: 1, 5 IV, 124 va 230 — =e) Oates xy 2. isa. UI, 3.

Hear what He immediately adds : “ But yet not My will, but Thine be done”. Here is love’s triumph. Because He loves His Father, He places the will of His Father above all things, and He accepts to suffer everything. It is to be remarked that the Father, if He had so decreed in His eternal designs, could have lessened Our Lord’s sufferings and changed the circumstances of His death. He did not so will. In His justice, He exacted that, in order to save the world, Christ should yield Himself to every sorrow. Did this will diminish the love of Jesus ? Certainly not ; He does not say : My Father might have arranged things otherwise. No, He fully accepts all that His Father wills : Non mea voluntas, sed tua fiat}.

Henceforward He wil! go to the very end in His sacrifice. Soon after His agony, at the moment of His arrest, when St. Peter wishes to defend Him and with his sword strikes one of those who come to seize his Master, what does the Saviour at once say to him? “ Put up the sword into the scabbard. The chalice which My Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it” ? Calicem quem dedit mihi Pater, non bibam illum ? ?

Hence it is, before all, love for His Father that urges Christ to accept the sufferings of the Passion. But the love that He bears towards us likewise urges Him.

At the Last Supper, when the hour for achieving His oblation draw near, what does He say to His apostles gathered around Him? “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends”, Majorem hac dilectionem nemo habet, ut animam suam ponat quis pro amicis suis*. And this love which surpasses all love, Jesus is about to show forth to us, for, says St. Paul, “ Christ died for all” *. He died for us when we were His enemies °. What greater mark of love could He give us ? None.

Thus the Apostle does not cease to declare that Christ delivered Himself up and gave Himself for us, because He loved us®. And in what measure did He “ deliver” and “ give” Himself ? Even unto death : Semetipsum tradidit.³

What infinitely enhances this love is the sovereign liberty wherewith Christ offered Himself : Oblatus est quia ipse voluit*, These words tell us how spontaneously Jesus accepted His Passion. Did He not one day say, when speaking of the Good Shepherd Who gives His life for His sheep : “ Therefore doth the Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I may take it again [upon My Resurrection day]. No man taketh it away from Me: but I lay it down of Myself and I have power to lay it down ; and I have power to take it up again” ®.

And see how these words have come to pass. At the moment of His arrest, He asks those who would lay their hands upon Him, “ Whom seek ye” ? “Jesus of Nazareth”. “Tam He”. “And at this answer they fall backward upon the ground” *®. If He asked His Father, His Father would have sent “more than twelve legions of angels’ * to deliver Him. Jesus adds: “I sat daily with you, teaching in the temple, and you laid not hands on Me” ®. It might have been the same now, but He does not will to have it so, for this is “ His hour”. See Him before Pilate ; He acknowledges that the power of the Roman governor to condemn Him to death comes only from His Father : Non haberes potestatem adversum me ullam,. misi tibi datum esset desuper®. If He so willed, He might deliver Himself from Pilate’s hands, but because it is His Father’s will, He submits Himself to an unjust judge : Tradebat judicanti se injuste™.

This freedom with which Jesus gives His life is entire. And this is one of the most admirable perfections of His sacrifice, one of the aspects that touch our human hearts most. deeply. “God so loved the world, as to give His Only-begotten Son”. Christ loved His brethren to this point that He spontaneously and entirely gave Himself up to save them.

II

All is perfect in the sacrifice of Jesus :—the love that inspires it, and the liberty with which He accomplishes it. I. Isa. LMI, 7. — 2. Joan. x, 17-18. — 3. Ibid. xvut, 4-6. — 4. Matth.

EXVI, 53. — §. Ibid. xxvi, 55; Marc. xrv, 49; Luc. xxm, 53. 6. Joan. xIx, 11. — 7. I Petr. m, 23. — 8. Joan. 1m, 16.

Perfect, too, in the gift offered : Christ offers Himself : Semetipsum tradidit. .

Christ offered the whole of Himself ; His soul and body were bruised and broken by suffering ; there is no suffering that Jesus has not known. If we read the Gospel attentively, we see that the sufferings of Jesus were ordered in such a way that no member of His Sacred Body was spared ; there was no fibre of His Heart but was torn by the ingratitude of the multitude, by being forsaken by His own disciples, and by the sorrows of His Mother. He under- — went all the outrages and humiliations wherewith a man can be oppressed. He fulfilled to the letter the prophecy of Isaias : “ Many have been astonished at Thee, so shall His visage be inglorious among men... There was no sightliness that we should be desirous of Him... and we have thought Him as it were a leper, and as one struck by God and afmeted... ”’ >

I spoke just now of the Agony in the Garden of Olives. Christ, Who exaggerates nothing, reveals to His Apostles ‘that His innocent soul is now oppressed with sadness so poignant and bitter that it is enough to cause His death : Tristis est anima mea usque ad mortem?. What an abyss ! A God, Infinite Power and Beatitude, is overcome by sadness, fear and heaviness : Coepit pavere, et taedere® et moestus esse*! The Word Incarnate knew all the sufferings that were to fall upon Him throughout the long hours of His Passion. This vision awoke in His sensitive nature all the repulsion that a simple creature would thereby have experienced ; in the Divinity to which it was united, His soul saw clearly all the sins of mankind, all the outrages committed against God’s holiness and infinite love.

He had taken upon Himself all these iniquities ; He was, as it were, clad with them, He felt all the wrath of divine justice weigh upon Him : Ego sum vermis, et non homo: opprobrium hominum et abjectio plebis®. He foresaw that for many men His Blood would be shed in vain, and this sight brought the grief of His blessed soul to its climax. But, as we have seen, Christ accepted all. He now arises, and goes forth from the garden to meet His enemies.⁴

It is here that this series of humiliations and sufferings, which we can scarcely attempt to describe, begins for Our Lord.

Betrayed by the kiss of one of His apostles, bound by the soldiery as a malefactor, He is led before the high priest. There He holds His peace in the midst of the false accusations brought against Him : Jlle autem tacebat’.

He only speaks in order to declare that He is the Son of God : Tu dixisti, ego sum?. This profession is the most solemn that has ever been made to the Divinity of Christ : Jesus, King of Martyrs, dies for having confessed His Divinity, and all the martyrs were to give their lives for the same cause.

Peter, the chief of the apostles, had followed his Divine Master afar off ; he had promised never to forsake Him. Poor Peter! We know how he thrice denied Jesus. For Our Lord, this was doubtless one of the deepest pains of that terrible night.

The soldiers set a guard round Jesus and load Him with insults and cruel treatment. Not being able to bear His gentle gaze, they blindfold Him in derision ; they insolently strike Him ; they dare to defile with their filthy spittle that Adorable Face whereof the contemplation ravishes the angels.

The Gospel next shows us how Jesus, from break of day, is dragged from tribunal to tribunal ; how He is treated by Herod as a fool, He, Eternal Wisdom, and scourged by order of Pilate ; the executioners pitilessly strike their innocent Victim Whose body is soon but one wound. And yet this cruel scourging does not suffice for these men who do not deserve the name of men ; they press a crown of thorns upon the head of Jesus and make Him the butt of their mockeries.

The cowardly Roman governor imagines that the Jews’ hatred will be satisfied in seeing Christ in such a pitiable state; he presents Him to the crowd: Ecce homo. “ Behold the Man...” ! Let us at this moment behold Our Divine Master plunged in this abyss of sufferings and ignominies, and let us think that the Father, He too, presents Him to us and says to us : Behold My Son, the splendour of My glory—but “for the wickedness of My people have I struck Him”: Propter scelus populi met percussi eum... *⁵

Jesus hears the clamour of the furious populace who prefer a brigand before Him and, in return for all His benefits, demand His death : Crucifige, crucifige eum’.

The sentence of death is then pronounced, and Christ, taking His heavy cross upon His lacerated shoulders, sets out on the way to Calvary. What sorrows are yet reserved for Him! The sight of His Mother whom He so tenderly loves, she whose immense affliction He understands as none other can ; the being stripped of His garments, the piercing of His Hands and Feet ; the burning thirst. Then the malignant sarcasms of His most mortal foes. ‘“ Vah ! thou that destroyest the temple of God, save thy own self”, and we will believe thee... “He saved others ; Himself he cannot save” *®. Finally, the abandonment by His Father Whose holy will He has ever done : “ My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me”!

He has truly drunk the calice to the dregs, He has fulfilled to the last iota, that is to say, to the least detail, all that was foretold of Him. Thus, when all is accomplished, when He has exhausted to the depths every sorrow and every humiliation, He can utter His Consummatum est. Yes, all is consummated ; He has now only to give up His soul to His Father : Et inclinato capite, tradidit spiritum *.

When the Church, during Holy Week, reads us the account of the Passion, she interrupts herself at this place, in order to adore in silence.

Like her, let us fall down in adoration before the Crucified Who has just breathed forth His last sigh ; He is truly the Son of God : Deus verus de Deo vero®. Let us take part, on Good Friday, in the solemn adoration of the Cross, which, in the spirit of the Church, is intended to repare the numberless outrages heaped upon the Divine Victim by His enemies upon Golgotha. During this touch- ing ceremony, the Church places some moving reproaches upon the lips of the innocent Saviour. These literally apply to the deicide people ; we can take them in an altogether spiritual sense : they will give birth in our souls to intense feelings of compunction : ““O My people, what have I done to thee ? or in what have I afflicted thee ? Answer Me. - What ought I to have done for thee that I have not done ? I planted thee as My most beautiful vineyard, and thou art become to Me exceedingly bitter ; for, in My thirst, thou hast given Me vinegar to drink, and with a spear hast thou pierced the side of thy Saviour... For thy sake, I scourged Egypt with its firstborn ; and thou hast scourged Me... I led thee out of Egypt, drowning Pharao in the Red Sea ; and thou didst deliver Me up to the chief priests... I opened a passage for thee in the midst of the sea, and thou didst open My side with a lance... I went before thee as a pillar of fire, and thou didst lead Me to the judgmenthall of Pilate... I fed thee with manna in the desert, and thou didst strike Me with blows and scourges... I gave to thee a royal sceptre and thou didst give to My head a crown of thorns... I lifted thee up with great power, and thou didst hang Me on the gibbet of the Cross” !⁶

Let our hearts be touched by these plaints of a God suffering for men ; let us unite ourselves to this loving obedience which led Him to the immolation of the Cross : Factus obediens usque ad mortem, mortem autem crucis’. Let us say to Him: O Divine Saviour, Who suffered so much for love of us, we promise to do all that we can in order to sin no more ; grant us by Your grace, O adorable Master, to die to all that is sin, attachment to sin and to the creature, and to live no longer save for You.

For, says St. Paul, the love that Christ showed us in dying for us “presseth us... that they also who live, may not now live to themselves, but unto Him Who died for them” : Ut et qui vivunt, jam non sibi vivant, sed ei qui pro ipsis mortuus est ?.

III

Christ’s sacrifice, begun at the moment of the Incarnation, is now achieved. From the pierced side of Jesus flow the streams of living water which are to purify and sanctify the Church : Ut sanctificaret Ecclesiam... Ut sit sancta et wmmaculata*. This is the perfect fruit of this perfect immolation. ‘For by one oblation He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified” : Una enim oblatione, consSummavit in sempiternum sanctificatos *.⁷

How has Christ Jesus, by His oblation, sanctified the Church ?

As we know, our sanctification essentially consists in a participation in the divine nature by sanctifying grace. This grace makes us children of God, His friends, just in His sight, heirs of His glory.

We were, by sin, deprived of grace, enemies of God, shut out from the beatitude of heaven.

By His sacrifice, Christ destroyed sin, and restored grace to us. According to the expression of St. Paul, Christ in letting Himself be nailed to the Cross, blotted out “ the handwriting of the decree [of condemnation and of death] that was against us” * and reconciled us for ever to His Father *.

Never let us forget that Christ represented the whole of humanity. He united Himself to a sinful race, although sin did not touch Him personally : Absque peccato® ; but He bore “ the iniquity of us all” : Posuit in eo imquitatem omnium nostrum®. Through love, Christ made Himself surety for our sins, and we, through grace, have solidarity in His satisfactions.

Moreover, Christ merited for His Church all the graces whereof she has need in order to form that society which He wills to be “ holy and without blemish ”’.

The value of these merits is indeed infinite. How is this ? Because although His sufferings, extensive and deep as they were, were not unlimited, yet He, Who through them merited for us, is a God. He suffered only in His human nature, but these sufferings and the merit they create belong to a God, therefore their value is without limit.

Christ Jesus, then, merited for us every grace and every light : His death opened again for us the gates of life, and translated us from darkness into light? ; it is the cause of our salvation and sanctification : Et consummatus, factus est omnibus obtemperantibus sibi, causa salutis aeterna”.⁸

The Sacraments, which are the channels whereby grace and divine life reach our souls, are of value only through the Sacrifice of Jesus. If we are to-day in a state of grace, to what do we owe it? To our Baptism. And what was it that merited for us the fruits of our Baptism ? The death of Christ Jesus. In the same way, in the Sacrament of Penance, we are washed in the Saviour’s Blood. The virtue of the sacraments is derived from the Cross ; they have efficacy only in continuity with Christ’s Sacred Passion.

Chief and Head of the Church, Christ merited for her the grace that makes her beautiful and glorious. The zeal of the Apostles, the strength of Martyrs, the constancy of Confessors, the purity of Virgins are nourished by the Blood of Jesus. All the favours, all the gifts that gladden souls, even to the unique privileges bestowed upon the Blessed Virgin Mary, were bought by His Precious Blood. And as the price paid is infinite, there is no grace for which we may not hope, beseeching it from our High Priest and Mediator.

So that in Jesus we have everything ; nothing that we need for our sanctification is lacking to us. Et copiosa apud eum redemptio*. His sacrifice offered for all has given Him the right of communicating to us all that He has merited.

Oh ! if we understood that in Him we have everything ! That His infinite merits are ours! If we had absolute confidence in these merits ! During His mortal life, Jesus said to the Jews, and now repeats to us : Ego si exaltatus fuero a terra, omnia traham ad meipsum*. When once I have been lifted up on the Cross, My power will be such that I shall be able to lift up to Myself all those who have faith in Me. Those who, of old, in the desert, looked at the brazen serpent lifted up by Moses, were healed of the wounds with which they had been stricken on account of their sins* ; thus all those who look upon Me with faith and love merit to be drawn to Me. I, Who am God, consented, through love of you, to be hung upon the Cross as one who was cursed? ; in return for this humiliation, I have the power of drawing you to Myself, of purifying you, of adorning you with My grace, of lifting you up as high as heaven where I now am. I came down from heaven ; I have ascended thither, after having offered My sacrifice ; I have power to make you enter there with Me, for in this I am your Forerunner. I have power to unite you to Myself, in so close a manner that “no man shall pluck... out of My hand that which the Father hath given Me”, and that I have redeemed by My precious Blood. Et ego vitam aeternam do ets : et non peribunt in aeternum, et - non rapiet eas quisquam de manu mea®.⁹

“And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to Myself”. Let us think on this infallible promise of our Supreme High-priest when we gaze on the crucifix : it is the source of most absolute confidence. If Christ died for us while we were His enemies*, what graces of forgiveness, of sanctification can He refuse us, now that we detest sin, and strive to detach ourselves from the creature and from ourselves, so as to please Him alone ?

O Father, draw me to the Son!... O Christ Jesus, Son of God, draw me entirely to Thee !...

IV

The Death of Jesus is the source of our confidence. But in order that it may be fully efficacious, we ourselves must share in His Passion. Upon the Cross, Christ Jesus represented us all ; but although He suffered for all, He applies the fruits of His immolation to us only if we associate ourselves with His Sacrifice.

How are we to share in the Passion of Jesus ?

In several ways.

The first is to contemplate Christ Jesus, with faith and love, along the Sorrowful Way.

1. Num. xx, 89. — 2. Deut. xxi, 23; Gal. Im, 13. — 3. Joan. x, 28. — 4. Rom. V, Io.

Christ in His Mysteries. 17

»

Each year, during Holy Week, the Church lives over again with Jesus, day by day, hour by hour, all the phases of the mystery of blood of her Divine Bridegroom. She places her children before the spectacle of those sufferings which saved humanity. Formerly, servile works were forbidden during those holy days. All law cases were suspended as well as all business. The thought of a Man- God, redeeming the world by His sorrows, occupied every mind, moved every heart. Now, many souls, saved by Christ’s Blood, pass these days in indifference. Let us be so much the more faithful to contemplate, in union with the Church, the various episodes of this sacred mystery. We shall find therein a source of priceless graces.

The Passion of Jesus holds such a large place in His life, it is so much His work, He attaches such a price to it that He has willed that the remembrance of it should be recalled amongst us, not only once a year, during the solemnities of Holy Week, but every day. He has instituted a sacrifice whereby the memory and the fruits of His oblation on Calvary should be perpetuated : this is the Sacrifice of the Mass : Hoc facite in meam commemorationem }.

To assist at this Holy Sacrifice, or to offer it with Christ constitutes an intimate and very efficacious participation in — the Passion of Jesus.

Indeed, upon the altar the same Sacrifice as that of Calvary is reproduced ; it is the same High Priest, Jesus Christ, Who offers Himself to His Father by the hands of the priest ; it is the same Victim ; the only difference is the manner in which He is offered. We sometimes say : Oh ! if I could have been at Golgotha with the Blessed Virgin, St. John and Magdalen! But faith brings us face to face with Jesus immolated upon the altar ; He there renews His Sacrifice, in a mystical manner, in order to give us a share in His merits and satisfactions. We do not see Him with our bodily eyes ; but faith tells us that He is there, for the same ends for which He offered Himself upon the Cross. If we have a lively faith, it will make us cast ourselves down at the feet of Jesus, Who immolates¹⁰

Himself : it will unite us to Him in His love for His Father and for mankind and in His hatred of sin : it will make us say with Him : Father, behold I come to do Thy will : Ecce venio, ut faciam, Deus, voluntatem tuam}.

We shall enter especially into these sentiments if, after offering ourselves with Jesus, we unite ourselves to Him by Sacramental Communion. Christ then gives Himself to us, as the One Who comes to expiate and destroy sin within us. Upon the Cross, He caused us to die with Him to sin : “With Christ, I am nailed to the Cross” ?, says St. Paul. In those supreme moments, Christ did not separate us from Himself ; He enabled us to destroy within ourselves the reign of evil, the cause of His death, so that we might make part of the holy assembly of the elect : Sime ruga, sine macula,

Finally, we may further associate ourselves with this mystery by bearing, for love of Christ, the sufferings and adversities which, in’ the designs of His providence, He permits us to undergo.

When Jesus was ascending the road to Calvary, bowed down under His heavy Cross, He fell beneath the weight. We see Him humbled, weak, prostrate upon the ground. He Whom Scripture calls “the strength of God”, Virtus Dei*, is incapable of carrying His Cross. It is a homage that His Humanity renders to the power of God. If He so willed, Jesus could, despite His weakness, bear His Cross as far as Calvary ; but, at this moment, the Divinity wills, for our salvation, that the Humanity should feel its weakness, in order that it should merit for us the strength to bear our sufferings.

God gives us, too, a cross to carry, and each one thinks that his own is the heaviest. We ought to accept the one given to us without reasoning, without saying : “ God might have changed such or such a circumstance in my life”. Our Lord tells us: “If any man will come after Me, let him... take up His cross and follow Me”.

In this generous acceptation of our cross, we shall find union with Christ. For in bearing our cross, we truly bear our share in that of Jesus. Consider what is related in the Gospel. The Jews, seeing how faint and weary their Victim was becoming, and fearing that He would not arrive as far as Calvary, stop Simon the Cyrenean upon the way, and force him to come to the Saviour’s aid’. As I have just said, Christ could, had He so willed, derive the necessary strength from His divinity, but He consented to be helped. He wishes to show us thereby that each of us ought to help Him to bear His Cross. Our Lord says to us: “ Accept this share of My sufferings which, in My Divine foreknowledge, on the day of My Passion, I reserved for you”.¹¹

How shall we refuse to accept, from Christ’s hands, this sorrow, this trial, this contradiction, this adversity ? To drink some drops from the chalice which He Himself offers to us and from which He drank the first ? Let us then say : “ Yes, Divine Master, I accept this share, with all my heart, because it comes from You”. Let us take it, as Christ took His Cross, out of love for Him and in union with Him. We shall sometimes feel ready to sink beneath the burden. St. Paul confesses that certain hours of his life were so full of weariness and disappointment that he was “ weary even of life” : Ut taederet nos etiam vivere *. But, like the great Apostle, let us look upon Him Who loved us so much as to deliver Himself up for us ; let us unite ourselves to Christ with yet more love at those hours when the body is tortured, or the soul is crushed,.or the mind is in darkness, or the deep action of the Spirit in His purifying operations is making itself felt. Then the virtue and unction of His Cross will be communicated to us, and we shall find peace in it as well as strength, and that innermost joy which knows how to smile in the midst of suffering : Superabundo gaudio in omni tribulatione nostra ®.

These are the graces which Our Lord has merited for us. Indeed when He went up Mount Calvary, helped by the Cyrenean, Christ Jesus, the Man-God, thought of all those who, in the course of the centuries, would help Him to carry His Cross in accepting their own ; He merited for them, at that moment, inexhaustible graces of strength, resignation : and self-surrender which would cause them to say like Him : “ Father, not My will, but Thine be done” *.¹²

There is here a capital truth upon which we ought to meditate.

The Word Incarnate, Head of the Church, took His share, the greater share, of sorrows ; but He chose to leave to His Church, which is His mystical Body, a share of suffering. St. Paul demonstrates this by a profound and strange saying. “ J... fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for His body, which is the Church” ?. Is there then something wanting to the sufferings of Christ ? Certainly not. They were superabundant, immense ; and their merit is infinite : Et copiosa apud eum redemptio. There is nothing wanting to the sufferings whereby Christ saved us. Then why does St. Paul speak of “ filling up” what is wanting? St. Awgustine gives us the answer : The whole Christ, he says, is formed by the Church united to its Head, which is Christ ; the Head has suffered all that He had to suffer ; it rema:ns for the members, if they wish to be worthy of the Head, to bear, in their turn, their share of sorrow : Impletae erant omnes passiones, sed in capite : restabant adhuc Christi passtones in corpore; vos autem estis corpus Christi et membra*.

We have then, as Christ’s members, to join in His sufferings ; Christ has reserved for us a share in His Passion ; but in doing so, He has placed by the side of the cross, the strength necessary to carry it. For, says St: Paul, Christ having experienced SES has peo for us a High Priest full of compassion *.

V

There is yet more : we, having obtained the grace to bear our cross with Him, Christ Jesus likewise grants us to share His glory, after we have been associated with His sufferings : Si tamen compatimur, ut et conglorificemur *. For us as for Him, this glory will be measured by our “passion”. The glory of Jesus is infinite, because in His¹³

Passion, He, being God, reached the lowest depths of suffering and humiliation. And it is by reason of His deep self-abasement that God has given Him such glory : Propter quod et Deus exaltavit illum?.

Indeed the Passion of Jesus, important as it was in His life, necessary as it is to our salvation and our sanctification, does not terminate the cycle of His mysteries.

We notice in reading the Gospel, that when Our Lord speaks of His Passion to the Apostles, He always adds that “the third day He will rise again” : Et tertia die resurget ?. These two mysteries are likewise linked together in the thought of St. Paul, whether he speaks of Christ alone, or whether he alludes to His Mystical Body*. Now, the Resurrection is for Jesus the dawn of His glorious life. ©

This is. why the Church, when she solemnly commemorates the sufferings of her Bridegroom, mingles her accents of compassion with those of triumph. The liturgical ornaments of black or purple, the stripping of the altars, the “lamentations” borrowed from Jeremias, the silence of the bells, attest the bitter desolation that oppresses the heart of the Bride during these anniversary days of the great drama. And yet she breaks forth into accents of triumph and glory :

Pange, lingua, gloriosi Lauream certaminis...

“Exalt, O my tongue, the laurels of a glorious combat ! Upon the trophies of the Cross, proclaim the great triumph; Christ, the Redeemer of the world, comes forth as Victor from the combat in delivering Himself up to death”. Vexilla Regis prodeunt: “ The standard of the King advances, the mystery of the Cross shines forth... Thou art beautiful and glorious, tree decked with royal purple... Happy art thou to have borne the World’s Ransom, suspended in thy arms...” Christ is Conqueror through the Cross : Regnavit a ligno Deus. The Cross represents the humiliations of Christ ; but since the day when Jesus was fastened to it, the Cross occupies the place of honour in our churches. The instrument of our salvation has become for Christ the price of His glory : Nonne haec oportuit pati Christum, et ita intrare in gloriam swam}? It is the same for us. Suffering is not the last word in the Christian life. After having shared in the Passion of the Saviour, we shall also share in His glory.¹⁴

Upon the very eve of His death, Jesus said to His disciples : Vos estis qui permansistis mecum in tentationibus meis ; “ You are they who have continued with Me in My temptation”, and He immediately adds: “And I dispose to you, as My Father hath disposed to Me, a kingdom” : Et ego dispono vobis sicut disposuit miki Pater meus regnum*. This divine promise likewise concerns us. If we “continue” with Jesus in His “temptations”, if we often contemplate His sufferings with faith and love, Christ will come, when our last hour strikes, to take us with Him that we may enter into the kingdom of His Father.

The day will come, sooner than we think, when death will be near. We shall lie motionless upon our bed ; those wko will then surround us will look upon us, silent in their powerlessness to help us ; we shall no longer have any vital contact with the outer world. The soul will be alone with Christ. We shall then know what it is to have continued with Him in His temptations ; we shall hear Him say to us, in this supreme and decisive agony, which is now our own : “ You did not forsake Me in My agony, you accompanied Me when I went to Calvary to die for you. Behold Me now ; I am near you to help you, to take you with Me. Fear not, have confidence, it is 1”! Ego sum, nolite timere*! We shall then be able to repeat the words of the Psalmist with all assurance : Etsi ambulavero in medio umbrae mortis, non timebo mala; quoniam tu mecum es*: O Lord, now that the shadows of death already surround. me, I am not afraid “for Thou art with me” !

I. Luc. XXIV, 26. — 2. Ibid. xxu, 28-29. — 3. Luc. XXIV, 36; Joan. VI, 20. — 4. Ps. XXII, 4.

Footnotes

1. 1. Luc. Ix, 32.
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2. 5. Christus dilexit Ecclesiam, et setpsum tradidit pro ea, ut illam sanctificaret, ut exhiberet ipse sibt gloriosam Ecclesiam, non habentem maculam, aut rugam, aut aliquid hujusmodt, sed ut sit sancta et immaculata. Eph. v, 25-27.
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3. 1. Luc. XXII, 42.— 2. Joan. XVIII, 11. — 3. Ibid. xv, 13. — 4. II Cor. v, 15. — 5. Rom. v, 10..— 5. Gal. 0, 20; Ephes. v, 2.
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4. 1. Isa. LM, 14; Lit, 2-4. — 2. Matth. xxvi, 38: Marc. XIV, 34. — 3. Marc. XIV, 33. — 4. Matth. xxvi, 37. — 5. Ps. XXI, 7.
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5. 1. Marc, XIV, 61 ; cf. Matth. xxv, 63. — 2. Matth. xxv1, 64 ; Marc. XIV, 62. — 3. Joan. XIX, 5.
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6. 1. Isa. Lim, 8. — 2. Joan. XIX, 6, 15.— 3. Matth. xxvu, 40-42; Marc. XV, 29-32 ; Luc. xxi, 35. — 4. Matth. xxvu, 46; Marc. XV, 34. — 5. Joan. XIX, 30. — 6. Credo of the Mass.
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7. 1. Philipp. m, 8. — 2. II Cor. v, 14-15.
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8. 1, Ephes. v, 26-27. — 2. Hebr. x, 14. — 3. Col. 7, 14. — 4. Rom. v, 10, — 5. Hebr. Iv, 15. — 6. Isa. LUI, 6. ↩

9. 1. Cf. Col. I, 12-13. — 2. Hebr. v, 9. — 3. Ps. CXXIX, 7. — 4. Joan. XII, 32.
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10. 1, JES oO-c0, 1) G.I (ose, wah oy ↩

11. 1. Hebr. X, 7; cf. Ps. xXx1x, 8-9. — 2. GaJ. 1, 19. — 3. Cf. I Cor. 1, 24. — 4. Matth. xvi, 24; Marc. vim, 34; Luc. Ix, 23.
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12. 1. Matth. xxvu, 32; Marc. xv, 21. — 2. II Cor. 1, 8. — 3. Ibid. vu, 4e
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13. 1. Luc. XXII, 42. — 2. Col. 1, 24. — 3. Enarrat. in Ps. LXXXVI, 5. — 4. Cf. Hebr. 1, 17-18; IV, 15 ; V, 2, — 5. Rom. VIM, 17.
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14. 1, Philipp. 1, 9. — 2. Matth. xvi, 21 ; XVU, 22 ; XX, 19. — 3. Rom, IV, 25; V, I-2. ↩