The Efficacy of the Way of the Cross

The contemplation of the sorrows of Jesus ts sovereignly fruitful for souls: no detail is negligible in the Passion of Chnst, the Son of God, the object of His Father’s complacency. Jesus especially manifests His virtues in the course of His Passion. Ever living, He produces within us the perfection that we contemplate in His tmmolation.

The contemplation of the sufferings of Jesus is very profitable. After the Sacraments and liturgical worship, there is no practice more useful for our souls than the Way of the Cross made with devotion. Its supernatural efficacy is sovereign. What is the reason of this ?

First of all, because the Passion of Jesus is His essential work ; nearly all the details of it were foretold. There is no other mystery of Jesus whereof the circumstances were announced with so much care by the psalmist and prophets. And when we read, in the Gospel, the account of the Passion, we are struck by the attention that Christ Jesus shows to “ fulfil” what had been announced concerning Him. If He permits the presence of the traitor at the Last Supper, it is “that the Scripture may be fulfilled.” He tells the Jews, who had come to lay hands upon Him, that He delivers Himself up to them “ that the Scriptures . . . might be fulfilled’’: Ut adimplerentur Scripturae. St John relates how Our Saviour, upon the Cross, calls to mind that the Psalmist had predicted of Him: “‘In My thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” Then in order that this prophecy might yet be accomplished Jesus cried: “I thirst,” Postea, sciens Jesus quia omnia consummata sunt, UT consummaretur Scriptura, dixit: Sitio. Nothing in this is little or negligible, because all these details mark the actions of a Man-God.

With all these actions of Jesus, the Father is well pleased. He contemplates His Son with love, not only on Thabor, when Christ is in the splendour of His glory, but likewise when Pilate shows Him to the multitude, crowned with thorns, and become the outcast of humanity; in the ignominies of His Passion as well as in the splendours of the Transfiguration: Hic est Filius meus dilectus in quo mihi bene complacut. During His Passion, Jesus honours and glorifies His Father in an infinite measure, not only because He is the Son of God, but also because He yields Himself up to all that His Father’s justice and love demand of Him. If He could say, in the course of His public life, that He always did the things that pleased His Father: Quae placita sunt e facio semper, it is especially true of those hours when, in order to acknowledge the rights of Divine Majesty outraged by sin, and to save the world, He delivered Himself up to death, and to the death of the Cross: Ut cognoscat mundus quia diligo Patrem. The Father loves Him with a boundless love because He gives His life for His sheep, and because by His sufferings, by His satisfactions, He merits for us all the graces that win back for us the friendship of His Father: PRoPTEREA me diligit Pater QUIA ego pono animam meam.

Moreover, we should love to meditate upon the Passion because therein Christ makes His virtues shine forth with such brilliance. He possesses every virtue within His soul, but the occasions of manifesting them especially arise in His Passion. His immense love for His Father, His charity for mankind, hatred of sin, forgiveness of injuries, patience, meekness, fortitude, obedience to lawful authority, compassion, all these virtues shine out in a heroic manner in these days of sorrow.

When we contemplate Jesus in His Passion, we see the Exemplar of our life, the Model— admirable and accessible at the same time —of those virtues of compunction, abnegation, patience, resignation, abandonment to God’s will, charity, meekness, which we ought to practise so as to become like unto our Divine Head: Sz quis vult post me venire, abneget semetipsum, et tollat crucem suam, et sequatur me.

There is a third aspect which we too often forget, an aspect of which, however, the importance is extreme. When we contemplate the sufferings of Jesus, He grants us, according to the measure of our faith, grace to practise the virtues which He revealed during those holy hours. How is this ?

When Christ dwelt upon earth, an allpowerful virtue went out from His Divine Person, healing bodily infirmities, enlightening the mind, and quickening the soul: Virtus de illo exibat, et sanabat omnes.

Something analogous comes to pass when we place ourselves in contact with Jesus by faith. To those who lovingly followed Him along the road to Golgotha or were present at His Immolation, Christ surely granted special graces. This virtue which went out from Him still does so; and when, in a spirit of faith, in order to compassionate His sufferings, and to imitate Him, we follow Him from the Pretorium to Calvary and take our stand at the foot of ' the Cross, He gives us the same graces,

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He makes us partakers of the same favours. Never let us forget that Christ Jesus is not a dead and inert model; but, ever living, He supernaturally produces in those who draw near to Him in the right dispositions, the perfection that they contemplate in His Person.

At each station our Divine Saviour presents Himself to us in the triple character of the Mediator who saves us by His merits, of the perfect Model of sublime virtues, and of the efficacious Cause who can, through His Divine Omnipotence, produce in our souls the virtues of which He gives us the example.

It may be said that these characters are to be found in all the mysteries of Jesus Christ. That is true, but with how much more plenitude in the Passion which is preeminently the mystery of Jesus ?

This is why, if, every day, during a few moments, interrupting your work, laying aside your preoccupations, and closing your heart to all outward things, you accompany the Man-God along the road to Calvary, with faith, humility and love, with the true desire of imitating the virtues that He manifests in His Passion, be assured that your souls will receive choice graces which will transform them little by little into the likeness of Jesus, and of Jesus Crucified. Now is it not in this likeness that St Paul sums up all holiness ?

We will now make the Way of the Cross ; the considerations here presented at each station have no other end than to help us in our meditation. We can each take what we will, varying these considerations and affections according to our aptitudes and the needs of our souls.