LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, - Shelf ."El JQ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 1* MEDITATIONS ON THE Sufferings of Jesds Christ. ^Translates from tbe Utalian OF Rev. F. FRANCIS DA PERINALDO, O.S.F., By a Member of the Same Order. STe w York, Cincinnati, and St. Louis: BENZIGER BROTHERS, PBINTER8 TO THE HOLY APOSTOLIC SHE. LONDON: R. WASHBOURNE, DUP.LIN: M. H. GILL & SON, 18 Paternoster Row. 50 Upper O'Connell St. Imprimatur. *i» Michael Augustine, New Yobk, AprU 12, 1886. s Archbishop of New York. Copyright, 1886, by Benziger Brothers. TO The Great and Beloved Bishop of the West, the stanch defender of the faith, the tender father of the poor, the zealous apostle of temperance, the earnest advocate of christian education, the vigilant and faithful shepherd of his flock, Et. Eev. JOHN IEELAND, D.D., Bishop of St. Paul, THE TRANSLATOR HUMBLY DEDICATES THIS LITTLE WORK, THAT, BEARING THE IMPRESS OF HIS APPROBATION AND RESTING UNDER THE SHADOW OF HIS ILLUSTRIOUS NAME, IT MAT MERIT A CONSIDERATION WHICH IT MIGHT NOT OTHERWISE CLAIM. Notre Dame de Lourdes Academy, Rochester, Minnesota, Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, 1885. PREFACE. IT is customary among Catholics to prepare for the celebration of the principal festivals of the year by cer- tain pious exercises, such as fasts, novenas, triduums, and meditations on the divine mysteries ; also by reading the lives of the saints and striving to imitate their virtues, mortifications, and heroic actions. In this manner the faithful prepare to solemnize the feasts of Christmas, Pentecost, and Corpus Christi ; of the Immaculate Con- ception, Nativity, and Assumption of the Blessed Yirgin ; of. All Saints, and of those saints for whom they have a particular devotion. They not only devote days and weeks to preparing themselves for the worthy observance of those feasts which they purpose to celebrate with special piety, but they also consecrate whole months to the honor of the objects of their particular devotion. For instance, the month of May is dedicated to the celebra- tion of the glories and triumphs of the Virgin Mother of Jesus Christ ; the month of June to the commemora- tion of the Most Sacred Heart of our Holy Redeemer; and in recent times the whole of November, particularly in Catholic Spain and the Southern Republics, has been devoted to the souls in purgatory. Now, if the faithful so commendably dispose them- selves to celebrate those feasts which may be considered 6 PREFACE. secondary ones, why should we not do as much, and even more, for Easter, which is the feast of feasts? I say Easter, because on that day our Holy Redeemer triumphed over the world, over death, and over hell, achieving this threefold victory by His glorious resurrection, and seal- ing, as it were, the fulfilment of that grand and memo- rable sacrifice which released us from the bondage oi' sin and the tyranny of hell, made us heirs of heaven, and declared us adopted children of God. The most practical way of preparing ourselves for the celebration of Easter is not alone by prayer, penance, mortification, and retirement,— acts peculiar to 'the Lenten season, — but also by meditating on the passion of Jesus Christ. Though this is a devotion adapted to all seasons, it is particularly suited to Lent, because our holy Mother the Church has consecrated this time to the com- memoration of the sufferings of the Man-God. My object in preparing this work wa6 to provide a spiritual guide for secular persons ; and, knowing from experience how difficult it is for them, when engaged in temporal affairs, to apply their thoughts to serious and merely abstract ideas, I thought it proper to render the consideration of the sufferings of Jesus historical, moral, and, as far as possible, local. But the passion of our Lord is of such a nature, that in order to derive profit from the history of it, it is not sufficient to read it as we read the lives of the saints and other histories: it requires meditation. It is true that the word " meditation " dis- mays, at first, persons who are not accustomed to such spiritual entertainment, and sometimes even those who frequently make pious reflections. For such persons I have obviated all cause of alarm by reducing the present considerations to simple spiritual reading, which will PREFACE. 7 yield the fruits of meditation by mere perusal. But I request that these considerations be not read in haste nor many at a time, but slowly and with reflection, one every day, either in the morning during Mass, or in the evening before retiring. For those persons consecrated to God in a special manner, and who are accustomed to meditate, I have divided each consideration into two parts, which will furnish matter for morning and evening meditation during the Lenten season. Finally, it is my duty to declare that if, in the course of this little work, I have tried to excite the devotion of the faithful by quoting facts and traditions upon the authenticity of which our holy Mother the Church has not decided, I do not intend to attribute to them any other authority than that of the pious authors from whom I obtained them. CONTENTS. PAGH Preface 5 Preliminary Sermon 11 CONSIDERATION I. Jesus Christ predicts His Passion to His Apostles.. . 15 II. Jesus Christ weeps over Jerusalem 21 III. Jesus triumphantly enters Jerusalem 26 IV. Jesus predicts His Bitter Passion to His Apostles for the Second Time 31 V. The Chief Priests and Ancients of the People consult how to apprehend Jesus and pnt Him to Death. . . 36 VI. Judas sells his Divine Master for Thirty Pieces of Silver 41 VII. Jesus Christ takes Leave of His Beloved Mother 47 VIII. Jesus celebrates His Last Pascli with the Apostles. . 52 IX. Jesus washes His Apostles' Feet 57 X. Words spoken by our Holy Redeemer after the Washing of Feet 63 XI. Jesus Christ predicts the Perfidy of Judas 68 XII. Our Divine Redeemer tries by every Means to con- vert Judas 73 XIII. Jesus institutes the Most August Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist 78 XIV. Sermon of Jesus Christ after the Institution of the Blessed Sacrament 84 XV. Jesus Christ leaves the Supper-room 89 XVI. Jesus Christ predicts the Flight of the Apostles and the Triple Denial of Peter 94 XVII. Sadness of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemam 99 XVIII. Prayer of Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemani 104 XIX. The Mortal Agony of Jesus Christ 109 XX. Jesus is betrayed by Judas and captured by the Sol- diers 114 10 CONTENTS. PAGE XXI. Jesus is abandoned by His Disciples and dragged through the Road of Capture 119 XXII. Jesus is questioned by Annas and struck by a Ser- vant 125 XXIII. Jesus before the Tribunal of Caiphas 131 XXIV. The Triple Denial of Peter 130 XXV. Jesus passes His Last Night in Prison in the House of Caiphas 141 XXVI. Jesus is condemned to Death by the whole Sanhedrim 147 XXVII. Jesus Christ is brought before Pontius Pilate 153 XXVIII. Jesus Christ at the Tribunal of Herod 159 XXIX. Jesus is sent back to Pontius Pilate, and Barabbas is preferred before Him 164 XXX. The People continue to ask the Deliverance of Ba- rabbas and the Death of Jesus , 169 XXXI. Jesus is scourged at the Pillar 174 XXXII. Jesus is crowned with Thorns 180 XXXIII. JeSus Christ crowned with Thorns is shewn to the People 185 XXXIV. Jesus is again questioned by Pontius Pilate, and then condemned to the Death of the Cross «1 91 XXXV. Jesus sets out towards Mount Calvary 196 XXXVI. Jesus falls for the First Time: He meets His Blessed Mother 201 XXXVII. Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus to carry His Cross 206 XXXVIII. Jesus consoles the Women of Jerusalem who weep over Him: Veronica wipes His face with a Hand- kerchief 210 XXXIX. Vinegar and Gall are offered to Jesus— He is stripped of His Garments and nailed to the Cross , 214 XL. The Sorrowful Virgin 219 XLI. Jesus is raised on the Cross — He prays for His Exe- cutioners 224 XLII. The Second "Word spoken by Jesus on the Cross. . . 230 XLIII. The Third and Fourth Words spoken by Jesus on the Cross 236 XLIV. The Last Word spoken by Jesus on the Cross 242 XLV. Jesus is taken down from the Cross and laid in the Sepulchre 247 INTRODUCTION. " O all ye that pass by the way, attend, and see if there be any sorrow like to My sorrow." — Lamentations i. 12. rpHESE mournful accents placed by Jeremias in the -I- mouth, of the afflicted daughter of Sion may well be referred to Jesus Christ suspended between heaven and earth ; and yet, oh senselessness ! " the just perisheth," says Isaias the prophet, " and no man kyeth it to heart." " Every creature," says St. Jerome, "commiserates the death of Jesus Christ: the sun is obscured, the earth trembles, the rocks are split, the vale of the temple is rent, the sepulchres are opened, and man alone for whom Jesus died remains insensible ; and man does not pity his Redeemer." St. Augustine thus addresses man : " Jesus Christ came to suffer ; He came to die, to be spat upon, and, finally, to be crucified on that infamous gibbet, the cross ; He patiently endured all these pains, all these suffer- ings, for you, and will you not suffer something for Him ? " Cardinal Bellarmine seeks to know why we are scarcely willing to suffer for love of God even what is strictly necessary for our salvation, since the Eternal Son of God, who could have redeemed us by shedding a single drop of His precious blood, willingly endured unspeakable sufferings and poured out all His blood for love of us. The venerable author discovers that it is because we do not attentively meditate on the passion of Jesus Christ, and on the great love He showed for us by dying on the 12 INTRODUCTION. cross. The prophet Jeremias assigns the same reason when he says, " With desolation is all the land made desolate : because there is none that considereth in the heart" (Jerem. xii. 11). And indeed if all would reflect upon how much our beloved Eedeemer suffered for us, certainly they would not offend Him by even a venial sin, and they would be as ardent with divine love as the seraphim in heaven. The Doctor of Grace recom- mends as most beneficial the daily meditation on the pas- sion, asserting that a tear shed in memory of the suffer- ings of Christ is more meritorious before God than a life- long fast. "The wounds of Jesus," says the same holy Father, "are full of mercy, full of sweetness and charity. As for me, in all my adversities I have not found a more powerful remedy than meditation on the sacred wounds of my holy Redeemer; in those wounds I repose calmly. When some foul thought disturbs my mind. I have re- course to the wounds of my Jesus ; when my flesh rebels against me, I remain victorious with the memory of the wounds of my Saviour ; when the common enemy lays snares against me, I have recourse to the mercy of my Holy Eedeemer, and the infernal enemy flies from me ; when the ardor of concupiscence goads and excites my passions, I remember the passion of Jesus, and they return at once to their former calm. In a word, there is noth- ing in the world, though bitter as death itself, which with the memory of the sufferings of Jesus will not become sweetened." St. Gregoiy the Great says that "where the thought of the death of Jesus reigns, there concupis- cence of the flesh cannot reign." St. Isidore affirms that if we consider the passion of our Redeemer, there is no suffering which we may not only bear with patience and resignation, but also with escpisite pleasure and joy. INTRODUCTION. 13 "Truly," asks St. Bernard, "who is there so irreligious as not to become contrite at the consideration of the excruciating sufferings of Jesus Christ ? Who is there so proud as not to become humble ? so irascible and vin- dictive as not to forgive ? so attached to the honors and riches of the world as not to despise them % so malicious and sinful as not to repent 1 Ah ! even this very moment the remembrance of the sufferings of Jesus moves the hardest hearts, as one day His painful death moved the earth and split the rocks." The same writer, addressing himself to our Lord, says : " Thy passion, O Lord, is the last refuge of a miserable sinner ; it is a powerful remedy for all the infirmities of the soul ; it supplies wisdom, justice, and sanctity. When virtue fails me, when my feeble strength abandons me, I am not disturbed ; I do not distrust, but I have recourse to the wholesome chalice of Thy passion. I know that I have no merits before Thee, but I know that Thy merits are infinite, as is also the treasure of Thy mercy. I shelter myself meanwhile in the bowels of Thy mercy, and there- in I taste how sweet is the Lord." " The passion of our Lord," a devout author writes, " supports heaven and earth and vanquishes hell. By the passion the angels are confirmed, mankind is redeemed, the enemies are conquered." Another pious author says that "the passion of Jesus Christ restored glory to God, repaired the ruin of the angels, crowded heaven with citizens, merited grace for man, acquired glory for the just, condemned sin and death, disarmed the devil of his power, and despoiled hell of its prisoners." In a word, the passion of Jesus is so meritorious that God alone can explain its excellence ; but we may experience the efficacy of its merits by a daily meditation upon it. 14 INTRODUCTION. man that hopeth in Him" (Psalms xxxiii. 9). Father Louis della Palma says that meditation on the passion of our Lord is suitable for all persons and all states of life. It will recall the sinner from his evil course, raise the falling from the pit of vice, strengthen the feeble in the path of virtue, quicken the persevering in the way to perfection, stimulate the love of the holy soul. All the glorious examples of virtue which Jesus gave us during His life shine out most resplendently in His passion. St. Bonaventure, who wrote admirably on the passion and acquired his seraphic doctrine from the crucifix, says that if we wish to advance in perfection we should medi- tate every day on the sufferings of Jesus Christ, because such a practice is a powerful means of sanctifying our souls. It will free us from all evil, procure us every good, enrich us with the grace of God in this world, and merit for us eternal life in the next. " Yes," says St. Leo the Great, " meditation on the sufferings of Jesus will merit for you life everlasting ; because where the partici- pation of the sufferings is, there is also a certain expecta- tion of the promised beatitude." What devotion can there be more excellent, more efficacious, and more useful than this? Who would refuse to spend half an hour a day in this pious exercise which has always been the delight of the saints '{ How many nights did not our seraphic Father St. Francis pass in contemplating the sufferings of his beloved Jesus, and with how many graces was he not favored in return? Let us, therefore, imitate this seraph of love, and like him we shall derive great joys and consolations in this life, and also in the next. MEDITATIONS THE SUFFERINGS OF JESUS CHRIST. CONSIDERATION I. Jesus Christ predicts His Passion to His Apostles. "And Jesus going up to Jerusalem, took the twelve disciples apart, and said to them: Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and the Son of man shall be betrayed to the chief priests and the scribes, and they shall condemn Him to death." — St. Matt. xx. 17, 18. Fiest Point. n^HE time determined from all eternity for the Re- -L demption of mankind was fast approaching, and Jesus, taking a last leave of the plains of Galilee, went to Jericho, the city of palms, where He remained for some time. He was followed by a great multitude of people of every condition, who were attracted no less by His sanctity than by His divine doctrine. Among them were His Virgin Mother, His apostles, a great number of disciples, and the holy women who accompanied Him to Calvary. As the feast of the Pasch drew near, Jesus passed on to Jerusalem, there to celebrate that solemnity with the people. His joy on this occasion was so great, 16 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. and beamed so resplendently from His countenance, that the mother of James and John believed that the time had come for His temporal kingdom, and besought Him to let her two children sit one on the right and the other on the left of His throne. Far different indeed was the cause of the joy which filled His Sacred Heart : He was about to immolate Him- self upon the cross to appease His Eternal Father for our sins, and for this reason He was happy. But fearing that His passion might be an occasion of scandal to His apostles, He called them apart and told them of it thus : "Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and the Son of man shall be betrayed to the chief priests and the scribes, and they shall condemn Him to death." This was equivalent to saying: "Behold, my dear disciples, we go up to Jeru- salem, but I shall not return with you to Galilee. My enemies who have long been trying to apprehend Me will now accomplish their designs, and I shall be delivered as a malefactor into the hands of the chief priests, scribes and Pharisees, who will condemn Me to a most disgrace- ful death. I shall then be given over to the gentiles, who will mock Me, scourge Me, crown Me with thorns, and finally crucify Me between two thieves. 15c not scandal- ized at seeing Me subjected to such indignities; for as I have power to foresee them, so have I also power to avoid them : but I know that they are necc.sary to the eternal salvation of mankind, and also to My glory; therefore I go joyfully to meet them. You have now been fore- warned of My ignominious death, and you know of My glorious resurrection; and when these things come to pass they should confirm your faith in Me, because I had predicted them to you/' Our Divine Bedeemer had often before spoken of His JESUS PKKDICT8 HIS PASSION TO HIS APOSTLES. 17 future passion, always in terms which betrayed the yearnings of His loving heart for its accomplishment. On several occasions He had mentioned it to His holy Virgin Mother, and it had frequently been the subject of His conversation with His apostles and disciples; and the Gospel tells us that during His glorious transfigura- tion on Mount Thabor in the presence of Peter, James, and John, Moses and Elias were talking with Him, "and they spoke of His decease that He should accomplish in Jerusalem" (St. Luke ix. 31). There seemed to be nothing dearer to Him than His much-desired passion. king to His disciples He said, '-I have a baptism, wherewith I am to l>e baptized : and how am I straitened until it be accomplished ! " On the night of His last supper, unable longer to conceal His joy at the approach of Hi- bitter passion, He manifested it to His apostles, Baying: " With desire I have desired to eat this Pasch with you before I suffer" (St. Luke xxii. 15). Again He displayed this ardent desire when, turning to Judas who had already betrayed Him, He said, "Since thou determined to deliver Me into the hands of My enemies, delay no longer; do it quickly." Oh, when we consider how the Eternal Son of God longed to die upon the cross for our redemption, how appears our ingratitude in refusing to suffer any- thing for His love! Jesus went to meet His ignomin death with pleasure; we bear with murmuring and im- ace even those little adversities which are unavi ble in our life. Ah ! ought we Dot to be ashamed of our ingratitude towards our loving and merciful Redeemer? Let as resolve from this very moment to bear with patience and resignation all the crosses and humiliations which it may please < lod to send us. 18 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. Second Point. The Evangelist remarks the eagerness with which our Lord undertook His last journey to Jerusalem: "And they were in the way going up to Jerusalem : and Jesus went before them, and they were astonished : and follow- ing were afraid " (St. Mark x. 32). An observer would have said that Jesus was going tip to the holy city, not to be crucified as a malefactor, but to be crowned king. " Let those be ashamed," says Venerable Bede, " who think that our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ feared death. He foresaw all the snares which His enemies laid against Him, yet Lie did not avoid them. Lie foresaw all the horrors of His bitter passion, yet He did not be- come terrified, neither did He flee, but went spontane- ously to encounter death, though all dissuaded Him." This internal and external joy of our Saviour proceeded from His divinity more than from His humanity: His divine love for man was so intense, and His merciful desire of redeeming him so great, that they fortified His humanity against all fear of the torments, tortures, and slaughter to which it would soon be sub- jected. Still His Sacred Heart must have been immersed in the profoundest affliction ; for, though His humanity, strengthened by His divinity, shrank not from the ap- proaching passion, yet it keenly anticipated all the hor- rors which accompanied that passion. In fact, we read that in the Garden of Olives our Lord was assailed by such agonizing grief that He sweat blood. In this case His divinity, instead of relieving His anguish, increased it, by displaying before His mind in all their hideous enormity the ignominies to which He would be subjected. In order to form an idea of our Saviour's emotions on JESUS PREDICTS HIS PASSION TO HIS APOSTLES. 19 leaving Galilee, let us imagine Him to be a person like ourselves, feeling such pangs as we suffer in quitting country, riches, honors, parents, and relatives. With what tender affection does uot a man take a last farewell of his native land, his parents, and his friends, when about to enter upon a long and dangerous journey from which he fears he may not return ! The place which lie is about to abandon never appeared so beautiful, the loved ones with whom he parts never seemed so dear ; all the diversions of his childhood, all the pleasures of his youth, all the hopes of his past life are fondly and sadly recollected. Let us refer these same emotions to the loving and sensitive heart of Jesus. How affectionately did He not bid farewell to Nazareth where He had passed His youth ; to Capharnaum which He had chosen as the centre of His heavenly mission ; to Cana of Galilee where He had performed His first miracle ; to Lake Tiberias across which He had often sailed with His disciples ; to Mount Thabor where He had been transfigured ; to the river Jordan where He had been baptized by His precursor ; to ISTaim where He had wrought many wonders, — in a word, to all those places which had witnessed His childhood, His youth, His preaching, His prodigies, His prayers, His penances, and His fasts! We know from the Gospel that after His resurrection He returned to visit them again : " And behold He will go before you into Galilee : there you shall see Him" (St. Matt, xxviii. 7). Let us imagine that our Lord as He journeyed along gazed affectionately on the mountains, streams, and other familiar objects by the way, and considering that it was the last time that He should pass as a mortal man through that beautiful region which awakened in Him the fondest 20 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CIIKIST. memories, He sought, as it were, to divide His grief with His beloved apostles, saving : " Behold, we go up to Jeru- salem, and the Son of man shall be betrayed to the chief priests and the scribes, and they shall condemn Iliin to death." If Jesus was so grieved at leaving those delightful places, what must have been His feelings at parting from His apostles and disciples, and above all from Iii> most loving Mother ! Oh! it is impossible to give expression to such grief. Let us meditate upou this first step of our Saviour's passion ; and if we are not able to repay Him for His love, let us at least pity Him in His afflic- tion. JESUS WEEPS OVER JERUSALEM. 21 CONSIDEKATION II. Jesus Christ weeps over Jerusalem. "And when He drew near, seeing the city, He wept over it." St. Luke xix. 41. First Point. OUE Lord rested for a time at Jericho, after which He continued His journey towards Jerusalem, and on the eve of the Sabbath arrived at Bethania, a small suburb about half a mile distant from the city. Here He passed the Sabbath at the house of Mary Magdalene and Martha, where He was accustomed to stop with His disciples whenever He went from Galilee to Judea. The day following, being the fifth day before the Passover, was the occasion on which the Jews, according to the Mosaic law, brought the Paschal lambs into the city amid great pomp and rejoicing. Jesus, therefore, who was the true Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world, and the spotless Victim whose sacrifice on the altar of the cross was to secure the redemption of mankind, thought it proper to enter Jerusalem also on that day with appro- priate rejoicing. Accompanied by His apostles He left Bethania early on the morning of Palm-Sunday, and went in the direction of the steep Mount of Olives. Arriving at Bethphage, a small village situated on a declivity of that mountain, He chose two of His disciples and said to them : " Go into the village that is over against you, and immediately at your coming in thither, you shall find a 22 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHKIST. colt tied, upon which no man jet hath sat : loose him and bring him. And if any man shall say to you : What are you doing? say ye that the Lord hath need of him : and immediately lie will let him come hither" (St. Mark xi. 2, 3). The disciples obeyed at once. "And going their way, they found the colt tied before the gate without, in the meeting of two ways: and they loose him. And some of them that stood there said to them : What do you loosing the colt? Who said to them as Jesus had commanded them, and they let him go with them. And they brought the colt to Jesus: and they lay their gar- ments on him, and He sat upon him" (St. Mark xi. 4-7). Thus mounted, the Divine Master, surrounded by His disciples, rode in the direction of Jerusalem. Pa over Mount Olivet. Be was about to descend towards the Vale of Josaphat, when He halted to gaze upon the scene which lav spread out before Him — at His feet the garden of Gethsemani, before Him Mount Calvary, and beyond the full prospect of the holy city with its triple walls and lofty towers. Instantly His loving soul was assailed by a mortal sadness, and He gave vent to His grief in a copious flood of tears. "And when He drew near, see- ing the city, He wept over it" (St. Luke xix. 41). Our Lord wept, and wept bitterly, not over Himself, but over the blindness of the Jews, over the hardness of sinners, over the obstinacy of Hi.- own people, and over the un- happy fate of Jerusalem. In the bitterness of His grief, He addressed these affectionate words to the unhappv city : " If thou also hadst known, and that in this thy day, the things that are to thy peace, but now they are hidden from thy eyes. For the days shall come upon thee: and thy enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round : and straiten thee on every side : JESUS WEEPS OVER JERUSALEM. 23 and beat thee flat to the ground, and thy children who are in thee, and they shall not leave in thee a stone upon a stone : because thou hast not known the time of thy visitation" (St. Luke xix. 42-44). "With these and other loving expressions, our merciful Lord bewailed the future calamities which hovered over Jerusalem. But in weeping over His own people and their unhappy city, He also mourned over the ingratitude of the millions of Christians, whom He foresaw would reap no fruits from the Eedemption because of their indiffer- ence to Heaven's call. Ah ! let the tears of our loving Jesus move us to pity for our miserable state, and if in the past we have displeased His loving heart by our ob- stinacy in sin, let us endeavor for the future to please Him by our repentance. Second Point. The prophecy of Jesus Christ regarding the siege and total destruction of Jerusalem has been literally fulfilled. Thirty-seven years after the Redeemer's death, Titus, Emperor of the Romans, surrounded the deicide city with a strong intrenchment, and after five months of terrible fighting razed it to the ground, leaving not a stone upon a stone, and cleansed unhappy Jerusalem of all its iniqui- ties by the slaughter of eleven hundred thousand of its inhabitants. The obstinate Jews have been since then without temple or altar, without sacrifice or priesthood, without king or country, exiled, dispersed all over the globe, despised by all, reputed as a vile race, bearing im- pressed on their pallid foreheads the indelible sign of the terrible deicide perpetrated by their fathers. In the awful fate of this nation we can recognize the vengeance 24 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. of God excited by the insolence of the ungrateful Jews in disregarding the visitation of His divine mercy. We should now reflect on ourselves in order to derive profit from the misfortunes of others. Let us imagine that our merciful Lord, knowing us guilty of many sins and seeing the approaching punishments which menace us, looks upon us from heaven with commiseration, and speaks to our hearts, saying: Unhappy soul, you do not know the miserable, state in which you are ! If you could see the eternal punishment which awaits you unless you repent, you would make serious reflections. Your body which you indulge so much will soon be reduced to ashes ; those persons whom yon love so tenderly you shall soon leave forever. All will be separated from you but your good and evil works; these will accompany you. You believe that the time is not near, but it is fast approaching: hell is open beneath you; the sentence of death has already been issued, and on .My will depends its execution. Every day, every moment, every hour, ma v be the last for you. How long, therefore, will you delay to do penance? How long will you still provoke My anger, tire My patience? How many inspirations did I not send you? how many graces did I not grant you? how many advices and good examples did you not re- ceive? how many times have I not called upon you, and you failed to respond ? You were deaf to My voice and dumb to My exhortations. Therefore, I weep over you, and over your unhappy state, and the punishments which menace you; and weeping, I invite you for the last time to repentance, that yours may not be the fate of Jerusa- lem,— obduracy, abandonment, and eternal perdition. Thus our merciful Lord speaks to our souls ; and how shall we respond ? With ingratitude ? Ah, no ! let us JESUS WEEPS OVER JERUSALEM. 25 prostrate ourselves at His feet, beseeching Him to grant us a profound grief for our sins, a firm and strong resolu- tion of nevermore offending Him, and an ardent desire of loving Him now and for eternity. Let us' also earnestly ask Him for the grace of meditating on His sufferings, in order that, having them before our eyes, we may be encouraged to support our sufferings. 26 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. CONSIDERATION III. Jesus triumphantly enters Jerusalem. " Fear not, daughter of Sion: behold, thy King cometh sitting on an ass's colt."— Bt. John xii. 15. First Point. "TDEJOICE greatly, O daughter of Sion, shout for ^ joy, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King will come to thee, the Just and Saviour : He is poor, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass" (Zach. ix. 9). This was the prophecy of Zacharias con- cerning the triumphant entry of Jesus Christ into the holy city of Jerusalem : but the disciples did not comprehend the meaning of these things until after His resurrection when they found that all that had been written of Him had been literally verified. Let us now consider the sentiments of the disciples and the people on the day of Christ's triumph. The fame of His miracle of raising Lazarus to life had reached the city, and the people were eager to see Him. Hearing of His approach, they went out to meet Him just as He was meekly descending Mount Olivet. Some car- ried branches of olive as a sign of peace, others bore palm as a symbol of triumph, others gathered flowers and strewed them on the way as a demonstration of honor, and some, finally, divested themselves of their robes and spread them on the ground to be trampled upon by JESUS TRIUMPHANTLY ENTERS JERUSALEM. 27 the beast on which Jesus was sitting. All unanimously hailed Him, and gave expression to their great joy by singing a hymn of glory, saying : " Happiness and joy to the son of David, praise and glory to the expected of nations, to the desire of the eternal hills, to the foretold by the prophets, to the Saviour of the world ! Behold our King ! behold our Messias, who comes to us meek and humble, sitting on a beast of burden ! Blessed be the King who cometh in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven, and glory on high." Here followed the choir of Hebrew children who gave glory to God, and loosing their innocent tongues to sing, proclaimed Jesus the ex- pected Messias, saying : " Hosanna to the Son of David, glory and triumph to our King !" In the midst of these hosannas and acclamations, all recollected the great miracles which He had performed, the wonderful cures which He had wrought, the sublime and divine doctrine which He preached, and the admirable and most holy life which He led, and they were obliged to recognize Him as the true Son of God : hence they paid Him the tribute of honor and adoration. The apostles were overjoyed at this triumph of their Master, and thinking that the time had come for His promised kingdom which they supposed would be of this world, they united more closely around Him, and walked joyfully over that flower-strewn road in the midst of the hosannas of the people and the canticles of the children. What a glorious day was not that for the apostles and disciples of Jesus Christ ! What a joy for the holy city of Jerusalem ! If only the memory of that triumphant entrance of our Lord into the Jewish capital so fills us with joy, what must have been the happiness of those who witnessed it \ If language fails to describe the celebra- 28 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. tions which commemorate the victories of kings and princes of this world, it is certainly inadequate to describe this memorable triumph of the King of glory, the Lord of heaven and earth, and the long-desired Messias. Let us, therefore, imagine that we see Jesus descending Mount Olivet, hailed by the joyful acclamations of the multitude, and uniting with them let us repeat in senti- ments of adoration and homage : " Beaedictus qui xenit in nomine Domini, hoscmna in excelsis ! " Second Point. We have learned from the first point of the sentiments of the disciples and the people ; let us now consider those of Jesus. While the apostles and disciples, filled with enthusiasm by the joyful manifestations of the crowd, believed that their Blessed Master was going to be crowned king of Jerusalem, and that He would at once commence to exercise His royal power, Jesus, whose divine mind penetrated the future, was thinking of the spectacle that would be witnessed a few days hence on that very road now strewn with flowers, olive-branches, and palms : yet He did not ignore the inconstancy of the Jewish people. His eyes were yet moist from the tears shed over Jeru- salem ; and, as He passed those places soon to be rendered memorable by His sufferings, He thought of those events of His passion which would transpire in each. At Geth- semani He foresaw the betrayal of Judas and the flight of His disciples ; at the grotto He thought of His agony and bloody sweat ; at the torrent of Cedron He foresaw His fall into its waters and the cruelties which would be inflicted on Him there by His barbarous executioners. JESITS TRIUMPHANTLY ENTERS JERUSALEM. 29 Hearing the joyful hosannas which resounded in the air, He considered that five days from then they "would be exchanged for " Let Him be crucified, let Him be crucified!" Perhaps Jesus said to Himself: " This honor which the Jews now render will soon be turned into the grossest ignominies. To-day they proclaim Me their king, but this shall not pass before they will solemnly declare that they recognize no other king than Caesar. To-day they meet Me with olive- branches, palms, and flowers, and in a few days they will crown Me with a crown of thorns, they will scourge Me tied to a column. To-day they spread their garments on the road, and on Friday they will strip Me of Mine, which they will divide among themselves. To-day they intro- duce Me iuto their city chanting hymns of glory, and in a few days they will banish Me from it amidst howls and brawl Inge. To-day they call Me blessed, and when I shall be hanging on the cross they will curse and blas- pheme Me. What a terrible contradiction is this !" With these thoughts He ascended Mount Moria, which is opposite Mount Olivet, and passing through the Golden Gate, triumphantly entered Jerusalem. But instead of proceeding to some grand banquet-hall, He went directly to the temple, where He found a number of people buy- ing and selling goods. Full of zeal for the honor of His Father's house, He seized a scourge, and overthrowing stands and money-tables, drove the changers from the temple, saying in a severe tone, full of authority : " My house shall be called the house of prayer : but you have made it a den of thieves" (St. Matt. xxi. 13). He then began to instruct the multitude, teaching them reverence towards the house of God. In the evening, not finding any one to give Him hospitality, He returned with His 30 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. disciples to Bethania, where He was always welcomed by Mary Magdalene and Martha, sisters of Lazarus. In this consideration we should reflect, first, upon the inconstancy of the Jews in proclaiming Jesus king and so soon afterward crying out against Him. From this we should learn never to rely on ourselves, never to take' notice of our temporary fervor, and never to trust to our constancy ; but, on the contrary, we should regard our- selves unworthy of the favors and graces of God, and attend to our eternal salvation with fear and trembling, as St. Paul teaches. Secondly, we should reflect upon the great respect and reverence which we should have for the house of God, remembering the severe punishments inflicted upon the desecrators of the temple. If Ji who was the very essence of goodness, so severely punished those who profaned the Jewish temple, which was only a figure of ours, how much more will He not punish those who desecrate cur churches where He is really present in tho Blessed Sacrament '( JESUS AGAIN PREDICTS HIS BITTER PASSION. 3l CONSIDERATION IV. Jesus predicts His Bitter Passion to His Apostles for the Second Time. "And it came to pass : when Jesus had ended all these words, He said to His disciples : You know that after two days shall be the Pasch, and the Son of man shall be delivered up to be cruci- fied."— St. Matt. xxvi. 1, 2. Fiest Point. THREE days after His triumphant entry into Jerusa- lem, Jesus said to His disciples : " Yon know that after two days shall be the Pasch," and I repeat to you what I have already told you, that on this solemnity I shall be delivered into the hands of My enemies, to be scoffed at, despised, scourged, and finally crucified. But before predicting the day of His death, He spoke to them on the general judgment, saying that He would come again od earth, not as a man subject to infirmities, but in all His divine majesty, accompanied by a multitude of angels, and that He would gather together before Him in the Yalley of Josaphat all the nations of the earth. He foretold that the good would be separated from the bad, the former to be admitted to the eternal joys of heaven, and the latter to be condemned to the everlasting pains of hell. He also predicted the destruction of Jeru- salem, and the reprobation of the Jewish nation, and its dispersion all over the world. Then the Divine Master resumed His subject, asking His disciples if they remem- 32 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. bered that in two days the Pasch would be celebrated and that He would be the victim. Father Louis Novarino remarks that after Jesus Christ had foretold that He would come again in all the majesty of His glory, He immediately added that the day of His death was fast approaching. This was for the purpose of making us understand the relation which exists be- tween the mystery of the cross and that of glory ; hence those wishing to enter the glory of heaven should not refuse to accept and bear the cross with patience and ■ ation. Moreover, the same author says that those who desire to avoid the punishments due to their sins and escape the wrath of God will find means for so doing in the meditation of Christ's passion. In fact, how can we more efficaciously satisfy the justice of the Eternal Father than by offering to Him all the suflerings of His Divine Son ? And how can we more surely obtain the mercy of Jesus than by contemplating His sacred wounds and endeavoring to crucify our rebellious passions for His love '. A profound theologian, commenting on this evangelical passage, says that as soon as Jesus had finished speaking of the destruction of Jerusalem, the general judgi and the consummation of the world, He immediately an- nounced His- litter passion and painful death, fixing ex- actly the day and the manner of its occurrence. It seemed almost incredible that in so short a time and on so solemn a festival such a crime would be jDerpetrated. But in only two days the Jews had found the traitor, agreed upon the manner of the betrayal, arrested Jesus, put Him in prison, gathered the council, examined His cause, con- demned Him to death, presented Him to Pontius Pilate for the ratification of the sentence, and crucified Him JESUS AGAIN PREDICTS HIS BITTER PASSION. 33 between two thieves. Who could have imagined that the Jews would commit so heinous a crime at the time of the great and joyful festival of Easter, which commemo- rated their deliverance from the bondage of Egypt ? Yet our Lord frankly asserted that they would, saying : " You know that after two days shall be the Pasch, and the Son of man shall be delivered up to be crucified" (St. Matt. xxvi. 2). Let us now consider the goodness of our Holy Re- deemer in so admirably disposing His apostles for His future death : let us consider also their grief and con- sternation on hearing from the lips of their beloved Master that in two days He would be delivered up to be crucified. If we had been present at this touching dis- course, what emotions would we not have felt? Let us excite in ourselves those same feelings by meditating on those words : " You know that after two days shall be the Pasch, and the Son of man shall be delivered up to be crucified." Second Point. Dionysius Carthusianus asks why our Lord predicted His passion to His disciples, and answers himself by say- ing that Jesus did so for three reasons : first, that it should not appear that He was arrested unawares, or con- demned to death against His will; secondly, that He might fortify His disciples, and prepare them to suffer with patience and resignation ; thirdly, that they might know that He went voluntarily to Jerusalem, though aware that He would be arrested and put to death. Jesus did not ignore His enemies, and instead of avoid- ing them as He did on other occasions, He went among them that they might do to Him as they desired. St. 34 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, says that Christ not only predicted but also specified the day on which His passion would occur, in order that all should know that nothing is hidden from Him, and that He went of His own free will to suffer death. He journeyed from Galilee to Judea to celebrate Easter, and on the eve of the same went from Bethania to Jerusalem to be crucified. Origen, commenting on the above-quoted passage of the holy Gospel, says that many were the motives which concurred to deliver Jesus to death, but not all proposed the same end : the ends differed according to the different emo- tions and passions. The Eternal Father delivered His only -begotten Son to death through His love and mercy for mankind ; Judas betrayed His Divine Master through avarice; the priests condemned Him to death through envy, the scribes and Pharisees through malice. Satan instigated the enemies of Jesus to put Him to death, because he feared that the exemplary life and preaching of Jesus would save many souls from hell : the infernal enemy did not reflect that the death of the Messias could more easily free us than His preaching. But for what reasons do we sometimes deliver Him again to death by committing sin ? Alas ! our motives for doing so are often less weighty than those of Lucifer, — perhaps to satisfy a sinful passion or to revenge ourselves. Yet faith teaches us that Christ Jesus died on account of our sins, and Holy Scripture says that those who griev- ously sin deliver Him up again to death as far as in them lies. "We believe these truths, yet we will not be guided by them. "We offend God, as it were, by habit. We do not reflect on the evils we do to our souls which cost the Eternal Son of God all of His most precious blood. We JESUS AGAIN PREDICTS HIS BITTER PASSION. 35 ought, therefore, from time to time, to meditate on these truths of our holj faith, and consider what a great evil we do every time we sin. We ought to call to mind fre- quently that Jesus is our God, our Redeemer, our Judge, our Benefactor. In order to do this let us accompany Him as He goes to offer Himself as a victim of expiation for our sins, and He will grant us the grace of true repentance. 36 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. CONSIDEKATION V. The Chief Priests and Ancients of the People con- sult how to apprehend Jesus and put Him to Death. " Then were gathered together the chief priests and ancients of the people into the court of the high priest who was called Cai- phas: And they consulted together that by subtilty they might apprehend Jesus and put Him to death." — St. Matt. xxvi. 3, 4. First Point. WHILE Jesus in the home of Mary Magdalene was speaking of His approaching passion, there assem- bled in the palace of Caiphas in Jerusalem a great coun- cil composed of the chief priests, the ancients of the people, and the Pharisees, bitter enemies of our Lord, who had gathered together in order to deliberate as to how they might apprehend Jesus by subtilty, and M T ith- out trial condemn Him to death. On several previous occasions this council had assembled for the same pur- pose, but as the time for the solemn sacrifice had not yet arrived, all their perfidious designs were frustrated. In the southern part of Jerusalem may be seen a mount called the Mount of the Evil Council, where, as tradition relates, Caiphas had a summer residence to which he several times brought his wicked counsellors to treat in secret of this impious affair. The immediate cause of the convention at the palace was the resurrection of Lazarus. St. John the Evangel- JESUS' ENEMIES CONSPIRE TO KILL HIM. 37 ist says that this great miracle led many of the Jews to believe in the divinity of Jesus, some of whom going to the city related the event to the Pharisees, Christ's most bitter enemies. Upon hearing of such a miracle, any one of unbiassed opinion would have said : " If this Man performs prodigies and great miracles, it is a sign that He is from God. Let us, therefore, hear His doctrine, imitate His holy example, and embrace His new law." But as the enemies of Jesus were ruled by passion rather than conscience, they said to one another : " If we permit this man to preach and propagate His new doctrine among the people, the time will come when we will all believe in Him and become His followers. Then the Eomans will come and conquer us, and overturn our seats, and destroy our prestige with the people, and become masters of our- selves and of our nation." Caiphas, the high priest of that year, rose up in the midst of the assembly, and, overtaken by the spirit of God, prophesied, saying : " You know nothing, neither do you consider that it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation per- ish not" (St. John xi. 49, 50). From that moment they determined to put Jesus to death, not to save their nation, but to satisfy their envy and hatred. The Divine Master, knowing their design, avoided them as much as possible until His time had come. Let us now consider how pernicious is the passion of envy. The holiest works, the most stupendous miracles, excite in the envious man only emotions of malice. While others are filled with admiration and esteem, he becomes sad and suspicious. Let us recommend ourselves to the God of mercy that He may preserve us from so terrible and pernicious a vice. ^g 38 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. Second Point. Easter was near at hand ; and the Jews, knowing that Jesus was accustomed to celebrate it at Jerusalem, gath- ered again in secret against Him, and conspired to appre- hend Him and condemn Him to death. All agreed to arrest Him by stratagem, because they feared that, should they attempt to take Him in public, He would evade them as He had previously done. Moreover, they were much perplexed about fixing the day for putting Him to death ; for they said, " JSTot on the festival day, lest there should be a tumult among the people" (St. Mark xiv. 2). They had good reasons to fear the indignation of the people, because the Divine Master had never done evil to any one ; on the contrary, He had benefited all, and was, consequently, very popular. Many had accepted His holy doctrine, and they would boldly defend Him against injustice. Besides, as the feast of the Pasch was celebrated only in Jerusalem, there would assemble there people from Galilee, Samaria, Phoenicia, Idumea, Tragonidides, — in short, from all the Jewish tribes. Many were the blind whom He had illumined, the lame whom He had made to walk, the leprous whom He had cleansed, the sick whom He had cured, the hungry whom He had sat- isfied, the dead whom He had resuscitated ; and it could not be doubted that among the crowds then gathering at the holy city there would be some of those favored ones who would surely defend their Benefactor. The scribes and Pharisees, therefore, greatly feared a popular revolt ; hence they said, " Not on the festival day, lest there should be a tumult among the people ;" let us wait until after the feast, when all shall have returned to their homes, JESTJS' ENEMIES CONSPIRE TO KILL HIM. 39 and then we will arrest Him and put Him to death. During this discussion, Judas the traitor entered, and vol- unteered to deliver his Divine Master into their power ; immediately they changed their determination. We shall see in the following chapter how this betrayal was ac- complished ; for the present, let us consider with St. Thomas of Villanova the motives which induced the priests, the ancients of the people, the scribes and Phar- isees, to condemn their Messias to death. The chief priests and the Pharisees gathered together and said: u What do we, for this Man doth many miracles : here is His crime. What, therefore, shall we do ?" O infa- mous ! O perverse ! Jesus must be recognized as the true Son of God ; He must be venerated, He must be worshipped, He must be adored. " But if we adore Him," they answer, " all will believe in Him ; and the Romans will come, they will banish us, and conquer and destroy our nation." But why do you fear this Man ? What appearance of royalty do you discern in Him who is so poor and humble ? And if He should be declared king of the Jews, fear not ; for as He has power to perform miracles and prodigies, so also has He power to defend your nation against the Romans. His only crime is that He has performed miracles, that by His omnipotent power He has given sight to the blind, raised the dead to life. For this reason you should worship, serve, and love Him, instead of condemning Him. O unparalleled audacity ! O unequalled blindness ! Let us now come to ourselves. What are the crimes of Jesus Christ, when we banish Him from our souls and allow the devil to take possession of them ? Do His crimes perhaps consist in having created us out of noth- ing in preference to millions and millions of possible 40 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. beings who would probably have served Him more faith- fully than we ? in having called us to the bosom of our holy Mother the Catholic Church, while thousands and thousands are wandering in the midst of darkness ? in having redeemed us from the slavery of sin and the tyranny of hell, by shedding the last drop of His most precious blood ? in having preserved us from many dis- eases, persecutions, and misfortunes ? in having enriched us with temporal and spiritual goods ? in having sent us so many inspirations, granted us so many graces and favors % What merits had we in the sight of God to be so signally favored in preference to so many Turks, idol- aters, heretics, schismatics, and sinners? Our answer shall be the second spiritual fruit of this consideration. JUDAS BETKAYS HIS DIVINE MASTER. 41 CONSIDEBATION VI. Judas sells his Divine Master for Thirty Pieces of Silver. " Then went one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, to the chief priests: and he said to them: "What will you give me, and I will deliver Him unto you ? But they appointed him thirty pieces of silver." — St. Matt. xxvi. 14, 15. Ferst Point. fPHE chief priests and the ancients were, meantime, -*- assembled in council in the palace of Caiphas, when Judas Iscariot, the traitor, came among them ; and, boldly and openly divulging his perfidious designs, ex- claimed, " What will you give me, and I will deliver Him unto you?" (St.Matt. xxvi. 15.) A pious author, explain- ing this evangelical passage, observes that its every word deserves the most serious consideration, each one being replete with the gravest meaning. He then proceeds to examine the rank which Judas held, and he finds it so emi- nent that it seems impossible for a person occupying such a position to form in his heart so perfidious a design against his gracious and amiable benefactor. " Judas Iscariot," the same author says, " was one of the twelve ; that is, he was not a stranger ; he was not confounded amid the crowds that daily followed Jesus ; nay, he was not simply one of the seventy-two disciples : he was one of the twelve, called to the apostolate by Jesus Christ Himself ; one who had heard from the divine lips of Incarnate "Wisdom 42 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. the sublime and supernatural doctrine of heaven ; one who had received the power of healing the sick and of casting out devils. Finally, he was one who had been distinguished among his companions by his appointment to the office, which he then held, of treasurer and dis penser of the alms offered by generous benefactors for distribution among the poor, as well as for the corporal maintenance of Jesus and His followers. Now, thisingrate presented himself to the chief priests, his Divine Master's bitterest enemies, who had assembled on former occasions and deliberated as to how they could put Him to death, and were now only awaiting a favor- able opportunity to execute their heinous designs. Judas enacted this treachery without cause. He was not insti- gated nor even advised to do so by any one ; he acted through mere malice. When did this ingrate enter upon the execution of his diabolical project and set out on his journey to the palace of Caiphas ? He did not go there wheu the enemies of Jesus were apart, but when they were gathered together, deliberating how they might be enabled to apprehend Him and put Him to death. Then it was that Judas appeared and stood ready to carry out their nefarious plans. " "What will you give me," he eagerly exclaimed, " and I will deliver Him unto you 2" This is equivalent to saying, " I have something to sell, but something so despicable that I do not dare to affix a price to it ; do you yourselves name the amount you are willing to advance." They then offered him thirty pieces of silver. " They appointed him thirty pieces of silver." Judas was well satisfied with this sum of money ; and, from that hour forth he exerted himself to find the earliest opportunity of carrying his infamous project into execution. JUDAS BETRAYS HIS DIVINE MASTER. 43 But the malice of the fallen apostle does not stop here Dionysius Carthusianus, commenting upon the above- quoted text of the Gospel, says that the traitor left Bethania after having heard his Divine Master foretell that He would be crucified within two days. The same author further observes that Judas, when presenting himself to the chief priests and ancients of the people, was fully convinced of the divinity of Jesus Christ, and knew, or, at least, had reason to believe, that the enemies of his Divine Master were already assembled in order to compass His arrest and execution. Hence the ingrate unceremoniously inquires, "What are you willing to give me ? " He might as well have said, " I know what motive has brought you together; I know the object of your discussions ; I know what causes your uneasiness : behold, I am here, able and ready to extricate yon from your perplexity. Only tell how much you will pay me for my services, and I will deliver Him unto you in the secret manner which you desire." Unhappy Judas ! f oolish and infamous merchant ! How have you become so blind as to commit a crime so atro- cious, so horrible, so heinous ? Do you, then, value your Divine Master at so low a rate as to be willing to sell Him for thirty pieces of silver? And you would, per- haps, have sold Him for less, had less been offered? O Judas ! how has your Master offended you ? Ingrate, so soon, then, you forget the many favors you have received from Him ! Do you not remember His numerous miracles? or do you think that Jesus cannot evade your snares as, on many previous occasions, He evaded those of His other enemies ? Unhappy Judas ! You have sold tli3 gem of Paradise, the joy of heaven, the beloved of God. For thirty pieces of silver you have bartered the 44 MEDITATIONS ON TIIE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. Lamb, a drop of whose blood is infinitely more valuable than all the silver and gold in the world. The betrayal of Judas is of such a nature that the more we consider it, the more it excites our anger and fills us with horror. But our indignation against the evil deeds of that treacherous apostle will avail nothing unless we detest our faults from the bottom of our hearts. It is true that our faults may not exhibit the deep malice which we perceive in the betrayal of Judas ; yet we must ever remember that they offend the majesty of God. Second Point. Having excited in our hearts an intense detestation of Judas's terrible crime, let us pass to a consideration of the causes which induced him to betray his Divine Master. Dionysius Carthusian us says that the treachery of Judas should not surprise us, for he was avaricious ; and the avaricious man is capable of any crime. Indeed, we can easily see from the context of the Gospel that avarice, and avarice alone, dragged Judas to the abyss of iniquity into which he fell. St. Matthew speaks of a banquet which a certain Simon, surnamed the leper, gave to our Divine Lord and His disciples some time during the brief sojourn of Jesus in Bethania, previous to the celebration of the Jewish Pasch. The Evangelist relates that while Jesus was seated at table, a woman — probably Mary Magdalene — entered the room, carrying an alabaster box of precious ointment, and that, having come near to Him, she poured the ointment on His sacred head. This action was witnessed by the apostles, who began to murmur, saying, " To what pur- JUDAS BETRAYS HIS DIVINE MASTER. 45 pose is this waste ? For this might have been sold for much and given to the poor." Our Lord heard those murmurings and gently reproved His disciples for them. He admonished them against blaming the conduct of the woman, for she had wrought a good work upon Him ; and, refuting their reasoning concerning the needs of the poor, He said, " For the poor you have always with you : but Me you have not always. For she in pouring this ointment upon My body, hath done it for My burial " (Matt, xx vi. 11, 12). The apostles at once acquiesced, submissively accepting this amiable reprimand, Judas excepted. He, because he was a thief — " et latro erat " — would not submit. Being treasurer and procurator of what may be called the house- hold of our Lord, he thought that if the precious oint- ment were intrusted to him, he could sell it and retain part of the price for himself. Because his miserly desire was not gratified, he became furiously enraged. He left the house, went directly to Jerusalem, presented himself to the chief priests and ancients of the people, and be- trayed his Divine Master, selling Him for the paltry sum of thirty pieces of silver to indemnify himself, as it were, for the money he deemed he had lost by not being able to obtain and sell the precious ointment. Having ac- complished his execrable design, Judas returned to Bethania. Our Blessed Lord knew the heinous crime which His wretched apostle had perpetrated ; the traitor's guilt glared from his countenance : yet Jesus did not re- proach him, nor show any resentment towards him. On the contrary, He went to meet him, as some pious authors say, and tenderly embraced and kissed him. Our Divine Lord acted thus in order to move the heart of Judas to repentance and induce him to detest his grievous sin. 46 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. But the traitor, far from casting himself at the feet of his Merciful Master and imploring pardon, remained obsti- nate. Behold to what a miserable state avarice, the love of gold and silver, has reduced an apostle ! Those in whom this dangerous and baleful passion predominates, seldom correct themselves. They fear that they may be deprived of the necessaries of life, and they reckon among such necessaries goods which are entirely superfluous. The avaricious have no mercy, no sense of humanity ; they have no compassion for the needy, and often they do not suf- ficiently provide even for themselves. Nothing can move them, soften them, deter them. Neither death, nor judg- ment, nor heaven, nor hell, nor eternity can affect their sordid hearts. Judas had often seen his Divine Master render Himself invisible to His enemies and pass through their very midst; he had seen Jesus perform many miracles ; he had had countless proofs of His omnipo- tence and divinity. But Judas was no longer subject to reason : ruled by avarice, he could only think of gold and silver. Gold and silver absorbed all his thoughts, and their acquisition constituted his desires. Let the soul be lost, let Christ be sold as a slave — it matters not, so riches be acquired ! O Judas, what a terrible example your life affords of the miseries to which avarice surely leads ! Terrible warning for all. Alas, that for many it is given in vain ! Let us endeavor to profit by it, and never regard as lost what we give for the glory of God and the support of the poor. JESUS TAKES LEAVE OF HIS BELOVED MOTHER. 47 CONSIDEKATION VII. Jesus Christ takes leave of His Beloved Mother. " To what shall I compare thee ? or to what shall I liken thee, daughter of Jerusalem ? to what shall I equal thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Sion ? For great as the sea is thy destruction." — Lamentations ii. 13. Fikst Point. THE holy Gospel does not mention that onr Divine Saviour held a farewell interview with His beloved Mother, but we may piously believe that He did. It is very probable that Jesus, who had always conducted Him- self with the greatest respect and utmost submission towards His blessed Mother, did not undertake the rough road to Calvary without acquainting her of His intentions and seeking her consent. This is the opinion of the Seraphic Doctor, St. Bonaventure, who describes the last farewell which our Lord took of His Mother before entering upon His passion ; and this opinion is confirmed by the revelations which Mary made to St. Bridget. In- deed, it is but reasonable to believe that God, who sought consent of the holy Virgin before taking flesh in her pure womb, should likewise ask her permission to consummate the grand sacrifice which was the chief end of His mission on earth. "Who can describe the emotions of a dutiful and loving; son when taking leave of his mother to set out upon a long and dangerous journey ? Language is inade- 48 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. quate to such a task. If this medium fails to express what a mere man feels on those occasions, how can it depict the intensity of grief experienced by a son, who, besides being man, is also God ; and who, instead of going on a journey to a distant country, is about to go to the place of execution to suffer a most cruel and ignominious death ? If the grief of the son is inexpressible, what shall we say of that of the mother, who is naturally more sensitive and affectionate? However, availing ourselves of the meditations of St. Bonaventui-e, we shall imagine that Jesus Christ is in Bethania at the house of Martha. It is the eve of the Jewish Pasch, commemorated in our day on the evening of Wednesday in Holy Week. Immedi- ately after supper Jesus takes His Mother aside, and leads her into a solitary apartment. There they sit down, and after a prolonged and painful silence, Jesus thus ad- dresses Mary : " My dearly beloved Mother, but little time remains for Me to be with you. It is the will of My Eternal Father; I must accomplish the end for which I came into the world. The time for the redemption of man- kind has arrived ; all the prophecies concerning Me are now to be fulfilled; I shall be delivered into the hands of My enemies, and they will scourge Me, crown Me M^ith thorns, and crucify Me. I thank you. My dear Mother, for all the toils and hardships which you have endured for My sake ; and, as you gave your consent to My incar- nation, I now wish you to give your consent to My death." Thus speaks Jesus, the most dutiful of sons ; but what answer comes from the most loving of mothers ? Oh ! how justly may we address Mary in the language of Scripture : " To what shall I compare thee ? or to what JESUS TAKES LEAVE OF HIS BELOVED MOTHER. 49 shall I liken thee, O daughter of Jerusalem % to what shall I equal thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Sion ? For great as the sea is thy destruc- tion." Mary was transfixed by the bitterness of her grief; speech failed her trembling lips, and she gave vent to her sorrow in a flood of tears. But, as was re- vealed to St. Bridget, those tears, instead of alleviating the pain of her beloved Son, only augmented it more and more. This increased anguish of Jesus was a fresh source of affliction to His blessed Mother. But some may say, with St. Bernard, Did not Mary know that her Divine Son w r as to die upon the cross? Without doubt she knew it ; and, furthermore, she was fully and certainly assured as to what was to be the manner of His death. Why, therefore, did she grieve for what she had expected, especially when she knew that in a few days Jesus would give her the ineffable joy and consolation of His tri- nmphant resurrection from the tomb ? She grieved be- cause she was a mother — and the Mother of God. O Mary, most amiable Mother ! by that sword of sorrow which pierced thy tender heart when thy dearly beloved Son requested thy consent to His immolation upon the cross for my salvation, obtain for me a sincere repentance of my sins, and the grace that I may never forget that my crimes were the cause of thy anguish and that of thy Divine Son. Second Point. When the Archangel Gabriel announced to the Blessed Virgin Mary that she had been chosen by Heaven to be the mother of the future Messias, she became all disturbed, and, before consenting to accept the ineffable honor which was about to be conferred upon her, she questioned 50 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. the angel, saying, " How shall this be clone ? " So, like- wise, when her Divine Son told her that He was about to give up His life for the redemption of mankind by dying on the cross on Mount Golgotha, she became very much distressed, she trembled, and her pure heart was pierced by a sword of keenest anguish. It is very true that she knew that her beloved Son came down from heaven to redeem mankind by shedding the last drop of His pre- cious blood ; but, at the same time, she could not easily persuade herself to give Him up. Her trouble and per- plexity were very great. It was hard to consent to the death of her dear and only Son ; still, by refusing her consent, she would oppose the will of the Eternal Father and interfere with the redemption of mankind. Finding herself in the midst of these perplexing doubts and not knowing what to do, Mary committed herself entirely into the hands of Divine Providence ; and, according to the Seraphic Doctor, St. Bonaventure, she addressed our Divine Lord in broken and trembling accents, saying, " My beloved Son, I feel all disturbed and my heart faints within me : let your Eternal Father decide, for I know not what to answer." Mary would have said more, but her tears and anguish prevented. Knowing that she could not change the eternal decrees, she became perfectly resigned to the divine will ; and, with an heroic courage worthy only of the Mother of God, she not only con- sented to the death of her Divine Son, but she resolved to accompany Him to Calvary, where, rising superior even to herself, she stood at the foot of the cross during the three long hours of Jesus' agony, and afterwards re- ceived His sacred body into her motherly arms upon its descent from the cross. St. Bonaventure here exclaims, " Oh ! if you could JESUS TAKES LEAVE OF HIS BELOVED MOTHEK. 51 see how much suffering Mary endured in giving her con- sent to the death of her beloved Son, you would, per- haps, be melted into tears of compassion. But if you cannot see her with your corporal eyes, behold her with those of faith ; and know that Mary made this sacrifice for love of you. Betake yourself in spirit to Bethania, and imagine that you are present at the meeting of Jesus and Mary on that sad night, and, prostrating yourself at their feet, say, " O Son of the Eternal Father, O Mother of the Eternal Son, how can I ever repay you for the great love which you manifested for me on this occasion of your painful parting ? When shall my heart burn with love for you ? O ungrateful heart, can you longer re- main attached to creatures and reflect that Mary, the Mother of God, so loved you that she willingly gave up her dearly beloved Son, and consented that He should be put to death for your sake ? Alas ! how long shall we seek to gratify our sinful passions — we, miserable wretches, for whom the Son of Mary abandoned His most amiable Mother, and died upon the cross ? In con- clusion, let us remember that we can never become par- takers of the eternal glory of heaven unless we endeavor to imitate Jesus and Mary in their sufferings. Let us, therefore, when oppressed by infirmities, adversities, or tribulations, meditate on the sufferings of our Divine Saviour, and bear in mind that all the afflictions which we have to endure in this vale of tears are merely noth- ing when compared with the sufferings of Jesus and Mary. 52 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. CONSIDEBATION Till. Jesus celebrates His Last Pasch with the Apostles. "And when the hour was come, He sat down, and the twelve apostles with Him; and He said to them: With desire I have desired to eat this Pasch with you before I suffer."-^. Luke xxn. 14, 15. First Point. TT was on the morning of Holy Thursday, which, accord- J- ing to the Jewish rite, was the first day of the unleav- ened Dread, and occurred on the fourteenth day of the moon of March. Jesus was still in Bethania, at the house of Martha, His generous and pious benefactress. The apostles came to Him and said, "Whither wilt Thou that we go, and prepare for Thee to eat the Pasch? " (St. Mark xiv. 12.) Choosing two of His disciples, Peter and John, Jesus said to them, " Go ye into the city : and there shall meet you a man carrying a pitcher of water, follow him : and whithersoever he shall go in, say to the master of the house, The Master saith: Where is My refectory, where I may eat the Pasch with My disciples? And be will show you a large dining room furnished : and there prepare ye" for us." The Evangelist subjoins, " And His disciples" went their way, and came into the city : and they found as He had told them, and they prepared the Pasch." "The poverty and divinity of Jesus Christ are strikingly manifested in this evangelical passage. His poverty, be- JESUS CELEBRATES HIS LAST PASCH. 53 cause He had no place wherein to celebrate the Jewish Pasch, for which reason He sent His disciples to find a place ; His divinity, because, as master of the universe, He had only to ask in order to obtain whatever He desired. A similar circumstance is connected with His triumphant entry into Jerusalem. He then also sent two of His dis- ciples to a house to take a beast of burden of which He had need. However, His divinity is more manifest in this second instance ; for He did not say to His disciples, " Go to such a house and tell the master," but He said, " Go ye into the city : and there shall meet you a man carrying a pitcher of water, follow him : and he will show you a large dining-room furnished : and there pre- pare ye for us." A devout author explaining the reason why our Lord did not specify any particular house, says that it was be- cause Jesus knew that Judas was seeking an opportunity to deliver Him into the hands of His enemies ; and were they made aware of where the Pasch was to be celebrated, he would inform the chief priests and ancients of the people, who would at once send soldiers to disturb the feast, and, perhaps, the master of the house. Thus, by not mentioning openly the place where He wished to celebrate the Pasch, Jesus showed how great was the goodness and tenderness of His heart towards His friends. At sunset, our Divine Redeemer, accompanied by His twelve apostles, set out on the way to Jerusalem. Avoid- ing Bethphage and Mount Olivet, He took the road which passed near the sepulchre of Josaphat, between Mount Olivet and the Mount of Scandal. This was the usual and shortest way. Jesus' joy on this eve was great, and that of the disciples was not less ; but it was a joy that would not outlast the feast. The Divine 54 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. Master was well aware of what was to happen at the close of that day. He knew that for Him and His beloved disciples joy was soon to be turned into sorrow. There- fore, we may imagine that upon leaving the house of Martha, Jesus said to Himself, " For the last time I am leaving Bethania as a mortal man." Proceeding on His way, He may have noticed a sycamore-tree, and cried, in the sadness of His heart, " On this tree one of My dis- ciples will hang himself to-morrow." While crossing the valley of Josaphat, He may have glanced towards the Garden of Olives and thought, " To-night I shall return here, no longer to contemplate the joys of heaven, but to abandon Myself to a mortal agony." Passing over the torrent of Cedron, He may have said within Himself, " I shall cross this torrent again to-night, but not in com- pany with My disciples : I shall be bound as a malefactor, and surrounded by My bitterest enemies and most cruel executioners." Entertaining those pious thoughts in our minds, let us go in spirit with Jesus to Jerusalem. It will be profitable for us to exercise our imagination in the production of vivid pictures of those holy places, for they have power to awaken in our minds many pious thoughts and tender recollections. Second Point. Having reached Jerusalem, Jesus proceeded to that por- tion of the city which is situated on the southern part of Mount Sion. Here was located the house in which the Pasch was prepared for Him and His disciples. They repaired thither, entered, and found everything in readi- ness. After a brief interval of rest they took their places at the table and began to eat the legal supper, JESUS CELEBRATES HIS LAST PASCH. 55 which consisted of unleavened bread, some lettuce, and roast lamb. According to the Jewish rite, this paschal lamb was specially selected from the flock, was spotless, and, five days before the sacrifice, was brought to Jeru- salem amid rejoicing and festivity. This celebrated feast of the Passover was ever a joyous one among the Jews, for it commemorated that happy night on which the Angel of the Lord slew all the first-born of the Egyp- tians, thus delivering the Israelites from their cruel bondage; and, opening a path for them through the Red Sea, God guided them miraculously across the desert into the promised land. In memory of those benefits the Jews were obliged to eat the paschal lamb standing and with staves in their hands. While Jesus was partaking of the mysterious lamb, His divine countenance suddenly lighted up and beamed for a moment with unusual joy ; then, turning to His disciples, He sighed deeply and said, "With desire I have desired to eat this Pasch with you before I suffer. For I say to-you, that from this time I will not eat it, till it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God." Having spoken these words, Jesus took the chalice into His sacred hands and, after giving thanks, said, "Take, and divide it among you ; for I say to you, that I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, till the kingdom of God come " (St. Luke xxii. 15-18). " Oh, how wondrous was the magnanimity of Jesus Christ ! " exclaims St. Laurence Justinian, commenting upon the conduct of our Divine Lord at the Last Supper. And truly what soul can be so insensible as not to be moved by it ? Jesus Christ is about to enter upon His bitter passion ; before His mind arises a vision of all the opprobrium so soon to be heaped upon Him ; He knows 56 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. that this night will be for Him a night of anguish and torments ; He knows that on the morrow at this same hour He will be dead, even taken from the cross and buried. Yet He is full of joy ; all His thoughts are directed to His disciples ; He endeavors to console and comfort them, without any concern whatever for Him- self. Such utter disinterestedness is out of the common order of nature ; for we know that a man about to be executed, far from experiencing a feeling of joy and exul- tation, becomes saddened and all concentrated in himself. He grows oblivious to all around him, thinking only of his own dread fate and the terrible journey on which he is to depart. JSot so, however, with Jesus Christ. He seems to forget Himself, anxious only to console His dis- ciples : thus He clearly manifested His charity, magna- nimity, and divinity. O admirable love ! O love truly worthy of the Son of God ! And shall we not endeavor to correspond to this divine charity ? Shall we remain indifferent or lukewarm towards our loving Redeemer ? Alas ! if we have hitherto been ungrateful, let us resolve to be so no more. If we have not the heroic virtue which animated the saints with an eager desire of suffering in order to please God, let us at least bear with patience and resigna- tion the unavoidable trials and sufferings of our daily life. In order to derive more profit from this meditation, let us imagine ourselves present in the supper-room with Jesus and the apostles, lovingly admitted there to par- take with them of the legal supper ; then we may con- sider as addressed to ourselves those affectionate words which the fond Master spoke to His disciples : " With desire I have desired to eat this Pasch with you before I suffer." JESUS WASHES HIS APOSTLES' FEET. 57 CONSIDEKATION IX. Jesus washes His Apostles' Feet. "He cometh therefore to Simon Peter. And Peter saith to Him: Lord, dost Thou wash my feet ? . . . Thou shalt never wash my feet." — St. John xiii. 6, 8. Fiest Point. rpHE legal supper of the paschal lamb being ended, -L Jesus Christ wished to give another supper which should prove an additional wonder of love. He arose from the table, and, laying aside His garments, took a towel with which He girded Himself; He then poured water into a basin, " and began to wash the feet of the disciples, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith He was girded." He came to Simon Peter ; but this fervent disciple, overwhelmed with confusion at the thought of the grandeur and divine majesty of Him who presented Himself in so humble a posture before him, cried out, " Lord, dost Thou wash my feet ?" This was the same as to say: "Lord, Thou who art the Creator of heaven and earth ; Thou who hadst no beginning, and shalt never have end ; Thou in whose presence the Angels tremble and the Seraphim bow down ; Thou who art the Son of God, the Holy One ! — and dost Thou come to wash my feet ? to perform this menial service towards me, a man so full of imperfections, a mere worm of the earth ? And 58 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. Thou comest to wash my feet with those omnipotent hands which built the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth ! with those hands with which Thou openedst the eyes of the blind, and the ears of the deaf, and gave speech to the dumb ! with those pure hands which cleansed the leper, fed the hungry, banished evil spirits, and raised the dead ! And Thou comest to wash, not my hands, but my feet which are less noble members of my body ! Lord, Thou wash my feet ! Thou prostrate Thyself before me, while all created things, celestial, terrestrial, and infernal are prostrate before Thee !" St. John Chrysostom, paraphrasing the words of St. Peter, puts these words into the mouth of the apostle : " Thou art the master, I am the servant ; Thou art the creator, I am the creature ; Thou art God, I am only man ; Thou wishest to wash my feet, and I, a poor, miserable sinner — no ! it shall not be : Thou shalt never wash my feet!" Thus did St. Peter in the fervor of his love speak to his Divine Master. Jesus knew that Peter's repugnance sprung from the profound respect and veneration which he entertained for his Lord. Yet, to show us that obedi- ence is better than sacrifice, and that it should be pre- ferred before any other virtue, Jesus, with a serene and majestic countenance, said to St. Peter, " If I wash thee not, thou shalt have no part with Me." Peter, affrighted by this terrible menace, exclaimed, " Lord, not only my feet, but also my hands and my head !" But the Divine Redeemer knew well the cleanness of heart of him whom He had chosen for His vicar on earth, and the visible head of the Church militant. With great affability Jesus reassured him, saying: "He that is washed needeth not but to wash his feet, but is clean wholly. And you are JESUS WASHES HIS APOSTLES' FEET. 59 clean, but not all" (St. John xiii. 10). Without manifest- ing to the other disciples the treachery of Judas, Jesus abruptly broke off His discourse, well satisfied that Judas understood the dread allusion which was conveyed in the words, " And you are clean, but not all." Jesus wished to intimate to Judas that his treachery was known, in order that the wretch might realize in his guilty soul that nothing is hidden from his Divine Master. Then the Saviour proceeded to wash the feet of the other apostles ; nor did He meet with any resistance from them : they were too much affrighted by the words which Jesus addressed to Peter, — him who was to be their head and master after the withdrawal of Christ's visible pres- ence. Here we should pause to reflect on the profound humil- ity of our Holy Redeemer in washing His disciples' feet. In imitation of Him, let us resolve to be humble also. Let us frequently make acts of this great virtue, espec- ially when about to approach the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, in order to render ourselves more worthy of its reception. Second Point. Theophylactus, commenting on the above mysterious ceremony of the Washing of Peet, offers as his opinion that Jesus Christ did not first approach St. Peter, but Judas Iscariot ; and that the Divine Master adopted this course of action in order to give the traitor a marked sign of His love and esteem, and a token of the ready and generous pardon which he could at once obtain if he would only repent of his crime. This opinion is deduced partly from the Gospel, partly from a considera- tion of the wickedness of Judas, and partly from a con- 60 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. ception of the profound respect which the other apostles entertained for our Lord. Theophylactus reasons thus : The Gospel says that Jesus Christ " began to wash the feet of the disciples, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith He was girded." Then He came to Peter, ac- cording to the Latin text, " Deinde venit ad PetrumP Therefore, before approaching the feet of Peter, our Lord had already washed those of some other disciple. But, excepting Judas, which of the apostles could witness so great an abasement of his Divine Master, and not offer the slightest resistance nor manifest the least sign of sur- prise \ If Christ had opened the ceremony by washing the feet of any apostle other than Judas, undoubtedly such apostle would have said as Peter did say a moment later, "Lord, dost Thou wash my feet?" But these or similar words were spoken by none except Peter ; at least there is no scriptural record of such an utterance made by any other apostle. In all probability, therefore, Jesus began the ceremony of the Washing of Feet by prostrat- ing Himself before Judas, the only disciple who could witness such a sight without showing any sign of surprise or confusion. St. Bernard entertained the same opinion. " The perfidy of Judas," the holy Doctor maintains, " was not unknown to his Divine Master ; Jesus knew well that Judas' feet were running fast in the dread path which led to consummate treachery and deicide: yet He did not hesitate to deal with him as with the other apostles ; nay, Judas was the very first before whom the Divine Master prostrated Himself in the performance of this extraor- dinary act of humility." At this point in his com- mentary, St. Bernard breaks out into the following im- passioned apostrophe : " O man, thou who art but dust and ashes, how darest thou lift up thy head in pride and JESUS "WASHES HIS APOSTLES' FEET. 61 arrogance ? How darest thou give way to impatience and anger? Behold and admire the meekness and humility of Jesus Christ, the Creator of heaven and earth, the Judge of the living and the dead, and be ashamed and confounded at the thought of thy pride and haughtiness ! He who is God prostrates Himself before mere men ; and thou, a vile worm of the earth, disdainest to humble thyself before God ! He who is innocence itself, He who is sanctity itself, deigns to wash the vile feet of Judas the traitor ; and thou who art guilty of a thousand crimes refusest to approach the sacred tribunal to wash away thy iniquity! He, before instituting the most august Sacra- ment of the Altar, humbled Himself so far as to wash the feet of Judas; and thou, before partaking of the Eucharistic banquet, art unwilling to banish from thy heart the hatred and rancor which thou entertainest to- wards those persons who have given thee offence ! " Thus reasons a holy Doctor of the Church ; and thus also should we reason if we would derive spiritual profit from the sublime lesson of humility which our amiable Redeemer gives us in the washing of His disciples' feet. For this purpose let us frequently repeat those words of St. Peter, " Lord, dost Thou wash my feet?" Let us often meditate on them, as also on those words of St. Francis of Assisi who, unable to express the ardor of divine love which he experienced at the thought of Christ's humility in becoming our food, used frequently to say, "My God, my God ! who art Thou, and who am I? My God, my God ! who art Thou, and who am I?" The principal fruits which we should derive from this meditation are a great horror of pride, which is the root of all other vices, and a profound esteem for holy humil- ity, the queen of virtues and the foundation of Christian 62 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. perfection. The proud can never be dear to God, and they soon become odious to men ; but the humble are beloved by all and advance in virtue from day to day. Let us learn from the example of our Blessed Redeemer to practise the holy virtue of humility, and we shall re- ceive an immense reward in time and in eternity. JESUS' WOEDS AFTER THE WASHING OJF FEET. 63 CONSIDERATION X. Words spoken by our Holy Redeemer after the Washing of Feet. " Then after He had washed their feet, and taken His garments, being set down again, He said to them: Know you what I have done to you ? You call me Master, and Lord: and you say well, for so I am. If then I, being your Lord and Master, have washed your feet: you also ought to wash one another's feet." — JSt. John xiii. 12-14. i Lo First Point. A FTER having washed the feet of His dearly beloved -*--*- disciples, Jesus Christ exhorted them to love one nother and to practise holy humility, the queen of all irtues. He said to them : " You call me Master, and rd : and you say well, for so I am. If then I, who am your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet." This address was tantamount to saying, "If I, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the Creator of heaven and earth, have so far abased Myself as to wash the feet of My creatures, My disciples, to wash the feet of Judas; how much more ought you to do the same to one another, to pity one an- another, love one another, help one another: you who are children of the same Father, who are all alike but dust and ashes, who are all subject to the same diseases, miseries, and misfortunes! Do, therefore, to one an- other as I have done to yon. Blessed, indeed, shall you be, if, having penetrated into the meaning of My words 64 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. and learned how pleasing to Me is the virtue of humility, you endeavor to imitate My example and show yourself in every action meek and humble of heart." This was the admirable lesson which the Divine Re- deemer gave to His apostles after the mysterious Wash- ing of Feet. A pious author explaining these words, " Know you what I have done to you ? " speaks thus : " If you wish to know what Christ did for His apostles at the Last Supper, you can be easily informed. He pros- trated Himself before them, washed and, according to a pious tradition, kissed their feet. But if you inquire still further and ask to know what was done for them not merely at the Last Supper, but from the very begin- ning, the answer will be quite another. It will lead us back to the very hour of creation. This Divine Lord created them out of nothing ; when they were incapable of loving God, He infused that divine love into their hearts ; nor did He make them after the image of any created thing, but according to His own image and like- ness, imprinting on their souls, as it were, an image of the Most Holy Triniry by gifting them with will, mem- ory, and understanding. He gave them the great gift of free will ; He gave them angels for their guardians and constant companions ; lie created this world for their benefit ; He prescribed a law for them which, if faith- fully observed, would guide them to eternal life ; He granted them the pardon of their sins; when He became man He taught them the knowledge of the way to heav- en ; He healed the sick among them ; He raised their dead to life ; in a word, He granted them all the graces and blessings of which they stood* in need. Might not Jesus well ask His disciples, ' Know you what I have done to you \ ' " JESUS' WORDS AFTER THE WASHING OF FEET. 65 ]STow, all the general benefits which Jesus Christ con- ferred on His apostles have been likewise given to each of us. He created this visible wonderful world for us ; He created us out of nothing ; He loved us from eternity ; He created us to His own image and likeness ; He en- dowed us with will, memory, and understanding; He destined us for heaven ; He instituted seven Sacraments for our sanctification ; in short, He accomplished the grand work of human redemption for us. How have we corresponded to these immense benefits % What have we done in return ? Alas ! we have repaid our Divine Lord with the basest ingratitude. Let us, therefore, endeavor to change our life, firmly resolving to become true followers of Jesus. To attain this end let us often reflect on the benefits which He has bestowed on us from the hour of our creation to this very moment ; we shall then be able to understand how truly worthy Jesus is of all our love and gratitude. Second Point. The example of our Holy Redeemer should not only be admired, but it should also be imitated. " If then I, being your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet." This was equiv- alent to saying, Let man do what God did; let the ser- vant imitate the example of his master. No human dignity should refuse to do what the Master of heaven and earth did; what the Master practised should be prac- tised by the servant, and no Christian should disdain to do what Christ Jesus did. St. Augustine explaining the following passage of the Gospel, " Learn of Me, because I am meek and humble 5 bb MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. of heart, and you shall find rest to jour souls," para- phrases it thus : " Learn of Me not to build the world, not to create visible and invisible things, not to work miracles, not to raise the dead to life ; but learn to be meek and humble of heart." We are not required to go into strange countries in order to perform works of charity ; we are not required to expose our lives to enlighten those " who sit in dark- ness and in the shadow Of death ;" we are not required to undertake any long and dangerous journey, nor to enter the cloister ; no, our Merciful Lord does not exact so much from us. To do those things requires graces from heaven which are not granted to all, but to a few only. All that is required of the faithful at large is the observance of the divine law, and perfect submission to Him whose yoke is sweet and whose burden is light. We are commanded to bear with patience our own and our neighbor's infirmities, to abstain from those things which are forbidden by the commandments of God and of the Church, and to be faithful Christians not only in name but also in d.ced. It is not necessary to perform heroic actions in order to be Christians ; nor is it necessary to go to distant countries to practise Christian virtues. They may be practised everywhere. We are surrounded on all sides by powerful enemies ; we are especially assailed by our common enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil ; therefore, we shall always have occasions to practise the virtues of patience and resignation. We can also fre- quently exercise ourselves in the virtue of charity by assisting our fellow-creatures, by advising them, and praying for them. Opportunities are never wanting to practise voluntary mortifications in order to atone for JESUS' WORDS AFTER THE WASHING OF FEET. 67 our faults. Finally, we should ever show ourselves true followers of Christ by a close and constant imitation of His virtues, especially those of meekness and humility. Let us imagine ourselves present at the mysterious Washing of Feet, and consider as addressed to us those memorable words of Jesus Christ : " For I have given you an example, that as I have done to you, so you do also." If Jesus so humbled Himself as to wash the feet of His disciples, we ought to humble ourselves as far, at least, as to forgive our enemies : since Jesus did all for us, we ought to do something for Him. Finally, let us im- press deeply on our minds those words of our Lord, " I have given you an example, that as I have done to you, so you do also." Could a king ask less of his subjects ? Could a captain ask less of his soldiers % Could a master ask less of his servants % And this is all that Jesus asks of us — to follow His example. "If you know these things, you shall be blessed if you do them" (St. John xiii. 17). MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. CONSIDERATION XI. Jesus Christ predicts the Perfidy of Judas. " And whilst they were eating, He said : Amen I say to you, that one of you is about to betray Me. And they being very much troubled, began every one to say : Is it I, Lord ? " — St. Matt. xxvi. 21, 22. First Point. r I ^HE Divine Master had scarcely ended His sublime -■- discourse on humility and fraternal charity, when His countenance underwent a sudden change ; a change which was not caused by fear, but by a feeling of intense anguish. Turning to His apostles, He said, " Amen I say to yon, that one of you is about to betray Me." And appropriating to Himself the words of the Royal Psalm- ist, He may, perhaps, have addded : " If an enemy of mine had cursed Me, I could have borne it in peace. But that a disciple of Mine, one whom I have chosen as a coadjutor in the work of the salvation of mankind ; one who has always lived in harmony with Me, and has so often heard from My lips the words of eternal life ; one who has often broken bread with Me at My table, and witnessed so many of My miracles ; one who has received from Me power to perform even greater wonders than I have wrought, and who has been benefited by Me in every way — that this ingrate should now have the in- famous courage to conspire against Me, and is now await- ing a favorable opportunity to betray Me into the hands JESUS PREDICTS THE PERFIDY OF JUDAS. 69 of My bitter enemies — this, this it is that afflicts Me most profoundly." Some expositors of the sacred text maintain that when Jesus had spoken thus He turned His eyes upon Judas to observe whether His divine words had gone home to the traitor's heart, and whether the poor wretch would show any sign of sorrow and re- pentance. Our loving Saviour still wished to encourage Jul as to have confidence in the infinite mercy of God, and not to fear the wrathful effects of His terrible justice. Seeing, however, that the unfaithful disciple still remained obdurate, and that he was deaf to all those tender appeals and insensible to the stings of his guilty conscience, Jesus passed from words of gentle rebuke to the utter- ance of this awful menace : " Woe to that man by whom the Son of man shall be betrayed ! It were better for him if that man had not been born." These terrible words were designed not only to reproach Judas with the enormity of his crime, but also to arouse in him a salu- tary fear of eternal torments, in order that he might, perhaps, be led to repentance. Upon hearing this awful menace of Jesus Christ the apostles were filled with a great fear. But, excepting Judas, each had the testimony of a good conscience and persisted in considering as not addressed to himself the words which the Master had ottered. Jesus had spoken too plainly to be misunder- stood ; all the disciples knew at once that a traitor was in their midst. They became very sad, and, wishing to be exonerated from suspicion, they began one after another to question the Master, saying, "Is it I, Lord?" The eleven faithful apostles were conscious of their innocence; but they had learned from the teachings of Christ that, on account of the frailty of human nature, man is fickle and , moved from even his firmest resolutions. Hence 70 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. they deeply distrusted their own strength and questioned, " Is it I, Lord ? " They feared lest they might perpetrate a crime of which they had never even thought. This conduct of our Lord towards Judas furnishes us with a grand and sublime example of the solicitude of Jesus for the conversion of sinners. How many inspira- tions and graces, how many examples and admonitions, does He not give us to induce us to return to Him ! A mother has not so much anxiety for her darling child who lies dangerously ill, as God has for the salvation of o'ur souls. If, then, we do not correspond to this most tender and loving solicitude, we shall be alone to blame for our eternal perdition. Second Point. Our Holy Redeemer saw that neither His secret ad- monitions nor His public menaces made any impression on the mind of Judas; and knowing that the other apostles were suffering for the evil intentions of that one man, He resumed His usual kindly manner, and, in order to relieve their anxiety, thus addressed them : " My dear children, let not what I have said sadden your hearts, for I did not speak of all. I know those whom I have elected to the apostolate, and I see in your hearts the horror which you entertain for the terrible crime of My betrayal. I know that eleven of My disciples are faithful, and that there is only one traitor among us. I foresaw, indeed, the ingratitude and perfidy of this apostate disciple from all eternity. I foresaw, also, that his divine call to the apostolate, together with all the num- berless graces and favors which he was destined to re- ceive, would not cause his conversion : yet I did not ex- JESUS PREDICTS THE PERFIDY OF JUDAS. 71 elude him, but I called him to follow Me, in order that the prophecies concerning Me might be accomplished." Thus Jesus spoke — so expositors of the Sacred Scriptures teach — for the purpose of calming the minds of His dearly beloved disciples, and also of affording the Iscariot another opportunity to reflect and repent. It is to be noticed that Jesus had so far never once mentioned the name of His betrayer. Our Lord observed this divinely noble reticence in order to save the reputa- tion which Judas enjoyed among his colleagues and be- fore the public. But the wretch obstinately persisted in his iniquity, remaining insensible to the loving rebukes as well as to the terrible menaces of Jesus. Father Euthemius, commenting on the terrible obsti- nacy of Judas Iscariot, takes occasion to reproach those sinners who, to extenuate their offences, attempt to main- tain that they are driven into sin by the natural perver- sity of human nature, and that they are actually pre- destined to offend God. Such men exonerate Judas from all sin, because, say they, it had been decreed from all eternity that he was to be guilty of this heinous treach- ery to his Divine Master. "We answer: The foreknowl- edge which God had of Judas' sin did not cause its com- mission. Judas, without any compulsion, but by an abuse of his free will, was, in time, to perpetrate the sin, and the omniscient God foreknew it from all eternity. Thus, though in the order of time Judas' sin was posterior to God's foreknowledge of it, in the order of reason it was anterior; or, in other words, God's foreknowledge of Judas' crime was not the cause of its commission, but the commission of the crime was the cause of God's fore- knowledge of it. We must bear in mind that God does not compel any one to be good or bad. He has given 72 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. each of us a free will, and during our life He bestows on us numberless graces to enable us to use our will rightly and attain salvation. Those, therefore, who abuse this gift of free will, as Judas did, become doubly guilty : first, by yielding to their evil inclinations ; secondly, by not corresponding to the graces which God gives them. Let us pause for a moment to consider what divine favors had been bestowed on Judas. First, he was called to the apostolate that he might be convinced of the divin- ity of Jesus Christ and have less temptation to betray Him. Secondly, he was appointed treasurer of the alms received for the support of our Lord and the apostles, that, being so distinguished, he might have stronger motives fur remaining faithful to his Divine Master. Thirdly, he was given the power of performing miracles, in order that, considering his great and sublime dignity, he might not be led to commit so detestable a crime as treachery. Fourthly, he was given more graces than any other of the apostles, so that he might have more strength to resist his depraved inclinations. To conclude, let us reflect that God wishes all men to be saved, and gives them graces sufficient to work out their salvation. He has given us free will that we may have merit for our good works. If we abuse our free will, the fault is ours. Let us, then, ask of God grace to enable us to use our free will rightly, and to persevere unto the end in the performance of good works, never for a moment allowing ourselves to despair of our salvation, but confidently relying on His mercy and placing all our hopes in the merits of Christ's passion and death. JESUS' EFFOETS TO CONVERT JUDAS. 73 CONSIDERATION XII. Our Divine Redeemer tries by every Means to convert Judas. " And Judas that betrayed Him, answering said: Is it I, Kabbi ? He saitb to him : Thou hast said it. " — St. Matt. xxvi. 25. First Point. THE perfidious Judas heard the other apostles ques- tioning their Master as to who among them was the traitor, and, for fear of being discovered by his colleagues, he also asked, " Is it I, Eabbi ?" Commenting on this effrontery of Judas, an impas- sioned author thus apostrophizes him and inveighs against him: "O wretch! O thief! O hypocrite ! O traitor! O monster of iniquity ! "What ? Tou have already been before the chief priests and ancients of the people ; of your own free will you have offered to deliver your Di- vine Master into the hands of His enemies ! You have already received the thirty pieces of silver, and for the past two days you have been seeking an opportunity to execute your diabolical plot ! You are endeavoring, even now, to leave the supper-room to inform His enemies that He may now be easily arrested, — and yet you dare to ask Him, ' Is it I, Eabbi? ' You know that He is the Man- God who can penetrate the inmost secrets of our hearts, and you have the audacity to ask Him, 'Is it I, Eabbi V You have this very moment heard Him say with all cer- 74 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. tainty that one of His apostles is about to betray Him, and you know too well that He forbore mentioning your name because, in His divine charity, He did not wish to disgrace you before your colleagues and the public. You perceive clearly that He knows your infamous project, — and yet you ask, ' Is it I, Eabbi ? ' O unheard-of inso- lence ! O unparalleled temerity ! But hearken, O Judas ! to the answer which your Divine Master, though shame- fully betrayed by you, deigns to give; and from that answer, Judas, learn whether Jesus deserves to be so in- sultingly treated." Our Divine Lord understood the full import of the Iscariot's question, all its insolence and temerity ; but as He desired the conversion of the traitor, He patiently bore the effrontery and refrained from revealing his name. Considering, however, that further silence might render the fallen disciple more audacious, and impress him with the idea that his secret thoughts were unknown — an idea which would cause him to hurry on to the consummation of his crime — Jesus made known to Judas that He was aware of all by answering, " Thou hast said it," which was equivalent to saying, "Yes; you are the very one that has determined to betray Me, to sell Me to My bitter enemies." The interpreters of Holy Scripture are of the opinion that Jesus spoke these words to Judas in secret. The Evangelist does not say whether the answer given by Jesus was heard by the other apostles. St. Peter, who had a great desire to know who the traitor was, requested St. John, the beloved disciple, to question the Master. John, therefore, who was " leaning on the breast of Jesus, saith to Him : Lord, who is it ? Jesus answered : He it is to whom I shall reach bread dipped. And when He had JESUS' EFFORTS TO CONVERT JUDAS. 75 dipped the bread, He gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. And after the morsel, Satan entered into him. And Jesus said to him : That which thou dost, do quickly. Now no man at the table knew to what purpose He said this unto him" (St. John xiii. 25-28). It is evident, therefore, that the apostles, John only excepted, knew nothing of Judas' treason. But not even this sublimely charitable reticence of Christ was sufficient to soften the traitor's heart. We should pause here and meditate on the great ten- derness which Jesus manifested towards His faithless apostle, and also on the obduracy shown by the latter. The one should encourage, the other affright us. Let us, therefore, resolve to govern our conduct by these two principles, — confidence in God, diffidence in self. Ob- serving these, we shall infallibly arrive at the kingdom of God. Second Point. Our Holy Eedeemer whispered only two words into the ear of His faithless disciple, " Tu dixiMi" — '"Thou hast said it." But how many words of holy inspiration, how many gentle words of invitation to repentance, did He not secretly address to the heart of the traitor? The spoken words of Jesus can be found in the holy Gospel ; and some knowledge of the import of His secret addresses may be obtained from the Fathers of the Church, and from devout contemplators on the sufferings of Jesus. These holy writers ascribe to our Saviour words of most tender and loving appeal, such as only a consideration of the immensity of God's love can render credible. Thus does one writer make Jesus speak : " My beloved disciple, tell Me what crime have I com- 76 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. mitted which causes you to deliver Me into the hands of My bitter enemies % What have I done to you, or in what have I displeased you ? I have chosen you in pref- erence to many others to be one of My apostles; I have conferred on you the power of working miracles ; I have distinguished you among the twelve by appointing you treasurer and administrator of the alms given us by the faithful for our support and the needs of the poor ; I have never asked you to render an account of your administra- tion of the affairs of that office, for I have always placed confidence in you-and now do you betray Me in return for all these benefits? O Judas! Judas, My beloved disciple, pause and consider whether I deserve to be treated so ungratefully. Remember, Judas, that I have loved you well and tenderly; and I still love you with all My heart. I ask nothing of you but that you love Me in return. I desire only your eternal salvation. For your salvation I came down from heaven and became man, and for yon I am soon to shed the last drop of My blood. I wish you to share in the traits of My bitter passion. I am still your dear Master, though you have forgotten to be My disciple. Be converted, and I promise that I will f oro-et all. I will remember nothing but your docility to My call. Tour fault thall meet with My tenderest com- passion. Remember that I do not wish the death of the sinner, but that he be converted and live. " O Judas ! Judas, it is not your Judge that now speaks to you, but your Redeemer; it is not the God of ven- geance, but the Father of Mercies who calls you. Hearken to His loving voice ; withdraw from the path of iniquity upon which you have entered, and in which, if you con- tinue, you must surely perish. Do not turn a deaf ear to My merciful call. Do not harden your heart, nor de- JESUS' EFFORTS TO CONVERT JUDAS. 77 spi.se My holy grace. Quit your blind rage, and return to the path of virtue : it is divine clemency itself that calls you, that knocks at the door of your heart, to invite you to a new life." Leo L, surnamed the Great, penetrated by a deep sense of the goodness manifested by our Divine Lord in His relations with Judas, thus apostrophizes the traitor, and explains at the same time the reason of his obduracy : " Why, unhappy Judas, do you not avail yourself of the goodness of your merciful Kedeemer? Why do you not give, at least, a sign of interior repentance ? Alas ! the reason is only too plain," continues St. Leo ; " Judas, who had ever been tardy in corresponding to divine grace, has now become deaf and dumb to the heavenly call. It is not the first time that Jesus speaks to his heart : Judas has habitually rejected divine grace, and now he is insen- sible to the mercies of heaven." For strong reasons, then, have the holy Fathers of the Church occupied themselves in showing the great solici- tude of our Saviour for the conversion of Judas. Their purpose was to encourage sinners to rely on the mercy of God, and never despair, no matter how grievous or nu- merous their sins might be ; for if the divine mercy was great towards Judas, it is equally great towards us. Encouraged, therefore, by the infinite goodness of our most amiable Redeemer, let us prostrate ourselves at His feet ; and, detesting all our past sins from the bottom of our hearts, let us make a firm resolution nevermore to offend Him. 78 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. CONSIDERATION XIII. Jesus institutes the Most August Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. "Jesus knowing that His hour was come that He should pass out of this world to the Father: having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them unto the end."— 8t. John xiii. 1. First Point. ST. JOHN the Evangelist tells ns that Jesus, knowing that the hour for His departure from this world was at hand, resolved that the same tender, ceaseless love which He had always shown towards His disciples during His missionary career should shine out most resplen- dency in the last sad parting hour. The Eternal Father had subjected all things to the will of His beloved Son. Jesus, therefore, lifting up His eyes to heaven, thanked His Eternal Father for having conferred this unlimited power on Him even as man. Then taking bread, He blessed, broke, and gave it to His disciples, saying : " Take ye, and eat : this is My body." Then " taking the chal- ice, He gave thanks, and gave to them, saying : Drink ye all of this. For this is My blood of the New Testament which shall be shed for many unto the remission of sins." Such were the words of our Divine Redeemer ; words few and brief, but, as we know them in the Church of God, they are full of the deepest meaning. Interpreted in the light of Catholic doctrine, these words of Jesus THE SACRAMENT OP THE HOLY EUCHARIST. 79 may thus be paraphrased : " I have instituted this august Sacrament, not only for the Church's spiritual benefit, but also for your spiritual comfort ; therefore, I grant you power to renew it every day. You have seen what I did, — do ye also the same. I will descend from heaven whenever you utter the words of consecration. I will place myself at your disposal, that you may dispense Me to the faithful as spiritual food, and that you may keep Me on your altars and have recourse to Me in your spirit- ual and temporal needs. I will remain with you in this most venerable Sacrament until the consummation of the world, to comfort and strengthen you in the faith, and to help you to walk on courageously and perseveringly in the rough road of the cross. I give you one command- ment, however : whenever you shall make this august Sacrament, you shall do so in commemoration of Me. I require only this of you, and I require it as an attesta- tion of your gratitude for the benefits conferred on you in this holy Sacrament." Could our Lord do more for our spiritual interests, and ask less from us in return ? Before passing to a further consideration of this great act of our Saviour's love, let us try to enter into the sentiments which must have animated Him on this solemn occasion. Let us imagine that we see Him, His divine countenance all radiant, and that we hear issuing from His sacred lips this touching address : " My beloved disciples, I am at the end of My days, but I have not yet exhausted the treasures of My love and mercy. I can give no greater proof of My love than to die for the salvation of mankind: that proof I will to-morrow give you by sacrificing Myself to the Eternal Father to satisfy His justice. Learn, then, how great is My love for men, and how dear to Me is their 80 MEDITATIONS ON" THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. eternal salvation. But My charity does not stop here: it shall overleap the boundaries of death. Yes, on the very eve of My crucifixion, I have found a means which shall enable Me to remain among men even to the con- summation of the world. In this holy Sacrament I shall dwell in their midst to hear their prayers, to console them in their sorrows, and to succor them in the trials and difficulties of their daily life. You, therefore, whom I have chosen for My disciples, announce to all men how much I have loved them ; encourage them to have con- fidence in the merits of My passion ; encourage them to have recourse to Me in their necessities, and I will hear and grant their petitions. These are the sentiments which fill my heart in these closing hours of My mortal life. But there is one thing which I demand of you in particu- lar, and of all men in general, in return for My great love, and it is this : that you constantly remember how much I have suffered for you. If you will but keep this faithful remembrance of My sufferings, I shall consider My love sufficiently rewarded. Alas ! I foresee that from the greater number of Christians I shall not receive even this poor boon of grateful remembrance. Nevertheless, I will never cease to love and benefit them ; I will never ignore their tears nor reject their repentance. Sinners shall always find Me present on their altars, ready to embrace them and grant their petitions. I came down from heaven to bring, not the just, but sinners, to repent- ance. For the sake of sinners I became man; for their sake I have led a life of suffering and anguish ; for their sake I am going to die to-morrow on the cross, and for their sake I wish to remain on earth after My death." These expressions are far too weak to convey any ade- quate idea of the love which Jesus Christ manifested for THE SACRAMENT OF THE HOLY EUCHARIST. 81 us in the institution of the Blessed Sacrament. But let us endeavor to make up for the feebleness of our expres- sions by the fervor and constancy of our devotion to Jesus ever present on our altars. Second Point. No holy Father, no expositor of Holy Scripture, no devout author, can find words to express adequately the grandeur, the sublimity of this most august Sacrament. The angels of heaven cover their faces in reverence be- fore it, and humble themselves to the very ground to worship a mystery so great, so sublime. No one could have imagined the possibility of so great a mystery, had not Jesus Christ Himself revealed it. There are, there- fore, no words to express the excellence of this Sacra- ment. Only a profound meditation can give us an idea of it — an idea so faint, however, as to be as far from the truth as the finite is from the infinite, the creature from the creator. Nevertheless, though there are not words adequate to express what should be our piety and zeal in view of the great benefits conferred on us in the Blessed Sacrament, yet we should avail ourselves of the best means at our disposal to awaken in our hearts a proper appreciation of its blessings. To this end, therefore, let us recall the words of the holy Fathers on the subject of the Blessed En diarist. St. Augustine says that God, all omnipotent as He is, is Dot able to bestow on us any greater favor, and that in the institution of this Sacrament He exhausted all the treasures of His omnipotence. For what more had God to give after He had given Himself? "What greater gift than the gift of Himself 'I 6 82 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. " O admirable mystery !" exclaims Venerable John Tauler, " O sublime Sacrament ! O ineffable love ! O un- heard-of generosity ! The Donor is Himself the gift ; the servant nourishes himself with the person of his Master ; the domestic sits at the table of the King of Glory and partakes of His royal flesh ; man eats of the bread of angels ; the Eternal Father divides among His servants the body of His only-begotten Son, and gives them that Son's most precious blood to drink ! But what intellect shall ever comprehend the profound mysteries of this admirable Sacrament?" " O wonderful supper," says St. Bonaventure, " at which so many wondrous things were wrought by the hand of Omnipotence! This was the last supper, O my most amiable Jesus, that Thou wast to eat with Thy apostles, and Thou wast soon to depart from this world. At this last supper Thy charity inspired Thee to work many admirable wonders. But the greatest of all was the institution of the august Sacrament of the Altar, by which Thou hast left us forever a sweet and precious re- minder of Thy passion and death." " 2so Sacrament," says the Angelic Doctor St. Thomas, " is more salutary than this. By it sins are blotted out, virtues are increased, and the soul is enriched with an abundance of all spiritual graces. While in the other sacraments only grace is received, in the Eucharist the very Author of grace is received ; and when God becomes one with me, what more have I to desire?" The fruit of this consideration should be a firm resolu- tion to approach the Eueharistic table frequently with the greatest respect and most profound veneration, acknowl- edging ourselves unworthy of this great and sublime Sacrament, but still reposing all our confidence in the THE SACRAMENT OF THE HOLY EUCHARIST. 83 merits of Jesus Christ. Let us, therefore, prostrate our- selves at the feet of Jesus, and say to Him more with the heart than with the lips : " What is man that Thou art mindful of him % or the son of man that Thou visitest him ? Thou hast made him a little less than the Angels ; Thou hast crowned him with glory and honor: and hast set him over the works of Thy hands. Thou hast subjected all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen ; moreover the beasts also of the field. The birds of the air, and the fishes of the sea, that pass through the paths of the sea. O Lord, our Lord, how admirable is Thy name in all the earth !" But all that Thou hadst done did not satisfy Thy love ; for man Thou didst still do more. For him Thou didst take a human soul and body in the pure womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary ; for him Thou didst subject Thyself to all the pains of in- fancy; for him Thou didst lead a life of hardship, priva- tion, and persecution ; finally, for him Thou didst shed the last drop of Thy most precious blood on the cross, — and what more could remain for Thee to do? It seems that all the treasures of Thy love should have been ex- hausted on Mount Calvary. But no; before ascending the sacred wood of the cross Thou didst consider that Thou wast about to immolate only Thy body for the expiation of our sins, and that Thy soul and divinity still remained to Thee. Thou didst wish to bestow these also upon us, and therefore Thou didst institute the most august Sacrament of the Eucharist. Great God! Quid est homo quia magnijicas eum? 84 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. w ] CONSIDERATION XIV. Sermon of Jesus Christ after the Institution of the Blessed Sacrament. "Little children, yet a little while I am with you."— St. John xiii. 33. First Point. "HEN Judas Iscariot had gone out of the supper- room, Jesus Christ, who knew well where the unhappy apostle was to betake himself, heaved a deep sigh and exclaimed, "Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in Him." This glory, however, was to Jesus a source of anguish, because it had come to Him through the loss of a beloved disciple for whose conver- sion He had exhausted, as it were, all the treasures of His mercy. Then Jesus turned towards the eleven ; and as a tender friend when setting out on a long journey af- fectionately bids farewell to his clear ones, or as a dying father gathers his beloved children around his bed to convey to them his last wishes, so does the Merciful Redeemer who, foreseeing the hour of His approaching sacrifice, thus addresses His apostles : " ' Little children, yet a little while I am with you.' But the hour of My departure is at hand, and I go where you cannot come at present. As it is the parting hour, hear My last paternal injunctions, and impress them on your hearts, for they are given by the most tender of Fathers in the last JESUS' SERMON AFTER THE LAST SUPPER. 85 moments of His mortal life." Then Jesus said : " The first and most important command which I give you is that of charity. Dear children, love one another with that sincere affection with which I have loved you. By this love the world shall know that you are My disciples. This love shall be the mark of My true followers, the character by which the children of the Gospel shall be distinguished from the children of the world. " Let not your hearts be troubled as you hear that I am about to leave you, because though where I go you can- not come at present, still the time will come when you also shall follow Me. I go before you to prepare you a place, and when it shall have been prepared I will come again and take you with Me. The words which I speak to you are not Mine, but they are suggested to Me by My Father. " If you do not believe in Me, believe in My works ; be- lieve in the miracles which you have seen wrought by My hands — miracles of such a nature that they surpass all human power. As to those who will believe in Me, they, too, shall perform miracles, and even greater ones than I have performed, if they only ask the power from My Heavenly Father in My name. For whatever you ask the Father in My name, it shall be granted unto yon, that the Father may be glorified in His Son. If then it is true that you love Me, keep My commandments ; and I will ask the Father, and He will send you the Paraclete, who shall remain with you forever. The Paraclete shall be the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees nor knows Him ; but you shall receive and recognize Him, because He shall abide with you and within you. Be, therefore, of good heart ; for though I am going away, yet I will not leave you 86 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. orphans. The Holy Spirit who shall come after Me shall be a father to you. He shall explain to you all these great mysteries which you do not at present understand, and He will give you proofs of all the doctrines which I have preached to you. Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you : not as the world giveth, do I give unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid. You have heard that I said to you : ' I go away, and I come unto yon. If you loved Me, you would, indeed, be glad, because I go to the Father : for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it came to pass : that when it shall come to pass you may believe.' " Such was the sublime and ever-memorable discourse pronounced by our Divine Redeemer after the Last Sup- per ; a discourse from which we should draw these three great lessons : First, that it is a strict duty incumbent upon us all to observe the great precept of charity, if we would be recognized as true followers of Jesus Christ. Second, that the observance of the commandments is of the utmost importance, if we wish to enter the kingdom of heaven. Third, that prayer is necessary in order to obtain from the Eternal Father grace to work out our salvation. Second Point. During the delivery of His affectionate farewell to His disciples, our Lord was frequently interrupted by them. Upon hearing the Master say, " Whither I go thou canst not follow Me now, but thou shalt follow hereafter," Peter, with a fervor quite peculiar to himself, exclaimed, " Why cannot I follow Thee now % I will lay down My life for thee." Jesus answered : " Wilt thou lay down thy life for Me ? Amen, amen I say to thee, the cock JESUS' SERMON AFTER THE LAST SUPPER. 87 shall not crow till thou deny Me thrice." St. Thomas, also, hearing Jesus say, " And whither I go you know, and the way you know," replied at once, " Lord, we know not whither Thou goest ; and how can we know the way ?" Jesus made answer thus : "lam the way, the truth, and the life. ~No man cometh to the Father but by Me." " Lord, show us the Father and it shall be enough for us," immediately rejoined St. Philip, to whom Jesus re- p]ied, " Philip, he that seeth Me seeth the Father also." From these questions of the apostles, as well as from the replies of our Divine Lord, we are enabled to perceive that before the descent of the Holy Ghost the apostles were very ignorant of the truths of faith. Whence we may infer that had we not the light of the same Holy Spirit to guide us to a knowledge of God and His holy mysteries, we should now be in a like ignorance of them. We ought also to learn that we shall go, sooner or later, where our Lord has gone, provided we keep His com- mandments. But if we hear not the divine word and follow the maxims of the world, the Lord will not love us, nor reveal Himself to us, nor lead us to the kingdom of His Eternal Father. It should be observed here that the great promises of our Divine Redeemer, far from making the apostles more fervent in the observance of the sublime maxims which He constantly taught during the three years of His public life, only served to inflame their ambition. For, hearing the Divine Master speak of His kingdom and future glory, and still believing that Jesus was to reign on earth, they ii to dispute among themselves as to which of them ^liould hold the first place in Christ's kingdom. O miser- able human nature ! how frail art thou ? Only a few mo- ments before the apostles had seen Jesus in an humble pos- 88 MEDITATIONS ON" THE SUFE'EEINGS OF CHRIST. ture washing their feet ; they had jnst received the Holy Eu- charist ; they had just been ordained priests, even the first bishops of the Xew Law ; they had just heard from the lips of Jesus words of eternal life ; they had just been assured by Him that His last hour was at hand, and that His enemies were soon to crucify Him : and instead of gather- ing around their Divine Master to console Him, they began to dispute among themselves. And their dispute, after all the lessons of humility given at the Last Supper, was about what ? " There was a strife among them," the Scripture tells us, " which of them should seem to be the greater." But let us hear how our Lord ended the dispute. " The kings of the gentiles," said Christ, " lord it over them ; and they that have power over them are called benefi- cent. But you not so : but he that is the greater among you, let him become as the younger ; and he that is the leader, as he that serveth. For which is greater, he that sitteth at table or he that serveth ? Is it not he that sitteth at table ? But I am in the midst of you, as he that serveth." Those words of Jesus were equivalent to these : " I have humbled Myself so far as to assume human nature ; I have even washed your feet ; I have practised mortifications and humiliations of every kind ; and if you would be My disciples, you should certainly imitate My example." Thus Jesus ended His sublime lesson on humility, the foundation of all virtues. Let us, therefore, resolve to practise this great virtue in imitation of our Divine Lord, that we may daily become more pleasing in His sight. JESUS CHRIST LEAVES THE SUPPER-ROOM. 89 CONSIDEKATION XV. Jesus Christ leaves the Supper-room. " And a hymn being said, they went out unto Mount Olivet." St. Matthew xxvi. 80. First Point. r I ^HE darkness of night had already enveloped the -*- earth, and Judas had gone to the chief priests and ancients of the people to instruct them how they might capture his Divine Master. Far from wishing to avoid death, Jesus desired rather to hasten the hour of its ap- proach, and, arising from the table, He resolved to leave the supper-room, and also the city, to prepare Himself in some solitary place for the great sacrifice of Calvary. He, therefore, thanked the owner of the house for the courteous hospitality which had been tendered to Him- self and His disciples, and, having sung a hymn of thanksgiving to the Eternal Father, Jesus, accompanied by the eleven, departed from the city. They passed out through the gate of Mount Sion, and descending the hill, proceeded to Mount Olivet. On the si^e of this mount was the Garden of Gethsemani, into which Jesus, when visiting Jerusalem, was accustomed to retire frequently to pray. To this garden He now repaired : " And a hymn being said, they went out unto Mount Olivet." The reason why our Lord left the supper-room was, perhaps, this: He was desirous of saving His charitable host from the molestations to which the soldiery would certainly subject that person whom they should find en- 90 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. tertaining the very one whose capture they desired to effect. As to the Redeemer's reason for departing from Jerusalem, Theophylactus tells us that it was to prevent a tumult which would certainly arise among the people should they be permitted to witness the infamous method adopted to accomplish our Lord's capture. Several rea- sons are assigned for His repairing to Mount Olivet, and to that very spot where lay the Garden of Gethsemani. St. Jerome says that as Jesus was to ascend into heaven from the summit of this mountain, so He wished to watch, pray, and be captured on this mountain ; thus clearly in- timating that prayers, vigils, and humiliations are so many rungs of the mystic ladder of perfection, by which alone man can hope to ascend above the stars and reach his heavenly home. Venerable Bede tells us that the garden was the place where Jesus frequently retired at night to pray ; and as this fact was well known to the Jews, and especially to Judas, who had often and often been His companion during those holy vigils, our Lord deemed that by seeking again the shades of Gethsemani He was choosing a spot most favorable to the success of His ene- mies' attempts to find and capture Him. Jesus wished all to perceive that He had no fears, and that, far from trying to avoid death, He went willingly forth to meet it. Others maintain that as the fall of the human race began in a garden, so Jesus wished that His sacred passion, which was destined to repair that fatal fall, should also begin in a garden. For these and similar reasons Jesus joyfully advanced towards Mount Olivet, not as one going to meet death, but as one hastening to a banquet. But the more joyful Jesus was, the more sorrowful His apostles were. Con- vinced at last that this was, indeed, their Master's last night on earth, they walked along with bowed heads, JESUS CHRIST LEAVES THE SUPPER-ROOM. 91 painfully brooding over the irreparable loss which, they were about to sustain. Methinks, too, that on that lonely journey the apostles must have been vying with one an- other in the desire of drawing near to our Lord, and of offering Him words of sympathy and consolation. But such was their sorrow that no one dared to speak, and they pursued their way in silence. Jesus, however, did not remain silent, but availed Himself of these last mo- ments to speak to His disciples words of most heavenly wisdom. These will furnish abundant matter for medi- tation under the second point of this consideration. Tor the present let us pause a moment and bring up before our minds a vivid picture of our Lord and His apostles pursuing their lonely journey to Mount Olivet. Let us reflect that the apostles are not accompanying their Master now as they often accompanied Him in days past to some great city or castle, there to witness Him per- forming some wonderful miracle, or to hear Him preach- ing the word of eternal life. They are going with Him to the place of sacrifice. Let us in spirit join this holy company as they journey to Olivet. In this pious state of mind we shall experience abundant spiritual consola- tions, for Jesus will not fail to inspire us with holy affec- Second Point. The apostles, then, closing in lovingly around our Lord, were beginning to descend the hill of Sion, when Jesus thus addressed them : " My dear disciples, you are the tender branches of a rich vine ; I am the rich vine to which you are united as branches. Now as the branch that is lopped from the vine soon withers and dies, so you, if you separate yourselves from Me, shall be able to perform no work worthy of eternal life. On the other 92 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. hand, as long as you shall observe My commands and re- main united to Me in the bonds of faith and charity, so long shall My Father have you in His holy keeping and bestow on you all the treasures of His grace. But if you abandon Me, then also shall My Father abandon you. Eemain steadfast, therefore, in the faith, and love one another as I have loved you. " Behold, I now no longer call you servants, but friends ; and I treat you as friends — intimate friends ; for a servant knows not the affairs of his master, while I have admitted you to a knowledge of all those things which I have heard from My Father. " You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you and commissioned you to go forth and produce much fruit, and your fruit shall remain. The world, indeed, may persecute you ; but let not your souls be sad on this ac- count, but rejoice rather at seeing yourselves treated as I have been. As I have already told you, the servant is not greater than his master, nor the ambassador greater than the king that sends him. If I, then, who am the Lord of heaven and earth, and your Master, have been insulted, calumniated, spit upon ; if I, your Master, shall soon be loaded with chains, led as a malefactor from court to court, there to be insulted, spit upon, derided, scourged, and finally nailed to a cross,— if I am so treated during My mortal life, you, who are My disciples, cannot expect better treatment. " If you were of the world, the world would love you ; but because you are My disciples it will hate and persecute you. But do not let your courage fail ; fight on bravely with the arms of faith aud patience, confiding in the strength of My grace and omnipotence. Remember that, though crucified, dead, and buried, I shall not cease to be what I am, the omnipotent God to whom all things are JESUS CHRIST LEAVES THE SUPPER-ROOM. 93 subject and nothing is impossible. You, indeed, shall lament and weep because of these persecutions for My name's sake, while the world shall rejoice ; but rest as- sured, My dear disciples, that your sorrows shall be turned into joy, and the world's joy shall be turned into sorrow. " Lo, I have foretold you all things, that, when they shall happen, they may not surprise you nor make you waver in your faith. And I have yet many things to say to you, but your minds are not prepared to hear them. But when the Holy Spirit is come, He will teach you all truth, illuminating your minds and fully fitting you to discharge all the high duties of your sacred ministry. Do ye, meanwhile, prepare yourselves by fervent prayer and rigorous fasting for the reception of this Holy Spirit ; and when you shall have received Him, you shall find yourselves changed, as it were, into other men. Such shall be the grace with which your souls shall abound, that you shall be able to do and suffer all things for the honor and glory of God." Thus ended the discourse which Jesus delivered to His apostles as they moved on to Olivet. If we would profit by its sacred teachings, we should consider its every word as addressed to ourselves. Let us ever remember, then, that as long as we remain in union with God, so long He remains in union with us ; " and if God be with us, who shall be against us V If the world persecutes us, let us remember that it persecuted Christ also. Let us remem- ber that if the world hates us, it is a sign that we are not of the world ; and that not to be of the world is to be of the number of the elect. Finally, let us remember that if we only have a little patience our tears shall cease and onr Borrow shall be turned into joy, according to the promise cf llim wliu.se words are eternal truth. 94 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. CONSIDEEATION XYI. Jesus Christ predicts the Flight of the Apostles and the Triple Denial of Peter. " Behold, the hour eometh. and it is now come, that you shall be scattered every man to his own, and shall leave Me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.'' — St. John xxi. 32. FlEST POIXT. TESUS was, meanwhile, drawing nearer and nearer to ^ the Garden of Gethsemani. Kn owing how short was the time that remained for Him to converse with His beloved disciples, He ceased not to instruct them, by both word and example, concerning those tilings which He deemed best adapted to promote their spiritual advance- ment. Therefore, He dwelt especially on the virtue of humility, on the propriety of always having a pious diffidence in one's own strength, and on the necessity of having recourse to God by means of prayer, especially in the hour of temptation. The Divine Master had often taught those same lessons, but the apostles, thus far, had derived but little or no profit from them. They had not yet received the Holy Ghost, and therefore, though in- structed in the school of the Incarnate Wisdom, they were still only rude fishermen, ever attached to their own opinions and ambitious of worldly honors. They had not been reared amid the grandeur and riches of the world, yet they found it very difficult to submit to the JESUS PREDICTS THE APOSTLES' FLIGHT. 95 requirements of self-denial, the humility of the Gospel, and the doctrine of the cross. Thus on that very night when Jesus foretold how imminent was His passion, even while He was speaking to them on the subject of human frailty and urging them to have recourse to God for help, the apostles thought themselves unconquerable, and unanimously protested that they were willing to give up their lives for their Divine Master. On account of a fervor which was the happy effect of the Holy Com- munion which they had received that night, they thus rashly relied on themselves. But Jesus, who knew what was to happen in a few hours, said to them : "My dear disciples, you now follow Me and confess that I am the Son of God, because you have had strong evidences of My divinity in the numerous miracles which you have seen Me perform by My own power. You have seen Me give sight to the blind, restore health to the sick, make the lame walk, and raise the dead to life. But when you shall behold Me a prisoner, bound like a malefactor, dragged before judges, and afterwards condemned to a most disgraceful death, you will waver in your faith and be greatly scandalized in Me. Alas ! not only will your faith waver, but you will abandon Me and leave Me in 'the hands of My bitter enemies. Yet I shall not be entirely forsaken, for My heavenly Father will be with Me; and assisted by Him, I shall have sufficient strength nffer the ingratitude of your abandonment, the insults of My enemies, and the disgraceful and cruel death of the cross." Venerable Bede tells us that Jesus thus predicted the flight of the disciples, not for the purpose of rebuking them for their weakness and infidelity, but in order that after the commission of the crime they should not despair 96 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. of His mercy, but immediately seek God again through penance. Therefore, to arouse more and more in His disciples' hearts this confidence in the mercy of God, Jesus added : " But after I shall be risen again, I will go before you into Galilee." This was equivalent to saying : " I shall be made to suffer a most cruel and unjust death ; but when I shall have lain three days in the bosom of the earth, as Jonas was three days in the body of the whale, I shall raise Myself up gloriously from the grave, and, triumphant over death, I shall go before you into Galilee. There we will meet, and you shall then know how truthful are My predictions and My promises." Every word of our Divine Saviour conveys an evidence of His love for us and gives us a lesson for the guidance of our lives. This twofold lesson of the necessity of diffidence in our own strength, and of boundless trust in the mercy of God, is taught us every day, either by the contents of some pious book that we read or by the words of some good sermon that we hear. Sometimes, alas ! it is also taught us by the sad example of once most holy persons whose rash confidence in themselves precipitated them into the gravest disorders. From such unhappy cases we should learn to grow more and more humble. If, at times, we ourselves fall into those excesses which, on other occasions, we so loudly reprove in our neighbors, we should at once have recourse to God. He will not fail to extend His mercy to us, if we promise ever more to be faithful and sincerely ask pardon for our past offences. Before sin is committed, let us tremble at the thought of God's justice ; after it is committed, let us take courage at the thought of His mercy, and immedi- ately have recourse to our amiable Saviour. A contrite and humble heart Jesus will never despise. JESUS PREDICTS THE APOSTLES* FLIGHT. 97 Second Poiht. These last admonitions of Jesus, instead of inducing the apostles to conceive a great diffidence in themselves, seemed only to confirm them the more in the good opin- ion which they entertained of their own strength. St. Peter, in particular, protested his fidelity with great emphasis, saying, " Although all shall be scandalized in Thee, I will never be scandalized." O Peter! Peter, in- stead of praying to thy Divine Master to confirm thy faith, dost thou dare presumptuously to promise that thou wilt never fail ? And dost thou not perceive that thy indiscreet fervor, far from making thee more, only render- eth thee less acceptable in the eyes of God ? Ah ! far better for thee hadst thou cast thyself at thy Master's feet and implored the grace of remaining faithful. But let us hearken to Jesus' reply: "Amen I say to thee, that in this night before the cock crow, thou wilt deny Me thrice." How did Peter act upon hearing this terrible prediction ? Did he throw himself at his Master's feet to ask pardon for his presumption ? Did he, at least, beg for the assistance of divine grace in the great danger which awaited him 1 Did he bewail his presumption in having believed himself to be better than the rest of his brethren, though he was soon to be proved the weakest of all? No; but, as St. Euthimius remarks, the more Jesus Christ affirmed that Peter would deny Him, the more obstinate Peter grew in his presumption. And again Peter passionately exclaimed, " Yea, though I should die with Thee, I will not deny Thee." This terrible presumption of Peter is surprising in one who had so long listened to the teachings of Christ; and it is not at all relieved, but, on the contrary, it appears more shocking from the fact that the other apostles shared 7 98 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. it ; for the Scriptures tell us that they also protested their fidelity: "And in like manner said all the disciples" (St. Matt. xxvi. 35). What happened to the apostles, and especially to St. Peter, on that very night is known to all, and it will furnish abundant matter for reflection in future consider- ations. However, in order to derive some spiritual profit from the present consideration, let us reflect that the apostles were so inflamed with love of Jesus Christ that they would not believe that they could become scandal- ized in him and abandon Him,— they who had seen so many miracles performed by Him ; they who had been for three years under His teaching ; they who had that very night received Communion from His sacred hands. Now, who among us will dare say that he loves God as ardently as the apostles loved their Master ? And if they, notwithstanding all their love— a love a thousand times greater than ours— abandoned Jesus Christ even at the very beginning of His passion, what should we think of ourselves and of on r own strength to resist temptation? Our Divine Lord Himself gives us the answer : " With- out Me you can do nothing." He does not say that we can do something, however little ; but He affirms that we can do nothing whatever without His grace. Let our love be ever so great and fervent, let our life be ever so austere, let our faith be ever so strong and lively, let our hope be ever so firm, let our charity be ever so ardent- it is, and it always will be, true, that without the grace of God we can do nothing. Let us, therefore, be ever dif- fident of our own strength, always placing our confidence in God and shunning carefully every dangerous occasion of sin. Thus we may hope to obtain God's holy grace, without which we can do nothing towards attaining eternal life. JESUS' SADNESS IN THE GARDEN. CONSIDERATION XYII. Sadness of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemani. "Then He saith to them: My soul is sorrowful even unto death: stay you here and watch with Me." — St. Matt. xxvi. 38. First Point. lpAST of Jerusalem, between Mount Olivet and Mount -*— ^ Moria, lies the small but memorable valley of Josa- phat, through which at the time of Jesus a little torrent flowed. Our Holy Redeemer was obliged to cross this valley and pass over the torrent to go to the Garden of Gethsemani, where He was accustomed to retire to pray for the salvation of mankind. This garden was situated on the side of Mount Olivet. It was a kind of park, one part of which was thickly planted with olive-trees, and the other part was laid out as a garden. No wall sur- rounded it, and it was freely accessible to all. Into this garden Jesus entered with His disciples, there to begin His fearful passion. The Redeemer's countenance assumed a sad and thoughtful expression, and He said to His disciples, " Sit ye here while I go yonder and pray." As the apos- tles were taking their seats, Jesus turned to Peter, James, and John, and told them to follow Him. Then with bowed heads and in profound silence these three followed their sorrowful Master into the interior of the park, and towards the place where the trees were thickly planted. 100 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. " And taking with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebe- dee, He began to grow sorrowful and to be sad." Origen alleges two reasons for the choice which Jesus made of those three disciples in preference to the others : first, that they might become convinced, once and for- ever, of their human weakness — a subject to which they were not accustomed to give any attention. For St. Peter, only a little while before, had said that, far from being capable of denying his Master, he would willingly give up his life for Him. St. John and St. James, also, but a few days before, had, with great presumption, pro- tested that they were willing to drink of the bitter chal- ice prepared for Jesus. The Redeemer, therefore, wished those three disciples to be present at His mortal sadness, that they might learn from His example how great is human weakness and how little they should trust their transitory fervor. For if the Son of God at the approach of His painful passion became sad and found strength only by having recourse to God, how much more had the apostles need of prayer to obtain constancy and strength ! Origen's second reason for the Redeemer's choice is this : as Peter, James, and John had witnessed Jesus' glorious transfiguration on Mount Thabor, and had also received proofs of His omnipotence and divinity on the day when He raised the daughter of Jairus at Caphar- naum, so Jesus wished them now to see how weak is humanity when not sustained by the divine hand. As soon as Jesus found Himself in the company of His three chosen disciples and separated from the rest, He gave free vent to His feelings, and, sighing deeply, said : " Oh, if you could see My heart, you would find it immersed in a sea of sadness. I am as one cast out into the midst of the sea, and overwhelmed by the tempest ; the sorrows JESUS' SADNESS IN THE GARDEN. 101 of death surround Me, and the torrents of iniquity trouble Me : ' My soul is sorrowful even unto death.' " My most amiable Jesus, where are those happy days when Thou didst walk upon the waters as if upon the land ? Where are those happy days when every one ran after Thee — the afflicted to be consoled, the infirm to be healed, the blind to be restored to sight, the leprous to be cleansed ? Why, O my Jesus ! why dost Thou seek no consolation for Thyself ? Ah ! it is because Thou art a most amiable Father, and Thou wishest to sacrifice Thyself for Thy be- loved children. Second Point. The sacred expositors of the holy text assign various causes for the mortal agony suffered by our Redeemer in the Garden of Gethsemani. St. Jerome says that Jesus was not afflicted because of the imminence of the hour of His passion, since it was to undergo this passion that He had come into the world. But He suffered on account of the unhappy fate of Judas, on account of the scandal which the other apostles would receive, on account of the blindness and reprobation of the Jewish people, and on account of the destruction that was to come upon the un- fortunate city of Jerusalem over which He had already shed tears. St. Bernardine of Sienna tells us that Jesus was sad- dened principally because He foresaw that, notwithstand- ing His passion and death, many through their own fault would be deprived of the eternal glory of heaven. Father Lewis Navarino says that the Saviour experi- enced fear, fright, and grief in order to alleviate those same feelings in us : for as, if He did not die, He would not subjugate death ; so, if He did not experience fear. 102 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. fright, arid grief, He would not mitigate those emotions in us. St. Cyprian, looking at the subject from another point of view, exclaims : " Who shall not fear, if Jesus Him- self was afraid % "Who shall not tremble, if Jesus Him- self trembled, before Whom every knee must bend ? Who shall not be terrified at the approach of death, if the One who is the death of death and the terror of hell was Himself terrified at death's approach ?" St. Lawrence Justinian in his turn exclaims : " What do I behold, my beloved Lord ? Art Thou sorrowful, and dost Thou really experience fear ? Is He who is the very essence of joy now Himself become sorrowful? Does fortitude tremble ? Does glory suffer tedium ? Is splendor obscured ? Is health become infirmity % Yet I see no armed men. I see no enemies approaching with swords and scourges. Why, therefore, dost Thou fear and tremble, O Lord ? Thou art the great Captain of the Christian militia, and dost Thou tremble? Ah! I know the cause of Thy sorrow. Thou art suffering by antici- pation, not simply for the corporal agony which Thou art about to endure, but Thou art suffering for all that the martyrs must undergo in the future. Thou art stoned with Stephen, crucified with Peter, flayed with Barthol- omew, devoured by wild beasts with Ignatius. These are the true causes of Thy agony." Finally, let us hear the words of the Seraphic Doctor, St. Bonaventure, who thus addresses his agonizing Sav- iour : " O my most amiable Jesus, these words of Thine cause me great surprise, — ' My soul is sorrowful even un- to death.' But why dost Thou fear ? What is the cause of Thy sorrow ? Is it because of Thy impending suffer- ings ? Is it death which Thou fearest ? But was it not JESUS' SADNESS IN THE GARDEN. 103 in order to die that Thou didst become man ? For what reason didst Thou become incarnate in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, if not to destroy by Thy death our eternal death ? What would it avail that Thou becamest man, were the grand object of the Redemption not to be accomplished ? And if Thou didst not, O merciful Jesus, who shall satisfy for my sins 1 Did I not hear Thee say to Judas but a moment ago, ' That which thou dost, do quickly ' ? Then Thou wast impatient to meet death, and now dost Thou seek to avoid it? Ah ! no ; it is not so ; Thou ref usest not to consummate the great sacrifice. I believe rather, O Lord, that, being man, Thou wish- est to subject Thyself to all the human passions, and, therefore, as man Thou fearest death, but as God Thou longest for death ; and Thou art sorrowful because death seems too long in coming. Oh ! the great love of God towards man ! Oh ! the great ingratitude of man towards God !" "Whatever may have been the cause of Jesus' mortal agony in the garden, it conveys to us a great lesson, one which will be especially profitable for us in times of affliction. Docs the thought of death afflict us? The same thought also afflicted Jesus. Does the loss of some dear departed one embitter our remembrance ? Jesus in the garden had to bear up against the bitter remembrance of the loss of Judas. Does the number of our sins ter- rify us? Jesus experienced the same terror. Do mis- fortunes and calamities grieve us? Jesus suffered the same grief. But what did the Eedeemer do in the midst of these sorrows ? He had recourse to His Heavenly Father, and was relieved from them. Let us do likewise in our afflic- tions, and God will relieve us also. 104 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. CONSIDEKATION XVIII. Prayer of Jesus Christ in the Garden of Geth- semani. " Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me; never- theless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt." — St. Matt. xxvi. 39. First Point. A BOUT a stone's throw from the Garden of Geth- -^-*- seinani was a grotto hewn out of the solid rock. The light was admitted into this grotto through a hole in the roof. In this country a custom prevailed of building cisterns for the purpose of holding rain-water. This fact, together with the form of the grotto and the aperture in the top, leads to the inference that it was formerly used as a cistern from which the garden was watered. At the time of our Lord it was old and abandoned, and no longer capable of retaining water, but it afforded the loiterer in the garden a place of refuge in warm or rainy weather. This grotto, now converted into a little chapel, still exists. It is called the Grotto of Agony, on account of the agony and bloody sweat which our Divine Saviour suf- fered there. Ha.ving manifested to His three disciples the profound sadness under which he was laboring, Jesus said to them, " Sit ye here, till I go yonder and pray." And He im- mediately retired into the grotto. The solitude of the place, the darkness of the night, the profound silence of PRAYER OF JESUS IN THE GARDEN. 105 nature, and the imminence of the hour of His capture, — these were circumstances which combined to cause the Saviour to raise His voice in prayer to His Heavenly Father. Before examining the prayer of Jesus, let us, according to the suggestion of Origen, consider that the Divine Master, in separating from the eight disciples, had simply said, " Sit ye here ;" but to Peter, James, and John, who had witnessed His transfiguration on Mount Thabor and were, therefore, reputed stronger than the other apostles, He said, " Stay you here and watch with me ;" which words are thus paraphrased by Cornelius a Lapide : " Stay ye here and look upon your Master in His agony, and see how He has recourse to His Eternal Father. Watch Me, that you may behold the intensity of My sufferings. See into what a state of extreme desolation I am cast, that you may learn how to act in your own future hours of sorrow. Finally, observe Me, and watch with Me, unit- ing your prayers with Mine, that thus you may give Me some little comfort in My sufferings." But Jesus did not receive even this small relief from His disciples. Abandoned by men, our Lord then turned to His Eternal Father. The Seraphic Doctor, St. Bonaventure, puts these words on the lips of the agonizing Saviour : " The chalice of My passion is so filled with bitterness that I dare not press it to My lips. In spirit I see one of My dear disciples, who has sold Me to the chief priests, and advances now at the head of armed men who are coming to make Me prisoner. I see the hatred enter- tained against Me by the Jews, who are thirsting for My blood. I foresee all the persecutions which My beloved disciples will have to undergo for My sake. I foresee the desolation of My beloved Mother when she shall hear 106 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. of My capture and see Me crucified. I already see before Me all the sufferings which I shall have to undergo during the whole course of My bitter passion ; and in the midst of all these persecutions and tortures My courage fails Me, so that I am forced to ask Thee to remove from Me this bitter chalice. Ah ! My Father, grant that with- out My death, death may be destroyed and sin wiped away. Let man at once be redeemed, let hell be con- quered, and the gates of heaven opened : ' My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me ; neverthe- less not as I will, but as Thou wilt.' " Such was the prayer of Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemani ; a prayer short and simple, but which, not- withstanding its brevity and simplicity, conveys many wise lessons for our instruction. Let us, therefore, often meditate on these words : " My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me ; nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt," Second Point. Not only the words, but also the deeds of our Divine Lord should serve as a rule for the conduct of our lives, His every word and action conveying a salutary lesson for our guidance. Let us, therefore, consider the prayer which He made in the Garden of Olives, imme- diately after His agony. But first we should reflect, according to the suggestion of a pious author, that experiencing grief does not imply imperfection, since it is only natural that human nature should bow under the weight of human infirmity. Secondly, we should understand that experiencing great grief at the loss of one's reputation is not necessarily an indication of imperfection, since it is in the maintenance PEAYER OF JESUS IN THE GARDEN. 107 of reputation tbat man's real life chiefly consists. Thirdly, we should consider with the same pious author that fear, sorrow, and annoyance at the troubles and dis- appointments of this life do not constitute imperfection, since Jesus Christ, who was perfection itself, became sad, aye, and sorrowful even unto death, at the sight of the sufferings that He was to undergo. A Man-God became sad ; and shall we, then, who are but dust and ashes, not be allowed to succumb ? It is only natural, therefore, to yield to grief. But to whom should we go in order to assuage it ? Like Jesus, we should have recourse to our Heavenly Father, sub- mitting our will to His, saying, " My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me ; nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt." St. Dionysius Carthusianus, commenting on these words, " Not as I will, but as Thou wilt," says : " Behold how humble, how sweet and affectionate is this prayer. It is, therefore, the very prayer that we should use in our hours of trial and affliction ; because at such times we should humble ourselves before God, ask the graces of which we stand in need, and submit ourselves to His holy will." St. Leo the Great says : " That word of our Head, ' Thy will be done,' is the salvation of the whole body. It is that word which has instructed all the faithful, in- spired the love of all the holy confessors of the faith, crowned all the martyrs, and fortified all the virgins of the Church. Let all the faithful, therefore, learn this sublime and truly divine prayer, so that when they are in any adversity whatsoever, they may overcome it by sub- mission to the holy will of God." At the thought of the Man-God having recourse to 108 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. prayer, St. Lawrence Justinian exclaims: "O man! proud man, what dost thou do ! Art thou stronger than was Christ ? The agonizing Jesus has recourse to prayer, and thou, poor miserable sinner, presumest to suffer with- out deigning to invoke divine aid !" The lesson which we should learn from Christ's example is this,— the necessity of prayer. But it is not sufficient to pray only in time of adversity ; we should pray always, and pray with entire submission to the divine will. Let us expose to our dear Saviour all our wants and miseries ; let us ask not only for salvation, but also for all the tem- poral blessings of which we may stand in need ; let us ask Him for health and for preservation from all the accidents and dangers that surround our daily life. But let us ever make these requests in the spirit of the prayer of Jesus Christ, saying with Him, " Not as I will, but as Thou wilt." THE MOKTAL AGONY OF JESUS. 109 CONSIDEKATION XIX. The Mortal Agony of Jesus Christ. And being in agony, He prayed the more." — 8t. Luke xxih 43. H First Poiht. AYI1STG finished His prayer of wondrous fervor and resignation, and still experiencing no relief in answer to its devout recital, Jesus went out from the grotto to seek some solace for His afflicted spirit in the company of His beloved disciples. But here again He was doomed to disappointment ; for, notwithstanding the fervent injunctions laid upon them to watch and pray in order not to fall into temptation, He found them asleep. He aroused and gently reproached them, saying, " What ! could yon not watch one hour with Me ?" This was as if Jesus had said, "What ! you cannot watch one hour with Me on this night so gloomy and dreadful for Me ? Where now are all your promises of fidelity ? You protested but a moment ago that you would willingly die with Me. Alas! if you could but know the terrible persecutions which menace us this night, you would not thus yield to sleep. Pray, therefore, that you enter not into temp- tation." In order to mitigate in some measure the bitterness of this well-merited reproach, our Lord subjoined, "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh weak;" which was equivalent to saying, " But do not lose courage, My be- 110 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. loved disciples, for I know well how weak is human nature. The spirit indeed is willing, ready to make generous sacrifices, but the flesh is weak and yields easily to even the slightest temptations." Saying this, Jesus returned to the grotto, and with in- creased fervor addressed His prayer again to the Eternal Father. But still no consolation came. Thereupon He sought His beloved disciples once more, and found them again asleep. Leaving them undisturbed, He returned to prayer. But that night the heavens had become as bronze to the prayers and supplications of Jesus. The divinity seemed to have gone out from Him, or rather it was present in Him only to increase the measure of His anguish, by causing the whole series of the sufferings of His passion to pass in dreadful review before His mind. Thus He beheld all the outrages, insults, and torments which the Jews were at that moment preparing for Him. He saw the ropes and chains with which He was soon to be bound in that very garden. He felt the blows and saw the derision to which He was to be subjected in the court of Annas and Caiphas. He beheld the scourges and thorns ready to torture Him in the court of Pilate. He saw the ridicule and insults with which He was to be received in the court of Herod. He saw, too, there be- fore Him the cross, the nails, the hammers, the vinegar and gall, which were to be instruments of His passion on Mount Golgotha. All the sins of the world, past, pres- ent, and future, rose up before Him, and He saw Him- self loaded with their weight and standing as if guilty of them all in the presence of His Eternal Father. He saw how few would save their souls, and how many, notwith- standing all His sufferings, would be lost. He foresaw that one of His apostles would betray Him, that another THE MORTAL AGONY OF JESUS. Ill would deny Him, and that all would abandon Him. He foresaw all the pain, anguish, and affliction that were to come upon His dear Mother, till, overwhelmed at the sight of this dreadful array of suffering and torments, Jesus falls into a mortal agony. A death-like pallor overspreads His divine countenance. He is filled with anguish and terror ; but still collecting His remaining strength, He pours forth to His Eternal Father the same prayer of love and resignation : " O my most loving Father, have pity on Thy Son ! Ah, remove from My spirit the vision of all these horrible torments, and grant that I may not have to drink of this bitter chalice ! But if this chalice may not pass away, but I must drink it, Thy will be done." As Jesus uttered this prayer, His heart seemed to break within His bosom ; the pores of His body opened, and blood oozed forth and came trickling down to the ground, falling so profusely that it soon formed a small stream which ran through the grotto : " And His sweat became as drops of blood trickling down upon the ground " (St* Luke xxii. 44). Second Point. St. Lawrence Justinian, contemplating the agony of Jesus in the garden, breaks out into the following apos- trophe : " Draw near, O Christian soul, to thy agonizing Saviour ; behold how deserving He is of all thy compas- sion. "With the eyes of faith contemplate thy merciful Jesus, the King of heaven and earth, kneeling there in supplication, trembling, agonizing, sweating blood ! Such a sight must surely win from thee the tribute of thy tears ; for how canst thou restrain them on beholding thy God shedding for love of thee not only tears, but also 112 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. blood ? Look upon the merciful Jesus, the Fountain of all good, prostrate on the ground, with pallor on His brow, His heart oppressed with anguish, His limbs bathed in blood, — and then let thy pity be excited, and groan and weep with Jesus in the sorrow of thy heart. Judge, O Christian soul, by Jesus' sweat of blood, how great must be His anguish and how horrible will be His pas- sion ! If, at the consideration of future sufferings, He agonizes, what will He not suffer when He will be cruci- fied ? If so great a sadness takes possession of Thee, O Jesus, at the very beginning of Thy passion, what shall be Thy emotions when Thou wilt be struck, insulted, scourged, crowned with thorns, cursed, blasphemed, and crucified ?" To Jesus, thus immersed in a sea of suffering and sor- row, the Eternal Father was pleased at last to send an angel from heaven to comfort and console Him : " And there appeared to Him an Angel from heaven strengthen- ing Him." It is the opinion of Dionysius Carthusianus and other pious contemplative writers that this angel was the Arch- angel Michael, prince of the heavenly hosts. The above- mentioned writers put these words on the Archangel's lips : " Lord, Thou art now about to liberate mankind from the slavery of hell; the hour of Thy passion, so long announced by the prophets, so anxiously awaited by the souls of the just in Limbo, is at hand. Thou know- est that the redemption of mankind can be accomplished only by Thee. If, therefore, Thou hast this great work at heart, it is necessary for Thee to die the death that has been so long prophesied for Thee." Thus spoke the Archangel, to whom, according to Blessed Bernardine de Busto, Jesus made answer: "I desire the salvation of THE MORTAL AGO^Y OF JESTJ3. 113 man, and, therefore, I accept the most painful death of the cross. 1 ' O incomparable love of Christ, which made Him choose death rather than see the human race con- demned forever ! From this consideration we should learn how to pray. Father Lewis Navarino observes that the angel appeared to Jesus after His prayer, — not that our Lord needed the angel's assistance, He Himself being the consolation of all the afflicted, but that it should not appear that Jesus in His anguish had prayed to His Father in vain. Again, we are taught by the coming of the angel that we, too, should have recourse to prayer in all our necessities, hav- ing confidence that we shall certainly obtain relief, though, by a just decree of Heaven, our tribulations may not at once be removed. Let us ever keep before us the exam- ple of our Divine Master. His prayer was not granted immediately, but He persisted until an angel was sent from heaven to comfort Him. As the Eternal Father consoled Jesus, so also will He console us. "Ash and you shall receive," Jesus said to His disciples. Let us, therefore, ask with confidence, faith, and perseverance, and God will infallibly hear us. 114 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST, CONSIDERATION XX. Jesus is betrayed by Judas, and captured by the Soldiers. "Judas, dost thou betray the Son of man with a kiss?"— St. Luke xxii. 48. First Point. COMFOETED by the Angel's visit, and feeling His strength renewed, Jesus went for the third time to His apostles. Again finding them asleep, He aroused them, saying reproachfully : " Sleep ye now, and take your rest : behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of sinners." Then resuming His usual sweetness of manner, He subjoined : " Rise, let us go : behold, he is at hand that will betray Me." Accompanied by Peter, James, and John, He then proceeded towards the spot where He had left the rest of His disciples. Here He halted to await the arrival of Judas the traitor, who approached with armed soldiery to arrest Him. This wicked disciple, who knew well the place where Jesus was accustomed to pass whole nights in prayer, obtained from the chief priests a band of soldiers, armed with swords, clubs, and ropes, and also one of the servants of the chief priests ; and, placing himself at their head, he led this wicked band, in the silence of the night, from the city of Jerusalem to the Garden of Gethsemani. Some carried torches and lanterns and went on before the multitude ; but all were under the command of Judas, who, previous to leaving the city, had given them a sign BETRAYAL AND CAPTURE OF JESUS. 115 by which they might easily recognize Jesus. He said to them, " Whomsoever I shall kiss, that is He : hold Him fast." Thus equipped for the accomplishment of their nefa- rious designs, the enemies of Jesus approached Geth- semani. Through fear of being discovered they walked in profound silence, but the light of their lanterns and torches gleaming through the foliage of the olive-trees gave the signal of their arrival. Jesus and His disciples saw the lights, and soon caught the sounds of approach- ing footsteps ; but instead of attempting to escape, they advanced to meet their enemies. When they had come face to face, Judas came forth from among his followers, threw his arms around his Master's neck, impressed a kiss upon His sacred brow, and said, " Hail, Eabbi !" The Holy Fathers and other expositors of the sacred text, commenting on this terrible incident in the history of the betrayal of Jesus, express the greatest horror at the enormity of the crime. St. Augustine among others, considering the manner in which it was perpetrated, is filled with a holy indigna- tion, and exclaims : " O sacrilegious sign ! by which war is begun under the appearance of peace. Perfidious apostle ! dost thou not experience horror throughout thy soul at the thought of shedding the blood of "the Just under the guise of friendship ? Durst thou, under cover of a sign of affection, deal a cruel blow to the loving heart of Jesus ? Durst thou deal a death blow under the false sign of peace? What iniquity! The servant be- trays his Lord ! the disciple sells his Master!" But the loving Saviour, who still desired the conversion of Judas, even at the moment when that unhappy apostle was perpetrating his horrible crime, said to him, "Friend, whereto art thou come?" Then, in accents of paternal 116 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. reproof and loving entreaty, He subjoined, " Judas, dost thou betray the Son of man with a kiss?" which was as if Jesus had said : " What have I done to deserve such treatment from thee ? Oh, return to My friendship and love ! O child, return to the arms of thy loving Father ! Think on what thou hast done ! Eepent of thy crime, and then give Me another kiss ; but let that be a kiss of peace, of love, of repentance, and I will repay thee with a kiss of forgiveness. Fear not, O son of My mercy ! Remember that I came down from heaven to save sin- ners. Remember the parable of the prodigal son, and know that I am that tender Father whose pleasure it ever is to welcome back the erring one. Come, O my son ! Return to Me and receive the kiss of peace !" Thus the loving Jesus spoke to the heart of the sacri- legious Judas, but in vain ; for the devil had already taken possession of the traitor, and had secured his heart against every emotion but despair. Let us ponder well the twofold excess which this con- sideration presents to our mind: the almost incredible iniquity of Judas on the one hand, and the ineffable love of Jesus Christ on the other. An apostle betrays his Divine Master with a kiss, and the Master calls him friend during the very moment that the horrible crime is being consummated. Second Point. Jesus, having now made the last effort to convert Judas, turned at once to the soldiers, and with a majesty befit- ting a God who has at His command all the elements of heaven and earth, He said to them, " Whom seek you f They answered. " Jesus of Xazareth.'' Then Jesus said, " I am the one whom you seek ;" and immediately, as if stricken by lightning, the men were hurled backwards BETRAYAL AND CAPTURE OF JESUS. 117 and fell to the ground, and the perfidious Judas fell also. Our Lord gave His captors this proof of His divinity and omnipotence, in order that they might have no excuse for their incredulity and hardness of heart in not recog- nizing Him as God. Again He asked them, ""Whom seek ye ?" and again they answered, " Jesus of Nazareth." Then Jesus gave them power to arise, saying, " I have told you that I am He : if, therefore, you seek Me, let these go their way." The soldiers did not become better at the sight of such power and meekness combined ; but they at once arose from the ground, and seizing upon the person of the Saviour, they began to heap upon Him the foulest insults and infamies, striking Him with their fists, spitting in His sacred face, tying Him with ropes, placing an iron chain around His neck, and then dragging Him about. In a word, they covered Him with every possible insult, till in a little while He stood among them " a Man of sorrows," as He had been foreseen in the vision of the prophet Isaias. The apostles were present at the. capture of their be- loved Master, and being unable to bear the sight of His awful tortures, they said to Him, " Lord, shall we strike with the sword 2" Meantime, Peter, the most resolute of them, without waiting for an answer, drew his sword from its scabbard, struck the servant of the high priest, and cut off his ear. This man had, perhaps, treated Jesus with more cruelty than any of His companions. Never- less, this inconsiderate act of Peter keenly wounded the Master's heart ; for the Saviour did not wish to defend Himself by returning injury for injury, but only by doing good. Therefore He immediately worked a miracle in favor of the wounded man by restoring him his ear. Then turning to Peter, He reproached him, saying, " Put 118 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. up again thy sword into its place ; for all that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Thinkest thou that I cannot ask My Father, and He will give Me presently more than twelve legions of Angels ? How then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that so it must be done?" After these words addressed to Peter, Jesus turned to the soldiers who were holding Him, and, reproaching them for the manner in which they had accomplished His arrest, said to them : " You have come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs, to apprehend Me. I sat daily with you teaching in the temple, and you laid not hands on Me." This was equivalent to saying : "I have lived among you ; I have instructed you ; I have per- formed miracles before you. "Why did you not makeMe prisoner on some previous occasion, when it was easily in your power to do so, rather than capture Me in the silence of the night, while I was praying to My Heavenly Father ? Unhappy men, do you not see that nothing is unknown to Me, that I foresee all, that I dispose of all things ac- cording to My will, and that you cannot do anything without My permission ? But now your hour is come: do, therefore, with Me whatever you wish, but dare not to touch one of My disciples ; let them go forth unmo- lested." Among the many points which this consideration offers for our pious meditation, we should particularly dwell on these : first, the meekness of Jesus when He reproached Peter for having had recourse to the sword ; secondly, the charity and pity He showed by restoring Malchus' ear ; thirdly, the love and fidelity He showed for His disciples by securing their safety and freedom. The fruit to be derived from this consideration is a great and ever-increasing love for Jesus Christ, our meek, merciful, faithful, and loving Saviour. JESUS IS ABANDONED BY HIS DISCIPLES. 119 CONSIDEKATIOE" XXI. Jesus is abandoned by His Disciples and dragged through the Road of Capture. "Then His disciples leaving Him, all fled away." — St. Mark xiv. 50. First Point. AMONG- the many celebrated streets of Jerusalem and its suburbs, two are especially interesting, Lav- ing been hallowed by the presence of the Son of God, not in the days of His glory, but in the days of His humiliation and sorrow, when, loaded with chains and covered with opprobrium, He was led out to Calvary. The one is called the Way of Capture, the other the Way of Passion. The former commences at the Garden of Gethsemani, and leads to the palace of Annas, extend- ing thence to that of Caiphas, and on to the tribunal of Pontius Pilate. Of the latter, which commences at the tribunal of Pontius Pilate and extends to Mount Calvary, we shall have occasion to speak when we shall contem- plate and, in spirit, accompany Jesus to the place of sac- rifice. But for the present let us consider the anguish and sufferings of Jesus Christ while in the first stage of II is journey over the Way of Capture, from Gethsemani to the palace of Annas. In the first place, it was not a slight torture for Jesus to see Himself abandoned by His disciples. Ac- 120 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. cording to St. Mark, the moment the apostles saw their Divine Master taken prisoner, they were overwhelmed with fear, and fled, leaving Jesns in the hands of His hitter enemies. Nor did they direct their flight towards Jerusalem or Bethania T where they could have warned the friends of their Master, and thus, perhaps, compass His rescue ; but they ran through the valley of Siloch, and thence to the valley of the son of Ennon, where they took refuge in a cave. This cave, or grotto, which is still pointed out to the tourist, is hollowed out of the solid rock, and had probably been used before the time of the apostles as a sepulchre. In this dreary place they spent that night, and perhaps the whole of the following day. On this occasion St. Peter showed himself less fearful, or rather more daring, than the other disciples. But how fatal was this daring to St. Peter ! He did not run away, but followed his beloved Master from afar, "that he might see the end." The soldiers, meanwhile, fearing lest Jesus might escape from their hands, loaded Him with additional chains, according to a suggestion pre- viously made by Judas; and, rejoicing over their brutal action, they redoubled their cruelties and pressed the Saviour to accelerate His pace. A young man, perhaps the son of the gardener of Gethsemani, aroused from sleep by the noise, wrapped a sheet around him and rushed out to discover the cause of the disturbance. The soldiers saw him and pursued him ; but just as they were in the act of capturing him, he threw off the sheet and, leaving it in their hands, fled away naked. From this incident we can judge how great was the confusion that prevailed during that night all along the "Way of Capture. Some fled here and some JESUS IS ABANDONED BY HIS DISCIPLES. 121 fled there, as the soldiers advanced with the Divine Cap- tive. Every one feared for himself, but no one minded Jesus, who, like a gentle lamb, was led to the sacrifice. ]N"o one can hope to describe the ill-treatment to which Jesus was subjected on that ever-memorable night. How many blows and rough pushes did He not receive from the soldiers ? In the second point of this consideration we shall meditate upon those cruel injuries. But for the present let our attention be occupied by this one reflec- tion, — the utter weakness of human nature when not as- sisted by the special grace of God. The flight of the apostles contains a great lesson for us. How often had they not promised that they would never abandon their Master ? Yet on the very first occasion of danger they leave Him alone with His enemies ! How often do we not act similarly % How often do we not relapse into sins which only a short time before we had promised never again to commit? Let us, therefore, be always distrustful of our own strength, and let this holy distrust be the fruit of the present consideration. Second Point. After the flight of the apostles, Jesus stood alone and defenceless in the midst of the brutal soldiery. They dragged Him out of the garden, and, marching along the eastern border of the torrent of Cedron, they led Him through the valley of Josaphat, till they arrived at Absalom's monument. Here was a little bridge, over which, as many contemplatives teach, the soldiers passed, at the same time dragging Jesus through the torrent beneath by means of a rope tied around His neck. It was winter, and the shallow waters of the torrent were 122 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFEERINGS OF CHRIST. very cold ; the lacerated feet of Jesus became too numb to uphold Him longer, and He fell. It was to this fall — so the same contemplatives claim — that the Royal Psalmist alluded, when he said : " He shall drink of the torrent in the way : therefore shall He lift up the head." But the rocks that strewed the bed of Cedron, less hardened than the hearts of the soldiers, were softened, and, at the first touch of the Saviour's sacred body, became as molten wax and received the impress of His knee and elbow. One still may see in that very spot a stone which bears the impres- sion of a man's knee. The fact that there is an indul- gence attached to the stone seems to confirm the truth of this pious tradition of Jesus' fall in the torrent of Cedron. Seeing that Jesus could not regain His feet, some of the soldiers prodded Him with their swords, while others pulled Him by the rope tied round His neck, till finally they dragged Him out of the water. Then they began the ascent of Mount Moria on the southern side where it joins Mount Sion. Only three hours had elapsed since Jesus, having left the supper-room, passed over that same road. But in that brief space of time what changes were wrought! Then He was accompanied by His beloved disciples : now He is surrounded by His executioners. Then He held sweet converse with His apostles about heavenly things : now He hears the horrible imprecations and blasphemies of the soldiery. Then He went to pray to His Eternal Father for the salvation of mankind : now He goes to consummate the sacrifice of the cross. At last they came to the gate of the city; it was promptly opened by the guards, who had been already forewarned and stood in anxious waiting. The guards congratulated the soldiers upon their success in capturing JESUS IS ABANDONED BY HIS DISCIPLES. 123 the " malefactor," as they blasphemously termed Jesus Christ. From the location of the house of Annas it may be easily proved that Jesus was led into the city through the stercoraceous gate — that is, the gate through which the refuse and rubbish of the city was usually discharged. What a change ! Only five days before Jesus had entered the city in triumph through the Golden Gate : now He is dragged in chains through the Gate Stercoraria ! The inhabitants of Jerusalem were aroused from their sleep by the noise of the soldiers and the crowd shouting their plaudits over the capture of the " great malefactor." Some looked from their windows as the crowd surged by ; others hastened out of their houses, not, as on the day of His triumph, to pay homage to the Son of David, but to deride, mock, and taunt Him. They called Him an impostor and a seducer, and all were loud in their praises of the soldiers for the service they had rendered the Jewish people by making Him prisoner. Such were the insults and imprecations that accom- panied the patient Jesus on the Way of Capture. We cannot account for this frenzy of the Jewish people, un- less we attribute it to the malignant suggestions of Satan, who vented his hatred of Jesus Christ through the voice of the maddened crowd. When criminals guilty of most heinous crimes at last fall into the hands of Justice, they awaken some degree of compassion even in the hearts of those whom they have injured. There is no heart so hard that it does not relent and soften on seeing them brought to capital punishment. But for Jesus there is no sense of humanity even in those whom He has so highly benefited. It was now the hour of the prince of darkness, as Christ had foretold His apostles ; and the 124 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. prince of darkness used the rabble of Jerusalem as His instruments, — the same rabble that live days before ap- plauded Jesus' triumphant entry into the city ; the same rabble that had often witnessed and applauded His won- drous miracles. Let us in spirit accompany Jesus along the "Way of Capture ; and if we cannot comfort Him, let us, at least, pity Him, fixing our attention on these three incidents of that memorable journey : His fall into the torrent of Cedron ; His ascent of Moria like another Isaac ; His entrance into Jerusalem through the gate called Sterco- raria. JESUS IS QUESTIONED BY ANNAS. 125 CONSIDERATION XXII. Jesus is questioned by Annas and struck by a Servant. "And when He had said these things, one of the servants standing by gave Jesus a blow, saying: Answerest Thon the high- priest so ? " — 8t. John xviii. 22. Fiest Point. OUR Holy Redeemer, loaded with chains, His ears deafened by the blasphemous shouts of the rabble, His limbs aching from the numberless kicks and blows that He had received, was at last led into the house of Annas. This house, situated on that side of Mount Sion which overlooked the temple, was not far from the ster- coraceous gate. Now, Annas was the father-in-law of Caiphas. He was a priest and also a member of the Sanhedrim, or council of seventy-two elders appointed to discuss the grand ques- tions of the nation. Of the members of this malignant council, perhaps Annas was most eager in desiring the death of Jesus Christ. For this reason the soldiers pre- ferred his tribunal to that of any other judge, and led the Saviour there ; they also thought that they were paying Annas honor, and hoped to receive some recompense for the same. This priest was a simple member of the Sanhedrim ; and therefore had no right on his own private authority 126 MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. to question any one, however guilty. But in the case of our Lord every trace of justice was to be trampled under foot. Annas, only too proud of the regard shown him by the soldiers, arrogated to himself the right of sitting alone in judgment, and at that unusual hour, and forth- with proceeded to question the supposed culprit concern- ing His doctrine and His disciples. St. John Chrysostom observes that no guilt whatever being imputable to the conduct of Jesus Christ, the ques- tions of the judge did not regard the person of the Saviour, but only the nature of His doctrines and the character of His disciples. Annas began to question Jesus thus : " What is Thy doctrine ? Who are Thy disciples ? Why hast Thou called them to follow Thee ? What dost Thou teach them ?" The mild Jesus meekly made answer : " I have spoken openly to the world : I have always taught in the synagogues and in the temple, whither all the Jews resort ; and in secret I have spoken nothing. Why askest thou Me ? ask them who have heard what I have spoken unto them : behold they know what thiugs I have said." This meek and humble reply of the Son of God aroused the anger of a servant of the high-priest; and this ser- vant, though it was contrary to law for him to be present at such a trial, gave Jesus a terrible blow, saying, " An- swerest Thou the high-priest so?" In dwelling upon this incident of the Saviour's passion, the expositors oi. the Holy Scriptures cannot contain their indignation, and unanimously condemn this servant's impious and barbaric act. St. Cyprian, full of horror, exclaims, " The Creator who, in His goodness, made man out of nothing, receives a blow from one of His creatures — a blow from the hand which He had made out of dust !" Says St. Ephraim, JESUS IS QUESTIONED BY ANNAS. 127 " The heavens trembled ; the angels were appalled, and covered their faces with their wings when they beheld a minister of iniquity strike the God of majesty." St. Augustine says, " If we consider who was the receiver of the blow, we will instinctively wish that the giver of it should be cast into flames or subjected to some other dreadful punishment ; andj indeed, how terrible a punish- ment could net the all-powerful Creator have inflicted, had He not wished to give us a lesson of patience ?" " O man!" exclaims St. Athanasius, "thou who thinkest it hard to bear patiently the wrongs done thee by thy fellow- man, imitate thy Lord, and reflect that if He, being God, allowed Himself, for love of thee, to be struck by a sinful man, surely thou shouldst bear with patience the injuries done thee by thy neighbor." In order to draw some spiritual profit from this con- sideration, we should ponder well these sayings of the Holy Fathers, thus awakening in our hearts a lively hor- ror of the great crime of the impious servant, and arous- ing in our minds an ardent admiration for the meekness and patience of Jesus Christ. Second Point. The insult which our Lord received in the house of Annas becomes more odious when we consider who that lut was that struck our Saviour. It is the opinion