PRACTICAL REFLECTIONS 
 
 Sufferings of Our Lord 
 
 LESSONS OF THE PASSION. 
 
 & u ^*U4&u«a-B< 
 
 FROM THE FREXOII OF CARDINAL RE LA LUZERNE, 
 
 VERY REV. S. BYRNE, O.P. 
 i 
 
 Boston, Mass.: 
 THOMAS B. NOONAN & CO. 
 
 1885. 
 
B - ^ ° 
 
 Copyright, 1885, 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS B. NOONAN & CO. 
 
 
 
 H. J. HEWITT, PRINTER, 27 ROSE STREET, NEW YORK. 
 
<0 
 
 Â 
 
 APPROBATIONS. 
 Or 
 
 Nos infrascripti Revisores Ordinis Praedicatorum pro scriptis ex- 
 cudendis, fidem facimus quod attente praelecto opusculo, " Practi- 
 cal Reflections on the Sufferings of our Lord; or, Lessons of the 
 Passion," Anglice converso ex operibus Eminentissimi Cardinalis 
 De la Luzerne, ipsum typis mandari permittimus. 
 
 In quorum fidem, his propria manu subscripsimus. 
 
 Datum Somerset, O., in Conventu S. Joseph, 
 
 die Festo SS. Nominis Jesu, 15 Januarii, 1885. 
 
 Fr. C. H. McKbnna, Prœd. Gen. Ord. Prœd. 
 Fr. J. L. O'Neil, Ord. Prœd. 
 
 imprimatur: 
 
 Fr. M. D. Lilly, Ord. Prœd., 
 
 Prior Provincialis Provincice S. Joseph. 
 
 Datum Neo-Eboraci, in Conventu S. Vincentii Ferrerii, 
 die Festo S. Raymundi, 23 Januarii, 1885. 
 
CO^TEj^TS. 
 
 I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Jesus Suffered to Redeem Us, 9 
 
 II. 
 Jesus Christ Suffered to Instruct Us, 27 
 
 III. 
 Jesus in the Garden of Olives, 45 
 
 IV. 
 Jesus is Apprehended, 63 
 
 V. 
 
 Treason and Despair of Judas, 83 
 
 VI 
 
 Jesus before Caiphas, . 103 
 
 VII. 
 Peter's Denial, 123 
 
 VIII. 
 Jesus before Pilate, 143 
 
 IX. 
 
 Jesus before Herod, ...*.... 163 
 
 s 
 
4 Contents, 
 
 X. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Jesus again before Pilate, 183 
 
 XI. 
 The Scourging, Crowning, and Condemnation of Jesus, . 205 
 
 XII. 
 
 The Carriage of the Cross, 227 
 
 XIII. 
 The Crucifixion, 247 
 
 XIV. 
 What Happened after the Death of Jesus, .... 269 
 
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 THOUGH much has been written on the Sa- 
 cred Passion of our Divine Redeemer, the 
 meditations here offered are not a superfluous 
 addition to our ascetic literature, but rather 
 an important aid to other treatises on this sub- 
 ject. 
 
 They are particularly recommended because 
 of their practical character. To those readers 
 who are acquainted with the " Explications des 
 Evangiles" of Cardinal De la Luzerne his name 
 will be a sufficient recommendation. He was 
 one of the most solid and practical thinkers of 
 modern times. 
 
 It is hoped, therefore, that these meditations 
 will afford assistance to devout souls who are 
 anxious not only to study the Passion of our 
 Blessed Lord, but also to give in their own 
 lives some real, practical expression to the les- 
 sons which His Passion teaches. 
 
 St. Joseph's Context, Perry Co , Ohio, 
 
 Feast of the Circumcision. January 1, 1885. 
 
 5 
 
JESUS SUFFERED TO REDEEM US. 
 
PRACTICAL REFLECTIONS 
 
 SUFFERINGS OF OUR LORD. 
 
 L 
 
 JESUS SUFFERED TO REDEEM US. 
 
 " We preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling-block, 
 and to the gentiles foolishness; but to them that are called, both 
 Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of 
 God." (1 Cor. i. 23, 24.) 
 
 Lsr the religious and Christian sense we have 
 come to the most important, the most precious 
 season of the year. Of these days, dedicated to 
 the commemoration of the sufferings and death 
 of our Blessed Redeemer, it may well be said : 
 " This is the acceptable time ; this is the day of 
 salvation." It is the time foretold by Isaias the 
 prophet, and mentioned by the Apostle, in which 
 the Lord has chosen to hear us, to grant us the 
 abundance of His favors,* and to accomplish the 
 
 * Isaias xlix. 8 ; 2 Cor. vi. 2. 
 
io Jesus Suffered to Redeem us. 
 
 work of our redemption. By the sight of His 
 blood shed for us He excites us to apply its 
 fruits to our souls. If we desire to commemo- 
 rate the sorrowful mysteries of our Lord we 
 must prepare ourselves for the work by the fasts 
 prescribed for this time, by hearing the word 
 of God more frequently, and by greater assi- 
 duity in prayer. Can it be possible that we 
 would present ourselves at the holy offices in 
 which the sufferings of our Lord are so vividly 
 portrayed, only through custom or human re- 
 spect? that we would assist at them either with 
 complete indifference, or at most with a passing 
 sensibility excited by the recital of this tragic 
 history? that we would be less moved than the 
 Jews themselves, who, while returning from Cal- 
 vary, struck their breasts with real sorrow? If 
 we had lived in the time and place honored by 
 the presence of Jesus Christ ; if we had wit- 
 nessed His humiliations and sorrows, with what 
 sentiments would we not have been moved ! 
 Thither let us go in thought. Let us follow 
 our Divine Master from one anguish to another ; 
 from the Garden of Olives to Calvary's mount; 
 and let us consider each of His steps, marked as 
 it is by a special torment or opprobrium. Then, 
 casting our eyes upon ourselves, let us reflect 
 
Jestis Suffered to Redeem us, 1 1 
 
 that it was for us He left His throne of glory to 
 undergo so many humiliations. To procure our 
 happiness, He delivered Himself to frightful tor- 
 tures. To give us life, He suffered a most cruel 
 and disgraceful death. In realizing, on the one 
 side, these manifold benefits, and on the other 
 our cold response, how can we bear the sight of 
 our hardness and ingratitude \ 
 
 But we have now not merely to excite our- 
 selves to a barren grief, to a short-lived pen- 
 ance. We are called not only to mourn the 
 death of our Saviour, but to make the thought 
 of it a part of our lives ; to imprint upon our 
 minds and hearts deeply and irrevocably the 
 sublime truths, the grand instructions, the won- 
 derful mysteries herein presented to us. This 
 is the return, this the acknowledgment that our 
 Lord requires of us in His Passion. " Attend and 
 see if there be any sorrow like to My sorrow" * 
 is the command we read in Jeremias. "Look," 
 says St. Paul, "on Jesus, the author and finisher 
 of your faith, who, having joy set before Him, 
 endured the cross, despising the shame. . . . 
 Think diligently upon Him that endured such 
 opposition from sinners against Himself, that 
 you be not wearied, fainting in your minds." f 
 
 * Lamentations i. 12. t Heb. xii. 2, 3. 
 
12 yesus Suffered to Redeem tis. 
 
 It was meditation on tlie Passion of our Lord 
 that enabled the greatest saints to acquire heroic 
 virtue ; that taught the martyrs patience, gave 
 them courage, and made them embrace death 
 in all its hideous forms. The constant thought 
 of His sufferings sustained the solitaries under 
 their astonishing mortifications. At the foot 
 of the cross the most renowned and effective 
 preachers and defenders of the faith sought 
 the sublime instructions which they delivered 
 to their fellow-men. Let us endeavor, even at 
 a distance, to walk in their footsteps, and we 
 also shall participate in the graces and sanctity 
 conferred upon them. Let us follow all the 
 circumstances of the Passion of our Lord as 
 they present themselves to our minds, to fill 
 them with good thoughts ; and to our hearts, to 
 penetrate them with grateful love. 
 
 Entering upon the consideration of this great 
 mystery, the thought which first arrests us is 
 one of astonishment. That God should be so 
 humbled, suffer so much, and die on a cross con- 
 founds and casts down human reason. It can 
 scarcely recognize in Jesus Christ its God, who 
 manifested Himself in glory on Thabor, who 
 was followed in His career of preaching by im- 
 mense crowds, who hung suspended even for 
 
y estes Suffered to Redeem tes. i 
 
 ô 
 
 several days upon His every word. Reason Las 
 seen Him commanding nature, stilling the tem- 
 pest, walking on the waters, driving the demon 
 back to his own place, giving health to the sick 
 and life to the dead. But when it considers 
 Him delivered over to a barbarous multitude, 
 whose sport He becomes, and who delight in 
 torturing Him, then it will understand the word 
 of the Apostle, "that to the Jew He was a 
 stumbling-block ; to the heathen He was fool- 
 ishness itself." * But listen to the same Apos- 
 tle in the same place when he says that to 
 "these very Jews and gentiles believing in 
 Him, He was the power of God and the wisdom 
 of God." 
 
 The mission of Christ on earth had two ob- 
 jects : to rescue man from the slavery in which 
 Satan held him chained, and to save him from 
 the corruption into which sin had plunged him. 
 Therefore He came to save us and to instruct 
 us; to satisfy His Father's justice, and to show 
 us how to merit His mercy. His whole life was 
 employed in this twofold ministry ; but in His 
 Passion it was perfectly realized, absolutely con- 
 summated. It is in His Passion we are fully en- 
 abled to recognize in Him our Eedeemer and our 
 
 * 1 Cor. i. 23, 24. 
 
14 Jesus Suffered to Redeem us. 
 
 Teacher as well. From the beginning, there- 
 fore, let us contemplate Him in this double 
 office. 
 
 It was necessary for Christ to suffer.* Thus 
 He Himself teaches us. The nature of this ne- 
 cessity is beyond our knowledge. What we do 
 know with certainty is that the injury offered to 
 Him by sin had to be fully repaired. He re- 
 quired a complete satisfaction, proportioned to 
 the offence. This full reparation and satisfac- 
 tion we see accomplished in the Passion and 
 death of His Divine Son. Whether we consider 
 the nature of the sin to be atoned for, or the ex- 
 tent of the injury to be repaired, we find that the 
 sacrifice of the God-Man abundantly satisfies the 
 Divine Majesty for all. Jesus Christ is man, and 
 He pays the debt of man ; He is also God, and 
 He pays it in a manner and to an extent worthy 
 of God. 
 
 The offence of the first man which Christ came 
 to repair consisted principally in three things : 
 first, in the pride which aimed at making 
 man equal to God ; secondly, in the criminal 
 sensuality which would not abstain from the 
 forbidden fruit ; thirdly, in disobeying a formal 
 and express command of God. The Redeemer 
 
 * Luke xxiv. 46. 
 
y estes Suffered to Redeem its. 15 
 
 of the human race expiates this triple sin of 
 our first father, and applies to each vice its 
 own remedy. To pride He applies unheard- 
 of humiliations ; to sensuality, sufferings such 
 as no other has endured ; to disobedience, com- 
 plete submission of His will to that of His 
 Father. In the midst of His executioners He 
 seems to say to us: " Forgetting that thou art 
 only a creature, thou hast had the extravagant 
 folly to make thyself equal to thy Creator ; and 
 I, God as I am, descend to the state of the last 
 of men, the sport and shame even of the vilest. 
 Abandoned to thy brutal appetite, thou hast 
 given to thy senses a forbidden pleasure ; and I, 
 leaving the enjoyment of infinite beatitude, have 
 come to deliver Myself to the most cruel tor- 
 tures. Thou hast dared rebel against thy God 
 and despise His commandments ; and I, abso- 
 lute Master of all that exists, submit Myself to 
 the yoke of a most absolute obedience, becoming 
 subject not only to God but to men also — and 
 these the most unjust, criminal, and barbarous. 
 Thus, in every part of My most painful sacrifice, 
 I repair and expiate all the vices with which 
 thou art infected." 
 
 It was doing much for man to apply a divine 
 remedy to his miseries ; but there remained 
 
1 6 Jesus Suffered to Redeem us. 
 
 something more difficult of accomplishment, and 
 that was to satisfy the divine justice. To cure 
 man God must be appeased. Man had need of 
 a restorer ; God required a victim. And where 
 will He find one worthy of His outraged majesty % 
 What satisfaction can equal the offence ? All 
 the sacrifices offered to God from the time of 
 Abel to that of Christ could only suspend but 
 could not avert the divine anger. Victims of 
 all times, of all nations, of all kinds might be 
 offered to disarm the anger of God ; but what 
 proportion is there between all created things, 
 which are finite, and God, who is infinite ? Is 
 it, then, impossible for God to obtain the satis- 
 faction due to Him ? Behold a Victim of a new 
 order comes to receive the strokes of divine 
 wrath. The Heavenly Father had waited four 
 thousand years ; He had inspired the patriarchs 
 with desires of this Victim ; He had announced 
 His coming by numberless figures, and had fore- 
 told it by a long line of prophetic oracles. At 
 length Christ appears, and thus addresses His 
 Father: "Sacrifice and oblation Thou wouldst 
 not, but a body Thou hast fitted to Me. Holo- 
 causts for sin did not please Thee. Then said 
 I, behold I come. In the head of the book it 
 is written of Me that I should do Thy will, O 
 
Jesus Suffered to Redeem us. 1 7 
 
 God." * What was promised at His birth was 
 accomplished by His death. His love for men, 
 His submission to His Father's will, brought to 
 Jerusalem a Victim worthy of Him to whom it 
 was offered. The vengeance taken by the great 
 God upon sin was equal to the outrage offered 
 Him by sin. The offence was infinite ; the repa- 
 ration must be so too ; and if it is a God that 
 must be satisfied, it is a God that satisfies. Thus 
 are all interests reconciled ; all duties fulfilled ; 
 all debts remitted ; all rights preserved. Man 
 obtains all that he could desire ; God receives 
 all that He wished to exact. 
 
 We are accustomed to consider Jesus Christ 
 as the Saint of saints, the very principle of sanc- 
 tity, Sanctity itself. It would be a criminal er- 
 ror to suppose anything else. But in His Pas- 
 sion He ceases to appear so. The sanctity which 
 is an essential part of Himself He now hides 
 under the dark veil of our sins. God throws 
 upon Him the sins of the whole world ; f He is 
 charged with them, and for the time He becomes 
 the universal, the most public sinner. Thus St. 
 Paul, inspired by the Holy Ghost, fears not to 
 say that " He who knew no sin, for us He hath 
 made sin." % All the sins of the human race are 
 
 * Heb. x. 5, 6, 7. t Isaias liii. 6. % 2 Cor. v. 21. 
 
1 8 Jesus Suffered to Redeem tes. 
 
 laid upon Him, and form around Him a black 
 cloud which obscures and eclipses the bright 
 rays of His sanctity. In this state He presents 
 Himself to God ; and instead of being any longer 
 the cherished Son of the Eternal Father, the 
 object of all His delight, He now becomes an 
 object of malediction.* God conceives for Him 
 all the horror with which He had ever regarded 
 sin. He became the object of eternal vengeance 
 and wrath. No longer, then, may we wonder 
 at His humiliations and sufferings. As Tertul- 
 lian says, He is the Man of sorrows only be- 
 cause He bears our sins. In this view of the 
 case there is no punishment to which He is not 
 subject. He is liable not only to the penalty of 
 one sinner but of all sinners, because He takes 
 the place of all. And all classes conspire against 
 Him — Jews, Gentiles, priests, laymen, nobles 
 and plebeians, judges and soldiers. In the 
 whole multitude that surrounds Him He has 
 not one defender, not one intercessor, not one 
 that has pity on Him. He is charged with the 
 universal revolt against the Divine Majesty; 
 and in the punishment of it He sees a common 
 consent given to the persecution directed against 
 Him. 
 
 * Gal. iii. 13. 
 
Jesus Suffered to Redeem us. 19 
 
 It is God that so ordains it. It is, then, a di- 
 vine decree that delivers Jesus over to torture 
 and to death. The judges who condemn Him, 
 the soldiers who execute the sentence, only car- 
 ry out the sentence passed against Him from all 
 eternity. When the high-priest, Caiphas, in the 
 midst of the assembly declared that "one should 
 die that the whole people might be saved," he 
 was the mouthpiece of an oracle which he did 
 not understand.* He was in this the organ of 
 the supreme will of God, whom he then ignored. 
 St. Peter, a few days after the crucifixion and 
 deicide, declared to the Jews that it was ac- 
 cording to the decrees of God that Jesus should 
 be delivered up, and put to death by impious 
 hands. f But remember that, until the arrival 
 of the moment fixed in the decrees of Provi- 
 dence, neither the envy of the priests nor the 
 pride of the doctors could do anything against 
 Him. They respected that decree in spite of 
 themselves. But when the time came they fu- 
 riously fell upon the Victim that had been aban- 
 doned to them. Submissive to the decrees of His 
 Father, our Blessed Saviour delivers Himself to 
 them, and bows respectfully to the unseen hand 
 which strikes Him by the hands of these barba- 
 
 * John xi. 50. + Acts ii. 23. 
 
20 Jesus Stiffened to Redeem us. 
 
 rians. His obedience to His Father's will is 
 absolute. He bends under it even to the death 
 of the cross. * 
 
 Yet the Passion of our Lord to be the effect 
 of obedience, must be the result of His own free 
 will. This is the admirable concert between the 
 Father and the Son : the Father ordains only 
 what the Son wills ; and the Son wills all that 
 the Father ordains. Long before He had said 
 by the pro|3het : " He was offered because it was 
 His own will." f And, in the course of His life, 
 He expressly declared that no one could take 
 His life, but that He Himself would lay it down 4 
 Ordinary men die because they are constrained 
 to it, death being the penalty of sin in which we 
 were all born and from which we cannot escape. 
 But the Man-God, whom no stain of sin could 
 sully, was not subject to the common law. He 
 died, having the power not to die ; and to die 
 there was need to Him of an act of His omnipo- 
 tence. Excepting Him no man was capable of 
 offering the act of redemption. According to St. 
 Paul, to immolate the Victim who should recon- 
 cile God and man there was need of a u high- 
 priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from 
 sinners, and made higher than the heavens, who 
 
 * Philipp. ii. 8. tlsaias liii. 7. % John x. 18. 
 
Jes7Ls Suffered to Redeem us. 21 
 
 needeth not daily, as other priests, to offer up 
 sacrifices first for his own sins and then for the 
 people's ; for this He did once, in offering Him- 
 self." * He alone could be the proper victim of 
 the great sacrifice ; He alone was the priest fitted 
 to offer this sacrifice. It was only His blood 
 that could appease the divine wrath, and it was 
 only His hands that were pure enough to offer 
 it. The Jews shed that blood to gratify their 
 fury against Him ; but it was He Himself that 
 offered it for the remission of our sins. 
 
 Therefore we should never lose sight of the 
 thought that our sins were the cause of His 
 death. In the very beginning of our meditation 
 on this great mystery let us adhere strictly and 
 humbly to the reflection that we are verily the 
 authors of the cleicide. Every torment we see 
 Him suffer should recall to our minds the words 
 of the prophet : "He was wounded for our ini- 
 quities ; He was bruised for our sins." f If we 
 had not sinned, God would never have suffered. 
 It w ? as because we were slaves that He came to 
 make us free. In the old law it was required, 
 when a man was found murdered on the high- 
 way, and the author of the crime was unknown, 
 that the residents of the neighborhood should 
 
 * Heb. vli. 28, Sf?. t iBaias MI. 5. 
 
22 Jestis Suffered to Redeem tes. 
 
 be called together and should wash their hands 
 over the victim to signify that they were guilt- 
 less of his blood. In looking at the cross upon 
 which our Saviour died, which of us can have 
 the hardihood to say : My hands had no part in 
 the shedding of this blood ? This is a thought 
 profoundly sad and humiliating, yet most salu- 
 tary. Every time that I sin against my Saviour 
 I not only join the army of His enemies, but I 
 also become one of His executioners. I am 
 even more culpable than they ; for, His death 
 was not for them what it was for me. They 
 knew Him not. "And if they had known 
 they would never have crucified the Lord of 
 Glory." * With all this knowledge I yet out- 
 rage Him ! And knowing Him well, I crucify 
 again the Son of God.f But shall I continue 
 so ungrateful, so unnatural as to renew, while 
 the power remains in me, the Passion of my Ee- 
 deemer? God grant that this thought may be ef- 
 ficacious in me ; that I may be stricken with grief 
 for the sins I have committed and armed with a 
 holy vigilance against committing them in future. 
 Another thought and we conclude. If it were 
 necessary for the Son of God to be the Victim 
 for the redemption of man, was it also necessary 
 
 * 1 Cor. ii. 8. t Heb. vi. 
 
yesus Stiffei'ed to Redeem us. 2 
 
 
 
 for Him to deliver Himself up to the shocking 
 pains, opprobrium, and wretchedness of His 
 Passion ? One drop of His blood, one tear, one 
 sigh would have been of infinite value in the 
 sight of God, would have been sufficient to have 
 redeemed the universe. But then the designs 
 which His wisdom and goodness had proposed 
 to Him would have been incomplete. That 
 which sufficed for our salvation did not suffice 
 for our instruction. In suffering for us He 
 wished to teach us how to suffer for Him ; " be- 
 cause," says St. Peter, " Christ also suffered for 
 us, leaving you an example that you should fol- 
 low His steps." * During His life He continu- 
 ally practised humility, self-denial, mortifica- 
 tion, and the love of His enemies. But how 
 strongly are His words upheld by the miracle 
 of His example, especially in His sacred Pas- 
 sion ! Never will it be given to any man to fol- 
 low our Lord in His sublime virtues except at a 
 distance ; but He obliges all to meditate upon 
 His divine law, and, as far as human weakness 
 will allow, to conform to the Divine Model. Let 
 us study the lessons He teaches, in order that we 
 may reduce them to practice. These will be the 
 subject of the next meditation. 
 
 *1 Peter ii. 81. 
 
II. 
 
 JESUS CHRIST SUFFERED TO INSTRUCT US, 
 
IL 
 
 JESUS CHEIST SUFFERED TO INSTRUCT US. 
 
 <k For I judged not myself to know anything among you, but 
 Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." (1 Cor. ii. 2.) 
 
 From the day on which our Saviour descended 
 from the bosom of His Father to dwell with men, 
 His whole life was consecrated to their instruc- 
 tion. All His words were lessons, all His acts 
 examples. But the teaching of the thirty-three 
 years of His life on earth was epitomized in His 
 last hours. The lesson of His death was the 
 abridgment of the lessons of His life. If no other 
 part of His life had been given to us but the time 
 of His Passion, we could have learned in it alone 
 all that it is necessary for us to know. The great 
 Apostle of the Gentiles tells us that he needed 
 no other knowledge. Let us endeavor to pene- 
 trate the exhaustless depths of his instructions 
 — not to master them, not fully to develop them ; 
 but to take from them a succinct and general 
 idea of the great lessons Jesus Christ gives us. 
 
 Do you desire to know God, at least so far as 
 your feeble reason permits ? Study the Passion. 
 
 27 
 
28 Jesus Christ Suffered to Instruct its. 
 
 Nothing can give you so grand an idea of His in- 
 finite being and perfections. You will see how 
 great He is when you reflect that it was neces- 
 sary to His glory that a Man -God should annihi- 
 late himself by embracing the death of the cross. 
 You will perceive how holy He must be when it 
 required the anguish and shame of this Man-God 
 to avenge His insulted majesty ; you will see how 
 terrible must be His justice when it could be 
 appeased only by the blood of His Divine Son. 
 You will learn the extent of His mercy when you 
 behold that Divine Son immolate Himself, even 
 for His very enemies ; you may imagine the 
 depths of His wisdom when you behold Him re- 
 conciling His own interests with those of a lost 
 race by so efficacious a means as the sacrifice 
 of the same Man-God. Whatever we may learn 
 from the most eloquent preachers, or even from 
 books inspired by the Holy Ghost Himself, can- 
 not so well explain to us the incomprehensible na- 
 ture of God as the Passion of our Saviour. In all 
 the religious systems that ever have occupied the 
 minds of men we find nothing that presents to us 
 such sublime and just ideas of God as does this 
 central object of our religion. 
 
 The enormity of sin is another object of neces- 
 sary knowledge to be derived from this consider- 
 
Jesus Christ Suffered to Instruct us. 2 g 
 
 ation. Libertines may laugh, when they are told 
 of the hideou^ness of sin, of the hatred God 
 bears to it ; they may treat us as mere declaimers 
 and charge us with exaggeration. The incredu- 
 lous affect to be revolted when they hear of the 
 eternal punishments inflicted on sin ; they can- 
 not bear the awful thought ; they say it is not 
 conformable to the goodness of God. Come, 
 both of you, and disabuse yourselves at the foot 
 of the cross. There learn what an evil it must 
 be that can only be expiated by the death of a 
 Man-God. Measure the extent of this evil by 
 that of the reparation, and be convinced of the 
 just proportion between the offence and the eter- 
 nity of its punishment. The rigor of God's jus- 
 tice towards His own Son, who was but the image 
 of sin in the hour of His trial, will clearly prove 
 to you its terrible vengeance towards sin itself. 
 The cross gives us a just conception of hell ; the 
 more you cling to the cross in holy contempla- 
 tion the more will you learn to detest and fly 
 from sin, which has necessitated the cross and 
 opened hell. 
 
 This thought is followed by one more consol- 
 ing : it is the price of our souls. Their true value 
 is that set upon them by the Almighty Himself. 
 At what price have we been redeemed ? In the 
 
30 Jesus Christ Suffered to Instruct us. 
 
 Passion of Christ let us learn to esteem ourselves 
 at our true value, measuring tlie importance of 
 our salvation by what it cost the Man-God. Our 
 salvation, so great in His eyes, has often been of 
 small moment in our own. How often have we 
 endangered it ? And wherefore ? For a false 
 conception of honor, for a frivolous ambition, 
 for a base interest, for some infamous pleasure, 
 for a cruel revenge. Let us correct ourselves in 
 the presence of our suffering God. He seems to 
 say to us from the cross : "Have pity on your 
 souls, as you see Me having pity on them ! 
 Compare what your salvation has cost you with 
 what it has cost Me. By the sacrifice of My life 
 I have saved you ; and to secure it you only have 
 to sacrifice your passions and sins.'* 
 
 These considerations regarding God, sin, and 
 salvation, are truly essential, though not the only 
 ones we may draw from the mystery of the cross. 
 We also acquire by it the knowledge and prac- 
 tice of virtues wiiich render us agreeable to God, 
 which help us avoid sin and obtain salvation. 
 The Passion of our Lord establishes and confirms 
 our faith, for it is the exact and literal fulfilment 
 of the prophecies, and the manifest explanation 
 of the figures of the Old Law. Without the 
 dolorous sacrifice the Jewish dispensation would 
 
Jesus Christ Suffered to Instruct us. 3 1 
 
 be inexplicable. The Old Testament would be, in 
 the words of St. John, a book sealed with seven 
 seals ; and no one on earth or in Heaven could 
 be found to open it or to see what it contains.* 
 "But I see," he continues, "before the heavenly 
 throne the Lamb slain for the sins of the world. 
 I see Him breaking the seals and opening the 
 mysterious book. I prostrate myself before Him, 
 like the four-and-twenty ancients, and with them 
 I exclaim : Thou alone, Lord, hast power to 
 open this sacred book and make it known to us, 
 for Thou hast broken the seals by which it has 
 been closed to us. For Thou hast been put to 
 death, and Thou hast redeemed us with Thy 
 blood out of every tribe and tongue and people 
 and nation." Jesus Christ, in dying, cast a di- 
 vine light upon the Old Law, and all its obscuri- 
 ties disappeared. Its sacrifices, rites, priesthood, 
 precepts, figures, all had reference to this immo- 
 lation. All great events, from the beginning of 
 the world, appear to have been prearranged by 
 His providence to announce Him and to prepare 
 for Him, the greatest of them all. The prophets 
 appear to be rather historians of a past event 
 than the inspired oracles of something in the 
 distant future. With the greatest exactness 
 
 * Apoc. v. 
 
32 Jesus Christ Suffered to Instruct us. 
 
 they foretell the most minute circumstances of 
 the Passion. Incredulous men, who pretend to 
 cast doubts upon the truths of religion, take in 
 one hand the Old Testament, and in the other the 
 history of the sufferings of the Saviour as they 
 are related in the Gfospels, and tell us, was it 
 mere chance that caused such a perfect agree- 
 ment between the fulness of the predictions and 
 all the particulars of the event ? What can you 
 oppose to such demonstrative proof ? Will you 
 deny the reality of the prophecies ? We have 
 received them from the Jews, the mortal enemies 
 of Christ ; and long before His time they had been 
 translated into the most common languages of 
 mankind, and had been widely circulated through 
 the whole world. Will you call in question the 
 truth of the Gospel history ? It was written only 
 a very few years after the death of the Saviour, 
 by eye-witnesses of the event, and in the pres- 
 ence of those who had been its instigators, au- 
 thors, and agents. Yet who dared raise the 
 least doubt in regard to the smallest details % 
 
 Whilst the Passion is the strongest support of 
 our faith, it is also the firmest foundation of our 
 hope. This is the reasoning of St. Paul. "He 
 who spared not even His own Son, but delivered 
 Him up for us all, how hath He not also, with 
 
Jesus Christ Suffered to Instruct us. 33 
 
 Him, given us all tilings?" * Jesus Christ has 
 fastened to the cross the handwriting of sin and 
 death, blotting it out with His blood, trampling 
 over the princes of darkness and destroying their 
 power. f The same Apostle tells us that because 
 He loved us, therefore He delivered Himself for 
 us.$ How can we receive with sufficient gratitude 
 all that is contained in this blessed word? It 
 gives us clearly to understand what we may 
 hope from the intensity of the love which has 
 already done so much for us. I am assured of 
 it ; He will not allow the fruits of so much suf- 
 fering to wither and die. It is only by my own 
 wayward folly that I can lose them. If I am 
 sensible of what He has done for me, and put no 
 obstacles in the way, He will surely complete the 
 work. He would not have opened Heaven to me 
 by His death if He did not desire me to enter it 
 by mine. Therefore, sinners though we be, let 
 us gather around the holy cross — it is the throne 
 of His mercy ; there He will receive us with open 
 arms. Criminals though we be, let us have hope 
 at the sight of this sacred sign of our salvation. 
 One drop of this precious blood is sufficient to 
 wash out the sins of the world. 
 
 The love shown us by our Lord in His Pas- 
 
 * Romans viii. 32. t Col. ii. 14, 15. % Gal. ii. 20. 
 
34 Jesus Christ S^lffered to Instruct us. 
 
 sion ought to excite in us another sentiment 
 still more necessary than hope. Oh ! the deplor- 
 able perversion of ideas ! Oh ! the sad denial of 
 truth in practice ! God has so loved the world 
 as to give for it His own Son ; and the world 
 still continues an enemy of God ! What motive 
 more powerful could He place before us ? What 
 means more efficacious could He use to win our 
 love? If the prodigy of God's love for us is in- 
 comprehensible, is that of our insensibility less 
 so ? Ingratitude is held in such horror among 
 men that even those who are not grateful pre- 
 tend to be so. This benefit of His love is so 
 signal that it transcends all our ideas. The 
 thought of it should, while making us blush, 
 also make us sensible that we glory in our in- 
 gratitude. God once said to His chosen people : 
 " What more could I have done for My vine- 
 yard than I have done ? " With how much more 
 reason could he say the same of those whom He 
 purchased by His blood % So far as we can, let 
 us form an idea of our Lord's sufferings for us. 
 It is God Himself, the Supreme Ruler, the Cre- 
 ator of all things, that immolates Himself for 
 a weak and vile creature. It is a God sacrific- 
 ing Himself for a creature who has often offend- 
 ed Him, and who continues to offend Him. It 
 
Jesus Christ Suffered to Instruct us. 35 
 
 is a God who reduces Himself to the last degree 
 of abasement and to the most cruel torments 
 for this creature so criminal towards Him. It 
 is a God who submits to frightful evils to raise 
 a revolted creature to the height of glory and 
 happiness. What does He ask in return for all 
 these favors ? Only that w^e love Him. Ah ! if 
 this love should cease to be a duty, ought we 
 not to make of it an honor? Is it not shame- 
 ful for us that God should be obliged to com- 
 mand it? "Let us, then, love God, who first 
 loved us." At the foot of the cross let us be 
 penetrated with this love, and if we are not call- 
 ed upon to die for Him, let us, at least, live for 
 Him by serving Him. 
 
 The love shown us in the Passion is not 
 merely speculative. In it our Lord, charged 
 with our sins, performs for them an authentic, 
 solemn, and entire penance. Yes, God, who is 
 Sanctity itself, becomes a penitent ! What a 
 lesson is here given to those who were born in 
 sin and who have lived in sin. Let us not de- 
 ceive ourselves, however, with the false idea 
 that, after the penance performed for us by 
 Him, we are thereby dispensed from this duty. 
 On the contrary, His penance is an encourage- 
 ment to ours, and a model of what it ought 
 
36 Jesus Christ Suffered to Instruct us. 
 
 to be. The clialice of His Passion, which He 
 drank to the dregs, He desires us to drink also. 
 Every one must accept either salutary penance 
 or avenging justice. Let us voluntarily accept 
 trials, now that they may save us, instead of 
 being forced to accept worse on the day of eter- 
 nal wrath. The utility and saving virtue of our 
 penances are derived from that of Jesus Christ. 
 His desires give value to ours ; His tears to 
 ours ; His macerations to ours. Had He not 
 repaired our loss, all our attempts would have 
 been vain. If we do not join with Him in the 
 work of our restoration it remains a dead work, 
 because separated from the principle of life. 
 His penance is the supplement of ours, which 
 without it would be of no effect. Ours is the 
 complement of His, which without ours could 
 not be applied to us. Let us, then, in union 
 with Him, expiate our sins, and we shall ap- 
 propriate His merits as our own. In union 
 with Him our penance will be a worthy hom- 
 age to God ; but for this purpose it must bear 
 a true likeness to His. We cannot equal His, 
 but we must strive to imitate it. We cannot 
 attain salvation if we are not conformed to the 
 penitential life of Christ. His penance possesses 
 two qualities which ought to be found in ours : 
 
Jesus Christ Suffered to Ins tried us. 37 
 
 a sorrow of heart, lively and profound, and a 
 full satisfaction for tlie sins with, which we have 
 been charged. From His example let us excite 
 the one and perform the other. The essence of 
 penance is sorrow for sin. This is what we must 
 realize when we behold our Saviour in all the 
 sad circumstances of His Passion. Would that 
 we could truthfully add that the same may be 
 seen in the majority of Christians ! But where 
 shall we find these bitter tears for sin ? In these 
 days of salvation we see numbers approach the 
 sacred tribunal ; but among them how many are 
 truly penitent? Confession, I fear, is much more 
 common than contrition. Let us enter into our- 
 selves, and, calling to mind the penances of our 
 past life, let us consider how different they are 
 from those of our Divine Master. Can we make 
 the comparison without trembling? On this di- 
 vine model let us henceforth form our lives ; let 
 the sentiments of sorrow which we are to bring 
 to the tribunal of reconciliation be like unto 
 His. Alas ! when shall we be converted, if it 
 cannot be accomplished by the thought and the 
 example of our Divine Redeemer ? 
 
 In weeping for our sins our Lord has ex- 
 piated them, and He points out the way in 
 which we are to apply His merits to ourselves. 
 
3 8 yesus Christ Stiff ered to Instruct us. 
 
 It is not sufficient for us to be sorry for our 
 sins, but we must likewise endeavor to repair 
 tlie injury tliey liave done us. We cannot be 
 truly sorry for that to which we are unwilling 
 to apply a remedy. But, who are they who 
 follow the example of our Redeemer, and seri- 
 ously labor to expiate their faults by the salu- 
 tary rigors of true penance? I seek for them 
 among great and well-known sinners, but I find 
 them among saints. On the one side I behold 
 those who have offended God the longest, the 
 most grievously, and the most scandalously, 
 continue to live in sensuality and luxury of 
 all kinds ; whilst they consider themselves great 
 penitents if they merely perform the light pen- 
 ances imposed upon them by the minister of 
 the sacrament, adding, perhaps, some pious 
 works of their own choice. On the other side, 
 I see persons truly religious, who perhaps have 
 never been guilty of a mortal sin, impose upon 
 themselves the severest mortifications, afflicting 
 their flesh with all manner of austerities, and 
 always fearing that they do not sufficiently 
 atone for the sins with which they reproach 
 themselves. Of these two classes, differing so 
 widely in principle and in practice, which is 
 guilty of self-deception % Consider Jesus Christ 
 
Jesus Christ Suffered to Instruct us. 39 
 
 in His Passion, and answer. "Look," says the 
 Holy Spirit, "and make according to the pat- 
 tern that was shown thee on the mount." * 
 
 Satisfaction for sin, as we see it in the Pas- 
 sion of our Lord, and as it ought to be in our 
 lives, should have two distinct qualities : hu- 
 miliation of the heart and mortification of the 
 flesh. Pride is the origin of all sin ; f and, be- 
 ing the first link in that long and heavy chain 
 embracing the whole succession of ages and the 
 whole extent of the world, retains the human 
 race in a state of damnation and tinges with 
 its peculiar malice all other sins; for every sin 
 is a revolt against God, and, therefore, a sin of 
 pride. Jesus Christ, by His humiliations, satis- 
 fies the glory of God directly attacked by pride, 
 and shows us how we are to attain the same 
 end. In becoming man He degraded Himself, 
 and His whole life was a constant practice and 
 example of humility. But, in His Passion, He 
 goes beyond all our conceptions of humiliation. 
 From the moment of His arrest in the garden 
 till His last sigh on the cross He proceeded 
 from one disgraceful torture to another more 
 disgraceful. Not content with receiving a few 
 outrages, He is saturated with them. He is 
 
 * Exod. xxv. 40. t Tobias iv. 14. 
 
40 Jesus Christ Stiffered to Instruct us. 
 
 hardly any longer a man ; He is the reproach 
 of men and the outcast of the people.* We 
 would not dare use these expressions if they 
 were not given to us in Holy Writ. To 
 expiate our pride He was degraded to this 
 extremity ; and how can, we in sight of this, 
 continue in our pride ? It was our sins that 
 brought Him to this ; and they do not put us 
 to shame. O great God ! what a difference be- 
 tween Jesus Christ and those who call them- 
 selves His disciples! They blush not to have 
 caused such profound humiliations. They dare 
 call themselves Christians whilst rejecting the 
 fundamental virtue of Christianity. They dare 
 call themselves penitents whilst rejecting the 
 most important requirement of penance, which 
 is humiliation. But you who are truly pious 
 will always follow your Divine Master. You 
 will suffer disgrace and trials because He has 
 given you the example. From these humilia- 
 tions, be assured, great glory will come to you. 
 Listen to St. Paul: "He humbled Himself, be- 
 coming obedient unto death, even the death 
 of the cross ; wherefore, God also hath exalted 
 Him, and hath given Him a name which is 
 above every other name, that in the name of 
 
 * Psalm xxi. 7. 
 
Jesus Christ Suffered to Instruct us. 4 1 
 
 Jesus every knee should bow of those that are 
 in heaven, on earth, and in hell." * You also, 
 because your hearts are conformed to the hu- 
 mility of the Divine Model, will be crowned 
 with glory on the day of judgment. "He that 
 exalteth himself shall be humbled ; and he that 
 humbleth himself shall be exalted." 
 
 To His humiliations our Blessed Lord also 
 added sufferings the most intense. The con- 
 sideration of all the torments of His Passion 
 is calculated to break the strongest spirit. From 
 the head crowned with thorns to the feet 
 pierced with nails there is no soundness in 
 Him.f All the wounds with which He is cov- 
 ered are so many tongues by which He preaches 
 mortification to us. We imagine ourselves to 
 be penitent without practising the works of 
 genuine penance ; and only because we have 
 corrected a few faults, and abstained from a few 
 excesses. This is not true Christian penance ; 
 for the holy Apostle tells us again that they 
 "who are Christ's will mortify the flesh with 
 its vices and concupiscences. "J A prevailing 
 prejudice in the world is disposed to confine 
 mortification to the cloister ; and, in fact, makes 
 of it a virtue fit only for solitaries. Is it true, 
 
 * Phil. ii. 8 3 9 3 10. t Isaias i. 6. % Gal. v. 24. 
 
42 Jesus Christ Suffered to Instruct us. 
 
 then, that the saints of different conditions in 
 life, of different states, of various degrees of 
 sanctity, were all solitaries % Is it possible that 
 one Christian can be sanctified by a sensual life, 
 whilst austerities are absolutely required for 
 another % Let us not be deceived ; it is impos- 
 sible to follow Christ to Heaven if we follow 
 Him not in the road of His Passion. To be co- 
 heirs with Christ in glory, we must suffer with 
 Him on earth.* 
 
 Let us bear in mind the instructions given us 
 ,by our Lord in His Passion taken in this gene- 
 ral way. In the following considerations the 
 successive circumstances of His Passion will, one 
 by one, suggest many others. 
 
 * Rom. viii. 17. 
 
III. 
 
 JESUS IN THE GARDEN OF OLIVES. 
 
III. 
 
 JESUS IN THE GAEDEN OF OLIVES. 
 
 " Then He said unto them: My soul is sorrowful even unto 
 death." (Matt. xxvi. 38.) 
 
 The Passion of our Blessed Saviour was at 
 band. He now approached the end of His 
 earthly career. It only remained for Him to 
 finish the work which He had come from Heaven 
 to accomplish, and to crown His wonderful life 
 by a still more wonderful death. Before con- 
 summating His sacrifice He was pleased, by 
 an effort of His infinite goodness and pow r er, 
 to perpetuate it to the end of ages by the in- 
 stitution of the Holy Eucharist. Then leaving 
 the supper-table, accompanied by His Apostles, 
 He took the road once trodden by David in his 
 flight from the rebellious Absalom, passed the 
 brook of Cedron, and ascended Mount Olivet. 
 But between Him and David there is a strik- 
 ing difference. David fled from his enemies ; 
 Christ goes to meet His. David fled to save 
 his life ; Christ advanced to give up His. David 
 ascended the mountain weeping ; Christ as- 
 
 45 
 
46 Jesus in the Garden of Olives. 
 
 cended joyfully. Arrived at the particular spot 
 named Grethsemani, He entered the garden in 
 which He had often previously prayed. Then 
 leaving His other Apostles, He took with Him 
 three, who appear to have been constantly His 
 most intimate confidants, and who had witnessed 
 His transfiguration on Mount Thabor. These 
 were Peter, and the sons of Zebedee, James and 
 John. 
 
 This retirement of Jesus Christ with only 
 three of His disciples affords us a special in- 
 struction. By it He teaches us to admit to the 
 privacy of our prayers, of our good works, of 
 our temptations, of our trials, of all in fact that 
 relates to matters of conscience, only a few 
 trusted friends ; and among them only the most 
 worthy of such confidence. It is a sentiment 
 of vanity that animates certain devout souls, 
 or such as pretend to be so, that all the world 
 must know what passes in their interior ; must 
 know the good they are doing, which they fail 
 not to exaggerate, and their failings, which they 
 make sure to diminish. To put ourselves to 
 special pains to occupy the minds of others 
 with our affairs is a spirit out of harmony with 
 the Gospel. But we need not fear that our good 
 works will want witnesses. There is One to 
 
y estes in the Garden of Olives. 47 
 
 whom they are well known ; to whom alone 
 we should wish to have them known ; and the 
 more our humility screens them from other eyes 
 the more value they will acquire in His. 
 
 The Passion of our Lord began the moment 
 He entered the garden. "He began to fear 
 and to be sad." A mortal fear seized Him. He 
 made known to His disciples His state of dere- 
 liction. The very same person who, a short 
 time before, had mentioned His approaching 
 trials with composure, who made all necessary 
 dispositions with admirable tranquillity, is now 
 all at once cast down. The transition from 
 calm to agitation is sadden indeed. And is 
 He not the strength of the weak, the consola- 
 tion of the afflicted, the joy of all the blessed 
 spirits? Where now is His divine power? 
 Where is His sovereign blessedness ? This ap- 
 parent contradiction will disappear when we 
 consider with St. Augustine that, on account of 
 the intimate union of His divine and human 
 natures, His actions always assumed the ap- 
 pearance of the one and the other. Although 
 these two natures were really distinct, yet in 
 their operations they appeared to be confound- 
 ed. This blending of the divine and human 
 natures in our Lord appears nowhere more man- 
 
48 Jesus in the Garden of Olives. 
 
 ifest than in the Garden of Olives. God and 
 man successively and unmistakably appear. 
 Let us contemplate this new Jacob contending 
 in the gloom of night against the anger of 
 the Almighty. There He is just as He had 
 been described six centuries previously by the 
 prophet: " My heart is broken within Me; 
 all My bones tremble."* In His deep sorrow 
 where does He seek solace % Several times He 
 seeks it from His Father and from His disci- 
 ples. He begs it from Heaven and from earth ; 
 and Heaven and earth conspire to refuse it 
 and to leave Him 5 in the excess of His afflic- 
 tion, entirely to Himself. Then, turning from 
 His apostles, He bends His knees in prayer. 
 It is in prayer we find the greatest and most 
 solid consolation. To dissipate their sorrow 
 men of the world often deliver themselves up 
 to pleasures, even to the point of dissoluteness ; 
 but the true Christian will always seek solace 
 from evil in the bosom of God. How can men 
 of faith fill up the void ever left in the henrt 
 by dissipation with other dissipations ? Plea- 
 sures may distract the mind for the moment, 
 and turn it away from the serious evils with 
 which it is afflicted, but these come back with 
 
 * Jer. xxiii. 9. 
 
Jestts in the Garden of Olives. 49 
 
 more bitter and cutting power ; it is religion 
 alone that can turn evil into good, for it makes 
 of evil a means of uniting man's heart more 
 firmly to God. You afflict yourself with the 
 thought of your loss, your sickness, your dis- 
 grace, your humiliation ; know you not that 
 it is God who arranged this for you, that you 
 may have the opportunity of meriting His re- 
 ward ? Think only that it is offered to you in 
 the providence of God, and that, united with 
 the sufferings of Christ, it will become a prin- 
 ciple of your elevation in His sight. There 
 cannot be a thought more salutary for the fu- 
 ture life, or more consoling in the present, 
 than that of the advantage of tribulations re- 
 ceived in the spirit of penance. Jesus Christ 
 separated Himself from His disciples to show 
 us that, free from all company of men, our 
 prayer is more fervent, our intercourse with. 
 God more intimate. In the midst of men it is 
 difficult not to be distracted by their words and 
 actions ; it is difficult to guard ourselves from 
 the thoughts which surrounding objects pre- 
 sent to our minds. In retirement the mind 
 concentrates itself ; nothing turns it aside, 
 nothing comes between it and God. Thus 
 we read in Holy Writ: "I will lead her in- 
 
50 Jesus in the Garden of Olives. 
 
 to the wilderness, and I will speak to her 
 heart.' '* 
 
 The praj^er of Christ should be the model of 
 ours. " Father, if it be possible, let this chalice 
 pass from Me ; nevertheless not as I will but as 
 Thou wilt." f He does not employ many words ; 
 but rather adheres to the substance of His re- 
 quest. He explains to His Father His desire to be 
 freed from the torments about to fall upon Hirn, 
 If it is not heard what shall become of Him % If 
 it is heard what shall become of us % Let us 
 not despair; our Lord is troubled at the ap- 
 proach of His Passion ; but He does not fly from 
 it. He feels the bitterness of His chalice ; but He 
 does not refuse to drink it. So also in our pains 
 of the temporal order ; we are not forbidden to 
 desire to be freed from them, and to demand it of 
 God. It is a natural sentiment ; and the Author 
 of nature and religion does not oppose one to the 
 other. The Church, always assisted and inspired 
 by her Divine Spouse, has recourse to Him in 
 the calamities which afflict nations, imploring 
 Him by public prayers that wars, tempests, 
 and all other scourges may cease. She begs 
 for healthy seasons, for the fertility of the earth, 
 the preservation of sovereigns, the prosperity of 
 
 * Osee ii, 14 t Matt, xxvl 39. 
 
Jesus in the Garden of Olives. 5 1 
 
 kingdoms. No doubt goods of the spiritual 
 order are infinitely more important than those 
 merely temporal, and ought to form the prin- 
 cipal object of our petitions ; but we are not re- 
 quired to occupy ourselves solely with these, 
 We should give them the preference, but not 
 to the exclusion of the others. And it is from 
 God we must ask all. In laboring to procure 
 the fruits of the earth— for such is the command 
 of God — we should not lose sight of two special 
 thoughts ; first, that our labors would be useless 
 without God's blessing, which we are obliged to 
 ask ; and, secondly, that if, in His Divine wis- 
 dom, which knows our wants and will not fail to 
 supply them, He should withhold this blessing, 
 we must still say: "Not my will but Thine be 
 done." Thus our prayers for temporal bless* 
 ings should ever be conditional and subject to 
 the supreme will of God. Let us sincerely imi- 
 tate the resignation of our Lord in His agony, 
 and we shall receive our reward. Yet, let us ask 
 ourselves, is this submission to the divine will, 
 which we outwardly profess, true, absolute, and 
 universal, like the submission of Jesus Christ ? 
 The chalice which He consented to drink was 
 not of His choosing ; He accepted that which 
 was sent to Him, and we know its frightful bit- 
 
52 Jesus in the Garden of Olives. 
 
 terness. Without exception or restriction, and 
 with a clear knowledge of the humiliations, tor- 
 tures, and bitter death prepared for Him, He ac- 
 cepted this chalice. By the light of His example 
 let us enter into ourselves, and, confessing our 
 tardy and poor submission to the will of God, let 
 us bravely struggle to follow Christ our Lord. 
 It often happens that, even in our good works, it 
 is not our will that we wish to submit to the will 
 of God, but His will to ours. Yes, we wish 
 what He wishes, provided it contains nothing to 
 humble us, nothing to afflict or mortify us ; and 
 if, indeed, we consent to tribulations, we wish 
 them to be those of our own choice, not of His. 
 We suffer to a given point, but not beyond it ; 
 we bear this special cross, but not the other. 
 Is not this the full measure of our resignation ? 
 Let us judge of it by the impatience we feel, the 
 murmurs we express, the complaints we make 
 even in the smallest trials that afflict us. This is 
 clearly not what our Lord preaches to us in the 
 Garden of Gethsemani. Our submission to the 
 Divine Will should be of the heart, and practi- 
 cal ; of the heart, in that it induces us to receive 
 whatever God sends us joyfully and without a 
 murmur ; practical, in that it makes us execute 
 without delay what God is pleased to command. 
 
y estes in the Garden of Olives. 53 
 
 We may find sucli an exercise of this virtue 
 onerous and galling. But do we imagine tliat 
 the service of God requires no sacrifice ? Do we 
 think that He consents to accept our service only 
 so far as we please and as we please? Let us 
 rather confide in the aids of His grace to over- 
 come our repugnances. Let us labor to form in 
 our hearts a spirit of resignation resembling that 
 of Jesus Christ. We shall then find nothing so 
 difficult that we cannot undertake ; nothing so 
 repulsive that we cannot embrace ; nothing so 
 onerous that we cannot bear ; nothing so hard 
 that we cannot execute ; nothing so fatiguing 
 through which we cannot persevere. 
 
 After His prayer our Lord, still troubled by 
 the same agitations, went to seek His three dis- 
 ciples. He had ordered them to await His com- 
 ing in watching and in prayer ; but on His com- 
 ing they were asleep. On that sad night sleep 
 seemed to settle over all excepting Himself and 
 His enemies. He awaited their hostile approach. 
 They prepared to seize Him. Even His most 
 cherished disciples, to whom He had given many 
 special pledges of His love, and who had so 
 often made protestations of attachment, when 
 they saw Him plunged in the deepest sorrow, in- 
 stead of sympathizing with Him, abandoned 
 
54 Jesus in the Garden of Olives. 
 
 themselves to sleep and left Him to His afflic- 
 tions. This is man ; this is as far as we may 
 count upon his attachment ; these are the con- 
 solations we may expect from friends. Only one 
 Friend remains to us always ; only one Friend 
 that changes not in our regard till we shall have 
 changed towards Him ; who, even when we do 
 abandon Him, does not abandon us, but seeks us 
 and presses us by all the arts of His love, by all 
 means natural and supernatural, interior and 
 exterior, to come back to Him. The friends we 
 meet in this world are generally like the com- 
 forters of holy Job, to whom he said : " I have 
 often heard such things as these ; you are all 
 troublesome comforters." * Let us have recourse 
 in our trials to the Consoler of all the afflicted, 
 and we shall not be disappointed. With His 
 accustomed sweetness our Lord reproached His 
 disciples on account of their sleeping in such cir- 
 cumstances, and took occasion from it to give 
 us a double lesson — a precept and a maxim : 
 " Watch and pray that you enter not into temp- 
 tation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the 
 flesh is weak." f. Our Lord frequently recom- 
 mends watching and prayer, each an essential 
 practice in itself, and both forming the founda- 
 
 * Job xvi. 2. t Matt. xxvi. 41. 
 
y estes in the Garden of Olives. 55 
 
 tion of the true Christian character. They are, 
 of all others, the two means most adapted to pre- 
 vent temptations and to resist them. Constant 
 vigilance foresees the occasions of temptation ; 
 fervent prayer obtains the power to vanquish 
 it. Vigilance prevents surprise ; prayer prevents 
 defeat. Of ourselves we are weak indeed ; we 
 must implore the necessary succor. In giving 
 it God wishes us not to be idle, but on our 
 guard. By watchfulness we do what is in us ; 
 by prayer we obtain what is wanting to us. 
 Our Lord also gives to the Apostles and to 
 us a reason why we should watch and pray : 
 "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is 
 weak." Which of us does not feel the full 
 force of this maxim? How often have we not 
 learned it by sad experience % The levity of the 
 spirit, the weakness of the flesh ; behold the two 
 principal causes of our fall, the two most power- 
 ful weapons of our enemy. Sometimes he at- 
 tacks us unaware, in moments of distraction, 
 and makes an easy conquest ; but his success is 
 more frequently achieved through our weakness. 
 This is the most dangerous of his attacks, be- 
 cause our carnal affections conspire with, him 
 and he finds within us most powerful allies. Let 
 us employ against him the weapons proposed by 
 
56 Jesus in the Garden of Olives. 
 
 our Divine Master ; let us conquer our levity 
 by vigilance and our weakness by the power of 
 prayer. 
 
 But the anguish of our Lord, far from growing 
 less, continually increases. Three times He im- 
 plores consolation from His Father in the words : 
 "If it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me"; 
 and in seeking consolation from His disciples He 
 finds them again asleep. Will He be abandoned 
 by all % Is He to be left alone in His extreme 
 affliction ? Angels of heaven ! who came to an- 
 nounce His birth to the world, who followed Him 
 to the desert, and who appeased His hunger after 
 His long fast, where are you in this sad and dole- 
 ful scene ? Will you remain tranquil in the en- 
 joyment of your beatitude whilst the Author of 
 all your happiness is plunged into the very abyss 
 of grief % But I see a blessed spirit descend 
 from heaven. By His persevering prayer our 
 Lord obtains this succor. And in what does the 
 comfort consist which is thus sent Him by His 
 Father % We know not what was the nature of 
 it, but we know its effect. The angel sustains 
 Him, but does not release Him ; he helps our 
 Lord to bear His sufferings, but does not dimin- 
 ish them. On the contrary, we find that soon 
 after this apparition His agony becomes more in- 
 
yesus in the Garden of Olives. 57 
 
 tense and reaches its climax. Then it was that 
 what never happened to any mortal, and prob- 
 ably never will happen, what physical science is 
 unable to explain, Jesus Christ felt in an instant ; 
 for we read that, " being in agony, He prayed 
 the longer, and His sweat became as drops of 
 blood trickling down upon the ground." * What 
 are the causes of this so sad and so extraordi- 
 nary condition of our Redeemer ? They are the 
 violent conflicts raging in His soul. They are 
 the conflict between His submission to the Divine 
 Will and the torments to which He is about to 
 submit Himself ; a conflict between His horror of 
 sin and the sight of all the sins with which He 
 sees Himself charged ; a conflict between the de- 
 sire of our salvation and the sight of the large 
 numbers for whose salvation He dies in vain. 
 
 Our Lord distinctly sees all His humiliations, 
 all His sufferings, and the terrible death He is 
 about to suffer. This frightful scene comes be- 
 fore Him in advance and all at once. But had 
 He not seen them from all eternity ? Had He 
 not predicted them ? Had He not ardently de- 
 sired them ? Certainly ; but it is a part of the 
 divine decree that His soul should escape no 
 anguish, as His body should be spared no pain. 
 
 *Luke xxii. 43. 44. 
 
5 8 Jesus in the Garden of Olives. 
 
 This explains why God impressed Him with such 
 a terror of what He was to suffer. He could, 
 without doubt, free Himself from all this sorrow 
 by the exercise of His supreme power ; but He 
 would not. He desired not only to expiate our 
 sins, but also to give us an example of unparal- 
 leled patience and resignation. If he had been 
 afflicted in the garden only to the point of suffer- 
 ings and death, we could hardly conceive the an- 
 guish into which He was plunged ; but when we 
 call to mind that, from the first instant of His 
 Passion, all the sins of the human race were 
 upon Him — that He was covered with them, and 
 that they became His own, then we may form 
 some idea of the agony and sweat of blood. It 
 is in this state He presents Himself to His Fa- 
 ther ; in this state He sees Himself. Finite 
 beings that we are, we cannot fully know the 
 deformity of sin. As sinners we cannot properly 
 feel it. It is only God Himself that can know 
 how much sin ought to be detested. In consider- 
 ing the infinite sanctity of our Saviour it is not, 
 therefore, His agony that so much astonishes us, 
 but rather the fact that His humanity could bear 
 it at all, and that the horror with which He was 
 penetrated and the interior suffering with which 
 He was crushed did not cause instantaneous death. 
 
J estes in the Garden of Olives. 59 
 
 Again, that which contributed to the awful 
 agony of our Lord in another respect, was the 
 clear knowledge He had of the little fruit His 
 Passion would produce in the majority of men. 
 The future opens to Him its secrets ; and what 
 does He find there? Ah ! this ought to be for 
 us, rather than for Him, a subject of confusion 
 and dismay. He sees all the outrages that 
 will be inflicted upon His grace and love ; He 
 sees the blood of the Testament, the blood shed 
 for us, the blood intended to sanctify us, tram- 
 pled upon and despised by many. He sees 
 the torments He is enduring not only useless 
 to a great number, but injurious to them. Be- 
 hold, says the royal prophet in His name, 
 "what profit is there in My blood?" * Is it, 
 then, to no purpose, He asks through St. Paul, 
 that I die? Shall the scandal of the Cross 
 be made vain even by those for whom I have 
 borne it?f Is it astonishing, therefore, that 
 the charity which brought our Blessed Lord to 
 His death should have afflicted Him and render- 
 ed Him desolate at the sight of those to whom 
 it would be rather a cause of destruction than of 
 salvation ? 
 
 Shall we, then, who are, the happy objects of 
 
 * Ps. xxix. 10. + Gal. ii. 21, v. 2 
 
6o Jesus in the Garden of Olives. 
 
 the infinite mercy of our God, on seeing Him so 
 full of anguish at the sight of our loss, continue 
 in our gross and brutal insensibility % We shall 
 never really conceive such a horror for sin as that 
 by which He was afflicted ; but let us, at least, 
 beg of Him a part of that spirit of contrition 
 which filled His heart, and, uniting our feeble 
 sorrow with His, let us make a constant effort to 
 imitate Him. 
 
IV. 
 
 JESUS IS APPREHENDED. 
 
IV. 
 
 JESUS IS APPREHENDED. 
 
 u Behold the hour is at hand, and the Son of man shall be 
 delivered into the hands of sinners." (Matt. xxvi. 45.) 
 
 We have seen our Divine Saviour a prey to 
 grief the most excessive ; His soul crushed by 
 sadness and terror, and His body broken by the 
 weight of the evils He bore and the evils He 
 foresaw. But a spectacle altogether different 
 suddenly attracts our attention. From the depth 
 of a debasement never equalled in the history 
 of man, Jesus Christ appears in all His great- 
 ness, in all His majesty, in all His power. For 
 a few moments the Godhead appears in Him, in 
 order that His humiliation might stand out in 
 stronger relief. Not in the common, human 
 way and by slow degrees does He recover from 
 His agony. Between the mortal struggle which 
 purpled the earth with a sweat of blood and 
 the heroic firmness which He displays, there is 
 no interval. Instantaneously, by an effort of 
 His omnipotence, He passed from one state to 
 the other, as He afterwards passed from death 
 
64 Jesus is Apprehended. 
 
 to life. Relieved from His most abject condition, 
 He goes to arouse His Apostles. He declares to 
 them that the fatal moment is come, that the 
 traitor is at hand. Indeed, He is at once sur- 
 1 rounded by a numerous troop, armed with swords 
 and clubs, sent to arrest Him by the chief priests 
 and ancients of the people. 
 
 With what precision our Lord foresaw the 
 moment in which His executioners were to seize 
 Him ! He had clearly seen all the intrigues, all 
 the plots of His enemies. He had assisted at all 
 the councils in which His destruction was sworn ; 
 He was a witness of the infamous bargain made 
 with Judas. In a moment He saw a band of as- 
 sassins approach Him. He had followed all their 
 steps, or at least, by His supreme will, He made 
 them correspond with His designs, so that they 
 came before Him at the very moment decreed in 
 His divine providence. So thoroughly aware of 
 the coming of his enemies, He could easily have 
 eluded their grasp. Thus when, at Nazareth, 
 they forced Him to the edge of a precipice in 
 order to cast Him down, He passed unhurt from 
 among them, and they could not prevent it.* 
 So also when, at Jerusalem, they tried to stone 
 Him to death, He concealed Himself from their 
 
 *Luke iv. 29, 30. 
 
Jesus is Apprehended. 65 
 
 sight and departed from the temple. * But now 
 His hour is come ; advancing voluntarily and 
 with firmness, He submits to all that it brings. 
 
 Therefore, says the Evangelist, Jesus pro- 
 ceeds, with a certainty of all that is to hap- 
 pen, to meet His assassins, and shows neither 
 fear nor confusion nor emotion. He is the first 
 to speak ; He asks whom they seek, and to their 
 answer He replies: "I am He." Let us pause 
 and admire the courage which sets at naught the 
 most frightful evils ; let us also admire the pru- 
 dence which regulates and the obedience which 
 directs that courage. He does not enter into the 
 conflict until He is fitted for it by prayer ; and 
 He awaits the hour fixed in His decrees to deliv- 
 er Himself to His sufferings. It was the time in 
 which He wished them to come ; He did not 
 allow them to anticipate His will. Thus He 
 teaches us to be ready to accept anything that 
 may come from the hand of God, and to be dis- 
 posed by prayer to receive it with resignation. 
 
 The words, "I am He," which for Him are a 
 signal of suffering and death, are for those who 
 come to arrest Him like a stroke of lightning. 
 They are prostrated upon the earth.f They come 
 to put Him in their power; and behold, they 
 
 * John viii. 59. t John xriii. 6. 
 
66 "Jesus is Apprehended. 
 
 are in His. What use does He make of it % His 
 own indulgence inspires it. He only wished to 
 show His power, but not to use it ; to make 
 them feel the merit of His sacrifice, but not to 
 prevent it. He immediately allows them to rise. 
 But this prodigy of power and goodness on His 
 part is followed by a prodigy of blindness and 
 madness on theirs. They are neither moved by 
 the superhuman force displayed in their regard 
 nor by the favor which is accorded them. This 
 conduct of the Jews surprises us. Alas ! let us 
 think of ourselves. Ungrateful that we are, how 
 often has He lifted us up from the grasp of sin, 
 and how often have we fallen again ! The very 
 afflictions which sometimes follow from our sins 
 have not always the power to bind us to Him. 
 Like the enemies of Christ, the tools of the 
 Sanhedrim, w t o have neither been stricken by 
 His chastisements nor moved by His favors. 
 
 Figure to yourselves, then, lions about to de- 
 vour their prey. It is the image presented to us 
 in the language of the royal prophet. They fall 
 upon him all at once and hold him fast. Be- 
 hold the innocent Lamb of God in the fangs of 
 lions ! But He is still their Master, and will re- 
 main so as long as He wishes. Another prodigy 
 of His power and goodness now shows itself. 
 
Jesus is Apprehended. 67 
 
 The Apostles, up to tliis moment, had been quiet 
 spectators of what was passing; but at last, 
 fearing danger to the person of their Divine 
 Master, they feel it a duty to defend Him. It 
 is certainly a duty to defend Him when He is 
 attacked, and we have many occasions to exer- 
 cise it. How often do we see Him attacked by 
 the sophistries and railleries of infidelity ! How 
 do we act on those occasions ? Do we feel it to 
 be a duty to avenge the Divine Majesty, and to 
 refute, as far as in us lies, the outrages offered to 
 Him, and to erase the evil impressions of such 
 discourse ? Instead of this do we not counte- 
 nance the impiety by a guilty silence Ï And thus 
 do we not appear to take part with the enemies 
 of our Lord ? Before acting, the Apostles con- 
 sulted their Master and asked Him if they would 
 draw the sword. Their conduct herein is admir- 
 able. It shows their love of Jesus Christ, which 
 induced them to resist the injury inflicted upon 
 Him ; it shows their courage also, which did not 
 allow them to doubt but that with only two 
 swords they could disarm a multitude ; it show- 
 ed their obedience, too, which induced them to 
 await the instructions of their Divine Lord. They 
 were mistaken, indeed ; they did not understand 
 thus far the mystery of the sufferings and death 
 
68 Jestts is Apprehended. 
 
 of Jesus. It was their error, but not their fault 
 as tliey looked for the decision of their Saviour. 
 God does not impute to us as faults those errors 
 into which we fall in regard to points not yet 
 decided ; but He requires us to be ever ready 
 to submit our opinions and our actions to what- 
 ever He may demand of us through His mouth- 
 piece, the Church. One of the Apostles, how- 
 ever, Peter, the first among them, and whom we 
 find the most zealous for the glory of his Divine 
 Master, without waiting for an answer drew his 
 sword and cut off the ear of Malchus, a servant 
 of the high-priest. Peter erred in this ; there 
 was precipitation in his act ; he should not have 
 anticipated the word of his Master. His indis- 
 creet zeal might have provoked a combat and 
 caused the effusion of blood. In blaming his 
 ardor we must at least respect his motive ; and 
 if it be impossible to justify his conduct, we 
 may excuse it. Jesus Christ also permitted this 
 act of His disciple, that He might show His 
 divine authority and power. Quiet follows from 
 one word of His ; not only the Apostles but the 
 Jews also, whom the violence of Peter might 
 have irritated, become tranquil. Thus also on 
 the lake of Galilee He once commanded the 
 winds and the sea, and there came a great calm. 
 
Jestcs is Apprehended. 69 
 
 Now He is in the hands of His enemies ; He is 
 their captive ; it is the hour of their fierce an- 
 ger ; but, even when they had received a plau- 
 sible excuse for resorting to extreme measures, 
 with one word He arrests and disarms their fury. 
 What greatness amid the abasement to which 
 He delivers Himself ! What astonishing dignity, 
 that impresses so wonderfully those who hold 
 Him in their clutches and yet obey His orders ! 
 He touches the ear of the servant Malchus and 
 he is immediately healed. In this one act he 
 effects two wonders, one of His power and the 
 other of His goodness. Barbarians and heathens 
 would have been touched with admiration and 
 gratitude ; but impious men, though claiming to 
 be the chosen people of God, are not affected. 
 Their hearts are like stone ; their minds are 
 darkness itself. The Jews, who had been ac- 
 customed to see His miracles, were only more 
 hardened against this grand proof of His Di- 
 vinity. The continuance of these miracles, which, 
 reasonably, should have convinced and converted 
 them, had the very opposite effect. 
 
 After our Lord had restrained the impetu- 
 osity of St. Peter He gave him instructions 
 which are most applicable to us. "Put up 
 again thy sword," He says, "into its place; 
 
Jesits is Apprehended. 
 
 for all that take the sword shall perish by the 
 sword. Thinkest thou that I cannot ask My 
 Father, and He will give Me presently more than 
 twelve legions of angels ?" * In His teaching 
 He had often recommended meekness, and His 
 whole life was an example of it. Calumniated, 
 contradicted, pursued, and assailed by numerous 
 and furious enemies, He never allowed a word 
 or a gesture of impatience or ill-humor to escape 
 Him. Ever calm in the midst of their turbu- 
 lence, He opposed to their violence, patience* 
 to their hatred, charity ; to their outrages, bless- 
 ings ; to their persecutions, benefits. It is, above 
 all, in His sacred Passion that we gather these 
 instructions. Thus, when the fury of His ene- 
 mies reached the height of its malice, His sweet- 
 ness and meekness were redoubled. In heal- 
 ing Malchus He gives an example of this. He 
 also gives us a lesson in this circumstance. He 
 clearly condemns what we call the code of honor, 
 as false, absurd, and criminal, opposed alike to 
 reason, religion, and the civil law. This code 
 pretends to wash out the stain of insult and in- 
 jury by blood ; it is only a miserable relic of the 
 barbarism of our ancestors, to which we join, by 
 a monstrous union, the most sanguinary maxims 
 
 * Matt. xxvi. 52, 58. 
 
Jesus is Apprehended. 71 
 
 of our corrupt age and effeminate manners, tlius 
 uniting the vices of all ages in our own. It is 
 especially forbidden to the Apostles destined 
 by our Lord to found His Church. They are 
 required, by His example, to establish and ex- 
 tend His holy religion, but by no other weapons 
 than those of meekness and charity, patience and 
 prayer. They are forbidden to shed any blood 
 but their own in the accomplishment of this 
 great work. We ministers of the altar, succes- 
 sors of the Apostles, must constantly bear in 
 mind this great precept of our Redeemer. No 
 blind or violent zeal should ever carry us be- 
 yond the bounds of charity. By meekness the 
 world has been conquered to Christ ; by meek- 
 ness alone shall the conquest be preserved. 
 All that is necessary to maintain it we should 
 suffer ; but we should inflict no suffering on 
 others. Efficaciously to carry on the work of 
 Christ we must continue it as He commenced. 
 To St. Peter our Lord renews His instruc- 
 tion : "How then shall the Scriptures be ful- 
 filled, that so it must be done?" * Often before 
 He had declared that in His Passion all things 
 relating to the Messiah should be accomplished 
 in Him.f But the Jews, preoccupied with the 
 
 ♦ Matt. xxvi. 54. t Luke xxiv. 44, 
 
7 2 J estes is Apprehended. 
 
 idea of a Christ glorious, triumphant, and found- 
 ing a temporal kingdom, could not reconcile it 
 with His constant teachings of poverty and suf- 
 fering, It is nevertheless the most detailed part 
 of their prophecies, and, consequently, the best 
 adapted to make them recognize the heavenly 
 Envoy. It was that part He most insisted upon 
 as having been taught to their fathers. The 
 Apostles and Evangelists constantly refer to it 
 in their recital of the Passion. They are most 
 careful to place alongside of every circumstance 
 they relate a corresponding passage of the Old 
 Testament announcing it. What, then, did this 
 blind and perverse people seek ? What could 
 they desire in proof of His coming? But they 
 confound all ideas of His spiritual kingdom in 
 the vision of a great and prosperous reign of the 
 temporal order. This spiritual kingdom easily 
 explains all obscure passages in the sacred writ- 
 ings ; it renders plain all that had been so often 
 foretold regarding the sufferings and humilia- 
 tions of Christ. Better instructed than they, 
 and hence more fortunate, let us profit by the 
 light which they shut out from their eyes. Let 
 us meditate upon the wonderful accord between 
 the Old and the New Testaments — one containing 
 the prophecies relating to the Passion, and the 
 
y estes is Apprehended. 
 
 other recounting its minutest circumstances— so 
 as to strengthen our faith and render it invincible. 
 Finally, our Lord, again addressing His Apostles, 
 says : u The chalice which My Father hath given 
 Me, shall I not drink it \ " * Let us often apply 
 this word to ourselves. At every privation, at 
 every painful occurrence, at every tribulation or 
 humiliation of what kind soever, let us say with 
 our Lord : Shall I not drink of the chalice given 
 me by my Father ? It is a necessity, for I have 
 inherited sin from my father Adam. It is a 
 duty, for my Saviour and all the saints have 
 shown me the way. It is an advantage, for 
 there is no other way of going to Heaven. It is 
 a blessing, "for that which is at present mo- 
 mentary and light of our tribulation, worketh 
 for us above measure exceedingly an eternal 
 weight of glory." f 
 
 After having thus instructed His Apostles He 
 addressed Himself to the Jews who had bound 
 Him and held Him in their power. But with 
 what tranquillity ; with what sweetness amid in- 
 juries ; with what firmness and dignity amid all 
 manner of contemptuous treatment ! " Are you 
 come out," He said, u as it were against a thief, 
 with swords and clubs?" % In what particular 
 
 * John xviii. 11. t 2 Cor. iv. 17. t Luke xsii, 5S> 
 
74 Jesus is Apprehended. 
 
 had He shown Himself to be a violent or a dan- 
 gerous man? Had He ever done the smallest 
 evil to any one that could give a color of jus- 
 tice to the affronts now offered to Him ? His 
 whole life had been employed in doing good, 
 and perhaps to those even who come to tor- 
 ment Him. Often threatened, He never re- 
 sisted, but only turned aside to avoid the at- 
 tack. And yet why this cruel preparation? 
 Why this numerous troop ? Why these swords 
 and clubs ? It would seem that He was a leader 
 of brigands, conspiring against the state and 
 having command of a formidable force. 
 
 Again He reminded the Jews that He had 
 taught daily in their temple and that they had 
 not laid hands upon Him. " But this," said He, 
 "is your hour and the power of darkness." * 
 Three years He had traversed Judea, filling it 
 with His miracles and teachings ; but He was the 
 constant object of the hatred of three special 
 classes — the priests, the doctors, and the Phari- 
 sees. The pride of some, the envy of others, the 
 hypocrisy of all ; every passion that He con- 
 demned ; every vice that He labored to root out 
 during these years, conspired against Him, but 
 in vain. The storm was constantly gathering 
 
 » Luke sail 53, 
 
Jesus is Apprehended. 75 
 
 around Him, but it failed to touch Him. Yet He 
 always proceeded with the greatest independence. 
 Ever in the midst of enemies possessing au- 
 thority and power, continually an object of their 
 rage and deceit, He always dissipated their vain 
 projects. Apparently able to seize Him and pun- 
 ish Him at all times, yet they had not the power, 
 though they had the will. Renewing every day 
 their snares to destroy Him, they were always 
 disconcerted ; an invisible barrier shielded Him 
 from their attempts. But now this barrier, 
 hitherto impenetrable, has fallen. Now they 
 surround Him ; now they, possess His person. 
 Whence this sudden change? He explains it; 
 He gives the reason for their former impotence 
 and their present strength. Your hour is now 
 come. If they hold Him in their grasp, it is 
 because He willed it and it is when He willed 
 it. The hour which they esteem most fortunate 
 for them is in truth the most fatal. They re- 
 joice in having the victim of their fury within 
 their power ; one day they will be the victims 
 of His justice. 
 
 Although apprehended by His enemies, and 
 maltreated by them as their cajotive, He yet com- 
 mands them and they obey. "If, therefore, you 
 seek Me," said He, "let these [the disciples] go 
 
76 Jesus is Apprehended. 
 
 their way." * Of all these furious men, mad- 
 dened by the attack of St. Peter, not one dares 
 lay hands on any of the Apostles, so full of dig- 
 nity and power, even in His present state, is the 
 manner of our Lord. These faithful followers 
 shall indeed one day participate in the lot of 
 their Master ; tliey sJiall indeed drink of His 
 chalice. As He predicted, they will be brought 
 before councils, princes, and magistrates ; they 
 will be delivered up by their friends, and will 
 suffer scourging, outrage, and death. f But be- 
 fore these evils and tortures will have been in- 
 flicted upon them they will have performed 
 mighty labors ; and martyrdom will not be their 
 lot until the works of the apostolate are finished. 
 They must survive their Divine Master, to con- 
 tinue the work commenced by Him ; and, like 
 Him, to live and die in that work. It was an- 
 nounced by our Lord, and one of the Evangelists 
 mentions it, that of those who were given to Him 
 as disciples only one was lost — that one who was 
 to deliver Him to His enemies. Let us here ad- 
 mire the spirit and goodness of Christ ; for at the 
 moment in which He is most afflicted He weighs 
 all and rules all. And that which occupies Him 
 
 * John sviii. 8. t Luke xxi. 12, 
 
J estts is Apprehended. 7 7 
 
 most is not the thought of Himself, of the evils 
 He feels and foresees ; all His care is for His 
 Apostles, all His anxiety is to provide for their 
 safety. 
 
 But what will they do who are the object 
 of such tender solicitude % Although they had 
 received such a touching proof of His love, they 
 shamefully abandon Him and hide themselves 
 from the danger to which they are exposed and 
 from which His goodness had just delivered them. 
 The prophet Zachary had already predicted it : 
 " Strike the shepherd and the sheep shall be 
 scattered." * And our Lord made use of these 
 identical words on that very night when He fore- 
 told that they would be scandalized in Him.f 
 Where, then, is the zeal which they came to dis- 
 play in His defence ? How suddenly it is dissi- 
 pated! Not only is their courage enfeebled, but 
 their faith also wavers. They desired to avenge 
 their Divine Master and to release Him from the 
 hands of His enemies ; they would have desired 
 it much more, perhaps, if they had preserved any 
 hope in Him. But to continue to believe or to 
 hope in Him when they saw Him in this new dan- 
 ger and in this awful state of humiliation— this 
 
 * Zach. xiii. 7. t Matt. xxvi. 31. 
 
78 Jesus is Apprehended. 
 
 was a trial for which they were not prepared, 
 because they had never understood His words 
 relating to His Passion and Resurrection. How 
 often are we prepared to defend our religion, 
 even with anger, but not to practise it ! How 
 many of us seem willing to suffer death with 
 Jesus Christ, but are not willing to bear the 
 least tribulations, the smallest sacrifices, for His 
 sake ! 
 
 From the flight of the Apostles another most 
 important consideration arises. It is that we 
 receive from themselves the full account of their 
 weakness. Without their relation of it we might 
 never have known it. Is not this a manifest 
 guarantee of the sincerity and the truth of the 
 Gospel which we obtain from them ? How can 
 men who with so much honest candor make 
 known their own faults and weaknesses be ac- 
 cused of falsehood ? 
 
 His enemies, now masters of the sacred person 
 of Jesus Christ, proceed to bind Him with cords. 
 The omnipotent hands, which are capable of 
 breaking the fetters of the human race, are vol- 
 untarily presented to His enemies! Like Sam- 
 son of old, He might easily have broken all these 
 bonds. One act of His will would have suf- 
 
Jesus is Apprehended. 79 
 
 ficed. But ties stronger than any of man's mak- 
 ing bound Him : they were His submission to 
 God's will and His love for us. It is these that 
 bring Him to the various trials to which He is 
 subjected by the rage of His persecutors. 
 
TREASON AND DESPAIR OF JUDAS. 
 
TREASON AND DESPAIR OF JUDAS. 
 
 " Amen, amen, I say to you that one of you will betray Me." 
 (Johnxiii. 21.) 
 
 Of all the trials which most touched the heart 
 of our Blessed Lord in His Passion, none weighed 
 so heavily upon Him as the weaknesses, infideli- 
 ties, and even perfidies of His own chosen follow- 
 ers. "If," says He by the royal prophet, "My 
 enemy had reviled Me, I would verily have borne 
 with it. And if he that hated Me had spoken 
 great things against Me, I would, perhaps, have 
 hidden Myself from him. But thou, a man of 
 one mind, My guide and My familiar, who didst 
 take sweet meats together with Me : in the house 
 of God we walked with consent." * 
 
 But all the other failings of His disciples are, 
 to a certain degree, insignificant when compared 
 with the awful treason of Judas. The very name 
 of this wretch has become infamous in after- 
 ages as common to all traitors ; and it is one of 
 the gravest injuries that can be inflicted upon 
 
 * Psalm liv. 13-16. 
 
84 Treason and Despair of Judas. 
 
 any one to call Mm a " Judas." Let us consider 
 his crime in its principle, in itself, in its conse- 
 quences. 
 
 The principle of his crime was avarice. On ac- 
 count of this unworthy sentiment he had blamed 
 the piety of Magdalene, who had poured per- 
 fumes upon the feet of our Lord. The Evange- 
 list who mentions this tells us that it was not 
 the misery of the poor, as he pretended, that 
 troubled him ; but that he spoke so because he 
 was a thief from the beginning and carried the 
 common purse. * Great God! A covetous man, 
 a thief, in the company of our Lord ! Where, 
 then, will virtue find a sure refuge, if not under 
 the eyes, by the side, almost in the bosom, of 
 Jesus Christ % Where can we find a safe asylum 
 from temptation, if the society of our Saviour be 
 not one % Pious souls, who enjoy the friendship 
 pf God, who hold yourselves ever in His pre- 
 sence, who are intimately united with Him, who 
 bear Him in your hearts — what a cause of terror 
 must it be to you to see one so intimate with 
 Him fall into so heinous a crime ! What a spur 
 must not this be to your vigilance to look upon 
 a fall so disgraceful, with so many motives and 
 means of preserving himself ! And this passion 
 
 * John xii. 6. 
 
Treason and Despair of Judas. 85 
 
 grows upon him even when he heard his Master 
 inveigh against riches and say that they should 
 be held in contempt. Yes, and in the presence 
 of that Divine Model of the most complete and 
 perfect abnegation, who had no place on which 
 to lay His head, he allows avarice to possess his 
 heart ! The sacred writer relates a circumstance 
 which was, perhaps, the occasion and first cause 
 of his fall. The office of purse-bearer was ob- 
 tained by him probably because money had a 
 natural attraction for him. From this we may 
 draw two valuable reflections : first, that the 
 temptations against which we should be particu- 
 larly on our guard are those connected with our 
 special calling in life ; and, secondly, that we 
 should avoid as much as possible those avoca- 
 tions in which our natural inclinations are most 
 exposed to evil. 
 
 But what we should particularly learn from 
 the sin of this Apostle is the extreme danger of 
 the passions and the constant duty of vigilance 
 over them. I hear the incredulous excuse the 
 passions ; it does not surprise me : the passions 
 engender incredulity, and this latter, to pro- 
 pagate its poison, exalts the passions. I see its 
 interested motive, and can find no other reason. 
 Every crime has been committed by one passion 
 
86 Treason and Despair of Judas. 
 
 or another ; and every passion has committed a 
 multitude of crimes. The incredulous man talks 
 to us of good faith ; but let us candidly enter 
 into ourselves and ask ourselves if all the ir- 
 regularities of our lives are not the offspring of 
 passion % We are told to moderate, regulate, 
 and direct them. It is not sufficient ; we must 
 fight them and destroy them as far as we 
 can. There can be no truce with enemies so 
 dangerous and so furious. All who have ever 
 borne the bitter chain of passion know it too 
 well. They are never satisfied ; when you have 
 given them full rein, and you think they will 
 ask no more, they exact it and command it with 
 absolute sway. Passion knows no halting-place ; 
 it must be a slave or a tyrant. It must be firmly 
 kept under a yoke or else it will assert its power 
 with uncontrolled despotism. To reduce the pas- 
 sions to subjection we must begin the war with 
 them when they first show themselves. It we 
 allow them to grow strong by yielding to their 
 demands they will soon defy our power. You 
 find it difficult to attack this special passion 
 which is agreeable ; it is, therefore, more neces- 
 sary for you to resist it with all your force. The 
 more agreeable it is the more dangerous. If it 
 costs you so much to sacrifice it now, what will 
 
Treason and Despair of Judas. S 7 
 
 it be when it becomes a habit ? Only one thing 
 remains for you to do : repress it. When you 
 are afflicted by one mortal malady will you not 
 take as much pains to be cured of it as if 
 you were oppressed by several diseases? One 
 passion is able to bring you into terrible ex- 
 cesses. Envy caused Cain to kill Abel, his 
 brother ; impurity made David an adulterer 
 and a murderer ; ambition caused the rebellion 
 of Absalom against his father ; and pride in- 
 duced Aman to give up an entire nation to 
 destruction. Reflect upon the example now 
 under consideration. Judas does not appear 
 to have been a victim to any passion except 
 avarice. Avarice made him a traitor ; avarice 
 made him sell the Son of God. "We cannot 
 serve both God and mammon." If we deliver 
 ourselves up to the one we must sacrifice, ab- 
 jure, and betray the other. Every avaricious 
 and unjust man gives up Christ ; not so for- 
 mally as Judas, but not less in reality. It is 
 Christ he sells in usury, in fraud, in criminal 
 bargains. 
 
 This first cause of the crime of Judas brought 
 on another. Deluded by avarice, guilty of many 
 petty thefts, revolving in his mind his awful pro- 
 ject, yet did he have the shocking audacity to 
 
88 Treason and Despair of Judas. 
 
 receive in this state the Body and Blood of 
 Christ. Then it was that Satan also took pos- 
 session of him. How dreadful ! The unhappy 
 man receives at the same time Christ and Satan. 
 Bnt with what a difference ! He receives Christ 
 to crucify Him, Satan to be his slave. He re- 
 ceives Christ to deliver Him into the power of 
 Satan, and Satan to crucify Christ. From that 
 moment nothing arrests his downward career. 
 The infernal spirit which now possesses him 
 impels him to the execution of his detestable 
 work, and he makes haste to finish it. During 
 Holy Week we shall see many Christians ap- 
 proach the altar to receive the Body of Jesus 
 Christ ; we shall be edified by the numbers who 
 present themselves. But amid this edification a 
 secret fear comes upon us when we think that 
 the very day of the institution of this sacred ban- 
 quet a traitor participated therein. We tremble 
 at the thought that among the faithful who re 
 ceive the Sacrament there may be a Judas. If 
 Jesus Christ should raise His voice at the mo- 
 ment that He is elevated by the priest for adora- 
 tion, and say, " Amen, amen, I say to you that 
 one of you will betray Me," * how great would 
 be our consternation and our horror ! We know 
 
 * John xiii. 21. 
 
Treason and Despair of Jttdas. 89 
 
 no more about the wicked wlio unworthily re- 
 ceive Him than the Apostles knew about Judas ; 
 we cannot, like St. John, ask Him who it is ; we 
 have no right to suspect any one. But, alas ! 
 when we perceive for many years the little fruit 
 apparently derived from the paschal Communion ; 
 when we see the same kind of lives commenced 
 over again, the same passions indulged in, the 
 same sins committed, how can we avoid the feel- 
 ing of fear and affliction ? Can we help trembling 
 at the dispositions which preceded these com- 
 munions when we see the disorders that follow 
 them % If among those who read these lines there 
 is any one who presumes to present himself at 
 the holy table from unworthy motives and with- 
 out the necessary preparation, I say to him : 
 Stop ! beware ! Do not take a step that may 
 plunge you into hell for ever. True, you will 
 receive your God, but you will receive Him for 
 your ruin. You will receive Him bringing with 
 Him vengeance instead of benedictions. You 
 will receive Him, indeed, and Satan also. If the 
 crime of Judas has no terror for you, think, at 
 least, of his miserable end. 
 
 Judas leaves his Master to put himself at 
 the head of His enemies. What crimes are in- 
 volved in that which he is about to commit ! 
 
ço Treason and Despair of Judas. 
 
 Think of his ingratitude. Raised from the 
 ranks of the people to the glory of the apos- 
 tolate, destined to be one of the princes of the 
 Church, he is promoted to the priesthood. Jesus 
 washes his feet ; he gives him his Body and 
 Blood ; and at the moment when all these 
 benefits reach their climax Judas goes away 
 to deliver Him into the hands of His exe- 
 cutioners. It is avarice. Oh ! dreadful sin ! 
 We have seen treason committed from invete- 
 rate hatred, from violent anger, from the no- 
 tion of great interests at stake ; Judas betrays 
 his Master without any resentment against 
 Him, without anger, without aversion. In 
 cold blood he does it, and entirely to gratify 
 the avarice which rules over him. See the 
 meanness of this passion. It is for thirty mis- 
 erable pieces of silver, the price of a common 
 slave, that he sells the Saint of saints. He 
 does not even make a bargain ; he receives, 
 YÂthout question, just what is offered to him. 
 The prophet Zachary had foretold it : "And 
 they weighed for my wages thirty pieces of 
 silver. And the Lord said to me : Cast it 
 to the potter, a handsome price indeed that 
 I was priced at by them. And I took the 
 thirty pieces of silver, and I cast them into 
 
Treason and Despair of Judas. 91 
 
 the house of the Lord to the potter.' 5 * Here 
 He speaks for Judas. ' Oh ! blindness and in- 
 sensibility ! Our Lord, to remind him of what 
 he had already felt in his heart, again posi- 
 tively declares that He would be betrayed. He 
 also mentions the frightful consequences of the 
 great crime. f Judas is not moved ; he sees his 
 secret discovered, his sentiments made known, 
 yet he plunges into the awful abyss which 
 his treason has opened for him. All at once 
 he makes^himself a felon, an ingrate, guilty of 
 simony, impious, sacrilegious, a deicide. Be- 
 hold the man who for three years had been 
 the friend and confidant of Jesus Christ, lead- 
 ing to their cruel work His murderers ! He 
 takes pains to prevent his prey from escaping ; 
 and, lest they should not recognize their vic- 
 tim, he gives them a sign, saying: "TYhomso- 
 ever I shall kiss, that is He ; lay hold on 
 Him, and lead Him away cautiously." % Thus 
 does the traitor deliver his Master with the 
 sign of friendship. Thus does he recommend 
 watchful care in the apprehension of our Lord ; 
 for he knows with what facility He can frus- 
 trate all their designs. He comes to the con- 
 summation of his crime ; he comes, at the head 
 
 * Zach. xi. 12, 13. + Mark xiv. 21. $ Ibid 44. 
 
92 Treason and Despair of Judas. 
 
 of a cruel cohort, into the presence of his Lord ; 
 he gives the perfidious kiss, and even still 
 presumes to call him Master. What will the 
 Saviour do in these awful circumstances? 
 Will He repel the wretch? "Will He kill 
 the impious man by the breath of His lips?"* 
 Will He call down fire from heaven, as Elias 
 did, to destroy him ? Oh ! unspeakable good- 
 ness of my Redeemer ! Far is He from reject- 
 ing or punishing the monster of iniquity who 
 approaches Him with marks of friendship. On 
 the contrary, He receives him with indulgence, 
 reminds him of his atrocious act, and calmly 
 says to him: "Friend, for what purpose hast 
 thou come?" And again: "Judas, is it with 
 a kiss thou betrayest the Son of Man?" All 
 the thunders of heaven could not have been 
 more terrible than these words in their mar- 
 vellous sweetness. Any heart but that of Judas 
 would have been softened, confounded, pene- 
 trated. If the demon had not held absolute 
 dominion over him, he would have fallen at 
 the feet of that Master who responded to such 
 black ingratitude with such exceeding good- 
 ness. Let us pause for a moment to consider 
 the excess of perfidy on the one hand, and 
 
 * Isaias xi. 4. 
 
Treason and Despair of Judas. 93 
 
 the excess of mercy on the other. See Christ 
 and Judas embrace each other ! — Judas to de- 
 stroy Christ, and Christ to move and save 
 Judas. 
 
 But, alas ! this soul is absolutely impene- 
 trable to any sentiment of repentance. Will 
 he never acknowledge the infamous crime with 
 which he blackens his soul ? He is not far 
 from it. The moment he will see the evil of 
 his treason, that moment he will detest it and 
 will be devoured by terrible remorse. He will 
 repent, indeed ; but his repentance will be the 
 last link in his heavy chain of reprobation. 
 
 When, a little while after his crime, this 
 wretched disciple saw its consequences ; when 
 he saw his Master dragged from tribunal to 
 tribunal, and finally condemned to death, then 
 all the horror of his perfidious act forcibly pre- 
 sented itself to his mind. All the benefits he 
 had received flash upon his memory ; he keenly 
 feels the horror of his treason and the base- 
 ness of its circumstances ; and he is astounded 
 at the thought that he could have become such 
 a criminal. He is deeply moved with sorrow — 
 with a sorrow, indeed, that he could not bear. 
 It was real sorrow : ' ? He avowed with tears 
 that he had sinned by betraying innocent 
 
94 Treason and Despair of Jtidas. 
 
 blood." It was efficacious, too; rarely is our 
 sorrow such. He brought the money, which 
 had been the cause of his treason and its price, 
 to those who had employed him ; and when 
 they refused it he would not keep with him 
 the reward of his iniquity, but threw it into 
 the temple* What, then, w^as wanting to his 
 repentance that it might have had merit in the 
 eyes of God ? That which is wanting in all 
 sorrow of this description — namely, confidence 
 in God. He could see nothing but his crime ; 
 he was blind to the divine mercy. He confess- 
 ed himself a sinner, but did not think of the 
 goodness of God. He had sorrow, bitter and 
 crushing, but he did not labor to be convert- 
 ed. He turned away in disgust from the mon- 
 ey that had corrupted him, but he did not 
 turn towards God. In a word, lie did not 
 merit pardon, because he fell into despair. To 
 do penance is to invoke the divine mercy ; to 
 despair is to deny it. How, then, can we ob- 
 tain the divine mercy by insulting it? Pen- 
 ance without hope is the penance of the 
 damned. Like Judas, they weep for their 
 sins ; and, like him, they despair of being for- 
 given. Not the treason of Judas, nor his sac- 
 
 * Matt, sxviL 8-6, 
 
Treason and Despair of Judas. 95 
 
 rilege, was the cause of his reprobation, but 
 his despair. Notwithstanding all his crimes, 
 there remained for him one resource ; and 
 with what love Christ had often called him 
 to it ! But his despair rendered him imper- 
 vious to all graces ; he rejected the mercy that 
 called him, and, putting the crowning stone 
 upon his tower of iniquity, he became his own 
 executioner. "And he went and hanged him- 
 self with a halter." * But what excited in the 
 heart of Judas such a dreadful horror of his 
 crime? It was the demon that had entered into 
 his soul as soon as he had received the Holy 
 Eucharist. It was this demon that inspired all 
 his sentiments, that formed all bis thoughts, 
 that directed all his steps, that had become his 
 master. What! Can it be that the demon him- 
 self will be the author of repentance, and will 
 employ for man's destruction that which was 
 intended as the most efficacious and certain 
 means of his salvation? It is even thus lie 
 turns to his service means apparently the most 
 contradictory in order to effect our ruin. Be- 
 fore we sin, and in order to engage us in it 
 one of his most ordinary devices is to present 
 to our minds the divine mercy always ready to 
 
 * Matt, xxvii, 6» 
 
96 Treason and Despair of Judas. 
 
 pardon us. When we commit the sin, and to 
 bind onr souls to its slavery, he casts us down 
 with a view of the horror of divine vengeance, 
 and suggests to us what he put into the heart 
 of the first man that shed blood on earth : "My 
 iniquity is greater than that I may deserve 
 pardon."* Thus does the father of lies make 
 us pass successively from presumption to de- 
 spair, exaggerating in our eyes at one time 
 the effects of God's mercy, and again those of 
 His justice ; giving us false ideas of both, ac- 
 cording as they will serve his purpose. To 
 the wiles of the wicked one let us constant- 
 ly oppose contrary sentiments. If we consider 
 ourselves in the way of justice, let us never 
 lose sight of the infinite goodness of God, 
 which we have felt so often ; and at the same 
 time let us cultivate a salutary fear of His 
 justice, so as not to fall into a spirit of 
 dangerous presumption. If there be question 
 of sin, let us also contemplate the divine 
 justice, but tempered with infinite mercy which 
 never ceases to desire our conversion, which 
 calls us back from our wayward course by 
 exhortations and by grace, and which ever 
 receives us with open arms. Great sinners 
 
 * Genesis iv, IS. 
 
Treason and Despair of Judas. 97 
 
 though we be, God's mercy is greater still. 
 To think that He is unable or unwilling to 
 pardon us is a new offence, greater than all 
 the rest. It would seal our reprobation, and 
 render all our other sins hopelessly unpardon- 
 able. 
 
 In considering the frightful fall of Judas let 
 us not forget the conduct of the Jewish priests, 
 whose agent and instrument he was ; surely it 
 was scarcely less criminal. He felt at least the 
 pangs of remorse ; but their hearts were like 
 mnrble. They saw the unhappy man, with tears 
 in his eyes, despair depicted on his countenance, 
 accusing himself of having betrayed innocent 
 blood, and bringing back the money with which 
 they had seduced him. What more certain wit- 
 ness of the innocence of Jesus Christ % His ene- 
 my, a man who had betrayed Him, now declares 
 Him just and proves himself to be the criminal. 
 But nothing can change them ; no evidence of 
 truth can shake their wicked purpose. Terrible 
 example of the hardness which resists divine 
 grace ! These blind and stubborn men were 
 steeled against the miracles with which our 
 Lord had filled His life for three years. So 
 many wonders, so many traits of virtue, so many 
 benefits, instead of moving them to conver- 
 
98 Treason and Despair of Judas. 
 
 sion, only increased their malice. They were 
 insensible to all, and, by a just punishment of 
 their voluntary blindness, they were delivered 
 up to hardness of heart. Their conduct brings 
 to our minds two things apparently opposite, but 
 which are often confounded in the character of 
 some men. These are a profound indifference 
 in regard to great crimes, and a scrupulous ex- 
 actness regarding matters of small moment. 
 When Judas came to speak to them about the 
 awful crime of which he had been guilty, they 
 answered briefly, saying: "What is this to 
 us? look you to it." But when he placed the 
 money, the wages of his crime, in the common 
 treasury, they declared that it was not lawful to 
 put it there, for it was the price of blood. * How 
 absurd ! They could take it from the treasury 
 when it is to pay for blood, but they could not 
 put it back into the treasury when an attempt 
 is made at restitution ! They do not fear to 
 commit an enormous crime, but they fear to in- 
 fringe upon a legal observance. Men of this 
 kind may still be found in the world — men who 
 " strain at a gnat and swallow a camel." f 
 
 It is an important fact in the glorious career 
 of our Lord that the sorrow of Judas should be 
 
 * Matt. xxviL 6. f Ibid, xxiii, 24. 
 
Treason and Despair of Judas. 99 
 
 public and authentic. His enemies themselves 
 bring it about. With the money which they 
 would not restore to the treasury they bought 
 the field destined for the burial of strangers ; 
 and it was so universally known to be the par- 
 ticular ground purchased with the money that 
 Judas brought back to the priests that it was 
 called "the field of blood." * Thus this field 
 becomes a monument of the innocence of our 
 Saviour, and is connected, as the Evangelist 
 tells us, with a prophecy which had announced 
 the price at which He was to be sold and the use 
 to which the money was to be put.f St. Mat- 
 thew narrated the event a short time after it 
 had transpired, and he gives the Jews and their 
 rulers, who were interested in contradicting him, 
 the name given by themselves to this field as a 
 proof of the truth of his recital. He also points 
 out to them, even to the smallest particulars, the 
 prophecies relating to the person of the Messiah. 
 Thus the circumstance, which at first sight seems 
 so unimportant, becomes extremely interesting, 
 both for the corroboration of the Gospel history 
 and the confirmation of our faith. 
 
 * Xatt. xxvii. 7, 8. t Ibid. 9. 10, 
 
VI. 
 
 JESUS BEFORE CAIPEA8. 
 
VI. 
 
 JESUS BEFOKE CAIPHAS. 
 
 "The chief priests, therefore, and the Pharisees gathered a 
 council and said: What do we, for this man doeth many miracles ? 
 If we let Him alone, all men will believe in Him, and the Romans 
 will come and take away our place and nation " (John xi. 47, 48). 
 
 The chief men of the Jews now hold in their 
 power the object of their hatred. They drag 
 Him successively before the two great pontiffs 
 — first before Annas, to give him the satisfac- 
 tion of seeing his victim in their hands, and 
 then to Caiphas, the son-in-law of Annas and 
 the high-priest of that year. Here a coun- 
 cil is assembled, consisting of priests, doctors, 
 and ancients. Behold the first tribunal before 
 which our Blessed Saviour is accused, judged, 
 and condemned ! But what do I say ? When 
 had it been a just tribunal % The men who as- 
 sumed the part of judges there had long been 
 the declared enemies of Christ. They were the 
 same persons who for three years had never 
 ceased to persecute Him ; who always sought oc- 
 casion to entangle Him in His words, to decry 
 Him with their calumnies, to drive from their 
 
 108 
 
I04 Jesus before C alphas. 
 
 synagogues those who believed in Him. It is in 
 that same council we hear the subterfuges of the 
 members who had seen His miracles and could 
 not deny them: " What shall we do, for this 
 man performs great wonders ? If we dismiss 
 Him, all will believe in Him, and the .Romans 
 will come and take away from us our place 
 and nation." It was Caiphas himself, the pre- 
 sident of the council, that used the following 
 language : " You know nothing at all. Neither 
 do you consider that it is expedient for you 
 that one man should die for the people, and 
 that the whole nation perish not." * All the 
 barbarity, passion, and iniquity that we are 
 called upon to contemplate in His Passion is 
 concentrated in these grave and learned judges. 
 They had never concealed their hatred of Jesus 
 Christ ; their predominant thought was to gra- 
 tify it. 
 
 And these unjust men were the most revered 
 personages in the nation ; they were the an- 
 cients, the judges of the people, whose calling 
 required them to protect that innocence which 
 they had resolved beforehand to crush. They 
 are doctors of the law and interpreters of the 
 prophecies, whose profound knowledge should 
 
 * John xi. 49, 50, 
 
Jesus before C alphas. 105 
 
 have brought tliem to recognize tlieir Messiah ; 
 but they are resolved to destroy Him. They are 
 priests, and the holiness of their profession 
 should have restrained them from all iniquity ; 
 but they give themselves up to it with the most 
 ardent fury. Such became the fatal destiny of 
 men who had dared break through the barriers 
 which their very state of life opposed to sin. 
 Once having broken them, they rushed head- 
 long, even with greater impetuosity than the 
 rest, in their career of crime. Tremble at the 
 sight of them, you especially upon whom more 
 elevated callings have imposed more austere 
 obligations ! Guard against the first and small- 
 est violation of the duties of your state. Be 
 assured that the first fault will engage you in 
 others more disgraceful, until at last they drag 
 you down to your complete ruin. And what 
 rendered the hatred of these members of the 
 Sanhedrim the more abominable and the more 
 dangerous to Christ was the fact that they cov- 
 ered it with the mantle of religion. Hypocrisy, 
 odious to men and to God, adds to the passions 
 which it strives to veil the additional vice of 
 its own baseness. It is the more dangerous to 
 Him, for the hatred of His enemies, how violent 
 soever, would never have been able to accom- 
 
io6 yesus before C alphas. 
 
 plisli such a result if it had not assumed the 
 mask of religion. Such is the nature of envy, 
 which, according to the Wise Man, first brought 
 death into the world. * It is able to disguise 
 itself in its own eyes and in the eyes of others 
 under a thousand forms, and sometimes, un- 
 happily, under the forms of virtue and piety. 
 Men blush at the thought of their being en- 
 vious, and more so at appearing such ; they 
 hide from themselves its real motive by as- 
 suming the garb of religious zeal against the 
 object of their vile passion. 
 
 These judges desired to give to the condemna- 
 tion, already pronounced in advance, the color- 
 ing of justice. The object of every judicial 
 process is to discover the truth ; the object of 
 this was to make truth disappear. The wit- 
 nesses are not sought to tell the truth, but to 
 accuse Christ at all hazards. But such had 
 been the irreproachable tenor of His life that 
 the most artificial system of lying could not 
 establish any probability of His guilt. The 
 falsity of the accusations was so evident that 
 the judges themselves, prejudiced and incensed 
 against Him as they were, could not find in 
 them any appearance of evil. "For many bore 
 
 * Yv^iâdoni ii. 42. 
 
Jesus before Caiphas. 107 
 
 false witness against Him, and their evidence did 
 not agree. "* Tims also tlie Psalmist: "Un- 
 just witnesses have risen up against Me ; and 
 iniquity hath lied to itself, "f The sacred 
 writers do not give us in detail the accusations 
 made against our Lord ; they mention one, 
 however, which appears to have been the great- 
 est : "Two false witnesses appeared after all 
 the rest and swore that Christ had said : 4 I 
 am able to destroy the temple of God, and in 
 three days to rebuild it. 5 "J This charge was 
 certainly distinct and minute ; but it was as 
 false as the rest. The witnesses changed both 
 the letter and the sense of the words spoken 
 by our Lord. He had spoken neither of His 
 power to destroy nor of the temple of God. 
 But He had said: "Destroy this temple, and 
 in three days I will raise it up" And St. 
 John tells us that He meant in this expression 
 the temple of His body, and not the temple of 
 Jerusalem.! It was the prediction of His death 
 to be followed by His resurrection. Let us 
 here admire the designs of God. He reproaches 
 them with the prophecy at the moment it is 
 about to be fulfilled, and they are the instru- 
 
 * Mark xiv. 56 t Ps. xxvi. 12. 
 
 \ Matt. xxvi. 60, 61. II John ii. 19. 
 
io8 Je sus before Caïfî/tas. 
 
 ments in effecting it. Unsuspecting witnesses 
 report the prediction of the event ; and they 
 confirm faûh in Jesus Christ at the moment 
 they endeavor to destroy it. Witnesses so pal- 
 pably guilty of calumny deserved only to be 
 punished. No legislation ever existed that did 
 not punisli false witnesses ; the tribunals of all 
 nations have condemned them. In this proceed- 
 ing there is no law. Not only are false wit- 
 nesses not punished, but they are treated with 
 consideration, perhaps bribed. The desire seems 
 to have prevailed with the judges that, the first 
 witnesses having been dismissed with impunity, 
 others might be induced to come forward. To 
 these calumnies our Lord only opposes silence. 
 In vain does the high priest call upon Him to 
 answer, hoping doubtless to draw 7 from His words 
 something against Himself. He still remains 
 silent, and allows the fake accusations to de- 
 stroy themselves. But does not His personal 
 glory and the honor of His ministry require 
 Him to refute them % It is still more glorious 
 in Him to give us a practical example in the^e 
 most trying circumstances of what He had often 
 taught. Silence is the lesson given us by our 
 Divine Model. He show r s us that there are many 
 occasions in which it is advisable for a Chris- 
 
Jesus before Caiphas. 109 
 
 tian to waive the right of defence, to repress 
 the inquietude incident to it, to give a free 
 course to the words of wicked men, and to re- 
 sign himself confidently to Him " who sees the 
 reins and the heart, who is the defender of 
 the just, the avenger of innocence." This is 
 especially advisable when accusations are so 
 manifestly calumnious that all may see their 
 faMty ; for then it is more useful and more 
 dignified to meet them in silence and not by 
 apologies which would, perhaps, render them 
 respectable. Caiphas, seeing that he could get 
 nothing to suit his purpose from the witnesses 
 brought forward, and that their testimonies in- 
 jured rather than subserved his dark designs, 
 began himself to interrogate our Lord. His 
 first question had reference to His doctrine and 
 to His disciples. The answer of our Saviour 
 is at once simple and prudent, mild and forci- 
 ble, moderate and demonstrative. It is full of 
 that modest power which had so often filled 
 the people with admiration and his enemies 
 with confusion. He had never concealed His 
 doctrine ; it was delivered in public, in the 
 synagogue, in the assemblies of the Jews. 
 "Why a-kest thou Me? Ask them who have 
 heard what I have spoken to them ; they know 
 
î i o Jesus before Caiphas. 
 
 what things I have said." * Thus does He 
 •prove His innocence without discussing it. He 
 calls as witnesses not only a few men whom 
 He is said to have deluded, but the public, the 
 whole nation. Behold the testimony He in- 
 vokes, the guarantee He produces ! An answer 
 so measured yet so persuasive ought to have 
 convinced His enemies and gained them ; it had 
 the contrary effect. They are irritated at seeing 
 themselves confounded. One of those assisting 
 at the trial, unable to contain his fury when 
 he saw the impossibility of replying to our 
 Lord with truth and reason, exclaimed: " An- 
 swerest Thou the high-priest so?"f and fol- 
 lowed his question with a blow. A blow ! O 
 avenging God ! The arms of Jeroboam with- 
 ered when they were raised against a prophet. 
 Osa was struck dead because he desired to 
 touch the ark with his hand. Osias is cover- 
 ed with a leprosy for having dared put his 
 hand upon the censer at the altar of perfumes. 
 Yet the hand that has dared offer such an out- 
 rage to the Lord of the prophets, to Him whom 
 the ark but prefigured, is unpunished ! Nothing 
 would have been easier than for our Lord to 
 have taken instant revenge. We are almost in- 
 
 * John xviii. 21. t Ibid. 22. 
 
Jesus before C alphas. m 
 
 duced to say that it would have been easier for 
 Him to have yielded to His justice than to have 
 restrained it. As God, vengeance is His ; as 
 man, it does not belong to him. men of 
 the world, compare your vain sensitiveness on 
 the point of honor with the conduct of your 
 God receiving violence. It was written that 
 " He shall give His cheek to him that striketh 
 Him,"* and he fulfilled the prophecy. He 
 answers, however, but with invincible patience, 
 representing to this ruffian the injury he had 
 offered, and not with any word of reproach : 
 "If I have spoken ill, give testimony of the 
 evil; but if well, why strikest thou Me?" + 
 Here He stops ; He seeks no further reparation. 
 An exemplary punishment would have been in 
 place ; but, always resolved to give the example 
 of what He had taught, He abstains from all 
 that might be or appear to be personal ven- 
 geance. But if He did not punish the insult 
 it was the duty of the judges to have done 
 so, They were the only persons who had 
 power to inflict punishment. Whatever wrong- 
 was inflicted upon Him was connived at ; the 
 most shameful treatment was not only dissem- 
 bled but authorized ; and the license now al- 
 
 * Lamentations iii. 30. t John xviii. 23. 
 
î 1 2 Jesus before Caiphas. 
 
 lowed opened tlie way for still greater out- 
 rages. 
 
 The first question of tlie high-priest had not 
 the desired effect ; now he asks another in the 
 most solemn manner: "I adjure Thee by the 
 living God, that Thou tell us if Thou be the 
 Christ the Son of God." * His intention in this 
 question is to disconcert our Lord in His answer 
 and thereby to turn it against Him. Will He 
 deny that He is the Messiah? If so He will 
 be condemned for having arrogated to Himself 
 that title. Will He confess that He is the Mes- 
 siah? If so they will condemn Him for having 
 actually usurped the tide. Our Lord clearly 
 saw the snare that was laid for Him, but He 
 would not deny the truth which He had come 
 to proclaim to the world. Besides, He wished 
 to teach us by His example the obligation of 
 confessing our faith even at the peril of life it- 
 self. He now boldly declares His divine minis- 
 try ; He attests the truth of His doctrine. He 
 answers — although it cannot be hidden from 
 Him that this may bring about His death— He 
 answers because of His reverence for the name 
 of God, by which He is challenged ; because of 
 the authority represented by him w T ho interro- 
 
 *Matt. xxvi. 63. 
 
Jesus before C alphas. 113 
 
 gates Him ; and because of the great truth 
 which He came to manifest. His reply is brief, 
 firm, and dignified. He begins by declaring 
 positively that He is the Son of God, the Mes- 
 siah. He grandly announces to the high-priest 
 and to those who sit in judgment with him 
 that the day will come when they will see Him 
 " sitting at the right hand of God and coming in 
 the clouds of heaven." * Thus, in the hands of 
 His barbarous persecutors, He still preserves His 
 dignity ; and, penetrating the outrages heaped 
 upon His humanity, the bright light of His 
 divinity appears. This response was what the 
 high-priest anxiously awaited. In a paroxysm 
 of anger, real or affected, he tears his vest- 
 ments and cries out: "He hath blasphemed; 
 what further need have we of witnesses ? Be- 
 hold, now you have heard the blasphemy. 
 What think you? But they answering, said: 
 He is guilty of death." f In this council, 
 otherwise the most venerable in the world, not 
 one voice is raised in favor of the innocent. 
 Whether we consider the judgment rendered 
 against our Lord in its form or in its sub- 
 stance, it will appear inexjDlicable. The same 
 man is at once accuser, witness, and judge ; 
 
 * Matt. xxvi. 64. t Ibid. 65, 66. 
 
1 14 Jesus before Caiphas. 
 
 and it is he who, some time before, had said 
 that Jesus Christ should die. He receives ad- 
 vice, not successively from each judge, but tu- 
 inultuously from the whole assembly. It is a 
 general cry, not a deliberate decision ; a con- 
 spiracy, not a decree ; a proscription, and not a 
 condemnation. He is judged worthy of death 
 because He declared that He was the Messiah. 
 But being asked, it was necessary for Him to 
 answer. If He were not the Messiah, why put 
 to Him the question and make Him answer in 
 the name of God % If there were doubts on 
 the subject, was it not necessary first to clear 
 them away % Before condemning a man for hav- 
 ing arrogated to himself a certain qualification, 
 good sense and natural equity require that an 
 investigation be made as to whether that quali- 
 fication belonged to him. The miracles of His 
 public life, which, we may justly say, almost 
 marked His every step, were at least a suffi- 
 cient reason not to omit so essential an exami- 
 nation. But they did not wish to risk it, lest 
 the truth might appear. The pontiff declares 
 that, by the very avowal of the accused, He is 
 guilty of death. But he presses the question, 
 and gives Him not a moment to answer those 
 who had sworn against Him. Does Caiphas 
 
Jesus before Caiphas. 115 
 
 think the first witnesses sufficient % Why, then, 
 does lie desire the testimony of Christ Him- 
 self % Does he believe their words % Why, 
 then, is there need of any other? In this 
 procedure there is nothing but contradiction, 
 iniquity, and violence ; the witnesses are evi- 
 dently bribed, and they are heard with com- 
 plaisance. The judges do not conceal their 
 hatred of the accused, and they blush not to 
 bring about His destruction by means the most 
 unjust. If Christ is silent, His silence con- 
 victs Him ; if He replies, His words convict 
 Him. Questioned as to His doctrine, His an- 
 swer is met by a blow ; questioned as to His 
 person, His confession of the truth brings on 
 Him the charge of blasphemy. He is judged 
 without a process ; He is condemned without 
 a fault. 
 
 The holy Fathers draw our attention to a 
 remarkable circumstance in regard to the high- 
 priest. In his anger he tore his robes. It was 
 conduct little suitable to the character of a 
 judge or of a priest ; it gave evidence of the 
 furious passion by which he was carried away. 
 But in the designs of Providence it has a deep- 
 er sense ; it contains a mystery which he did 
 not recognize. In tearing the ornaments of his 
 
1 1 6 Jesus before C alphas. 
 
 priestly office lie prophesied, without knowing 
 it, the downfall of his priesthood. At that 
 moment the priesthood which had come down 
 from Aaron to Caiphas was abolished. In a 
 few hours it will have no existence before God ; 
 in a few years it will have no existence among 
 men. Jesus Christ is the last victim of theirs 
 that God will recognize ; the sacrifice of the 
 cross will be the last sacrifice of the Old Law 
 and the first of the New. The day will not 
 pass until the veil of the temple shall have 
 been rent to show that God withdraws Himself 
 and rejects the incense there burned, the vows 
 there formed, and all that may there be offered 
 until the hour of its approaching ruin. This 
 hour had come. It was foretold by the prophet 
 Malachy in these words: "I have no pleasure 
 in you, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will 
 not receive a gift from your hands. For from 
 the rising of the sun to the going down of the 
 same, My name is great among the gentiles ; 
 and in every place there is sacrifice, and there 
 is offered to My name a clean oblation." * 
 
 Our Lord is condemned to death by the San- 
 hedrim, but the manner of His death is not de- 
 signated. His enemies could have stoned Him 
 
 * Malachy i. 10. 
 
y estes before C azphas. 1 1 7 
 
 to death, as they afterwards did St. Stephen ; 
 but they desired to subject Him to the most 
 infamous of all punishments — the death of the 
 cross. Their intention was to cover him with 
 as much disgrace as possible ; but, contrary to 
 their intentions, it was according to the designs 
 of Providence, in order to fulfil the oracles which 
 our Lord had so often renewed. But they pos- 
 sessed no authority to inflict this kind of pun- 
 ishment. Their law T did not suppose the death 
 of the cross and did not permit them to order 
 it. To deliver our Lord to this death it was 
 necessary that He should be condemned by the 
 Roman magistrate. It was resolved, therefore, 
 to bring Him before Pilate, then governor of 
 Judea, as a criminal already pronounced w T orthy 
 of death. But before executing this design a 
 refinement of cruelty induced them to invent 
 for Him a new species of punishment. Uni- 
 versal consent lias established the maxim that 
 every wretched person is to be looked upon as 
 sacred. JNTot one of his nation, even though 
 culpable and condemned, fails to inspire pity. 
 Justice inclines to soften the penalty of the 
 law in his regard and to save him from all 
 other torments. Here, on the contrary, every 
 sentiment of humanity seems banished ; and the 
 
1 1 8 Jesus before Caiphas. 
 
 lowest degree of justice is no longer to be found 
 in those ferocious men. They deliver their vic- 
 tim into the hands of ruffians and the lowest 
 of the people. Bel) old your Blessed Saviour 
 in the midst of this barbarous multitude, forced 
 to bear their insolence and insults. They had 
 shown favor to false witnesses and to him who 
 had struck our Lord ; and now they join to 
 their natural ferocity a desire of pleasing those 
 upon whom they depend. They deliver Him 
 to the most cruel injuries; " they spit in His 
 face, they blindfold Him, they give Him blows 
 and cry out : Prophesy unto us, O Christ, who 
 is it that struck Thee?" * 
 
 In the midst of this frightful treatment our 
 Divine Model does not change. ~No sign of 
 wrath or even of impatience is discernible upon 
 His countenance. He is tranquil, but not apa- 
 thetic ; dignified without pride; modest without 
 cringing. It seems that no outrages can move 
 Him ; and although He feels them most sensi- 
 bly, He shows neither emotion, nor trouble, 
 nor indignation. And whence this wonderful 
 serenity of our Lord ? From three considera- 
 tions : In the past He hears the prophets an- 
 nounce that He would give His body to those 
 
 * Matt. xxvi. 67, 68, 
 
y estes before C aiphas. 1 1 9 
 
 who would strike Him, and that His face He 
 would not turn away from those who would 
 spit upon Him.* In the present He sees His 
 Heavenly Father exacting of Him this excess 
 of humiliation in punishment of our pride. In 
 the future He sees the necessity we shall have 
 of so great an example to bear, and even to 
 love, humiliations. 
 
 Did I say to love humiliations ? Does our re- 
 ligion require this ? Yes ; without doubt Chris- 
 tianity has that scope. Let us not have an ex- 
 aggerated idea, however ; it does not require of 
 us to have in crosses a pleasure that gratifies the 
 heart, nor even to stifle the natural repugnance 
 that we find in them. If great saints have risen 
 to this high degree of perfection, such miracles 
 of Christian humility go beyond the rule but do 
 not form it. To love humiliations is, notwith- 
 standing the repugnances of the flesh, to esteem 
 ourselves happy in following our Divine Model. 
 It is to prefer the contempt of the world in doing 
 good to its flattery in doing evil. This is the 
 lesson given us in the lives of all the saints. 
 How many occasions present themselves to us 
 in our daily lives that expose us to ridicule, sar- 
 casm, insult, and calumny ! And how can we 
 
 * Isaias 1, 6. 
 
î2o Jesus before Caiphas. 
 
 fulfil our obligations to our suffering Saviour, 
 if we have an aversion for these occasions of 
 humiliation? True, it is only religion that can 
 inspire us with a disposition so holy and so 
 contrary to natural inclination. But in giving 
 us the precept our Lord also presents us mo- 
 tives enabling us to fulfil it. These are His ex- 
 ample here and the future glory promised to 
 those who bear the cross. ■ 
 
VII. 
 
 PETERS DENIAL. 
 
VII. 
 
 peter's denial. 
 
 " And the Lord said : Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath de- 
 sired to have you that he may sift you as wheat. But I have 
 prayed for thee that thy faith fail not ; and thou, being once 
 converted, confirm thy brethren." (Luke xxii. 31, 32.) 
 
 Here is another cause of affliction to Christ, 
 but a source of instruction for us. That Apostle 
 whom our Lord especially distinguished ; who 
 was appointed chief among the others ; who w r as 
 destined one day, along with the primacy of 
 jurisdiction and honor among his colleagues, to 
 obtain the title of sovereign pastor of all the 
 faithful ; who on all occasions had shown the 
 greatest zeal for his Master — he it is who, in the 
 hour when that Divine Master had most need of 
 his attachment and consolation, not only aban- 
 p dons Him in fear, but perfidiously denies Him 
 and protests that he never knew the Man. Is 
 the corner-stone of the Church torn up ? Are the 
 gates of hell to prevail against the foundations 
 of the building ? Oh ! Providence of God ! 
 What will become of the superstructure ? What 
 will become of the oracle by which its stability 
 
 123 
 
124 Peters Denial. 
 
 was assured % Let us not lose courage : Peter 
 falls, but it is to rise again without delay and 
 stronger than ever. He sins to show us the 
 weakness of our nature ; but he rises again to 
 show us the effect of true Christian penance. 
 
 At the Last Supper our Lord said to Peter 
 that Satan had sought him to sift him as wheat ; 
 "but I have prayed for thee" he added, " that 
 thy faith fail not ; and thou, once converted, con- 
 firm thy brethren." Thus, long before, Satan 
 had asked and obtained the power of tormenting 
 holy Job ; and so also now he asks that the 
 Apostles of the Lord should be abandoned to 
 him that he might persecute them — or sift them 
 as wheat. The enemy of our salvation can do 
 nothing against us but as God, in His wisdom, 
 permits. He allows him a time and a place in 
 which to try His true disciples, and withholds 
 him at His pleasure. Jesus Christ suffers now ; 
 the time of the Apostles is not yet come. He 
 foretells their sufferings ; but it is necessary that 
 His sorrows should anticipate theirs, and that He 
 should first drink the bitter chalice to its dregs. 
 Not until they shall have been taught to suffer 
 martyrdom by His example will they be called, 
 to it. Not until they shall have preached His 
 Gospel to the world will they be required to die 
 
Peters Déniai 125 
 
 for it. Then indeed the wheat shall be sifted, 
 the chaff of human weakness cast away, and the 
 purity of a holy life presented to God. St. Peter, 
 in the text quoted, is the object of a special 
 prayer. Our Lord asks and obtains for him an 
 indefectible faith, and that after his conversion 
 lie should confirm his brethren. This prayer 
 of our Lord will extend through all ages ; it 
 comes down to us ; and will be continued in the 
 world as long as Christianity itself. The faith 
 of Peter, preserved in his successors, has never 
 failed, and never will fail. The chair of Peter, 
 more firmly fixed than the rock of the Capitol 
 upon which it is placed, will never be lost to 
 the Church. Notwithstanding the efforts of 
 God's enemies, it will subsist as long as the 
 world ; notwithstanding errors, heresies, and 
 schisms, it will ever remain ; it will ever 
 offer to mankind the true and entire doctrine 
 received from Jesus Christ. If, in some few 
 circumstances, the sun which sheds the rays of 
 divine faith upon the earth appears clouded, 
 it is only so for the purpose of afterwards com- 
 ing forth in greater brilliancy, to scatter mists 
 that had obscured its fair face. Peter, con- 
 verted, confirms his brethren, and calls back to 
 the truth, by instruction and authority, those 
 
1 26 Peters Denial. 
 
 who had wandered from the unity of faith. 
 Touched with the word of his Divine Master, 
 whom he cherished and revered, and somewhat 
 moved at the thought that he would ever stand 
 in need of conversion, Peter at once declared 
 that he would follow Him everywhere and al- 
 ways—even to prison and to death. The ardent 
 sentiment of the Apostle seems only to merit our 
 praises, and yet it is deficient in a very essential 
 point. The feeling which then animated him he 
 supposed would be perpetual ; he did not think 
 that his love of Christ would ever diminish or 
 change. But he counted upon himself, and not 
 on the grace of Heaven ; on the power of his 
 tender love, and not on the goodness of God. 
 He had never had experience of his weakness ; 
 he knew not, or perhaps did not reflect, that 
 man, abandoned to himself and destitute of di- 
 vine succor, is powerless for good. Christian con- 
 fidence means trust in God and diffidence in our- 
 selves. He has promised us all that is good for 
 us ; we may well confide in Him. We are weak 
 and inclined to evil ; we must distrust ourselves. 
 Holy David could well despise his enemies ; but 
 this was because God was on his side. Peter de- 
 fied his enemies, trusting in himself, and hence 
 he fell. The holy Fathers tell us that this was, 
 
Peters Denial. 127 
 
 indeed, the first cause of Ms sin. Let us apply 
 this awful lesson to ourselves. An Apostle, tlie 
 very Prince of the Apostles, shamefully falls by 
 presumption ! If in this we follow him, what 
 will become of us ? Let us promise our Lord to 
 follow Him to prison and to death, if He so wills 
 it ; but let all our resolutions be founded on His 
 divine grace, which alone can render them effica- 
 cious. Let us be penetrated with two special 
 considerations : first, that experience constantly 
 proves to us that without God' s grace we can do 
 nothing ; and, secondly, that with it, as we know 
 from God's own word, we can do all things. The 
 first guards us against presumption ; the second 
 against cowardice. The thought of our weak- 
 ness will always keep us on the alert, so that 
 we may be saved in the sudden attacks of our 
 enemy ; the assurance of divine grace will give 
 us strength and courage to conquer when at- 
 tacked. 
 
 Our Blessed Lord, to repress the temerity of 
 His Apostle, predicts his fall. " And Jesus saith 
 to him : Amen I say to thee, to-day, even in 
 this night, before the cock crow twice, thou shalt 
 deny Me thrice. But he spoke the more vehe- 
 mently: Although I should die together with 
 Thee, I will not deny Thee. And in like manner 
 
128 Peters Denial. 
 
 also said they all." * Here is a singular contro- 
 versy indeed between onr Saviour and the chief 
 of His Apostles. We know the event. St. Peter 
 was indeed soon to deny his Master ; but he was 
 very far from believing it possible that he could 
 commit such a crime. But our Lord knew better 
 than he his interior dispositions and the instabi- 
 lity of his resolutions. Alas ! is it not thus with 
 me ? The Master of life knows me much better 
 than I know myself. He sees at the depth of my 
 heart what is hidden from me. How often, like 
 St. Peter, have I been deceived in regard to my 
 sentiments — their principle, their nature, their 
 tendency, and their stability ! How often have 
 I been deluded with respect to my conscience — 
 sometimes without my willing it, and sometimes, 
 too, with a will not entirely determined. Give 
 me, O God, the grace clearly to see my weak- 
 ness ; take the veil of self-love from before my 
 eyes, that they may penetrate the most hidden 
 recesses of my soul and discover to me my vicious 
 inclinations and dangerous dispositions. "Know 
 thyself" was a maxim of one of the greatest of 
 the ancient philosophers ; his reason revealed to 
 him this fundamental principle of all morality. 
 But reason cannot give us the conviction that it 
 
 * Mark xiv. SO, SI. 
 
Peter s Denial. 129 
 
 is from God alone this essential knowledge is to 
 come. This we learn from the science acquired 
 at the foot of the cross. 
 
 Yet Peter sustained in the Garden of Olives 
 the boldness of which he had made profession 
 at the Last Supper. When the emissaries of the 
 Sanhedrim came to arrest his Master he put him- 
 self in an attitude of defence; alone, before an 
 armed troop, he drew the sword ; and, without 
 regard to consequences, he struck and wounded 
 Malchus. No doubt he erred in this act ; in his 
 conduct there was an indiscreet zeal, a dangerous 
 haste. Yet do I still recognize Peter in all this. 
 I see in it the ardor which always moves him 
 when there is question of the interests or the 
 honor of his Blessed Saviour. I also observe 
 that w^hen his Master is arrested and dragged 
 before the judges, Peter is there. True, he fol- 
 lows at a distance ; but this does not appear to 
 his dishonor, especially after his Master had for- 
 bidden defensive measures and had ordered the 
 disciples to go away. But, alas ! soon no one can 
 recognize him. In a few moments he will be 
 no longer that Apostle, so faithful and so zeal- 
 ous, who promised his Lord to follow Him to 
 prison and to death ; who defended Him at the 
 peril of life ; who, when he saw that dear Lord 
 
130 Peters Denial. 
 
 led away captive, still would not abandon Him. 
 What, then, lias brought about this inconceiv- 
 able weakness, this unhappy change % In going 
 to the house of Caiphas at all Peter made a false 
 step ; he thereby threw himself among those 
 who had seized our Lord. It was an imprudent, 
 exposure of himself to be recognized as a fol- 
 lower of Christ when it was to no useful pur- 
 pose. This was one cause of his fall. True it 
 is that God promises not to permit us to be 
 tempted beyond our strength ; * but He does 
 not promise this to the rash and careless who 
 throw themselves in the way of danger. He 
 promises it to those who merit this grace by 
 their watchfulness. Thus we hear Him say : 
 "He that loveth danger shall perish in it." f He 
 is not bound to save the man who thus exposes 
 himself. And how many of our faults have been 
 committed not only because we did not fly from 
 danger, but because we even sought it? Have 
 we not sufficient temptations that we cannot 
 avoid, with all manner of precaution ? Why, 
 then, should we throw ourselves in the way of 
 others and thus provoke the enemy whom, at 
 best, we can hardly conquer? This first step in 
 the direction of sin is the first advantage given to 
 
 * 1 Cor. x. 13. t Ecclus. iii. 27. 
 
Peters Denial. 13 1 
 
 the enemy, and prepares for Mm a more certain 
 triumph. We shall have much, less power to re- 
 sist him when we are involved in the snare that 
 is laid for us. This is what the fall of Peter 
 teaches. He is drawn into temptation and falls. 
 And what an awful fall was his ! It is even 
 Peter that denies Christ ! And he does it not by 
 a surprise or a sudden motion of the spirit that 
 gives him no time to deliberate; he denies his 
 Master three times, and before different persons ; 
 and there is the interval of an hour between twx> 
 of his denials.* Nor is it the terror which might 
 have been inspired by the presence of powerful 
 persons that causes his fall ; it is the question of 
 a servant-maid, the remarks of certain menials 
 as to his accent and place of birth, that make 
 him weak, ungrateful, a liar, a perjurer, an apos- 
 tate. With an oath he swears that he never 
 Tcnew tlie Man. Alas ! it is to this Man he has 
 been attached for three years without ever leav- 
 ing Him ; it is by this Man he has been raised 
 to the dignity of the apostolate, and even to its 
 first rank ; this is the Man who made him walk 
 upon the waters, whose power he had often wit- 
 nessed, whose glory he had beheld on Thabor ! 
 How many crimes are here found in one ! 
 
 * Luke xxii. 59. 
 
I3 2 Peters Denial. 
 
 We are astonished, afflicted, indignant to see 
 one loaded witli so many favors, so foully deny 
 Him from whom they are all received ; but we re- 
 flect not upon the great number of times we have 
 fallen into his sin. How often, as St. Panl says, 
 we pretend to confess Christ by our words and 
 deny Him by our actions ! * All who oppose the 
 examples and maxims of Jesus Christ, and give 
 the preference to those of the world, deny Plim. 
 Those who hear discourses against Him with 
 silence, or with some degree of approbation, deny 
 Him. Those who act irreverently before the al- 
 tar in which He resides, deny Him. Those who 
 receive Him unworthily deny Hi in as effectually 
 as St. Peter, for they know Him as well. They 
 receive the same abundance of His graces, and 
 yet they renounce Him, not once, but frequent- 
 ly, habitually, continually. Let all who thus 
 deny Him hear His divine oracle: "Whosoever 
 shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him 
 before My Father who is in Heaven." f Let 
 them imitate the penance of St. Peter, if they 
 would escape the threatened punishment. 
 
 One of the most frequent causes of the denial 
 of Christ in the world is that same human re- 
 spect which operated so disastrously in the case 
 
 * Ep. to Titus i. 16. t Matt. x. 33. 
 
Peter s Déniai. 133 
 
 of Peter. We often meet persons who, in their 
 love of our Lord, brave all manner of persecu- 
 tions and suffer death itself, and yet have not the 
 courage to denounce the vain discourses which 
 corrupt the world. The courage which defies 
 death and that which despises raillery are of a 
 different kind ; and the latter is probably less 
 common, though more necessary, than the for- 
 mer. Occasions to confess the name and love of 
 God to the point of dying for them do not often 
 occur. Occasions to bear contempt and scorn for 
 Him are most common. How many there are 
 who have no disgust for evil and who blush at 
 doing good ! How often have I, through fear of 
 being considered by worldlings as weak-minded, 
 scrupulous, or excessively religious, stifled the 
 inspirations of grace and the voice of conscience ! 
 How often, to please the world, have I conformed 
 to its language which I otherwise despised ; ap- 
 plauded its maxims which I detested ; and imi- 
 tated its example which I condemned! What 
 scandalous and criminal weakness ! Why is 
 this ? It is to obtain the applause or to avoid 
 the blame of those w^ho merit only contempt. 
 Their approbation is preferred to that of men 
 whom we esteem in the depths of our hearts, 
 and even to that of Gfod Himself ; so that the 
 
134 Peter s Denial. 
 
 levity of libertines is of more weight than the 
 terrible judgment of the Almighty. Let lis free 
 ourselves from a slavery so unreasonable, so hu- 
 miliating, so ruinous. Let us dare be Christians, 
 for if we are not such openly we are not such at 
 all. Let us dare be Christians, and even the 
 world, excepting a few of its most abandoned 
 votaries, will entertain for us greater respect. 
 Yes, the world, how perverse soever its maxims 
 may be, still reveres, and always will revere, 
 those who openly and nobly follow the maxims 
 of Christ ; and even against its opposition to re- 
 ligion, it will pass an honorable judgment "upon 
 all who make the observance of the precepts of 
 faith a life-long duty. 
 
 The fall of Peter was great indeed ; but he 
 soon rose again. He heard the crowing of the 
 cock ; he met one glance of His Saviour. Both 
 brought to his mind the prediction he had heard. 
 He began to feel his condition and to detest his 
 sin. A convert almost as soon as he had become 
 a sinner, he at once begins to weep for his crime 
 and to merit pardon. Let us contemplate the 
 repentance of the Apostle ; and as we have often 
 sinned like him, let us also imitate him in our 
 repentance. The first idea with him is the w r ord 
 of Jesus Christ: "And Peter remembered the 
 
Peters Denial. 135 
 
 word of the Lord, liow He had said : Before the 
 cock crow, tliou slialt deny Me thrice." * In 
 like manner it is by remembering the word of 
 the Lord that the sinner begins to see his state 
 and to be moved to repentance. The first cause 
 of the fall of Peter was his having lost sight of 
 the precepts, promises, and menaces of Jesus 
 Christ. He neglected to consider the blessed 
 word of truth seriously, but drove it from his 
 mind as an importunate thought. To rise from 
 his fallen state he was obliged to use the con- 
 trary means : to impress deeply upon his mind 
 the words of his Saviour, those efficacious words 
 by which sinners are converted, by which His 
 anger is announced, by which pardon is offered 
 to all who seek it with a good heart. It was the 
 remembrance of the word of Jesus Christ that 
 made Peter clearly see and detest his sin. The 
 meditation, study, and constant thought of the 
 same blessed word will open the eyes of sinners 
 and draw from them a flood of tears. 
 
 As soon as our Apostle saw his fault he at once 
 departed from the place which had been the sad 
 theatre of his misfortune. Sinners, you who are 
 agitated by remorse, who recognize the misery 
 of your state and cannot muster up the courage 
 
 * Luke xxii. 61. 
 
136 Peters Denial 
 
 to quit it, who feel at once the desire and the 
 impossibility of rising from your deplorable con- 
 dition, begin, in God's name, by cutting off 
 everything that is an occasion of sin to you. 
 Break the vicious habits which chain you down, 
 the criminal attachments which hold you in their 
 embrace. Leave the evil associations whose 
 maxims and example push you on to your ruin. 
 Free yourself from the spirit of a wicked world 
 which is a continual scandal to you. Separated 
 from objects the presence of which constantly 
 draws you into sin, you will more easily rise 
 from sin. The first step will lead to other and 
 longer ones ; and the beginning of the sacrifice 
 will bring with it the graces necessary to finish it. 
 Finally, Peter, touched with a lively sorrow, 
 shed bitter tears. Sorrow on earth, joy in 
 Heaven ! His sin is no sooner known than wept 
 for ; no sooner wept for than pardoned. Oh ! 
 ineffable goodness of God ! Let repentance be 
 once commenced in the true spirit, and pardon 
 is assured. Not only does Peter obtain grace, 
 but he is immediately re-established in all his 
 rights as Prince of the Apostles and head of the 
 Church. Thus it is that the sentence which re- 
 conciles ns with God not only delivers us from 
 our sins, but restores to us all that was lost and 
 
Peters Denial. 137 
 
 revives in us all the merits and spiritual gifts of 
 which we had been deprived. Let us deeply re- 
 flect upon the penance of the Apostle, that we 
 may conform ours to it. Let it be as prompt 
 as was his, so that as soon as we find ourselves 
 charged with the guilt of sin we may make haste 
 to be delivered from it, having a salutary fear 
 lest its weight drag us into other and greater 
 sins. Let our repentance be as sincere and live- 
 ly as was his. True repentance is not superfi- 
 cial ; it must penetrate the heart. How often do 
 the tears shed on account of sin remain sterile 
 because they come from a light and passing sen- 
 sibility ! Finally, let it be constant, as was 
 Peters ; he spent his whole after-life in bewailing 
 his fault. True, our Lord had buried it in obli- 
 vion ; but his continual sorrow was a great help 
 to guard him against other falls. As for us, how 
 do we satisfy for the sins that have been for- 
 given ? In place of repairing the injury done, 
 do we not frequently fall back into our former 
 habits ? AVe pretend to be penitent, and we are 
 scarcely converted. 
 
 Let us not forget the glance of our Lord at 
 Peter which converted him. Amid the outrages 
 heaped upon Him in the court of Caiphas, His 
 compassionate goodness could not but show an 
 
138 Peters Denial. 
 
 interest in His unhappy Apostle. Let us ask 
 Him, in like manner, to cast one loving glance 
 upon 11s, so as to change our hearts. The pen- 
 ance which draws God' s mercy upon it is also 
 a part of that mercy. 
 
 In the history of the Passion we find two of 
 the disciples grievously culpable — one betrays 
 His Master, the other denies Him. Both repent- 
 ed with deepest sorrow. Yet what a difference 
 there was between them ! Judas is sorrowful, 
 but despairs of forgiveness ; Peter is sorrowful, 
 but has confidence in God. Judas fixes his eyes 
 upon the earth and revolves in his mind a des- 
 perate project. Peter fixes his eyes on Heaven 
 and receives consolation. Judas cannot bear the 
 weight of his sin, and falls under it ; Peter is 
 humbled, confounded, but not cast down ; he 
 fears, but does not despair. Judas falls beneath, 
 a load of shame, and commits suicide ; Peter 
 resolutely withdraws from sin and its surround- 
 ings, and commences a career of glorious apos- 
 tleship. Judas dies a reprobate ; Peter, after 
 having lived as head of the Universal Church, 
 Prince of the Apostles, and representative of 
 Christ, dies a martyr. Such is true and false 
 penance — one giving a holy confidence, the other 
 leading to despair. The different sorrows of the 
 
Peters Denial. 139 
 
 two Apostles present to us still another conside- 
 ration. Both had committed great offences 
 against Christ, and both felt the most profound 
 grief. Therefore they were both convinced of 
 the virtue, the innocence of Him with whom they 
 had lived three years. No one can suspect their 
 testimony in favor of Christ. Incredulity wishes 
 to stigmatize the Apostles as impostors ; what 
 will it call these two ? What could have pro- 
 duced such violent remorse but a full convic- 
 tion % Let the incredulous explain otherwise, if 
 they can, the death of Judas and the tears of 
 Peter. Let them name the motives that could 
 have induced them so to weep for, so to punish 
 their sin. 
 
yiii. 
 
 JESUS BEFORE PILATE. 
 
VIII. 
 
 JESUS BEFOKE PILATE. 
 
 " And the whole council bound Jesus, and led Him away and 
 delivered Him to Pilate.'' (Mark xv. 1.) 
 
 The night ended amid the shocking ont- 
 rages to which Jesus had been subjected ; and 
 the sun rose to shine upon the greatest crime 
 ever committed on earth. Did I say " shine" ? 
 Ah ! no ; that word must be corrected ; for 
 when the crime came to a climax and Christ 
 was indeed lifted on the cross, an eclipse veiled 
 the face of the sun. The pontiffs, the ancients, 
 the doctors, and the whole Sanhedrim consult 
 together. In condemning Jesus to death in 
 their own tribunal they had shown their hatred 
 of Him. Now, to give it more effect, they re- 
 solve to make His death as disgraceful and 
 cruel as possible. To this end, having bound 
 Him again, they bring Him before Pilate, the 
 Roman governor. Behold your Lord and Mas- 
 ter dragged through the streets as a criminal, 
 harassed by a vile crowd of attendants and 
 ruffians who had come on purpose to insult 
 
 143 
 
144 Jesus before Pilate. 
 
 Him ; yes, and by a still more wicked crowd 
 of judges who had come down from their tri- 
 bunals to act before Pilate the disgraceful part 
 of witnesses and accusers ! It is easy to im- 
 agine their conduct on the way to his court. 
 
 Their first act in coming before Pilate is re- 
 markable. It furnishes a striking example of 
 all professions of religion that are not founded 
 on true principles. They hesitate not a mo- 
 ment to accuse an innocent man with a view to 
 His destruction ; but they will not enter Pi- 
 late' s house, lest they should thereby contract 
 a legal uncleanness and become disqualified to 
 take part in the paschal solemnitj^.* They 
 make no scruple of committing an atrocious 
 murder, but they shrink from a light breach 
 of a law merely ceremonial. Among Christians 
 of this our day do we not find some who make 
 their whole religious obligation consist in cer- 
 tain minute observances of piety and seriously 
 violate the divine precepts ? Do we not find 
 persons who would not fail in their pet devo- 
 tions for any consideration, and yet without 
 much difficulty break the most important laws ? 
 These pretend to a high degree of sanctity on 
 the strength of certain devotions of mere rou- 
 
 * To go into the house of a Pagan was uncleanness to Jews. 
 
yesus before Pilate. 145 
 
 tine ; whereas, in weighty matters, they are 
 not Christians at all. 
 
 Pilate, by a condescension very commend- 
 able in him and to humor the scruples of the 
 Jews, goes out to meet them. His questions 
 are reasonable and just : " What accusations do 
 you bring against this man?" It was difficult 
 indeed to find an accusation against the Saint 
 of saints. The Jews had expected His con- 
 demnation on their mere word, and that Pilate 
 would never have required specific proofs of 
 the guilt- of Jesus. Hence they answer the in- 
 quiry of the moderate and sensible governor 
 with anger and insolence, as if it were an insult 
 to question their words, even when the life or 
 death of a human being was in the balance. 
 "If He were not a malefactor," say they, 
 "would we have brought Him before you?" 
 In this style of speech we can easily detect a 
 common practice existing even now. We hear 
 men make vague and indefinite accusations 
 against their neighbors ; and they expect us to 
 take them at their word. They affect, indeed, 
 to be offended if they are in the least doubt- 
 ed ; and, while they cruelly decry the honor of 
 another, bitterly complain of their own honor 
 being attacked because, forsooth, their words 
 
146 Jesus before Pilate. 
 
 of vile defamation are not blindly received. 
 The very answer of the Jews might have been 
 taken as a proof that they were nnable to bring 
 forward any well- founded charge against Christ. 
 Pilate might even then have concluded that he 
 was innocent, and that envy and hatred were 
 the sole cause of His arrest. Unwilling to dis- 
 oblige the Jews, and still more so to commit 
 an act of injustice to please them, he tells 
 them that they have a law, and that by it 
 they should judge Him. But this was not to 
 their liking. It failed also to satisfy -the rage 
 of hearts that could only be appeased by the 
 most inhuman punishment. Therefore they 
 answered that, until the close of the ceremo- 
 nies then in progress, they had no power to 
 put any one to death. Their impatience to 
 sacrifice an innocent Victim could bear no de- 
 lay. But their blind violence drew them un- 
 consciously to carry out the will of that very 
 Victim; for their exertions only tended to 
 bring Him to the precise form of execution 
 which He had foretold. 
 
 Forced at length to make known the alleged 
 misdeeds of our Blessed Saviour, they reduce 
 them to three specific Leads: " That He was 
 guilty of sedition ; that He had forbidden the 
 
Jesîis before Pilate. 147 
 
 tribute to be paid to Caesar ; and that He had 
 made Himself out Christ and King." Behold 
 in these charges the consummate cunning and 
 malice of His accusers. Before Caiphas, in the 
 Jewish court, He is charged with crimes against 
 the Jewish religion — with having threatened to 
 destroy the temple ; with having declared Him- 
 self the Son of God ; and with other so-called 
 blasphemies. Before Pilate, to whom the law 
 and religion of the Jews were of small concern, 
 these accusations are not heard at all. Pilate 
 represents the Emperor of Pome, and he is 
 bound to uphold Roman authority. "Where- 
 fore it is necessary to accuse Christ before 
 him of conduct calculated to subvert that au- 
 thority. In the council of the Jewish priests 
 He is set forth as an impious man ; in the 
 court of Pilate He is held up as a rebel. Thus 
 does their insidious malevolence assume various 
 forms, according to the position, the interests, 
 the prejudices, or the passions of the person 
 w r hose favor they seek. In each court the ac- 
 cusations best adapted to make an impression 
 against Him are especially urged. Such cruel 
 meanness is not so rare as may be imagined 
 in our times, and many instances of its vile 
 power may easily be adduced. 
 
148 Jesus before Pilate. 
 
 But if the allegations of the Sanhedrim 
 were formed with sufficient adroitness to ar- 
 rest the attention of the Roman governor, 
 they were too clumsily constructed to deceive 
 him. They were vague and presented to the 
 mind of the magistrate only general faults. It 
 was not sufficient to say that He had excited 
 sedition, or that He had forbidden the pay- 
 ment of the tribute, or that He had affected 
 royalty. To give the least weight to these 
 charges it was necessary to specify the particu- 
 lar class of people thus excited to sedition ; 
 what means He had made use of to carry out 
 His purpose ; what sedition it was, in fact, 
 that had been suppressed. Again, it was es- 
 sential to specify where, when, and what per- 
 sons He had forbidden to pay the tribute. The 
 circumstances of place and time in which He 
 had made Himself out a king were also to be in- 
 quired into. Without clear answers to these 
 pertinent questions the accusations were of no 
 value. They were merely vague, undefined 
 charges, totally unfit to be received in any 
 court of justice. Not only had they no founda- 
 tion in truth, but they were contrary to the 
 truth ; for Jesus had taught obedience to all 
 lawful authority and had actually commanded 
 
Jesus before Pilate. 149 
 
 the tribute to be paid to Caesar. He had even 
 recommended submission to the scribes and 
 pharisees, who were not only unworthy of it 
 in many respects, but were even His deadly ene- 
 mies. He had publicly declared that, as they 
 sat upon the chair of Moses, their words were 
 to be received with all docility, although their 
 conduct was grossly reprehensible. Not one 
 of the accusations against Him had any founda- 
 tion in fact ; not one of them rather that was 
 not contradicted by known facts. Nor was Pi- 
 late ignorant of this ; he clearly saw that the 
 Jews were moved against Jesus by envy and 
 malice alone. Hence he appears to have paid 
 very little attention to their impious demands. 
 But, as it was his duty neither to dismiss nor 
 to convict an accused person before hearing his 
 defence, he went into the prsetormni, or outer 
 court, in which the Jews held our Lord a pris- 
 oner, to hear Him. Here is the innocent Lamb 
 of God in the hands of His enemies ; but ob- 
 serve how easy it is for Him in presence of an 
 unbiassed judge to prove Himself guiltless. 
 
 Pilate, reducing all the accusations to one 
 principal head, which, in fact, comprised them 
 all, asked our Lord if He were indeed the King 
 of the Jews. This question may not have 
 
150 Jesus before Pilate. 
 
 been proposed in the juridical form ; and our 
 Saviour, before answering it, interrogated Pilate : 
 " Sayest thou this tiling of thyself, or have 
 others told it thee of Me ? Pilate answered : Am 
 I a Jew? Thy own nation and the chief priests 
 have delivered Thee up to me ; what hast Thou 
 done?"* Jesus, knowing all things, well knew 
 the charges made against Him ; but He desired 
 to make the judge himself explain in what qual- 
 ity, with what motives and object, he had en- 
 tered upon this examination. Inasmuch as He 
 was subject to the authority of Pilate, who was 
 the representative of Roman power, He was dis- 
 posed to answer all questions proposed. But He 
 would not deign to satisfy mere idle curiosity. 
 In this admirable conduct our Divine Teacher 
 shows us the distinction ever to be made between 
 the questions put to us by those having pro- 
 per authority, and the questions of those whose 
 sole object is to ascertain our secret thoughts, to 
 turn them against us, or to flatter their own 
 vanity. In the latter case prudence commands 
 silence. Hence it was that, when Pilate declared 
 that it was the Jewish people and priests that ac- 
 cused Him and had forced this inquiry, our Lord 
 at once answered and explained the nature of 
 
 * John zviii. 34, 35. 
 
Jesus before Pilate. 151 
 
 His mystical kingdom : " My kingdom is not of 
 this world ; if My kingdom were of this world, 
 My servants would certainly strive that I should 
 not be delivered to the Jews. But now My 
 kingdom is not hence. "* 
 
 All the kingdoms of the earth, their rulers and 
 subjects, great and small, are in the power of 
 God. He alone is the supreme and universal 
 King. Those whom we revere as such here on 
 earth are only the agents and ministers of His 
 authority ; and this is their only title to our re- 
 spect and obedience. We consider in them the 
 image of the King of Heaven, whose power ex- 
 tends over all nature ; and in this light we revere 
 them. Christ does not claim an earthly king- 
 dom. He gives all to temporal rulers, His re- 
 presentatives. Over these He holds sway by a 
 general providence as well as by secondary 
 causes which He sets in motion. Or, if some- 
 times, in the designs of His infinite wisdom, 
 which we cannot penetrate, He exercises a more 
 immediate influence, it is but rarely, and in a 
 form quite beyond the reach of our feeble 
 minds. But He possesses in the world a king- 
 dom of another kind which is not of the world, 
 though it extends over all that are in the world. 
 
 * John xviii. 58. 
 
152 Jesus before Pilate. 
 
 It is a kingdom ever ruling of itself, and ever 
 directed by its Founder and Head. This is in- 
 deed His kingdom. The officers of this king- 
 dom are under His own direction ; the laws are 
 dictated by Himself ; and, when their meaning 
 is in doubt, He has provided an infallible inter- 
 preter to solve it. The interests, honors, riches 
 of this kingdom are far above all earthly ideas. 
 They have Heaven for their object ; they over- 
 step the limits of time and reach into eternity. 
 We are citizens of this commonwealth ; we are 
 naturalized subjects of this sacred dominion ; 
 we are sworn servants of its King. Once ad- 
 mitted into this kingdom, we become a part of 
 the body politic — enjoy its rights and assume 
 its duties. Baptism forms between us and its 
 Sovereign Master a social contract. By it we 
 attain to the liberty of the children of God ; 
 deliverance from the slavery of the devil; pos- 
 session of spiritual goods ; and a right to an 
 eternal inheritance. By the same act we at once 
 submit ourselves to the constant observance of 
 the laws, precepts, and maxims of the govern- 
 ment of which we become subjects. From that 
 moment, as St. Peter tells us, w^e are a chosen 
 race, a holy nation, a purchased people ; but on 
 condition that we make manifest in our lives the 
 
Jesus before Pilate. 153 
 
 virtues of Him who from darkness has brought 
 us into His admirable light. We, who before 
 were not a people, are now God's own.* Let 
 us deeply consider the privileges conferred upon 
 us by admission into Christ's kingdom, so that 
 the constant thought of them may sustain our 
 expanded hopes and help us perform all our 
 duties more cheerfully. 
 
 The kingdom of Christ is not of this world. 
 Whence, then, the rivalries and jealousies be- 
 tween it and those of earthly princes ? How 
 has opposition between them become possible 
 when they are apparently so completely sepa- 
 rated ? The ungovernable rage of domination is 
 the cause. Rulers of the earth, you who are 
 even sometimes ambitious to be called its deities, 
 permit us to make known to you not only your 
 duties but your interests also. We boldly and 
 truthfully say to you that you only work out 
 your own destruction when you assume to your- 
 selves a power never intended for you in the 
 Providence of God. We mean a power over 
 spiritual things. In lessening the power of the 
 Church you weaken your own. You imagine 
 you strengthen it ; but you sap its foundation. 
 Religion consecrates your power ; and respect 
 
 * 1 Peter ii. 9, 10. 
 
154 Jesus before Pilate. 
 
 for religion is therefore its most solid support. 
 And wlien you are seen usurping spiritual func- 
 tions and rendering yourselves oracles of the 
 divine decrees, do you think that men will con- 
 tinue to respect you % In seeing them desert 
 your thrones it ought to occur to you that they 
 can no longer look upon them as the hinges of 
 human happiness. Do not deceive yourselves ; 
 all legitimate powers are mutually united and 
 reciprocally sustain one another. In setting the 
 example to withdraw your subjects from the 
 Church you only accustom them to withdraw 
 themselves from your power also. The King of 
 kings has made you rulers of the earth ; this 
 is the strongest reason why you should yield a 
 ready allegiance to the kingdom which He has 
 especially established in the world to preserve, 
 propagate, and perpetuate the truth. 
 
 It may be that Pilate did not comprehend the 
 expression of Christ as to a kingdom not of this 
 world ; but he surely felt that a man making no 
 pretensions to earthly authority could hardly be 
 dangerous to the state. Hence his efforts to save 
 our Lord from death. The goods of Heaven were 
 of small account in Pilate's eyes ; and lie showed 
 no inclination to be instructed in regard to them. 
 Yet he again asked our Lord if indeed He were a 
 
Jesus before Pilate. 155 
 
 King. The affirmative answer was accompanied 
 by a declaration that deeply affected the mind of 
 the Roman governor, and gives much matter for 
 our own reflection. " For this was I born, and 
 for this came I into the world, that I should give 
 testimony to the truth. Every one that is of the 
 truth heareth ]\Iy voice." * Pilate, satisfied that 
 our Lord was innocent, and not disposed to hear 
 any more about His mission, vaguely asked : 
 " What is truth?" f And not waiting for an 
 answer, he went out again to the Jews. Jesus 
 Christ came upon earth to give to man truth, 
 then almost everywhere unknown. It is only 
 from Him we can receive it. It is He who in- 
 structs us by His pastors, to whom He gave 
 the commission to teach. Other masters lead 
 us into error. Falsehood and deceit are the 
 sure mark of infidels, schismatics, heretics, and 
 libertines. Let us fly from them as if they 
 were afflicted with a plague. If we are sin- 
 cere in our professions of loving the truth let 
 us embrace it. This is the mark of our hon- 
 esty. How many pretend to seek the truth 
 and yet fear it ! Like the Jews in the time of 
 Isaias the prophet, they seem to say: " Behold 
 not for us those things that are right ; speak 
 
 * John xviii. 37. t lb. 38. 
 
156 Jesus before Pilate. 
 
 unto us pleasant things." * How many there 
 are who, indifferent to truth and error, to good 
 and evil, look upon all doctrine as problemati- 
 cal, and pretend to say with Pilate: "What is 
 truth?" It is not to be instructed that they 
 thus speak ; but rather because they make no 
 account of it. The unbelieving magistrate was 
 punished in after-life for not accepting the prof- 
 fered truth. Christ had entered into the ex- 
 position of it for his benefit ; but the manifest 
 indifference of Pilate cut short the discourse. 
 Like him, all others who despise the truth will 
 be punished. They will be deprived of it, and 
 darkness and error will take its place. 
 
 Returning to the Jews, Pilate said to them : 
 "I find no cause of accusation in Him." They 
 were sorely disappointed to see the slight effect 
 of their clamors and intrigues, and became more 
 incensed than ever. The chief priests and an- 
 cients renew their charges ; but our Blessed 
 Lord, ever consistent with Himself, meets them 
 with silence. In the words of the prophecy of 
 old : u He was as a lamb before His shearer, and 
 opened not His mouth. " f In vain does Pilate 
 press Him to answer these accusations. He is 
 silent. And why should He speak ? He knew 
 
 * Isaias xxx. 10. t lb liii. 7. 
 
y estes before Pilate. 157 
 
 that their gross calumnies would destroy them- 
 selves ; He knew that they could make no im- 
 pression on the mind of the judge. To the 
 questions put to Him by proper authority He 
 makes answer ; to those put to Him as a result 
 of hatred He replies not. And Pilate is not mis- 
 taken as to the silence of Jesus Christ ; instead 
 of offending him, it excites his admiration. He 
 saw with astonishment that our Lord with one 
 word could have confounded His enemies ; yet 
 He would not speak that word — and this even 
 when His life was at stake. Pilate saw that 
 He quietly received all the attacks made upon 
 Him, grandly supported by the consciousness of 
 His innocence. The pagan governor was forced 
 to admire a silence tranquil but not sad ; meek 
 but not timid ; dignified but not arrogant ; pa- 
 tient but not obstinate. He compared the si- 
 lence of the accused, whom he knew to be 
 innocent, with the tumultuous cries of His ac- 
 cusers, whose malice was evident — their furious 
 importunity with His unswerving modesty. 
 
 Why, then, does not Pilate declare groundless 
 these calumnious charges and dismiss Christ? 
 His statement to the Jews that he found no crime 
 in Jesus ought to have been a sentence of release 
 and absolution. It should have placed our Lor^ 
 
158 yesus before Pilate. 
 
 under his protection and liave imposed silence 
 upon His enemies» From tlie beginning Pilate 
 saw the innocence of Christ. His intentions also 
 were good, because he sincerely desired to save 
 Him. Yet he will not release Him, but con- 
 cludes by condemning Him. What is the value 
 of clearsightedness when we sacrifice it to our 
 interests ? What are good intentions when not 
 put into execution? Pilate belonged to that 
 class of men designated by the world as wise 
 and safe, if not honest. But they absolutely 
 lack all these qualities. He is a striking ex- 
 ample of the fact that outside the pale of true 
 Christianity there is neither wisdom, nor safety, 
 nor honesty. His plan, which, in truth, is not 
 uncommon amongst us, was to reconcile things 
 irreconcilable — that is, to make the interests of 
 God and justice agree with the interests of the 
 devil and injustice. He had, indeed, a desire to 
 follow his conscience, provided his credit and in- 
 terests with men were safe. He wished to save 
 Christ and not offend the Jews. He had no 
 pleasure in inflicting a grave injury upon an in- 
 nocent man ; but. he feared to compromise him- 
 self with his master, the Emperor of Rome. 
 He loved what was good, but dared not do it. 
 He hated evil, but had not strength of character 
 
Jesus before Pilate. 159 
 
 to resist it. Self-interest made him politic ; 
 policy made Mm timid ; and timidity made him 
 criminal. " Seek not to be made a judge, unless 
 thou have strength enough to extirpate ini- 
 quity,"* are the words of the Holy Ghost. 
 Magistrates, rulers of men, all you who are 
 charged by Providence with authority over 
 others, contemplate the excess of crime to which 
 weakness may lead you ! It was neither ignor- 
 ance, nor prejudice, nor passion that made Pilate 
 unjust ; it was weakness alone that made him 
 sacrifice honor, probity, conscience, God. Of 
 what concern is it to those of whom you have 
 charge, or to your own souls and conscience, 
 whether it is by corruption, weakness, or negli- 
 gence you do wrong? Indeed, weakness in 
 rulers is more dangerous than actual depravity. 
 It is more dangerous to the public, because it 
 adds to its own fault the faults of others ; more 
 dangerous to one's self, because it is more com- 
 mon and its stings are less felt. In praying, 
 therefore, to God for our rulers, let us beseech 
 Him to endow them with the spirit of power and 
 determination to put down evil and sustain the 
 good, no matter what opposition they may meet. 
 
 * Ecclus. vii. 6. 
 
IX. 
 
 JESUS BEFORE EEBOD. 
 
s 
 
IX. 
 
 JESUS BEFORE HEROD.. 
 
 ° And when he understood that He belonged to Herod's juris- 
 diction, he sent Him away to Herod." (Luke xxiii. 7.) 
 
 1^ declaring our Saviour innocent Pilate did 
 not at tlie same time dismiss Him. He had 
 clearly made known tlie judgment that he ought 
 to have passed upon Him, but he did not dare 
 pronounce it. The enemies of Christ penetrated 
 his motive ; they plainly saw that he feared to 
 displease them, and they took the advantage 
 thus given them by his weakness and sought to 
 turn it to account. A sentence distinctly and 
 briefly pronounced would have silenced them ; 
 a declaration so smoothly made only added to 
 their excitement. Hence they renew their accu- 
 sations, perhaps not with greater force, but cer- 
 tainly with more fury. Weak and timid men, 
 such is the common result of your pusillanimous 
 conduct ; almost always it produces the effect 
 most opposite to that which you expect. You 
 may strive to manage two opposing parties, and 
 you can satisfy neither. You will hurt both, 
 
 163 
 
164 Jesus before Herod. 
 
 The party on tlie side of justice will fail to re- 
 ceive its due, nor will that on the side of cu- 
 pidity obtain what it expects. To attach one's 
 self to strict justice, and to execute it with for- 
 titude, is not only the most virtuous and the 
 most noble course, but also the most profitable 
 and useful. It is the only means by which duty 
 and interest can be reconciled. Have courage 
 to be just, at the risk of displeasing the power- 
 ful and dangerous, and you will command the 
 esteem of all good men ; and even those who 
 hate you will be forced to respect you. If, 
 on the contrary, you undertake to serve them 
 at the expense of your conscience, you will be- 
 come the object of universal contempt— and more 
 especially of theirs. Profiting by your criminal 
 weakness, they will despise you. Was it not a 
 mark of contempt towards Pilate on the part 
 of the Jews when they still demanded that he 
 should condemn Christ, even after he had for- 
 mally declared that he saw no guilt in Him? 
 Was it not to make light of his decision to 
 ask him to repeat it, when they produced no 
 other proofs but such as he had found to be cal- 
 umnious ? If the timid policy of Pilate had not 
 lost all elevation, all dignity, would he have suf- 
 fered this insult ? But the misguided magistrate 
 
Jesus before Herod. 165 
 
 did not feel the abasement to which lie delivered 
 himself ; he was solely occupied in striving to 
 rid himself of the embarrassment in which he 
 found himself between our Lord and His ene- 
 mies ; between His innocence and their wicked 
 hatred ; between the desire of saving Him and 
 the fear of displeasing them, 
 
 At last he thought that a good opportunity 
 offered itself of reconciling opposite sentiments 
 and of satisfying all interests. Among the tu- 
 multuous cries raised against our Lord he heard 
 a voice which said: "He stirred up the people, 
 teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee to 
 this place/' * He soon found that Jesus was a 
 Galilean and hastened to send Him to Herod, the 
 tetrarch, or king, of Galilee, who then happened 
 to be in Jerusalem, probably on account of the 
 paschal solemnity. 
 
 Two different motives conduced to determine 
 Pilate to send our Lord to Herod. He thought 
 that in t\\Q one act he would effect two splendid 
 strokes of policy — that he would disengage him- 
 self from a judgment which pained him very 
 much ; and that he would regain the friendship 
 of Herod, with whom he had some misunder- 
 standing. Criminal policy this, which sacrifices 
 
 * Luke xsiii. 5. 
 
1 66 Jesus before Herod. 
 
 all duties, all virtues, to self-interest ! Disas- 
 trous policy, which, corrupting all states of so- 
 ciety, from the sovereign to the lowest of his sub- 
 jects, causes the greatest evils to which the hu- 
 man race is a prey ! False policy, which often 
 loses its object, and of which he alone is gener- 
 ally the dupe who has the dishonesty to use it ! 
 Pilate desired to deliver himself from the difficult 
 alternative of having to condemn an innocent 
 Man or of offending His numerous and powerful 
 accusers. But was it sufficient for a judge not to 
 be the oppressor of innocence ? Was he not ap- 
 pointed to be its protector ? Pilate possessed full 
 authority to judge this cause ; it was committed 
 to his tribunal ; he presided in the trial of it. 
 Not to give judgment, when the side on which jus- 
 tice lay was fully known to him, was flagrant in- 
 justice in him whose duty was to give a just deci- 
 sion. His artifice avails him not ; Herod, send- 
 ing Christ back to him, throws him again into 
 the very embarrassment from which he tried to 
 escape. He had done all the wrong of refusing 
 to do justice ; and he does not profit by it. This 
 magistrate, whose worldly prudence consisted in 
 having no enemies, hopes to please Herod by 
 sending Christ to him. He flatters himself that, 
 moved by this mark of deference and recognition 
 
Jesus before Herod. 167 
 
 of his authority, that prince would become his 
 friend, and that a good nnders tan ding would 
 henceforth subsist between them. But was there 
 no reason to doubt whether Herod would be more 
 scrupulous than himself, or that the murderer of 
 John the Baptist would have much difficulty in 
 being the murderer of Christ ? This view of the 
 case, which would have been very important in 
 the mind of a just judge, does not affect him, 
 Unhesitatingly he sacrifices the innocent Christ 
 to the desire of pleasing Herod. That the just 
 man should perish is all the same to him, pro- 
 vided he does not personally immolate Him ; 
 that the just man should perish lie agrees, pro- 
 vided his reconciliation with Herod will follow. 
 And it does follow ; for we read that they be- 
 came friends from that day. But a similar pun- 
 ishment awaits men similarly guilty ; for both 
 die in disgrace and exile.* 
 
 Again, we may observe in the clamors of the 
 Jews an artifice common to all imposture. They 
 pretend that Christ had raised commotions in all 
 Judea. So it is ever in calumny, which gathers 
 strength in proportion to the accusations it 
 makes. Throw much mire at a man, and some of 
 it will adhere to him. Do they accuse Him of 
 
 * Herod was banished to Lyons, and Pilate to Vienne, 
 
î68 Jesus before Herod. 
 
 any particular evil that He lias done ? It is gen- 
 eral ; " it is known everywhere" Do tliey men- 
 tion any fact ? ]STo ; the accursed trick is to say, 
 " Every one has heard of it." This plan ought 
 surely to have carried with it its own refutation ; 
 for, the more universal the knowledge the more 
 witnesses could be obtained. Thus, for instance, 
 if all Judea had been incited to sedition, the 
 governor should have obtained information from 
 numerous places. But the calumniator well 
 knows that, in giving his accusations a wide 
 extent, he will more successfully impose upon 
 ignorance and influence weak minds. The more 
 suspicions are raised the more fears are aroused ; 
 and he little cares whether he obtains full faith 
 in his words, provided only that he leaves a bad 
 impression. 
 
 Behold our Lord, then, before a third tribunal ! 
 Will He find more justice here than in the oth- 
 ers? Herod, unlike the Sanhedrim, h$a no hatred 
 of Christ ; he does not appear to have been, like 
 Pilate, a weak and vacillating man ; but he teas 
 a prince abandoned to his passions — and whither 
 will they not drag a man who delivers himself up 
 to their sway ? Their first effect is to estrange 
 him from religion, to inspire indifference to its 
 teachings, and almost a contempt for all that 
 
y estes before Herod. 169 
 
 pertains to it. It is not always a formal incre- 
 dulity that they produce ; but a carelessness and 
 a levity which approach very near it and have 
 the same effects. A man addicted to his pas- 
 sions no longer occupies himself with the things 
 of God ; he expels from his mind all religious 
 principles, inasmuch as they disturb his enjoy- 
 ment ; he treats religion as something foreign to 
 him — as something which, for him, does not ex- 
 ist. Having no restraint on the side of religion, 
 he becomes capable of crimes abhorrent to human 
 nature itself. It is not recorded that Herod was 
 a wicked or a cruel man according to the ideas 
 of the times in which he lived ; yet, at the re- 
 quest of a dancing-girl who had pleased him, he 
 gave her the head of John the Baptist, although 
 otherwise he had entertained much respect for 
 the great Precursor. It is not recorded that he 
 was an unbeliever ; yet he treats the Saviour of 
 the world with impious derision. 
 
 K"ot only had Herod no opposition or enmity 
 towards our Lord, but the sacred text express- 
 ly tells us that he had great joy in seeing Him ; 
 that he had desired it a long time, having heard 
 many things concerning Him, and hoped to see 
 Him perform some great wonder. This disposi- 
 tion might have been laudable ; it would certainly 
 
170 Jesus before Herod. 
 
 have been so if it had come from a religions feel- 
 ing and from a desire to know and receive the 
 truth in order to conform his life to it. It was 
 neither the motive nor the object of this prince. 
 If he had had the least desire of knowing the 
 doctrine of our Blessed Saviour and of turning 
 it to account, no opportunity was wanting to 
 him. Jesus Christ had travelled through Judea 
 for three years ; Galilee was frequently the thea- 
 tre of His preaching and miracles. What pre- 
 vented Herod all this time from knowing Him 
 and from assuring himself by personal obser- 
 vation of the greatness of our Lord and His 
 works ? He had often had the desire, but a de- 
 sire so light and fickle that he never took pains 
 to satisfy it ; or at least a desire easily stifled by 
 pleasure, dissipation, and debauchery. It may 
 be that he even feared lest the knowledge of 
 Christ and His miracles would only have sub- 
 jected him to reproaches and correction on ac- 
 count of his disorderly life, as it had happened 
 in the case of John the Baptist. This disposi- 
 tion is not rare even in our times. Among those 
 who are regarded as unbelievers, and who profess 
 themselves to be such, who in fact make a pa- 
 rade of it, the greatest number are of this de- 
 scription. They are incredulous, not by persua- 
 
Jesus before Herod. i 7 1 
 
 sion, but by levity ; not because they believe re- 
 ligion to be false, but because tliey desire it to be 
 so ; not because they find the proofs of religion 
 insufficient, but because they have never taken 
 any pains to examine them. Like Herod, they 
 would often have looked into these proofs, if 
 their passions had given them time ; perhaps 
 they are deterred, like him, by the fear that a 
 restraint might thus be put upon them. 
 
 Herod was glad to see the man whose life, 
 doctrine, and miracles were the wonder of all ; 
 he was glad to see Him, not as a holy person 
 whose words would have brought him to the 
 practice of a virtuous life, but as an extraordi- 
 nary Man about whom there was much spoken ; 
 he was glad to see Him, not to hear His bless- 
 ed doctrine and believe in it, but to learn of 
 what it consisted, and what was the extraor- 
 dinary eloquence that had carried "away the 
 whole country in admiration ; he was glad 
 to see Him, in order to behold some of those 
 great miracles which were a matter of wonder 
 to all, but to him merely a matter of curiosity 
 and nothing more. His desire of seeing Jesus 
 Christ, and his joy when he did behold Him, 
 were wanting in two essential points : first, it 
 was a vain curiosity that urged him on, for lie 
 
172 Jesus before Herod. 
 
 wished, in beholding our Lord, only amusement 
 or pastime ; secondly, he desired to witness His 
 wonderful works only to subject them to a 
 critical examination. He hoped to discover 
 how they were effected. The means, as he con- 
 sidered, were human, but unknown. He was 
 eager to display his penetration in detecting 
 fraud, so that he might dispel the admiration 
 excited by the miracles of Christ. He placed 
 our Lord in the number of charlatans who 
 amuse and astonish the public by their sleight 
 of hand ; and His miracles he regarded as of the 
 same kind, but not so easily known in their 
 causes. Such was the state of mind in which 
 our Lord found Herod when He was brought 
 before him. He had never appeared at Herod's 
 court ; it was really no fit theatre for His preach- 
 ing. One of the proofs that He had given of 
 the divinity of His mission was that " the poor 
 had the Gospel preached to them." Those 
 who delight in preaching in courts and in pres- 
 ence of the great ones of the world put a limit 
 to the fruits of their labors ; these are confined 
 to the glory and applause of men ; and how 
 fleeting these are all must know. But those 
 who, after the example of our Blessed Lord, 
 seek not their own glory but the glory of God, 
 
Jesus before Herod. 173 
 
 not personal reward but the salvation of souls, 
 consider themselves as debtors to all in the 
 exercise of their ministry. With equal zeal 
 they announce the divine word in hamlets and 
 in great cities, to the high and to the lowly. 
 If they have a preference at all it is for the 
 poor whom Jesus Christ honored by His preach- 
 ing, who, having fewer means of knowledge, 
 have, therefore, more need of instruction. Here 
 it is that the Gospel ministry acquires more 
 solid fruit among single souls, and this is the 
 only recompense worthy of such labors. Among 
 the great the preacher is almost always out of 
 place ; for if he attacks prevailing vices he is 
 treated as a bigot, and they are scandalized if 
 he telle the plain truth. So that it is extremely 
 difficult to assume a tone at once simple and 
 elevated, humble and dignified ; at once con- 
 formable to the modesty and dignity required 
 by his state, and at the same time calculated 
 to make his ministry felt and respected. 
 
 The enemies of Jesus Christ did not fail to 
 pursue Him with their accusations before Herod. 
 "And he questioned Him with many words; 
 but He answered him nothing. 5, * The sacred 
 historians do not tell us what these questions 
 
 * Luke xxiii. 9. 
 
174 Jesus before Herod. 
 
 were ; all that they say is that both in regard 
 to the Jews and to Herod He was absolutely 
 silent. That He deigned not to answer calum- 
 nies w^hich contradicted one another need not 
 surprise us ; it was thus He had treated them 
 before Caiphas and Pilate. Before Herod He 
 consistently observed the same line of conduct. 
 But why did He, who for three years had not 
 ceased to work miracles in favor of all who had 
 sought them, refuse to perform a miracle at 
 the desire of Herod % Why was He so silent 
 before this prince, considering that He seemed 
 to feel it a duty incumbent upon Him to an- 
 swer the questions proposed by the authority 
 of Pilate and the high-priest ? Herod hoped 
 that our Lord would perform some miracle be- 
 fore him, if it w r ere for no other cause than to 
 save His life. He had done great wonders for 
 the benefit of men: He had given sight to the 
 blind, hearing to the deaf, speech to the dumb, 
 health to the sick, and life to the dead. But 
 when there is question of His own advantage 
 He suspends His power and refuses to act. He 
 could, without doubt, have miraculously disen- 
 gaged Himself from the toils thrown around 
 Him ; but this would not have accorded with 
 the will of His Father. He would have failed 
 
J estts before Herod. 175 
 
 to accomplish, the work with which He was 
 charged ; He would have been impeded in the 
 painful ministry with which He had clothed 
 Himself. Resolved to die for our salvation, He 
 will do nothing to save Himself. Another mo- 
 tive prevented Him from performing miracles 
 at the request of Herod. He knew the disposi- 
 tions of this irreligious prince, the frivolous and 
 even criminal views in which he desired to see 
 miracles. It ill-accorded, therefore, with the dig- 
 nity of the Son of God to accommodate him. 
 To establish, confirm, and recompense faith He 
 could very well perform miracles ; but He was 
 careful not to lavish them upon the fancies and 
 caprices of impiety, which desired only to be 
 amused and find material for criticism. His 
 numerous and wonderful miracles had convinced 
 all other men but Herod— that is, all who sought 
 the truth in good faith. Our own generation, 
 perverse and incredulous, like that in wiiich our 
 Lord lived, would like to see miracles as a con- 
 dition of its belief. To men in bad faith living 
 at that time He vouchsafed one miracle at least 
 — the miracle of the prophet Jonas — his glori- 
 ous resurrection after having been three days 
 in the bowels of the earth. Of all other mira- 
 cles this is the most striking, the. most authen- 
 
176 Jesus before Herod. 
 
 tic. Those who would not hear Moses and the 
 Prophets would not hear the Apostles and Evan- 
 gelists, nor even one who had risen from the 
 dead. They would not be the less libertines 
 and impious after this prodigy than they had 
 been after others of which they must have had 
 an entire certainty. And is it not true that 
 the very men who desire miracles to convince 
 them are those who declare, by a revolting 
 inconsistency, that every miracle is incredible, 
 impossible, and repugnant to the wisdom of 
 God? 
 
 Our Blessed Saviour not only refused miracles 
 to Herod, but even an answer. Amid the cla- 
 mors of enemies, the manifold interrogations of 
 the prince, the murmurs and jeers of courtiers, 
 he maintained a dignified silence ; He did not 
 condescend to give to Herod the motive of that 
 silence or to tell him that it was his vain curio- 
 sity and irreligion that caused it. He does not 
 reproach him, as the Baptist had done, with his 
 scandalous life, but is silent. A silence, oh ! 
 how admirable, and yet how terrible ! Pilate, 
 although a pagan, had admired this silence on 
 a previous occasion ; Herod, professing to have 
 a knowledge of the true religion, is blind to its 
 sublimity. This light and sensual man sees 
 
Jestts before Herod. 177 
 
 not the grandeur and nobility of patience in suf- 
 fering, firmness amid the most cruel outrages, 
 calmness amid violent agitation, courage in re- 
 fusing to justify Himself, and a complete aban- 
 donment of His glory and of life itself. All this 
 was lost upon Herod and upon those who sur- 
 rounded him. Men of the world, take care of 
 the silence of Christ ! It is not when He thun- 
 ders His menaces against you that He is most 
 to be feared. The tone of angry rebuke is most 
 merciful in its effects. But when you hear Him 
 no more, then tremble ; then His justice will 
 soon show itself. When He ceases to reproach 
 you with your disorders, He abandons you to 
 them ; it is His greatest punishment, and the 
 most terrible He can inflict in this world. What 
 Herod should have admired he despised. He 
 treated the silence of Christ as stupidity, His 
 patience as insensibility, His tranquillity as im- 
 potence. The sacred historian tells us that in 
 this he was followed by all his court. Such is 
 the invariable effect of the example of rulers 
 upon their people, and especially the effect of 
 their bad example. Let all in high places, lead- 
 ers among their fellow-men, who have the mis- 
 fortune to deliver themselves to their vices, 
 think upon all who surround them, for whom 
 
178 Jesus before Herod. 
 
 they have to care. The passions of a prince are 
 the unhappy leaven which ferments and cor- 
 rupts the whole state. His subjects are only too 
 much disposed to give themselves to an evil 
 course without his leading the way. How great 
 will be their excesses when it shall have become 
 not only an enjoyment but a species of duty to 
 give way to them ; when they are not only an ob- 
 ject of pleasure but a step to fortune ! The im- 
 piety of Herod at once finds imitators ; he ridi- 
 cules our Divine Saviour, and He is soon assailed 
 by a torrent of sarcasms, railleries, and blasphe- 
 mies. This is the deplorable manner in which 
 He is ordinarily treated in the courts of the 
 great. In the positions in which we ought to 
 look for most religion we find in many instances 
 the least. Those having most knowledge of what 
 is true and good often wilfully close their eyes, 
 so as to commit evil more freely. Their example, 
 having greater weight on the side of virtue, has 
 also greater influence on the side of vice. In 
 the court of Herod was fulfilled the prophecy : 
 "They shall deliver Him to the nations to be 
 mocked." * Pious souls, who model your lives 
 on Christ's, you must expect to be treated like 
 Him. Long ago holy Job said that " the sim- 
 
 * Matt. xx. 19. 
 
Jesus before Herod, 179 
 
 plicity of the just man is laughed to scorn." * 
 Through all time ridicule is the strongest weapon 
 of the libertine. He very well knows that a wit- 
 ty expression, how inapplicable soever it may 
 be, is better received than truth ; that pleasant- 
 ry has more force than reasoning. He ridicules 
 virtue because he has not the courage to prac- 
 tise it ; he avenges the shame to which a vir- 
 tuous life puts him by turning it into mockery. 
 What will be the end of this detestable spirit 
 of making light of all things sacred? "Woe," 
 says divine wisdom, "to you who contemn reli- 
 gion and those who practise it ; for you also will 
 one day be despised." + 
 
 Finally, after Herod and his whole court had 
 exhausted upon our Blessed Saviour their mock- 
 eries and blasphemies, the king, despising alike 
 the Accused and His accusers, resolved to send 
 Him back to Pilate. First, however, he put on 
 Him a white garment, the customary habiliment 
 of a fool.i In this state, covered with a robe of 
 ignominy, surrounded by a crowd of accusers 
 who cease not to load Him with insults, our dear 
 Saviour again passes through the city of Jerusa- 
 lem to the judgment-seat of him who had shown 
 so much weakness. We shall soon see Pilate 
 
 * Job xii. 4. t Isaias xxxiii. 1. ■ % Luke xxiii. 11. 
 
180 Jesus before Herod. 
 
 consummate his iniquity, and realize, by his 
 union with Herod, the words of the prophet : 
 "The kings of the earth stood up, and the 
 princes united against the Lord and against 
 His Christ."* 
 
 * Psalm ii. ». 
 
X. 
 
 JESUS AGAIN BEFORE PILATE. 
 
X. 
 
 JESUS AGAIN BEFOEE PILATE. 
 "And Herod sent Him back to Pilate." (Luke xxiii. 11.) 
 
 Although the Evangelists do not mention 
 it, we may easily conceive the chagrin which 
 Pilate felt on the return of our Lord to his 
 tribunal. If Herod's condescension in sending 
 our Saviour back to him had in it something 
 to flatter him, it was nevertheless much more 
 a cause of affliction. It plunged him again into 
 the embarrassment from which he thought he 
 had escaped ; he saw that he was the dupe of his 
 own policy, and that at last he must pronounce 
 judgment, and either condemn an innocent 
 Man or dismiss Him contrary to the desires 
 of numerous and powerful accusers. Either 
 course was most painful to him. He wavered 
 between his conscience, which he was afraid to 
 wound, and his interest, which he was afraid 
 to compromise. What will be the issue of this 
 internal struggle ? Alas ! that which is always 
 the issue ; that which we have too often expe- 
 rienced. When he hesitated at all on a plain 
 
 183 
 
184 Jesus again before Pilate. 
 
 question of duty he had already well-nigh vio- 
 lated that duty. Whoever trifles with tempta- 
 tion is very near falling into sin. It must be 
 resisted from the first moment ; a parley with 
 it is almost a shameful capitulation. If Pilate 
 had at first firmly pronounced the sentence 
 which he felt to be just ; if he had boldly de- 
 clared that Christ was innocent, and His ene- 
 mies calumniators, he would have triumphed 
 over the vile temptation of self-interest. But 
 his first fault drew him into others still worse, 
 and, step by step, he soon reached the climax 
 of iniquity. 
 
 He commenced by again representing to the 
 enemies of our Lord that which had so poor- 
 ly succeeded at fiist — namely, His innocence : 
 "You have brought this Man to me as one 
 that perverteth the people, and behold I, hav- 
 ing examined Him before you, find no cause 
 in this Man touching those things wherein you 
 accuse Him. No, nor yet Herod ; for I sent 
 you to him, and behold, nothing worthy of 
 death is done to Him. I will chastise Him, 
 therefore, and release Him." * 
 
 What a consequence, great God, of such 
 a declaration ! In what barbarous nation, by 
 
 * Luke xxiii. 14, 15, 16. 
 
y estes again before Pilate. 185 
 
 what atrocious legislation, is a man declared 
 innocent to be punished ? And yet this mon- 
 strous iniquity in Pilate proceeds from the 
 feeling of equity which still remains in his 
 heart. It was a sentiment of pity and hu- 
 manity towards Jesus that caused him to be 
 thus cruel towards Him. He hoped that a 
 simple chastisement would have prevented the 
 desire for further persecution. He flattered 
 himself that this compliance with the desires 
 of the Jews would have satisfied them ; but 
 it only emboldens them more and more, and 
 makes them feel Pilate's weakness and their 
 own power. Thus far they have gained their 
 point ; they are convinced that, by insisting 
 upon it, they can go much further. 
 
 Behold two judges of two different nations, 
 of different manners, inclinations, prejudices, 
 and principles ; two judges who had been ene- 
 mies, who had, generally speaking, no similar 
 feelings or concurrence of ideas. Both ac- 
 knowledge the innocence of Christ. They ac- 
 knowledge it, so clear and evident is it, al- 
 though Jesus Himself had neither said nor 
 done anything to defend it. One of these 
 judges several times repeats that he sees no 
 guilt in Him ; and yet it is this same judge 
 
1 86 J estes again before Pilate. 
 
 who at last condemns Him ! Is not this the 
 last degree of inconsistency, the very lowest 
 depth of iniquity ? Yes, truly, there is a mon- 
 strous contradiction, a revolting injustice, in a 
 judge who, almost at the same moment, pro- 
 nounces a man's innocence and condemnation. 
 Here is a mystery which can only be explain- 
 ed by considering the views of Providence. In 
 this light nothing is more congruous and equit- 
 able. Jesus Christ is Sanctity itself ; it is im- 
 possible to suppose Him personally sullied with 
 the least stain of sin. But we must always re- 
 member that He is charged with the sins of 
 others ; it is the painful load of our iniquities 
 that He consents to bear. Hence we can say 
 that, in the Providence of God, it was right 
 that He should, at the same moment, be de- 
 clared innocent and yet be condemned — inno- 
 cent in Himself, condemned on account of us ; 
 innocent of any personal crime, condemned for 
 those of the human race. Thus, although Pi- 
 late made himself guilty of deicide, was he, 
 without knowing it, the mouthpiece of divine 
 justice ; and, by a singular coincidence, almost 
 at the same moment he delivered his two 
 judgments, so contradictory in the eyes of rea- 
 son, yet so compatible in the eyes of faith. 
 
Jesus again before Pilate. 187 
 
 An incident occurs, however, which aggra- 
 vates the anxiety of Pilate and which ought 
 to have determined his mind. Whilst sitting 
 on the tribunal his wife sent a pressing mes- 
 sage to him, imploring him not to participate 
 in the trial of this just Man ; because she had 
 suffered much in a vision concerning Him.* 
 We may judge from this what feelings our 
 Lord inspired. Not only Pilate but all those 
 connected with him had the same esteem for 
 Jesus. Should he not have taken courage from 
 this universal belief and released Him ? The 
 message from his wife was a warning sent to 
 him by the all-just God, a support for the 
 right which his wavering conscience required. 
 Whatever opinion Pilate may have had of 
 dreams, he could not ignore the similarity be- 
 tween this dream and his own feelings ; he 
 must have been stricken with the conformity 
 of the admonition which came from without 
 with the inward remorse which agitated his 
 own heart. The good sentiments still remain- 
 ing in his soul, although greatly shattered, 
 ought from this circumstance to have regained 
 their full force. How many times, in our con- 
 flicts with temptation, have we not received, 
 
 * Matt, xxvii. 19. 
 
1 88 Jesus again before Pilate. 
 
 like Pilate, special aids of God' s grace ! How 
 often, as in his case, have they been rendered 
 useless by our weakness ! God speaks to us 
 and we hear Him ; but we refuse to obey His 
 voice. He runs to our support, but we allow 
 ourselves to fall. The more means we have 
 to prevent us from falling, the more culpable 
 we are when we yield. 
 
 Pilate, seeing that the means he had proposed 
 to save Jesus Christ did not satisfy His enemies, 
 and that the thirst for His blood only became 
 more insatiable, devised another expedient. It 
 was to address the people, and to obtain from 
 them what he had failed to obtain from their 
 clviefs — thus persisting in demanding with hu- 
 mility that which he could and ought to have 
 commanded with authority. According to cus- 
 tom, the governor, during the paschal solemnity, 
 gave liberty to a prisoner at the request of the 
 people. He believed it to be a favorable oppor- 
 tunity for obtaining the release of Jesus Christ. 
 There was then in prison a well-known male- 
 factor named Barabbas, who had committed mur- 
 der. Pilate doubted not but that, in proposing 
 a choice between Christ, who had been pursued 
 by the hatred of the principal men only, and 
 Barabbas, who was an object of general exécra- 
 
y estes again before Pilate, 189 
 
 tion, the people, who did not participate in the 
 animosity of their leaders, and who testified 
 their admiration for Christ on so many occa- 
 sions, would prefer Him to Barabbas. In this 
 he debased the Saviour of the world, or rather 
 he debased himself by exposing a Man of whose 
 justice and innocence he was convinced to a 
 comparison with a notorious brigand. He in- 
 quired of the assembled Jews which would he 
 release % " To whom have you likened Me, and 
 made Me equal, and compared Me?" asks our 
 Lord through the prophet.* The Saint of saints 
 is placed on a level with the greatest criminal 
 that is found in the prisons of Jerusalem. But 
 it is only the beginning of the ignominy, of 
 which the comparison itself is a prelude. The 
 very means which Pilate had employed to save 
 Christ the princes and priests quickly seized 
 upon to effect His destruction. Oh ! God, how 
 slowly and with what difficulty a good work 
 is done; and how promptly and easily evil is 
 committed ! Up to this time the people had 
 been mere spectators of this affair ; it was the 
 chiefs who had pursued our Lord with their 
 rage. If a great number had followed Him 
 to the tribunals whither He had been drag- 
 
 * Isaias xlvi. 5. 
 
I go Jesus again before Pilate. 
 
 ged, many of them had been drawn by curi- 
 osity or pity. Their minds were, in some de- 
 gree, still imbued with the admiration they 
 had hitherto conceived for Him, mingled, per- 
 haps, with a sort of contempt for the condi- 
 tion in which they saw Him. On the one hand 
 they remembered His benefits and miracles ; on 
 the other they saw Him accused, contemned, 
 outraged by the men of their own nation for 
 whom they had been taught to have respect. 
 They saw Him maltreated before Pilate, mock- 
 ed and despised by Herod. The proposition of 
 Pilate found the Jews, therefore, wavering be- 
 tween contrary sentiments ; the pontiffs, priests, 
 doctors, and ancients had no difficulty in turn- 
 ing the scale. They soon spread themselves 
 amongst the people, and by suggestions, in- 
 trigues, exhortations, and calumnies they per- 
 suaded them to ask for the release of Barab- 
 bas and the death of Christ. All at once the 
 cry is heard from the assembled multitude : 
 "Away with Him! away with Him! and re- 
 lease unto us Barabbas." * No voice is raised 
 on the side of innocence ; it is a general con- 
 spiracy, the work of a moment. Between the 
 God of all virtues and a man of all crimes the 
 
 * John xix. 15 ; Luke xxiii 18. 
 
Jesus again before Pilate. 191 
 
 people do not hesitate in their choice. The 
 mere comparison with Barabbas was a deep hu- 
 miliation to Christ ; the preference given by 
 the whole people to this miscreant is the vilest 
 opprobrium. Judge of it yourselves (and here I 
 address many), you who are so sensitive in see- 
 ing others preferred to you, sometimes thought- 
 lessly and often justly. Are you not constantly 
 comparing yourselves with others and giving 
 yourselves the preference ? Are you not af- 
 flicted and irritated beyond measure when you 
 think others obtain regard and homage which 
 are withheld from you? Suspicious and en- 
 vious men, contemplate your Master, Sovereign 
 Lord of all that exists, degraded by a whole 
 nation below the vilest criminal, who is pre- 
 ferred to Him. Learn from His firmness and 
 constancy to receive with tranquillity the pre- 
 tended humiliations which affect you so sen- 
 sibly ; no longer to consider the honors con- 
 ferred on others a prejudice to you, and not 
 to take offence if the same deference is not 
 shown to you that is shown to others. Consider 
 the distance between you and Jesus Christ ; and 
 the immense difference between the slight neg- 
 lect which troubles you and the horrible igno- 
 miny which He endures. 
 
192 Jesus again before Pilate. 
 
 We cannot doubt, although the sacred text 
 does not inform us, that Pilate was surprised 
 at the awful choice made by the people ; that 
 he was afflicted to see his effort in behalf of 
 Christ have a different effect from what he de- 
 sired ; and that his embarrassment was now 
 greater than ever, inasmuch as the people as 
 well as their rulers were arrayed against him. 
 His conduct on this occasion clearly manifested 
 his deep anxiety. " What shall I do then with 
 Jesus, who is called Christ ? " * Timorous judge ! 
 It was for him to command what he had the 
 power to effect. He seems to obey those whom 
 he was appointed to command. To decide upon 
 the fate of one that he has declared innocent, 
 whose advice does he ask % The advice of the 
 accusers and persecutors of this same Man. He 
 throws the scales of justice into the hands of 
 those who, he is convinced, are clamoring for 
 the most criminal injustice. Hence his guilty 
 condescension can have no effect but to inflame 
 the hatred and anger of those whom he wished 
 to pacify. "Crucify Him!" they all cry out. 
 In vain does Pilate ask: u What evil has he 
 done?"f He no longer aims at specific accu- 
 sations requiring proofs. " Crucify Him ! " they 
 
 * Matt, xzvii. 22, t Matt, xxvii. 23. 
 
y estes again before Pilate. 193 
 
 answer with increased fury. " Crucify Him!" 
 It is the only reason the unreasoning multitude 
 can give ; it is the only means by which the 
 magistrate can save himself. "Crucify Him!" 
 It is the only word that is allowed to reach 
 the ears of the governor until he executes it. 
 Priests, scribes, and Pharisees all condense 
 their dreadful purpose in one short sentence ; 
 they have taken care to put that word in the 
 mouths of all, to give it greater weight. That 
 wliich our Lord in His preaching had often 
 predicted; that which, up to this moment, no one 
 could have expected ; that wliich the Apostles 
 could not understand when He announced it to 
 them, now begins to assume form and to appear 
 in a clear light. That terrible word, "Crucify 
 Him ! " has been pronounced. Oh ! yes ; and it 
 will be executed. And whatever efforts Pilate 
 may make to save Him, whatever devices he 
 may conjure up to save himself from an act 
 of foul injustice, will fail ; and he himself will 
 be forced to execute the behests of that infer- 
 nal spirit which his wretched policy has evoked 
 and to which he will have the meanness to 
 submit. 
 
 And who is this people who with such vio- 
 lent fury cry out for the death of Jesus Christ, 
 
194 Jesus again before Pilate. 
 
 and that death the most ignominious % Awful 
 example of human inconstancy and baseness ! 
 It is the same people who with enthusiastic 
 attachment had continually followed our Bless- 
 ed Saviour ; who had only a little while before 
 desired to make Him king ; who, five days pre- 
 viously, had received Him in triumph on His en- 
 try into Jerusalem. How easily and how quick- 
 ly they pass from admiration to contempt ; from 
 transports of love to transports of rage ; from the 
 shout of joy, "Hosanna to the Son of David !" 
 to the cry of fury, " Crucify Him, crucify Him ! " 
 When I hear in the time of the old law ar- 
 dent prayers addressed to Heaven for so long 
 a time by a whole nation to hasten the coming 
 down of the Messiah ; when I hear the desire 
 so often expressed that the clouds would rain 
 down the Just One — and then when I take the 
 Gospels and read in them the terrible treat- 
 ment inflicted by that same nation upon the 
 Messiah when He comes, I am forced to exclaim : 
 O inconsistent, O barbarous people ! Was it 
 to treat Him with all this indignity you desired 
 Him ? Was it to make Him an object of out- 
 rage and cruelty that you asked Him of His 
 Father % Astonishing ! A people enlightened 
 by the light of faith, a people who had most ear- 
 
Jesus again before Pilate. 195 
 
 nestly desired the Messiah, persecute Him even 
 to death ; and a gentile, an idolatrous magis- 
 trate, to whom Christ is in every way a stran- 
 ger, defends Him ! blind race ! What, then, 
 is the motive of your fury ? When Pilate ask- 
 ed, What evil has He done ; which of you has 
 cause of complaint against Him ? you could 
 make Him no answer. Follow His life step by 
 step, and you will find it full of benefits to you. 
 Can it be that the blind who had received sight, 
 the lame who had received power to walk, the 
 sick of various diseases who were cured, the 
 dead who were raised to life, are also among 
 His persecutors ? We know not but that it may 
 be so. 
 
 With just reason we are indignant at this 
 monstrous ingratitude of the Jews, but we never 
 think of turning our indignation against our- 
 selves, who are not less culpable. In every sin 
 that we commit we not only compare the demon 
 with Jesus Christ, but we give the preference 
 to the demon ; we not only afflict the Saviour 
 of our souls, but we crucify Him again. Like 
 the Jews, we cry out : Away with a God so ex- 
 acting, so severe, so difficult to serve ; with a 
 Gospel so rigorous, so contrary to our desires ; 
 and give us the objects of our concupiscences ; 
 
iç6 J estes again before Pilate. 
 
 let us assuage our vengeance ; let us amass for- 
 tunes ; let us acquire honors ; let us have all 
 manner of enjoyment. Yes, even though Christ 
 be offended, outraged again, what matters it, 
 if we are satisfied \ And, like Pilate, we allow 
 our lax and feeble will, after a weak resistance, 
 to give to our passions what they imperiously 
 demand, although it be the sacrifice of God Him- 
 self. If we are candid we must acknowledge 
 that this is what often passes in our consciences. 
 It is in vain we excuse ourselves by saying that 
 we often do wrong without reflection or positive 
 deliberation, but only by surprise and in the 
 first movement of passion. When the Jews 
 cried out, Away with Christ, give us Barabbas ! 
 was it not also a sudden transport of passion 
 excited in them by their rulers ? Whether it is 
 by reflection, as it was amongst the chief men 
 of the Jews, or by a sudden impulse, as it was 
 amongst the common people ; the action itself 
 is no less criminal when by it we prefer Satan 
 to God and renew the Passion of Jesus Christ. 
 Ever agitated by the double fear of shedding 
 innocent blood and of compromising himself 
 with those who were ready to turn against him, 
 Pilate thought of a means of freeing himself 
 from crime and of throwing upon them all re- 
 
Jesus again before Pilate. 197 
 
 sponsibility. He ordered water and washed Ms 
 hands in the midst of the assembly of the people, 
 and in a loud voice declared: "I am innocent 
 of the blood of this just Man ; look you to it." *. 
 Vain and foolish ceremony ! Protestation use- 
 less and ridiculous ! It not onlj r does not change 
 the iniquity, but shows that he feels the full 
 gravity of the act, and therefore is he inexcus- 
 ably culpable. How could a judge in good faith 
 believe himself innocent when he allowed a crime 
 to be committed, when it was his duty and he 
 had the power to prevent it ? Does he not re- 
 ally participate in such a crime when in his de- 
 liberate judgment it is a crime, and yet he al- 
 lows it to be perpetrated ? Behold the extent of 
 Pilate's illusion ! Without doubt, O blind and 
 iniquitous magistrate ! the persecution of Jesus 
 by the Jews is their concern, but the sentence 
 which they are forcing you to give is certainly 
 yours. The blood of the just Man, as you style 
 Him, will indeed be upon them ; but you will be 
 responsible to Heaven, which prepares terrible 
 chastisements for you, and to this earth, to the 
 children of which you will be an object of con- 
 tempt to the latest posterity. 
 This false conscience which Pilate formed is 
 
 * Matt, xxvii. 24. 
 
198 Jesus again before Pilate. 
 
 of all evils the most disastrous and, unhappily, 
 one of the most common in the world. What 
 resource remains to the sinner who has come to 
 that degree of iniquity that he begins to justify 
 himself to himself for his evil course? What 
 remains for him in the way of salvation when 
 the interior guide given him by the Almighty 
 Himself is made to contribute to his fatal errors ? 
 When the prophet prayed the Lord to take sig- 
 nal vengeance upon the crimes of his people he 
 could not imagine anything more terrible than 
 blindness of heart and mind, which would put 
 an insurmountable obstacle to their conversion.* 
 And what is more terrible still is the unhappy 
 facility with which a treaty is formed between 
 conscience and sin. It is not always easy for a 
 man, how abandoned soever he may be, to sup* 
 press all terrors, to abjure all principles, to scout 
 all idea of vice and virtue, and of God who pun- 
 ishes the one and rewards the other. Securely 
 to intrench him in his rampart of evil, the pas- 
 sions ordinarily take a more circuitous and, 
 therefore, a more dangerous course. They can- 
 not destroy faith, but they elude it. They can- 
 not stifle conscience, but they pervert it. Whe- 
 ther we turn our eyes upon ourselves or upon 
 
 * Isaias vi. 10. 
 
Jesus again before Pilate. 199 
 
 others whose lives are known to us, experience 
 constantly tells us that man much more fre- 
 quently judges by the heart than by the mind ; 
 by sentiment rather than by reason. His desires 
 generally cloud his mind, and his affections gene- 
 rally influence his opinions. He easily approves 
 what pleases him, and readily justifies what he 
 loves. Thus, instead of regulating his desires 
 according to conscience, his conscience is formed 
 by his desires. The easier it is thus to be de- 
 luded the more need there is of being on our 
 guard. See to what an excess Pilate was hur- 
 ried. Alas ! I deceive myself like him if in my 
 sin I imagine myself not guilty of the blood of 
 Jesus Christ. Is it not for me this blood was 
 shed % Ah ! at least let the sight of this pre- 
 cious stream, flowing because of my iniquities, 
 make me acknowledge all their horror and fill 
 me with profound grief for them. 
 
 A pagan magistrate washes his hands of the 
 blood of Christ ; the chosen people of God are 
 ambitious to be stained with it. What fills with 
 horror a man having no interior guide but the 
 light of reason, fills with savage joy a whole na- 
 tion which has been enlightened by true religion. 
 These people hesitate not to take upon them- 
 selves all the infamy of this abominable crime, 
 
200 Jesus again before Pilate. 
 
 and to condemn themselves to all the terrible 
 chastisements consequent npon it. " His blood 
 be upon us and upon our children." * In this 
 they announce an awful prophecy, which, for 
 more than eighteen hundred years, has not ceased 
 to be accomplished in them. The divine ven- 
 geance only gives effect to the decree which the 
 Jews pronounced upon themselves. To the chas- 
 tisement of the deicide they have associated the 
 most remote generations ; they have transmitted 
 to their children, as a peculiar heritage, the ma- 
 ledictions of Heaven and earth which they in- 
 voked. Their unhappy offspring are still plung- 
 ed into a spiritual blindness and a temporal ruin 
 which their fathers' curse has brought upon 
 them. When we deliver ourselves to a spirit of 
 contempt of the law of God, of His promises and 
 threats, of His manifold graces, do we not invoke 
 the same maledictions which the Jews invoked ? 
 Do we not consent that the blood of Jesus 
 Christ, which we render useless, which we pro- 
 fane, the effect of which we throw away, should 
 fall upon our heads ? The blood shed for us by 
 our Blessed Redeemer will necessarily procure 
 for us either our salvation or our eternal ruin ; it 
 will either justify or condemn us. More strong- 
 
 *Matt. xxvii. 25. 
 
J estes again before Pilate. 201 
 
 ly than the blood of Abel does this divine 
 blood cry ont ; it implores mercy in our fa- 
 vor or justice against ns. Ah ! let us say to 
 our Lord, like the Jews, but in a different 
 sense, "His blood be upon us," to enlighten 
 our minds, to direct our hearts in the pur- 
 suit of His holy law, to sustain our wills, to 
 purify our consciences. His blood be upon us, 
 to convert us, to sanctify us, to save us, to shed 
 upon us the abundance of His graces, of which 
 it is the fertile source, and to make us worthy 
 of that glory the enjoyment of which He has 
 purchased for us. 
 
XI. 
 
 THE SCOURGING, CROWNING, AND CONDEMNA- 
 TION OF JESUS. 
 
XI. 
 
 THE SCOURGING, CROWNING, AND CONDEMNATION 
 
 OF JESUS. 
 
 " Behold the Man ! " (John xix. 5.) 
 
 With a view to save our Blessed Lord from a 
 cruel and disgraceful death, so bitterly desired 
 by the- Jews, Pilate proposed to scourge Him 
 and then release Him. When lie saw that this 
 made no impression on them, lie concluded that 
 the reality would surely soften their hearts. He 
 flattered himself with the delusion that the sight 
 of Him whom they had lately held in such es- 
 teem, now torn with wounds and frightfully 
 bruised, would turn them to pity ; and that, in 
 complying thus far with their desires, he would 
 bring them to better dispositions. Strange de- 
 vice in a man invested with authority ! Re- 
 source as unreasonable as it was iniquitous ! 
 Should not Pilate have foreseen that this addi- 
 tion to the fuel of the flame of popular frenzy, 
 instead of extinguishing it, would make it burn 
 with greater fury ? Ought he not to have suffi- 
 ciently known this people, especially the ene- 
 
 C05 
 
2o6 . The Scourging, Crowning, and 
 
 mies of Christ, to be convinced that this conde- 
 scension to their brutal demands would encour- 
 age them to seek for something more % Was 
 not this his experience from the beginning of 
 the sad tragedy ? Ever blinded by weakness, 
 ever confounding his hopes with his desires, he 
 commits an awful injustice through the desire 
 of being just. He blackens himself with an 
 enormous cruelty to bring those subject to his 
 rule to the common feelings of humanity. Thus 
 does he give orders that Christ should be deliv- 
 ered to the soldiers to be scourged. 
 
 The Evangelists have not given us the details 
 of this 'cruel flagellation. But all had been re- 
 vealed long before by the prophets. Their ora- 
 cles constitute a history in advance of this ter- 
 rible transaction. Let us represent to ourselves 
 our dear Lord as He is prepared for the scourg- 
 ing. 
 
 He is stripped of His clothing and strongly 
 bound to a pillar, as was the custom of the Ro- 
 mans. In this state a band of unfeeling men 
 give Him blow upon blow, as if they were work- 
 ing on an anvil. His torn fiesh, falling in shreds, 
 almost enables the bystanders to number His 
 bones. Here is the fulfilment of the words of 
 the Psalmist: "They have dug My hands and 
 
Condemnation of Jesus. 207 
 
 feet; tliey have numbered all My bones." * 
 New wounds are added to the old ones ; and 
 soon His body is only one great wound incapa- 
 ble of cure or relief. These atrocities are hardly 
 credible, and we would think them exaggerated 
 if they were not so minutely detailed. No voice 
 of pity is heard ; no tear of sympathy is shed ; 
 no heart is moved. If He look around He sees 
 only His executioners, who so relentlessly per- 
 form their part. If He look beyond these He 
 sees His enemies, who cruelly enjoy His tortures. 
 Yet, amid these terrible sufferings, He remains 
 calm and serene ; no cry, no reproach, no com- 
 plaint escapes His lips. And here the proph- 
 ecy is again fulfilled: u He shall be led as a 
 sheep to the slaughter ; and shall be dumb as 
 a lamb before His shearer ; and He shall not 
 open His mouth." f In truth, the soldiers are 
 more weary of their cruel work than He is tired 
 of torture. 
 
 One species of torture succeeds another ; and 
 the soldiers to whom He is abandoned by Pilate 
 well know how to aggravate His pains. The 
 weak governor, either through indifference, or, 
 as it is more likely, in order that our dear 
 Lord should become an object of greater pity, 
 
 * Ps. xxi. 18. t Isaias liii. 7. 
 
2o8 The Scourging, Crowning, and 
 
 leaves Him a prey to their fury and insults. 
 Up to this time torments and outrages had 
 been heaped upon Him in succession ; soon we 
 shall see them combined in one act. In the 
 various accusations against Him the soldiers 
 had heard that He had pretended to be a king. 
 In this they resolved in a special manner to 
 punish Him. They took a purple garment and 
 put it on Him as a royal robe, and placed a 
 reed in His hand for a sceptre. But there is 
 wanting a crown for the mock king. Here the 
 climax of cruelty is reached. His head is the 
 only part that has escaped torture ; now it must 
 bear its own punishment. It is a punishment 
 till then unknown. They procure thorns, and, 
 plaiting them in the form of a crown, press it 
 violently upon His head. Every thorn makes 
 a new wound; and every wound sends forth 
 a stream of blood. And this blood coursing 
 down His heavenly face makes Him an object 
 of compassion, or rather of horror. It was all 
 written long before by the prophet Isaias : " He 
 was despised and the most abject of men ; a 
 man of sorrows and acquainted with infirmity. 
 And His look was as it were hidden and despis- 
 ed ; wherefore we esteemed Him not. Surely 
 He hath borne our infirmities and carried our 
 
Condemnation of Jestts. 209 
 
 sorrows ; and we have thought Him as it were 
 a leper, and as one struck by God and afflicted. 
 But He was wounded for our iniquities and 
 bruised for our sins. The chastisement of our 
 peace was upon Him ; and by His bruises we 
 are healed." * The deplorable state to which 
 the soldiers had brought Him seemed rather 
 to redouble their fury than excite their pity. 
 The mockeries and insults of the house of Cai- 
 phas are repeated. They bend the knee before 
 Him, saluting Him in derision as King of the 
 Jews. They strike Him in the face and . cover 
 Him with spittle. They take the reed from His 
 hand and with it give Him a blow upon the 
 head. Yet all these outrages, all these tor- 
 ments, disturb not in the least the equanimity 
 of this Lamb of God. His only opposition to 
 so much injury is a modest and unbroken si- 
 lence. Nothing troubles His serenity ; nothing 
 breaks His temper. He might have appealed 
 to Pilate to mitigate the violence with which 
 He was treated ; and, as it had neither been 
 intended nor commanded, it would have been 
 checked. But let us view it in another and a 
 truer light : If men had not condemned Him 
 to this, His Father in Heaven would have done 
 
 * Isaias liii. 3, 4, 5. 
 
2io The Scourging, Crowning, and 
 
 so ; and resignation to the divine decree held 
 supreme command over His whole conduct. 
 
 These new indignities heaped upon our Lord 
 bear in them, as the holy Fathers tell us, the 
 symbols of great mysteries. In the minds of 
 the soldiers the royal honors He received were 
 a reproach ; but, in the designs of Providence, 
 they bear a different signification and contain a 
 great truth. Without knowing it, these cruel 
 men were instruments of that eternal wisdom 
 and power which they industriously insulted. 
 Jesus is our King. He is essentially, and by 
 His divine nature, the Ruler of ages and the 
 King of glory. But as man, and in quality of 
 Messiah, He was still King of the Jews. And, 
 like David, His ancestor in the flesh, He was 
 established on Mount Sion, from which He de- 
 livered the commands of God. The empire thus 
 given Him by His Father was indeed of wider 
 extent than Judea, for it reached even to the 
 ends of the earth. u Thou art my Son; this 
 day have 1 begotten Thee. Ask of Me, and I 
 will give Thee the nations for Thy inheritance, 
 and the utmost parts of the earth for Thy pos- 
 session. " * Daniel, in the spirit of prophecy, 
 had seen the Son of Man invested with uni- 
 
 * Ps. ii. 7, 8. 
 
Condemnation of J estes. 211 
 
 versai empire. "I looked, therefore, in the 
 vision of the night, and behold, one like the 
 Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven ; 
 and He came even to the Ancient of days ; and 
 they presented Him before Him. And He gave 
 Him power and glory and a kingdom ; and all 
 peoples, tribes, and tongues shall serve Him. 
 His power is an everlasting power that shall 
 not be taken away ; and His kingdom one that 
 shall not be destroyed.*' * 
 
 But the royalty with which the Son' of Man is 
 invested was given to Him only after He was 
 offered to His Father in His Passion. Only then 
 did He acquire the right to exercise His func- 
 tions of King. Thus it is in St. Paul's Epistle 
 to the Philippians : "He humbled Himself, be- 
 coming obedient to death, even to the death of 
 the cross ; therefore God also hath exalted Him, 
 and hath given Him a name above every other 
 name, that in the name of Jesus every knee 
 should bend in Heaven, on earth, and in hell." f 
 And again, "We see Jesus, for the suffering of 
 deaths crowned with glory and honor." % Wow, 
 if by His Passion He acquired royalty, was it 
 not proper that this royalty should be publish- 
 ed, recognized, and verified in His Passion itself % 
 
 * Daniel vii. 13, 14. t Philipp. ii. 8, 9, 10. % Heb. ii. 9. 
 
212 The Scourging, Crowning, and 
 
 Was it not fitting that it should be solemnly pro- 
 mulgated even by the insolence and outrages of 
 His enemies % And for this reason Pilate also 
 gave Him the title of King in the writing which 
 he fastened on the cross. Even when the Jews 
 would have it removed he persistently refused 
 to grant their request. 
 
 The very ornaments of royalty with which the 
 soldiers cover our Lord in derision have also 
 their special significance. ISTo other mantle, no 
 other sceptre, no other crown would have so ex- 
 actly characterized the kingship of our Divine 
 Master. The purple cloak signifies that His 
 kingdom on earth will be established by the ef- 
 fusion of His blood ; and that it will be extend- 
 ed and cemented by the blood of martyrs. The 
 reed, as a sceptre, signifies that His power is not 
 to appear in the world through violence, but 
 that, on the contrary, He will by weakness itself 
 confound the strong. The crown of thorns sig- 
 nifies that He is indeed the King of all who suf- 
 fer, and that all His true and loyal subjects must 
 be prepared for afflictions and crosses. Each and 
 every outrage inflicted upon Him has its own 
 special meaning. They all teach us that the 
 kingdom of Jesus Christ, far from conferring 
 earthly honors, prescribes rather their contempt. 
 
Condemnation of J estes. 213 
 
 To take our places in that kingdom we must, like 
 St. Paul, be ready to glory in humiliation and 
 persecution. 
 
 In this awful condition to which our Lord was 
 reduced Pilate believed that at length he would 
 bring the Jews to a sense of mercy and compas- 
 sion. He counted especially upon the common 
 people. And, in effect, how could he have sup- 
 posed that an unhappy man, scarcely recogniz- 
 able as living, would fail to excite commisera- 
 tion \ To the touching spectacle Pilate desired 
 to add a new proof of his innocence. u Behold," 
 he would say to the assembled Jews,, "what I 
 have inflicted upon Him, although I have found 
 no cause against Him." Therefore he commands 
 Jesus to be brought forward, His head crowned 
 with thorns, His shoulders covered with the 
 purple robe ; and in this sad state presenting 
 Him to the multitude, he says: u Behold the 
 Man." 
 
 Oh ! how much is contained in these few 
 words ! Behold the Man, ye Jews ! He it is 
 that was promised to your fathers and to your- 
 selves ; this is He for whom you prayed, for 
 whom you anxiously sighed for many an age. 
 This is He who traversed your fields and filled 
 them with the wonders of His power, dispensing 
 
214 The Scourging, Crowning, and 
 
 on all sides the benefits of His miracles and His 
 doctrine. Tiiis is He whom you liave beheld 
 with delight, whom you have followed with 
 gratitude, to whom you have listened with en- 
 thusiasm, and whom you went from the city to 
 receive in triumph. What a difference between 
 what He was and what He is ; between what 
 you thought of Him then and what you think 
 of Him now ! 
 
 Mortals of all times, of all ranks, behold the 
 Heavenly Father bringing before you His only- 
 begotten Son, consubstantial with Himself, and 
 now degraded to this frightful condition. See 
 Him outraged, wounded, and bathed in His own 
 blood. 
 
 Great men of the world, encompassed on every 
 side by power and dignity, behold the Man ! 
 Consider, first of all, what He is and the excess 
 of humiliation to which He has freely reduced 
 Himself ; and then how little indeed you are 
 and what your false pride makes you think of 
 yourselves. Is it not enough to cover you with 
 shame when you reflect that it was to expiate 
 the pride of your first parents and to repress 
 yours He is reduced to this extremity ? If the 
 sight presented to you to-day be not sufficient to 
 stifle your vain-glory, then reflect upon the day 
 
Condemnation of Jestts. 215 
 
 in whicli He will come in triumph to put it down 
 for ever and reduce it to ashes. 
 
 Rich men of the world who wallow in pleasure 
 and sensual ity, behold the Man ! Consider Him 
 in the most dreadful state of torture, and your- 
 selves surfeited with sensual delight. See Him 
 bathed in blood and yourselves swimming in 
 pleasures. All His wounds are so many open 
 mouths to condemn your sinful revelries. Sub- 
 jects of a King crowned with thorns, learn from 
 the sight of His bead, covered with blood, to re- 
 trench vain delicacies ; and, in seeing His flesh 
 so cruelly torn, think of what your guilty flesh 
 so justly deserves. 
 
 Miserable souls of all descriptions — indigent, 
 afflicted, infirm — behold the Man ! This is the 
 lesson in suffering He gives you. It is from 
 these sufferings yours acquire strength and effi- 
 cacy. Murmur no more about a state of life so 
 much resembling His. Let your greatest effort 
 ever be, in contemplating this Divine Model, 
 to realize it in yourselves as far as you can. 
 Resign yourselves to the will of God, like 
 Him, and unite your sufferings to His. He 
 has chosen to be your precursor in the career 
 of tribulation ; let Him be your model also. 
 This is the road by which He entered into His 
 
2i6 The Scourging, Crowning, and 
 
 glory ; it is the only road that will lead yon 
 thither. 
 
 Sinners, behold the Man ! Acknowledge your 
 own work in the state in which you see Him. 
 It is you who, by the hands of the soldiers, have 
 scourged Him, torn His sacred flesh, crowned 
 Him with thorns, and disfigured His whole per- 
 son. Are you at length satisfied? Have you 
 not already caused Him too much opprobrium ? 
 Will the sight of the Man of sorrows soften 
 your hearts or render them harder than ever ? 
 In presence of this doleful spectacle will you 
 not give up that shameful passion, break that 
 sinful engagement, reform that bad habit which 
 has too long brought anguish to His soul? If 
 you add sin to sin, do you not inflict new tor- 
 ments upon Him, crying out with the barbar- 
 ous Jews: " Crucify Him! crucify Him"? 
 
 Penitents, behold the Man ! Behold the pen- 
 ance He has performed for your sins ! Rigor- 
 ous and terrible though it be, there is still want- 
 ing something to render it efficacious. It is that 
 which, after the example of St. Paul, you ought 
 to accomplish in your own flesh. Without the 
 penance of our Blessed Saviour yours would be 
 fruitless ; without yours His cannot be applied. 
 His penance gives value to yours ; yours gives 
 
Condemnation of Jestis. 217 
 
 effect to His. Let His penance, then, sustain 
 your life of penance ; let it be your model. 
 
 Just and faithful men, behold the Man ! Be- 
 hold the Head of the mystical body of which 
 you are the members. Behold the Model of all 
 the elect ; behold your Model. Behold Him 
 whose spirit has hitherto animated you ; whose 
 maxims have been your guide ; whose example 
 has been Your rule of life. Having commenced 
 
 mi O 
 
 well, persevere firmly to the end. Let the grand 
 evidence of love before your eyes inflame your 
 pure love more and more. Let the thought of 
 His constancy, amid so many sufferings, sustain 
 you in all your trials. 
 
 But, O God ! what is it that we hear ? At 
 the sight of our dear Redeemer, so cruelly tor- 
 tured, the pontiffs and their retainers, trans- 
 ported with fresh fury, cry out again: "Away 
 with Him ! crucify Him ! crucify Him ! " There 
 is no evidence that the people generally took 
 part in this accursed cry. It is probable that 
 the heartrending spectacle which the governor 
 brought before them had begun to work in 
 their hearts feelings of pity. But it does not 
 appear that they manifested those feelings. 
 The chief priests and their followers were al- 
 lowed to vent their fury against our Lord, 
 
2i8 The Scotirging, Crowning, and 
 
 But compassion for Him, if it really existed at 
 that trying time, was kept under strict control. 
 Whether it was a dread of those in power or a 
 feeling of donbt that pervaded the multitude, 
 they assuredly did not manifest their compas- 
 sion by any outward signs. Is not this the 
 case in the world every day? The impious, 
 hypocritical, and depraved, restrained by no 
 human respect, unblushingly attack religion, 
 piety, and virtue; whilst the well-disposed, 
 either through fear or false moderation, timid- 
 ly hold their peace. Evil is ever bold and full 
 of turbulent force ; but truth and virtue often 
 appear wanting in courage. Certain it is that 
 truth and virtue have their defenders when they 
 are not attacked ; but if opposition to them be- 
 come the custom of the hour, then their active 
 defenders are few indeed. In other words, it 
 seems much more agreeable even for good men 
 to rejoice with Christ on Thabor than suffer 
 with Him on Calvary. Let us now cast a 
 glance at the attempts made by Pilate to save 
 Christ. Without exception they have been 
 fruitless. Instead of preventing the sufferings 
 of our Lord they have aggravated them. Pi- 
 late's inbred weakness seems all along to have 
 conspired with the malice of the Jews in load- 
 
Condemnation of Jesus. 219 
 
 ing an innocent victim with cruel injuries. But, 
 in tlie language of faith, we should rather say 
 that the divine decree which, in the first place, 
 condemned Him, makes executioners not only 
 of His professed enemies but of His weak de- 
 fender. For if the governor declare Him in- 
 nocent, all at once a thousand cries are raised 
 declaring Him guilty. If Pilate propose a 
 choice between our Lord and Barabbas, it is 
 only to bring out in the strongest light the 
 insult and ignominy involved in the shameful 
 comparison and preference which is the result. 
 If He be sent to Herod it is to be despised, 
 ill-treated, and mocked. If scourging be re- 
 sorted to it produces only more cruel torments 
 and more bitter insults. What a lesson is this 
 for us ! When there is question of duty all 
 temporizing measures must be severely put aside. 
 
 To attempt to reconcile conscience and pas- 
 sion is a project equally vicious and foolish. 
 No truce can exist between these irreconcilable 
 enemies. It is inevitable that one of them must 
 crush the other ; and whoever tries to reconcile 
 them takes the side of vice against virtue. 
 
 Keenly desirous of not being responsible for 
 the death of Christ, Pilate then said to the 
 Jews that they might take Him and put Him 
 
2 20 The Scourging, Crowniiig, and 
 
 to death according to their own laws, declaring, 
 at the same time, that no crime was found in 
 Him. But the Jews, who had no power to cru- 
 cify a man at any 'time, and could inflict no 
 punishment, even on the worst criminal, while 
 the paschal solemnity continued, strongly in- 
 sisted upon their request. "We have a law," 
 they say, ' ' and according to the law, He ought 
 to die, because He made Himself the Son of 
 God. 55 * 
 
 If Pilate had asked them to show him that 
 law they would indeed have been embarrassed. 
 They would probably have quoted the law that 
 condemned blasphemers to death ; but they 
 would have failed to prove Christ a blasphem- 
 er, for He had proclaimed Himself to be the 
 Son of God in the proper and natural sense, 
 and had proved it. In all His public instruc- 
 tions He constantly took this title and charac- 
 ter. He clearly proclaimed the fact before Cai- 
 phas and the Jewish council ; but He justified 
 the claim by the performance of many mira- 
 cles and by the perfect fulfilment of the proph- 
 ecies in His own person. Pilate understood 
 all this. He felt that the imputation against 
 our Lord of His having called Himself the Son 
 
 * John xix. 7. 
 
Condemnation of Jesus, 221 
 
 of God was not in the metaphorical sense, but 
 in the true and natural sense. Pilate's convic- 
 tion of our Lord's innocence, his knowledge of 
 the great miracles that had been performed, 
 the wonderful answers of our Lord, even His 
 silence and all other circumstances connected 
 with Him, had made a deep impression on 
 him. He may, indeed, have connected these 
 ideas with the notions of idolatry in which he 
 had been reared, and with the fables relating 
 to the divine origin of the heroes of the pagan 
 world, but he still made other efforts to save 
 Christ from death.* u And he entered into the 
 hall again, and he said to Jesus : Whence art 
 Thou? But Jesus gave him no answer. Pi- 
 late therefore saith to Him : Speakest Thou not 
 to me ? Knowest Thou not that I have power 
 to crucify Thee, and I have power to release 
 Thee % Jesus answered : Thou shouldst not 
 have any power against Me, unless it were given 
 thee from above. Therefore he that hath de- 
 livered Me to thee hath the greater sin. And 
 from thenceforth Pilate sought to release Him." * 
 Let us bear in mind that it is when He is re- 
 ceiving the most horrible treatment from Pilate, 
 and when He is threatened with still more ter- 
 
 *Johnxix. 9, 10, 11, 12. 
 
222 The Scourging, Crowning, and 
 
 rible indignities, that He answers in this tone 
 of conscious superiority. He is even then in 
 the frightful condition to which the scourging 
 and crowning with thorns have brought Him. 
 All bruised as He is and weakened with loss 
 of blood, loaded with injuries of all kinds, He 
 nevertheless shows forth a royal bearing. He 
 does not deny that He had claimed to be the 
 Son of God ; He confirms it. See what a lesson 
 He gives to the magistrate into whose power He 
 is thrown, and of whose further rigor He is soon 
 to have experience ! He teaches Pilate whence 
 his power is derived, while He submits to it. 
 He asserts His own position as Master and 
 Ruler, yet subjects Himself to the power of 
 one of His own creatures. Pilate is deeply 
 moved by the grandeur of this reply, and 
 desires more and more to release Him. In all 
 this, however, we only see more clearly the 
 weakness of the man. He goes from the Jews 
 to Christ, and from Christ back again to the 
 Jews, several times, filled with uneasy apprehen- 
 sions when addressing them, and filled with ad- 
 miration when addressing Him. 
 
 But the enemies of our Lord, penetrating 
 Pilate's disposition and noticing the contrast 
 between his desires and his fears, employed a 
 
Condemnation of Jesus. 
 
 final resource more effectual than all the rest. 
 "If thou release this Man,'' they cried, "'thou 
 art not Caesars friend; for whosoever make th 
 himself a king speaketh against Caesar." * 
 Startled by these words, he yet pleads for our 
 Lord ; but his words are drowned in the ter- 
 rible cry : " We have no king but Caesar. 
 And then Pilate delivered Him to them to be 
 crucified." f He had hesitated much lest he 
 should compromise himself in the good- will of 
 the Jews, even when he saw they were in the 
 wrong ; but to displease Caesar, or to be ac- 
 cused before him of want of zeal in upholding 
 his power, is a much more serious matter. Un- 
 til now he had resisted their demands, although 
 feebly ; but at the name of Caesar all of honor, 
 conscience, spirit, or sense of justice that re- 
 mained vanished. Weakness was the beginning 
 of his iniquity ; ambition brought it to a cli- 
 max. Alas ! how many there are, and these in 
 the highest ranks, who are more intent on pleas- 
 ing Caesar than God ; who sacrifice the interests 
 of God more readily than those of Caesar ! 
 
 * Johnxix. 12, fib. 18. 
 
XII. 
 
 THE CARRIAGE OF THE CROSS. 
 
XII. 
 
 THE CARRIAGE OF THE CROSS. 
 
 " And they forced one Simon of Cyrene, who passed by, coming 
 out of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to take up 
 His cross " (Mark xv. 21.) 
 
 Scarcely had the sentence been passed when 
 immediate steps were taken for its execution. 
 The fury of His enemies brooked no delay. 
 They impatiently thirsted for His blood. They 
 at once seized Him and brought Him to the 
 place of execution. As the victims of the old 
 law had been brought out from the camps of 
 the people to be consumed as an expiatory sac- 
 rifice, so also, in the language of St. Paul, the 
 expiatory sacrifice for the sins of the whole 
 world is dragged from the city to be offered up.* 
 O Jerusalem ! until now the most favored of 
 cities, the object of God's special love, the 
 only place in the universe in which He deigned 
 to dwell, the only place in which a true wor- 
 ship was offered to Him, behold how you 
 are become the most unfortunate of all, an ob- 
 
 * Heb. xiii. 12. 
 227 
 
228 The Carriage of the Cross. 
 
 ject of His vengeance, never again to be fonnd 
 worthy to offer a victim that He will not hold 
 in abhorrence. Your temple is proscribed, your 
 ruin pronounced ! You force Jesus outside your 
 walls ; He will never return ! He takes with 
 Him all the heavenly blessings with which you 
 have been so long favored, and scatters them 
 among the nations. Follow Him in this ter- 
 rible journey to which you have condemned 
 Him ; and, in accomplishing the deicide, make 
 haste to consummate your own reprobation and 
 destruction ! 
 
 Let us also accompany our Divine Redeemer 
 going to Calvary to finish the work of salvation ; 
 but let us accompany Him with a spirit of re- 
 ligion, revering all His steps, and with a spirit 
 of docility, profiting by the instructions which 
 He continues to give us. Nations of the earth, 
 come at the bidding of the prophet: " Come 
 to the mountain of the Lord." Come with Him 
 to learn His ways and to know how to walk 
 in His footsteps.* Consider your Saviour ap- 
 proaching the place of execution and meeting 
 the fate which ends His life. But in what state, 
 O Heaven ! do we see Him 1 Surrounded by sol- 
 diers, officers of the law, pontiffs, priests — all 
 
 * Isaias ii. 3, 
 
The Carriage of the Cross. 229 
 
 His enemies, feasting their eyes upon His hu- 
 miliations and their hearts on the hope of His 
 approaching death. Surrounded by the entire 
 people whose rulers have instigated them to 
 join in their hatred and to mingle reproaches, 
 railleries, and blasphemies with their own. In 
 the midst of this violent, this furious crowd He 
 proceeds, still wearing His crown of thorns, 
 bruised with many blows, torn with stripes, 
 crushed under His sufferings, weakened by the 
 loss of blood, and bearing a heavy cross. Under 
 its shocking weight He must climb the hill of 
 Calvary. Behold the true Isaac in whom all 
 generations shall be blessed, bearing the wood 
 of the holocaust. A figure of the Messiah, Isaac 
 of old, by command of his father Abraham, had 
 carried to the mountain the instrument of his 
 death ; and it is also by command of His Hea- 
 venly Father that the Isaac of the Xew Law, 
 Jesus Christ, is similarly burdened. But what 
 a difference between the two ! Isaac of old did 
 not know the fate that awaited him, and asked 
 his father where was the victim. But Jesus 
 Christ follows the road marked out for Him, 
 fully cognizant of His destiny. God, satisfied 
 with the obedience of Abraham, did not require 
 him to consummate his sacrifice ; our Saviour is 
 
230 The Carriage of the Cross. 
 
 certain that nothing less will be received from 
 Him. 
 
 The physical strength of our Lord, now greatly 
 diminished by all that He had suffered, is not 
 equal to the cruel and enormous load put upon 
 Him, and He falls beneath the cross. His exe- 
 cutioners begin to fear lest He may not be able 
 to come to the fatal spot whither they conduct 
 Him. They begin to devise means to give Him 
 assistance, not through pity for His state, but 
 because of their excessive hatred. His death 
 on the way to Calvary would not have satisfied 
 them ; they desired Him to die more ignomini- 
 ously. It happened at that moment that they 
 met on the road a Jew of Cyrene named Simon, 
 who was coming from his house in the country. 
 They seized him and forced him to help Jesus 
 carry His cross. * We have just said "it hap- 
 pened," as if it were by chance. Let us cor- 
 rect ourselves : there is no chance. It is only 
 a word invented by our ignorance to express 
 causes of which the knowledge is hidden from 
 us. Nothing happens in the world that is not 
 ordained by Providence. Especially is this so in 
 the Passion of our Lord, in which the smallest 
 circumstances had been foretold, prearranged, 
 
 * Mark xv. 21. 
 
The Carriage of the Cross, 231 
 
 and decreed in the depths of His divine wisdom. 
 This it was that brought about the meeting with 
 Simon the Cyrenean at the precise moment in 
 which our Lord, falling from fatigue and ex- 
 haustion, could no longer bear His cross. He 
 was thus conducted to the place of meeting, first 
 to give the required assistance, and secondly to 
 give us a profound instruction. It is commonly 
 believed that the Cyrenean, after our Lord's 
 resurrection, became one of His followers ; but 
 it is certainly evident that in this circumstance 
 he is a figure of all good Christians. In him we 
 see literally realized the precept of Jesus to bear 
 our cross after him. Let us contemplate our 
 Blessed Master, when Simon comes to His as- 
 sistance, regaining His standing posture, turn- 
 ing towards us and addressing us again in the 
 words He had expressed in the course of His 
 mission : "If any man will come after Me, let 
 him deny himself, and take up his cross and fol- 
 low Me."* And again: "He that taketh not 
 up his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of 
 Me."f 
 
 We must bear our cross ; it is a necessity, as 
 well as an obligation. We have no choice in 
 the matter. Children of Adam, our inheritance 
 
 ♦Matt.xvi. 34 tlb. x. 38. 
 
232 The Carriage of the Cross. 
 
 is suffering ; heirs of Ms crime, we are also heirs 
 of his penalty. We enter into the world as 
 into a prison in which death awaits us. If, 
 before placing eacli man on earth, Providence 
 had shown him, as in the case of St. Paul, all 
 that he would have to suffer in the course of 
 his life, how many would have accepted the 
 gift of a sorrowful and painful life ? But He 
 has done more for us : death, the chastisement 
 of sin, Christ has made the expiation of sin. 
 Oh ! the admirable and profound views of eter- 
 nal wisdom ! Oh ! the incomparable benefit of 
 infinite mercy ! To suffer has become a bless- 
 ing! "For our present tribulation, which is 
 momentary and light, worketh for us above mea- 
 sure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory." * 
 " Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be 
 comforted." f " Rejoice and be glad when men 
 shall persecute and calumniate you, for your 
 reward in Heaven shall be great." X These max- 
 ims are not far-fetched ; they are the words of 
 eternal truth. But in making suffering an honor 
 Christ our Lord makes it a duty also. There 
 is no way to Heaven but the way of Calvary. 
 "Turn where you will," says the author of the 
 " Following of Christ," "and you will not find 
 
 * 2 Cor. iv. 17. tMatt. v. 5. Jib. 12. 
 
The Carriage of the Cross, 233 
 
 a higher way above nor a safer way below than 
 the way of the holy Cross." Seek out the 
 footsteps of the saints, and you will not fail to 
 find them on this painful road. If it were de- 
 creed that Jesus Christ Himself, all holy and 
 impeccable as He was, should suffer thus to 
 enter into His glory, how can we, sinners that 
 we are, who have so much to atone for, expect 
 to escape afflictions? And if there were some 
 other way of salvation, can we suppose that our 
 Divine Master, full of goodness, and doing so 
 much for us, would not point it out to us ? We 
 cannot, then, dispense ourselves from the cross. 
 But this is not sufficient ; merely to bear it is 
 not the entire title to sanctity. For do we not 
 sometimes see not only the just but sinners 
 bearing their crosses, often heavier than those 
 of the former, often brought upon them by 
 their own sins ? But these crosses are fre- 
 quently useless and barren of any good results. 
 Tribulations ill-received are graces abused, warn- 
 ings of God despised, means of repentance re- 
 jected. "Thou hast struck them," says the 
 prophet, " and they have not grieved; Thou hast 
 bruised them, and they have refused to receive 
 correction; they have made their faces harder 
 than the rock, and they have refused to re- 
 
234 The Carriage of the Cross. 
 
 turn."* The necessity, therefore, of bearing the 
 cross is a powerful motive to bear it well. We 
 are obliged to bear it, and we are able to make 
 it meritorious or fruitless. What blindness 
 would it not be in me, then, to make it, not the 
 instrument of my salvation, but of my reproba- 
 tion ! I cast my eyes upon the Cyrenean, and 
 I contemplate him carrying the cross with Jesus 
 Christ, and I see that it is the true means of 
 rendering more easy and more useful the bur- 
 den from which I cannot escape. 
 
 To bear the cross with Jesus Christ is to bear 
 it with His spirit. He bore it because he willed 
 it. In this His condition is different from ours ; 
 for it is the great Power to which all things are 
 subject that places it upon us. But the secret 
 of Christian mortification is to make that which 
 is necessary voluntary, and freely to conform 
 ourselves to the irrevocable decree which or- 
 dains human affliction. In this we truly re- 
 semble our Divine Model, who conformed His 
 will to that of His Father in accepting the 
 most bitter sufferings. This is truly to bear 
 the cross with Christ when we accept trials of 
 all kinds with resignation ; bear them patiently ; 
 and, instead of murmuring, rather bless the 
 
 * Jeremias v. 3. 
 
The Carriage of the Cross. 235 
 
 hand that chastises and purifies us. If the 
 Cyrenean had known that the cross he was 
 forced to bear was the cross of his God, the in» 
 strument of his redemption, the pledge of man's 
 salvation, would it have been necessary to have 
 constrained him to cany it? Would he not 
 have presented himself to the soldiers and im- 
 portuned the favor of bearing it ? Let us ima- 
 gine ourselves in his place. God gives to us 
 that which the Jews obliged him to take ; and 
 what he was ignorant of we truly know. We 
 know that the cross presented to us on the 
 part of God was first carried by Himself. We 
 are well instructed in all the benefits to be 
 derived from bearing this cross ; and yet, like 
 Simon, it is necessary to use violence to make 
 us carry it. Forced to accept it, we often strive 
 to throw it off ; and, unable to deliver our- 
 selves from it, we are too apt to bear it with 
 a bad grace, with ill-humor, disgust, murmurs, 
 and almost in revolt. To carry the cross with 
 Christ is to carry the cross which He sends us ; 
 it is His because it comes from Him, and it is 
 also ours because it is the one with which we 
 are charged. God does not give us a choice 
 as to what cross we may be willing to bear ; 
 He reserves this to Himself. The crosses pre- 
 
236 The Carriage of the Cross. 
 
 pared for us by Providence are the only ones 
 we should particularly desire ; they are the only 
 ones we are bound to bear. The cross of our 
 Lord laid on the shoulders of Simon was not 
 an indefinite cross or the one of which he had 
 made choice. What soul is there, though pos- 
 sessing the weakest faith, that would not be 
 ambitious for his place? Who would not be 
 jealous of the honor conferred on him \ Would 
 we not have contended, had we lived at that 
 time, for this precious burden % But how could 
 we have borne that heavy cross, if we do not 
 now cheerfully bear the light ones that are 
 placed upon us % There is nothing more com- 
 mon, even among those who have an elevated idea 
 of their own piety, than to hear: "I can bear 
 such and such a trial ; but this one is quite in- 
 supportable. I can easily bear that affliction, for 
 I am accustomed to it ; but I cannot bear this." 
 
 Thus do we prescribe limits for God in His 
 chastising Providence, seemingly ignorant that 
 the most meritorious and the most agreeable 
 in our eyes should be the special crosses He 
 has prepared. Let us not pretend to know 
 better than He what is fittest for our indivi- 
 dual nature, proportioned to our strength, or 
 calculated to advance our salvation. 
 
The Carriage of the Cross. 237 
 
 And what has He not clone to lighten our bur- 
 den I What encouragements, what facilities lias 
 He not given us to carry it? He has gone be- 
 fore us. He does not say. Go before Me ; but 
 He says, Come after Me. As in the case of the 
 Cyrenean, He makes us bear the cross after Him. 
 He does not command us to do anything which 
 He has not first practised Himself. But what 
 do I say ? He is far from prescribing for us all 
 that He Himself endured ; our cross is but a 
 very small part of His. Let us compare our 
 light sufferings with His terrible tortures ; if we 
 prefer it, let us compare them with the guilt of 
 our sins. Shall we, then, dare complain that our 
 afflictions are too bitter or too great ? But not 
 only has He borne the cross which is presented to 
 us ; He also helps us carry it, as He helped Simon 
 on the way to Calvary. In the Acts of the Apos- 
 tles we read that " they went from the presence 
 of the council, rejoicing that they were account- 
 ed worthy to suffer reproach for the name of 
 Jesus, 5 ' * because in the light of faith they saw 
 Christ in the midst of them helping them bear 
 their cross. The martyrs, who were imbued with 
 the same spirit, disconcerted their tormentors 
 by their constancy. In prison and in exile holy 
 
 * Acts v. 41. 
 
238 The Carriage of the Cross. 
 
 confessors have braved and defied the tyrant's 
 arm. Solitaries in the deserts have delivered 
 themselves up to austerities the bare recital of 
 which frightens and confounds us. Christian 
 virgins, rising above the weakness of their sex, 
 have astonished strong men by their courage in 
 the face of death. Yes, saints of all times and 
 of all classes have received, loved, sought, and 
 desired tribulations — some asking God either to 
 let them suffer or die ; others desiring not to 
 die, provided they could suffer to the purpose. 
 So we, having before our eyes the grand exam- 
 ple of the Chief of all the elect bearing with His 
 omnipotent hand a heavy cross, ought to be de- 
 sirous of bearing ours with Him. Let us grieve 
 for having carelessly borne our crosses in the 
 past, and let us resolve that in the future we 
 shall courageously ascend the holy mountain, 
 there to find the term of our labors, the place 
 of our repose, the sojourn of our eternal fe- 
 licity. 
 
 In going up to Calvary our Lord noticed in 
 the crowd that followed Him a number of holy 
 women who had served Him in His evangelical 
 career. He saw them weeping and disconsolate 
 because of the deplorable state to which He was 
 reduced and the frightful fate that awaited Him 
 
The Carriage of the Cross. 239 
 
 on the mountain. You, most tender of mo- 
 thers, must have been, and really were, among 
 them ! Your love has brought you into the 
 sad footprints of your Son. You are come to 
 take part in His sorrows and to transfer a part 
 of yours to Him. You are come to have the 
 prophecy, long since delivered, fulfilled in you : 
 "Your own soul a sword shall pierce."* An 
 ordinary mother, listening to the cry of nature, 
 would have fled from this spectacle. In Mary 
 all is supernatural, and her courage is stronger 
 than her grief. Our Lord turns to the women 
 weeping for Him ; but is it to console them % 
 No. Even in this state of fearful abasement 
 He preserves His character of Master and Teach- 
 er. He instructs them even then, and through 
 them He instructs the whole world. Let us 
 meditate upon the heavenly lesson He gives 
 them. It has three characteristics : a precept, a 
 prophecy, and a maxim — a precept by which to 
 rule our lives ; a prophecy to confirm our faith ; 
 a maxim to excite us to virtue. He commences 
 by telling those daughters of Jerusalem u not 
 to weep for Him, but for themselves and for their 
 children." f Who, then, is this Man, so supe- 
 rior to all humanity ? Who is this Man that, 
 
 * Luke ii, 35. t lb xxiii. 28. 
 
240 The Carriage of the Cross. 
 
 in the lamentable state to which He is reduced, 
 going to certain death, indeed already nearly 
 dead from fatigue and brutality, forgets Him- 
 self, and, occupied only with others, forbids His 
 friends to weep over Him and wishes them to 
 weep only for themselves and their children % 
 Could we have imagined, if He Himself had not 
 expressly told us, that any one seeing His suf- 
 ferings could help but weep, or weep for any 
 but Him? Is there anything more deplorable 
 than the death of the Man-God? Yes, without 
 doubt ; it is the cause of that death. Tears of 
 compassion flowing from mere natural emotion 
 He rejects ; fruitless tears, producing no conver- 
 sion, He condemns. He wishes us to reserve our 
 tears for that evil which affects us more essen- 
 tially and touches Him more sensibly than His 
 Passion. He wishes us not to weep for Him, 
 but for that which made Him weep ; to weep 
 for our sins, which, after having caused His Pas- 
 sion, renew it every da # y. In considering the 
 grief and pain of our Lord let us view them 
 principally in relation to our sins ; let us con- 
 template the immensity of God's goodness, who 
 suffered so cruelly to expiate the offences offered 
 to Himself, and the immensity of the malice of 
 these offences that required the sufferings of our 
 
The Carriage of the Cross. 241 
 
 God. Let us, therefore, change our tears of ten- 
 der love into tears of sincere grief. These are 
 the tears most agreeable to Him — the tears He 
 required of the holy women. The prophecy con- 
 tained in the words to these daughters of Jerusa- 
 lem had already been often announced. It was 
 the coming destruction of Jerusalem, a conse- 
 quence and a punishment of the deicide. Fright- 
 ful days He predicts for that doomed city when 
 He said: "The days shall come wherein they 
 will say : Blessed are the barren, and the wombs 
 that have not borne, and the paps that have not 
 given suck. Then they shall begin to say to the 
 mountains, Fall upon us ; and to the hills, Co- 
 ver us." * Like Samson of old, He will involve 
 in His destruction those enemies who, having 
 thrown Him into prison and wounded Him unto 
 death, still mock Him and insult Him. But, far 
 from taking pleasure in this, it is still a subject 
 of affliction to Him. Jerusalem condemns Him, 
 and He weeps ; Jerusalem outrages Him, and 
 He has pity upon her ; Jerusalem hurries Him 
 to a gibbet, and He calls her to repentance. 
 Whence could He have derived a knowledge 
 of the ruin of the guilty city excepting from 
 His divine omniscience ? The Jews were tran- 
 
 * Luke xxiii. 29, 30. 
 
242 The Carriage of the Cross. 
 
 quil ; the Romans satisfied. Who could then 
 look for tlie revolt of the former or the ven- 
 geance of tlie latter % The prophecy realized is 
 the seal of His divinity. He alone can predict 
 future events in such a manner who is master 
 of them. 
 
 Moreover, our Lord, under the form of a meta- 
 phor, delivers to us an awful and terrible truth : 
 " For if in the green wood they do these things, 
 what shall be done in the dry?" * The green 
 wood is the fertile tree covered with leaves, 
 beautiful in its flowers and abounding in fruit. 
 Christ presents Himself to us under this em- 
 blem. Tlie dry wood is the dead tree, useless, 
 incapable of producing, and only awaiting the 
 moment when it shall be cast into the fire. Sin- 
 ners, do you not recognize yourselves in this 
 image % You see the torments your sins have 
 brought upon your Saviour ; it is only a feeble 
 imitation of them He requires you to endure. 
 If the mere appearance of sin was treated in 
 Him with such awful rigor, what may you ex- 
 pect for the reality of your wickedness? When 
 I consider the innocence of Jesus Christ and the 
 multitude of my own sins, how can 1 avoid trem- 
 bling at the thought of what I have brought 
 
 * Luke xxiii. 31. 
 
The Carriage of the Cross. 243 
 
 on myself? Tliis salutary reflection should be 
 engraven on my mind ; it should follow me 
 everywhere ; it should recur to me on all oc- 
 casions and in every temptation to sin. Surely, 
 in view of the terrible consequences of our sins, 
 we must be wicked indeed to persevere in them. 
 Finally, our Lord is come to the summit of 
 Mount Calvary. In like manner God once con- 
 ducted Moses, a figure of the Messiah, to the 
 summit of Mount Nebo, from which he beheld 
 the land to which He had conducted His own 
 chosen people ; and there the holy patriarch ex- 
 pired.* So did Almighty God conduct His only- 
 begotten Son to the top of Calvary, from which 
 He showed Him the Church that was there to 
 have its origin, paradise that was there to be 
 opened, and the place where He was to be im- 
 molated to appease divine justice. We remem- 
 ber that when our Lord commenced His career 
 the demon brought Him to a very high moun- 
 tain, and there displayed before Him the king- 
 doms of the earth with their glory, and pro- 
 mised Him all these if, falling down, He would 
 adore him.f What He then indignantly re- 
 jected He now receives from the hands of His 
 Father. He goes to Calvary to be put in pos- 
 
 * Dent, xxxiv. t Matt. iv. 8, 9. 
 
244 The Carriage of the Cross. 
 
 session of all the earth, of all its kingdoms, 
 of all its peoples, now become His inheritance. 
 From the crest of that mountain, therefore, I 
 call all nations ; I invite them to be spectators 
 of the grand sacrifice of which they are the 
 object. The altar is erected; the Victim is 
 ready. Let the whole world, which has heard 
 Him more than three years, come and contem- 
 plate the last scene. 
 
XIII. 
 
 THE CRUCIFIXION AND DEATH OF JESUS— HIS 
 LAST WORDS ON THE CROSS. 
 
XIII. 
 
 THE CRUCIFIXION ASTD DEATH OF JESUS — HIS 
 LAST WORDS ON THE CROSS. 
 
 "They crucified Him ; and with Him two others, one on 
 each side, and Jesus in the midst." (John xix. 18.) 
 
 Instructed from our childhood to revere the 
 sacred wood which has been the instrument of 
 our salvation, Ave contemplate the cross with a 
 feeling of holy reverence. Wherever we see it, 
 on our altars, in our churches, on the wayside, 
 in sacred places or in any place, we cling to it 
 with a love almost reaching the point of adora- 
 tion. 
 
 To judge of the ignominy of the penalty of 
 the cross, let us cast our thoughts upon the 
 age in which our Lord was crucified. This 
 form of punishment was then considered the 
 most disgraceful, and no Roman citizen could 
 be legally condemned to it. It was because of 
 this very dishonor that the Jews took special 
 pains to have our Blessed Saviour sentenced 
 to crucifixion. "Let us condemn Him," they 
 said, "to a most shameful death." * In this, 
 
 * Wisdom ii. 20. 
 247 ' 
 
248 The Crucifixion and Death of Jesus* 
 
 although, they knew it not, they were ministers 
 of Providence and instruments in the fulfil- 
 ment of a prophecy. In the designs of divine 
 wisdom our Blessed Redeemer should be treat- 
 ed in the vilest manner, so that His glory might 
 be more fully manifested to the whole human 
 race. The ignominy inflicted upon His sacred 
 person proves to all men of every age the diffi- 
 culty of establishing His religion, and stamps 
 upon His work the marks of His divine power. 
 To aggravate still more the opprobrium of our 
 Lord He was executed between two thieves ; and 
 in this another prophecy is fulfilled, for it was 
 written that "He should be accounted with the 
 wicked." * And still another prophecy is ful- 
 filled in the following circumstance. The sol- 
 diers stationed at the cross divided His cloth- 
 ing among them. But when they came to His 
 tunic, which was a seamless garment and en- 
 tirely of the same texture, instead of tearing 
 it they cast lots for it. They were driven to 
 this course by an all-ruling Providence which 
 had inspired holy David one thousand years 
 before to foretell this fact: "They parted My 
 garments among them ; and npon My vesture 
 they cast lots." f "And the soldiers indeed 
 
 * Isaias Hit 12. t Ps. xxi. 19. 
 
The Crucifixion and Death of Jesus. 249 
 
 did these things." * By this admirable accord 
 between the most minute circumstances related 
 in the ancient prophecies and their exact ful- 
 filment, there are ample grounds for our faith 
 and hope. 
 
 Behold the Victim now extended upon the 
 altar on which He is to consummate His sacrifice 
 — the Victim of divine justice, which puts upon 
 Him all the sins of the world ; the Victim of in- 
 finite mercy by which their guilt is remitted : a 
 donble mystery, of terror and of consolation, 
 upon which we cannot too frequently meditate 
 in order to fill our hearts with fear and with 
 confidence. Behold the Mediator placed be- 
 tween Heaven and earth : Jesus Christ, our 
 Lord, casting His blessed eyes from the height 
 of the cross upon all that surrounds Him ! He 
 sees all generations and all ages for which He 
 is offered. And what is it that first attracts 
 His attention in a special manner ? Is it the 
 Apostles, always so dear to Him? Is it the 
 holy women who follow Him to the last ? Is it 
 His own most tender Mother, who wept at His 
 feet ? None of these. It was His executioners 
 that formed the first object of His regard. All 
 else He forgets, to occupy Himself with them. 
 
 * John xix. 23, 24. 
 
250 The Crucifixion and Death of Jesus. 
 
 But is it to call down vengeance upon them ? 
 Oil! listen, revengeful men: u Father, forgive 
 them, for they know not what they do." * 
 What a sight Calvary presents to us ! At the 
 foot of the cross an infuriated rabble gloats 
 over the sufferings and humiliations of Jesus ; 
 they come to continue their insults even in the 
 pitiable state to which He is reduced. On that 
 cross He not only pardons them and forgets 
 their affronts, but loves them, asks for their 
 forgiveness, and endeavors to excuse them. He 
 thinks not of what they cause Him to suffer, 
 but that it is for them He suffers. With loud 
 cries they demanded His death ; He only asks 
 that His death may be their life. They say : 
 44 Let His blood be upon us and upon our chil- 
 dren"; He prays that His blood be not laid 
 to their charge. They fill up the full measure 
 of their crimes by their injuries even to His 
 last breath ; He tries to palliate this excess of 
 cruelty by pleading their ignorance. Ignorance 
 it is, truly, but voluntary and criminal. Wil- 
 ful blindness it is rather than ignorance. For 
 if their ignorance had been complete and ex- 
 cusable, what would He not have done for 
 them? In another point of view the prayer of 
 
 * Luke xxiii. 34. 
 
The Crucifixion and Death of Jesus* 251 
 
 our Lord is more comprehensive. It embraces 
 all who had any part, directly or indirectly, 
 in His death. It includes all of us, unhappy 
 sinners, who were the first authors of that 
 death. Let us apply the merits of His death 
 to ourselves, and cry out from the depths of 
 our hearts: " Pardon, pardon, O my Saviour! 
 for all the sins that have nailed Thee to this 
 bitter cross. We do not deserve it ; but let us 
 ask it through Thy merits, who, from the bed 
 of the cross, dost so heartily pray for it. We 
 acknowledge before Thee that we knew not 
 what we did in our sin ; that we were blind, 
 senseless, mad. O Jesus ! let the cause of our 
 crime be its excuse ; deign to present to Thy 
 Father in His eternal sanctuary the prayer for 
 sinners which Thou offeredst to Him on the 
 cross." 
 
 But to obtain the effect of this wonderful 
 prayer it is not sufficient merely to repeat it. 
 In conferring upon us so great a benefit our 
 Divine Master gives us an example which we 
 mnst follow if we would secure the favor. He 
 had constantly taught it during life ; and in 
 death He seals it with His blood. It is con- 
 tained in these undying words: "Love your 
 enemies, do good to them that hate you, and 
 
252 The Crucifixion and Death of yesus. 
 
 pray for tliem tliat persecute and calumniate 
 you."* He had announced the precept; He 
 shows us how to observe it. He had forbidden 
 revenge ; now He deprives our self-love of all 
 pretexts to seek it. Let those who nourish 
 hatred in their hearts come and pray before 
 the cross of Jesus Christ, and listen to Him 
 praying for His murderers ; let them then show 
 the reasons of their anger. Is it the gravity 
 of their injuries? Do they approach in any 
 degree those of Jesus Christ ? Is it their high 
 rank ? Will they attempt to compare it with 
 that of the Sovereign of the universe ? Is it 
 the law of justice requiring the chastisement 
 of offenders? Does not the deicide require it 
 more imperiously ? A precept so precise and 
 so much out of the common course of the 
 world required the most striking example to 
 give it effect. It was necessary to destroy in 
 the heart of man a passion so strongly rooted 
 as that of revenge, and to substitute for that 
 passion a virtue so heroic as the love of our 
 enemies. Yet what effect has it produced in 
 the majority of men ? Every day we ask in 
 the Lord's Prayer that God may forgive us 
 our offences as we forgive the offences com- 
 
 *Matt. v. 44. 
 
The Crucifixion and Death of y estes. 253 
 
 mitted against us. But do we really wish that 
 God would give this measure of mercy to our 
 enemies? If we do not wish it sincerely our 
 prayer only means that we wish God not to 
 forgive us ; so that, in place of seeking His 
 indulgence towards us, we only provoke His 
 wrath. 
 
 This excess of goodness on the part of our 
 Lord, far from softening His ferocious enemies, 
 only irritates them all the more. Their rage 
 seems to increase in proportion to His patience. 
 They redouble their imprecations and their blas- 
 phemies. Shaking their heads in derision, they 
 say: "Vah! Thou who destroyest the temple 
 of God, and in three days buildest it up again, 
 save Thy own self."* Ah ! yes. He will re- 
 build that temple, but it will be in the hour 
 fixed in His eternal wisdom. He will not an- 
 ticipate the time prescribed in His heavenly 
 oracles. All will be accomplished at the mo- 
 ment already foretold. The chief priests, doc- 
 tors, and princes of the people take part with 
 the vulgar throng. In their cowardly meanness 
 they mingle their railleries with those around 
 them, allude to His miracles, and remark that 
 He performs none at this moment: "He saved 
 
 * Matt, xxvii. 39, 40. 
 
254 The Crucifixion- and Death of Jesus. 
 
 others; Himself He cannot save." * incon- 
 sistent men ! If you acknowledge that He did 
 work miracles, how, then, can you say that He 
 could not work them now ? If He had the 
 power to save others, does it argue the want of 
 that power when He does not wish to take Him- 
 self out of your hands? " Let Him now come 
 down from the cross, and we will believe Him."f 
 Come down from the cross ! Ah ! no ; He will 
 take care not to do so ; He adheres to it like 
 the vine to the wood ; He will not be detached 
 from it till the fruit shall have come to maturity. 
 Come down from the cross ! This would be to 
 counteract the purpose for which He had as- 
 cended it. This miracle would have nullified 
 all the other miracles which His death alone 
 could consummate. Come down from the cross ! 
 This would have been to disobey the divine 
 decree which condemned Him to remain upon 
 it till that decree would be annulled. Judea 
 had witnessed many of His miracles, sufficient 
 to convince all that He was the Son of God. On 
 Calvary it was obedience to the will of God that 
 proved the same truth. Those who used the 
 language first quoted could not have been in 
 good faith. Did they believe in Him when they 
 
 * Matt, xxvii. 42. t lb. 
 
The Crucifixion and Death of Jesus. 255 
 
 saw Lazarus raised from the dead, even after 
 having been four days in the grave ? Not being 
 able to deny it, a party among them even sought 
 the life of Lazarus.* Alas ! when I see the 
 cruel instrument of crucifixion and the salva- 
 tion of mankind attached to it, and when I re- 
 flect on the fewness of those who draw any fruit 
 from it, I am almost at a loss to know what I 
 ought to desire. Here I see the blood of Christ 
 shed and Heaven opened, and I cry out : 
 my Saviour ! cling to Thy cross ; accomplish the 
 sacrifice which for me Thou hast commenced. 
 Then again I see the most of men profaning, 
 3 7 es, trampling under foot, this blood that was 
 shed for them, and I am tempted to say with 
 the Jews, but in a different spirit : Lord ! 
 come down from Thy cross, now useless for 
 many on whose account Thou wast laid upon it. 
 To save them Thou dost remain upon it, but I 
 fear it will only damn tliem. 
 
 Not only the people, the soldiers, the pontiffs, 
 the scribes, and the guards blaspheme our Lord, 
 but also one of the thieves hanging by His side. 
 "If Thou be Christ," he said, " save Thyself 
 and us."f Behold here our dear Lord insulted 
 by a vile wretch whose crimes brought him to 
 
 * John xii. 10, 11. t Luke xxiii. 39, 
 
256 The Crucifixion and Death of Jesus. 
 
 tliis end ! In the midst of all these maledic- 
 tions, injuries, and blasphemies is there no voice 
 raised in behalf of our Blessed Saviour? Is 
 there no one to bless or comfort or justify Him % 
 Thanks to God ! In that confused tumult, amid 
 the cries of rage and vengeance, I hear, at last, a 
 voice that takes His part. It is the other thief, 
 who answers his companion in guilt: u Neither 
 dost thou fear God, seeing thou art under the 
 same condemnation ? And we indeed justly, for 
 we receive the due reward of our deeds ; but 
 this Man hath done no evil." And turning to 
 Jesus, he said : " Lord ! remember me when Thou 
 shalt come into Thy kingdom. And Jesus said 
 to him : Amen I say to thee, this day thou shalt 
 be with Me in paradise."* They asked a mira- 
 cle. Behold a miracle of grace ! In the state 
 of abasement to which they have reduced Him 
 He converts a sinner. Whilst the men who had 
 witnessed His miracles cast into His face cries 
 of fury and insult, this man, who had seen His 
 greatness only in His patience, confesses, adores, 
 and invokes Him as his God. An Apostle has 
 despaired and is lost ; a thief believes, hopes, 
 and is saved ! Sinners, whose consciousness of 
 evil drives you almost to despair and impeni- 
 
 * Luke xxiii. 40, 41, 42, 43. 
 
The Crucifixion and Death of fesus. 257 
 
 tence, behold the great mercy of your Lord and 
 His constant readiness to save you ! With what 
 sins soever you see yourselves covered, if you 
 sincerely turn to Him He always has an atten- 
 tive ear in your favor ; His arms are extended 
 to embrace you, and paradise is open to receive 
 you. But remember that the conversion of this 
 particular sinner at the moment of death is the 
 only one we read of in the sacred volume. God 
 rewarded the humble confidence of this poor 
 sinner, but it does not prove that He does not 
 punish the rash presumption which continues in 
 sin and counts on a death-bed repentance. The 
 repentance of the good thief is a model of what 
 ours should be. How much we have to admire 
 in it ! First, the faith which penetrates the 
 thick veil of humiliation and sorrows, and under 
 that veil recognizes its God. This is an image 
 of what ours ought to be, whatever obscurities 
 may hide God from us in impenetrable mysteries 
 or in the Blessed Sacrament of His love. Sec- 
 ondly, his humility , which sorrowfully confess- 
 ed that he suffered with justice ; so ought we 
 to confess the chastisements inflicted on us by 
 the divine power as essentially just. Thirdly, 
 the Jwpe which inspired him with the happy 
 thought of being able to obtain pardon ; this 
 
258 The Crucifixion and Death of Jesus. 
 
 same hope ought to bring us to the sacred 
 tribunal of reconciliation. Fourthly, his zeal 
 for the conversion of his companion shows us 
 how much we ought to labor for the conversion 
 of our companions, especially those whom we 
 may have drawn into sin. Fifthly, the ardor of 
 This prayer, which issued from his sincere love 
 of Him to whom he offered it. Tims also should 
 we pray to merit the immense benefit of our re- 
 lease from sin. When our sorrow combines all 
 these -characteristics of true sorrow we may well 
 expect to hear the blessed word addressed to us : 
 " This day thou shalt be with Me in paradise." 
 We must also admire the authority of our Lord 
 preserved even in His last moments. With what 
 dignity this King so profoundly degraded prom- 
 ises a kingdom ! What grandeur of character 
 He displays amid His greatest sorrows ! He dies 
 proclaiming some His chosen ones and others 
 cast away ; delivering Judas to eternal ruin and 
 assuring the penitent thief of paradise. On the 
 last diy His cross will be the great tribunal 
 whence, with' the same power, He will deliver 
 His everlasting decrees. 
 
 On the cross another consoling spectacle 
 touches His heart. Many holy women had 
 faithfully served Him during the time of His 
 
The Crucifixion and Death of Jesus. 259 
 
 public ministry, and in disgrace and death, 
 they would not abandon Him. Among them 
 was the constant object of His tender regard, 
 His own dear, Blessed Mother, who was brought 
 to this awful spectacle by a supernatural effort 
 of courage and love. Though penetrated with 
 bitter grief, she is not crushed by it. The sight 
 of her Son dying and desolate pierces her heart ; 
 her faith in that Son, redeeming the human 
 race, animates her with strength and courage. 
 And while all nature is in commotion at the 
 death of Christ His Mother is unmoved.* Alone, 
 among all the children of Adam, in possession 
 of the great secret ; alone in the knowledge of 
 the grand mystery which He accomplishes, the 
 Blessed Mother takes her part in it. The holy 
 Fathers represent her in this sublime action as 
 a figure of the church. She came to offer Him 
 to His Heavenly Father on the altar of the cross, 
 as the Church on her altars offers Him through, 
 all succeeding ages. To this offering of infi- 
 nite price she adds another and a most pre- 
 cious one— namely, herself. In like manner the 
 Church offers herself with Jesus Christ in the 
 august Sacrament of the Eucharist. Mary, at 
 the foot of the cross, unites her sentiments with 
 
 * John xix. 25. 
 
2Ôo The Crticifixion and Death of Jesus. 
 
 those of lier Son ; submits, like Him, to the 
 eternal decrees ; and, in partaking of His sor- 
 rows, partakes also of the resignation which 
 made Him accept them, and in the infinite cha- 
 rity for men which made Him desire them. 
 Let us unite ourselves in these generous sen- 
 timents ; let us bear them with us to the Holy- 
 Sacrifice to which we are admitted ; let us repre- 
 sent to ourselves Mary at the sacrifice of her 
 Son, and let us beg the grace to imitate her. 
 Near His Mother Jesus saw the Apostle whom 
 He loved in a special manner ; who had been 
 one of His most intimate confidants ; and who 
 leaned on His breast at the Last Supper. In 
 the garden of G-ethsemani John had fled with 
 the rest ; but his deep love soon brought him 
 back again to the footsteps of his Master, and 
 even to the cross to receive His last sigh. At 
 the sight of two so dear to Him, our Lord, ex- 
 piring though He is, seems animated with new 
 strength and increased tenderness, of which He 
 gives them a parting sign, and makes His last 
 will and testament in their favor. But what 
 will He give them? In life He had no place 
 to lay His head ; in death His garments have 
 been divided among His executioners ; His blood 
 has been shed even to the last drop. Yet His 
 
The Crucifixion and Death of Jesus. 261 
 
 ingenious love finds a means of bequeathing to 
 tliem a most precious legacy. He gives each 
 of them to the other. First addressing His 
 holy Mother, He says to her: "Woman, be- 
 hold thy son ; after that He saith to the dis- 
 ciple : Behold thy Mother." * And from that 
 day St. John took her as his Mother. To St. 
 Peter, because of his ardent zeal, Christ had 
 committed His church ; to St. John, because 
 of his intense love, He committed His holy 
 Mother. But this sublime gift, as the holy 
 Fathers tell us, has even a still more extend- 
 ed significance. St. John is here a figure of 
 all the faithful whom Jesus cherished with the 
 most tender love. To us, in the person of St. 
 John, does He give His Mother ; by Him we are 
 made Children of Mary. He tells lier to adopt 
 us as her children ; and He tells as to acknow- 
 ledge her as our Mother. Praise to God ! She 
 accepted the charge and has since continually 
 exercised its functions. From the pinnacle of 
 glory to which her Son has raised her she 
 constantly pleads with Him in favor of the 
 other children committed by Him to her care. 
 Christ is our advocate before His Father ; she 
 is our advocate before Christ. What other 
 
 * John six, 26. 27. 
 
2Ô2 The Crucifixion and Death of Jesus. 
 
 benefits, say tlie holy Fathers, could have been 
 accorded to us? The charity of Mary towards 
 us, her power with her Divine Son, are surely 
 not lessened by her coronation in Heaven. She 
 is ever the Mother of grace to the just ; the 
 Mother of mercy to sinners, if they wish to 
 be converted. But to receive the fruits of this 
 adoption we must deserve them. St. John, 
 whose place we hold, leads the way. From 
 the moment that he became a child of Mary 
 he performed w T ith the strictest fidelity all the 
 duties of sonship. He brought her to his house, 
 cared for her, cherished her, served her until 
 the hour when Christ took her to Himself. 
 Let us, like him, be true children of Mary ; 
 respectful, confident, docile ; let us honor her 
 by our aspirations, invoke her in our prayers, 
 imitate her in our virtues. In a word, let us 
 be worthy children of Mary, and we shall al- 
 ways find in her the best, the most tender, the 
 most beneficent Mother. 
 
 A cry of distress does escape our Lord on 
 tlie cross. Is it because of His awful suffer- 
 ings % He had desired them. Is it because of 
 His humiliations % To repnir the vice of human 
 pride He had accepted them. No! All that 
 He suffered from the hands of men affected 
 
The Crucifixion and Death of Jesus. 263 
 
 Him not at all. It is the abandonment of His 
 Father that He laments ; it is the want of all 
 interior consolation that afflicts Him. Behold 
 His cruel torment ! The martyrs in their pains 
 were sustained by the unction of heavenly 
 grace ; but the Chief of the martyrs receives 
 no comfort. God refuses to His own Son what 
 He freely gave to all others who suffered for 
 His sake. Let us not wonder at this abandon- 
 ment on the part of God the Father. His Son 
 is there burdened with all the sins of the hu- 
 man race. In this light His Father considers 
 Him ; and this is why He leaves Him without 
 support or consolation. "My God! My God I 
 why hast Thou forsaken Me?"* These are the 
 very words which holy David had uttered in 
 His Person when he describes the Passion. f 
 Hence interpreters have considered this psalm 
 as an exposition, by anticipation and in the 
 spirit of prophecy, of all that our Lord was 
 to endure on the cross. We may derive from 
 this a salutary instruction. It often happens, 
 even to the just, that they feel themselves de- 
 prived of the interior sentiments of divine 
 grace ; that they experience, instead of sweet- 
 ness and unction, only dryness and coldness. 
 
 * Mark xv. 34. t Ps. xxL 
 
264 The Crucifixion and Death of yestis. 
 
 Let them not be surprised or lose courage; the 
 Sou of God was treated in the same manner. 
 Let them learn from His example the conduct 
 they ought to pursue in such circumstances. 
 To God they should have recourse. Tender 
 and humble prayer is not forbidden ; but, like 
 the prayer of Jesus Christ, it should be full 
 of resignation to the divine will, which in af- 
 flicting them proves their fidelity. 
 
 Prepared to finish His sacrifice, and knowing 
 that all the circumstances detailed in the proph- 
 ecies were fulfilled, He said: "I thirst."* A 
 vessel full of vinegar was near Him. The soldiers, 
 having taken a sponge and dipped it in the vine- 
 gar and then in hyssop, offered it to Him. And 
 thus was fulfilled an oracle of the prophet : "In 
 My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink. "f Be- 
 sides the fulfilment of the prophecy, the thirst of 
 our Lord presents to us another subject of medi- 
 tation. Doubtless He was grievously troubled by 
 a physical thirst after all the shocking trials 
 through which He had passed. But His most 
 ardent thirst, that which consumed Him, was the 
 thirst for our conversion, sanctification, and sal- 
 vation. By this He teaches us how earnestly we 
 ought to desire and work for our salvation. 
 
 * John xix. 28. t P& Lsviii. S& 
 
The Crucifixion and Death of Jesus. 265 
 
 The most important event ever witnessed in 
 the world is about to be accomplished. The 
 great work of the regeneration of the human 
 race, expected during so many ages, is almost 
 terminated. The mortal life of our Redeemer 
 and our redemption are come to a final point. 
 For three hours the sun himself announces this 
 fact to the earth in withdrawing his light and 
 delivering it to darkness. Through this dark- 
 ness our Lord turns His eyes to Heaven and 
 then to the earth. He sees in both the work 
 required of Him entirely finished ; and He cries 
 out: "It is consummated."* In Heaven the 
 will of His Eternal Father is executed ; His jus- 
 tice satisfied ; His anger appeased. The hand- 
 writing of death against this sinful world is 
 blotted out. " Mercy and truth have met each 
 other. Justice and peace have kissed." f It is 
 consummated ! On earth the oracles are ac- 
 complished ; the figures realized ; the desires of 
 the patriarchs fulfilled ; the chalice drained ; His 
 blood shed even to the last drop ; the syna- 
 gogue abolished ; the Church founded. It is 
 consummated! "Father," He said, "into Thy 
 hands I commend My spirit." % And, crying 
 with a loud voice, He expired. Such a cry 
 
 ♦John xix. 30. tPs. Ixxxiv. 11. JLuke xxiii. 46. 
 
2 66 The Crucifixion and Death of Jesus. 
 
 from a dying Man was supernatural. It show- 
 ed tliat He died, not from exhaustion, but by 
 His own will. That cry pierced the heavens 
 and opened them ; it reached the depths of 
 hell and shattered the powers of darkness ; it 
 spread itself over all the earth, and taught 
 mankind that their Redeemer, forsaking time, 
 had hastened into His eternity. 
 
XIV. 
 
 WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THE DEATH OF JESUS. 
 
XIV. 
 
 WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THE DEATH OF JESUS. 
 
 "And Joseph, taking Him down, wrapped Him in fine linen, 
 and laid Him in a sepulchre that was hewed in stone, wherein 
 never yet any man had been laid." (Luke xxiii. 53.) 
 
 The wonderful life predicted by so many 
 prophets, prefigured by so many just men, de- 
 sired by so many generations, ended on a cross. 
 Thus closed a career rich in miracles ; abound- 
 ing in benefits ; replete with works of holiness 
 and of mortification ; continually devoted to 
 the instruction and salvation of the human 
 race ; consumed by fatigues, labors, and pains. 
 And it is closed in death amid the most dis- 
 graceful of penalties, the most ignominious hu- 
 miliations, the most cruel sufferings ! O bless- 
 ed spirit who descended with a song of glad- 
 ness to announce His birth to the world ! why 
 do you not come to-day to mourn His death % 
 Heavenly voices so distinctly heard on the sum- 
 mit of Thabor and on the banks of the Jordan 
 proclaiming Him the well-beloved Son of God, 
 the object of His eternal pleasure, why are you 
 not heard on Calvary in strains of grief and la- 
 
270 After tka Death of Jesus. 
 
 mentation % Mortal men for whom He lived, 
 for whom He died, why are you not crushed by 
 the weight of your grief % But wherefore ask 
 for the tears of Heaven and earth? Is it not 
 from this very cross of Calvary that all His 
 greatness takes its rise ? He foretold it ; He 
 has realized it : that when He should be raised 
 from the earth He would draw all things to 
 Himself, Against all the efforts of hell and all 
 its powers, and from the same bitter tree, He 
 draws to Himself all nations and all ages. The. 
 rulers of the earth see their power perish with 
 them, and their glory goes down with them into 
 the grave ; but the moment Christ our Lord ex* 
 pires upon the cross His reign begins* From 
 His cross He subjects the world to His sway ; 
 from His cross He causes the nations to recog- 
 nize Him as their Master, to obey Him as their 
 Monarch, to love Him as their Saviour, to adore 
 Him. as their God. From His cross He opens a 
 new order of things which will change the face 
 of the earth ; new eras will begin, new empires 
 will be formed, a new religion will be establish- 
 ed. The cross of Jesus Christ is the landmark 
 between the old world and the new. It is the 
 object of the desires of the former, the object 
 of veneration for the latter. 
 
After the Death of Jestis. 271 
 
 Let it also be the true object of our veneration. 
 Let us frequently prostrate ourselves at the foot 
 of this cross ; it was the instrument of our re- 
 demption when it bore the body of our Lord ; 
 let it now be the means of our sanctification. In 
 it w^e shall find all graces ; they all flow from 
 this blessed wood. Before it the lives of saints 
 have been formed and brought to perfection and 
 final consummation. If we accustom ourselves 
 to constant prayer before this sacred image of 
 a crucified God, contemplating it with tender 
 piety, offering before it our fervent vows, we 
 shall receive it with joy inexpressible when at 
 the last moment of our lives it will be presented 
 to us. Then our hearts will cling to it ; then 
 our hands will enfold it with tenderness ; and 
 our dying lips will press it with heavenly delight. 
 And with what gladness shall we not see it re- 
 appear when the whole world will be no more, 
 and when Jesus Christ will come, armed with 
 this sacred sign, to pronounce upon all man- 
 kind the irrevocable decree of mercy or justice ? 
 But if we shall have had the misfortune to have 
 neglected this salutary devotion ; if business, 
 dissipation, the pleasures of life shall have made 
 us strangers to the cross of our God, what ideas 
 will fill our minds when, at the moment of dis- 
 
272 After the Death of Jesus, 
 
 solution, it will be brought to our sight ? With 
 what terror shall we not see it in the final de- 
 struction of the world, when the very sight of it 
 will reproach us with having abused its graces 
 and rendered its merits vain? 
 
 At the moment of our Lord's death His soul, 
 leaving its companion all bloody and deformed 
 on the cross, and delivered at last from its burden 
 of pain, flies to open the prison in which the 
 souls of the just, who had awaited His coming, 
 had been detained. It is not given us in the 
 designs of Providence to know in what particu- 
 lar place this prison was ; nor are we acquainted 
 with the nature or extent of the felicity accorded 
 to its inmates whilst awaiting the day of their 
 delivery. Faith clearly teaches that paradise 
 was closed by the sin of our first father, and 
 could not be opened except by the reparation 
 of the true Father of all the faithful. We may 
 well judge what was the anxiety of these holy 
 souls to see the day of their delivery ! In their 
 life-time all their aspirations tended to the com- 
 ing of the Messiah. What, then, must have been 
 the ardor of their desires for Him in the pri- 
 son to which they had been consigned ! Jesus 
 Christ, triumphing over death and the powers 
 of hell, filled their languishing souls with His 
 
After the Death of Jesus. 273 
 
 presence ; and, at His glorious ascension, opened 
 Heaven for their eternal joy. It was a numer- 
 ous cortege and a brilliant one ; in the words of 
 St. Paul, it was leading captivity captive. They 
 were the ornaments of His triumph ; He pre- 
 sented them to His Father as the trophies of 
 His conquest, and as the spoils wrested from 
 the infernal enemy. 
 
 All nature seemed to sympathize in the death 
 of its Author and gave distinct signs of deso- 
 lation. During the three hours of His hang- 
 ing on the cross the sun was darkened, as if 
 he refused to shed his light upon the greatest 
 crime ever committed. At the instant of our 
 Lord's death the earth trembled; the rocks 
 were rent ; and the tombs opening gave up 
 their dead, who, coming into Jerusalem, were 
 seen by many. The veil of the temple was 
 rent from top to bottom.* This torn veil 
 of the temple presents to the minds of the 
 holy Fathers many mysteries. At one time it 
 seems to them to announce the fact that the 
 temple, from this moment rejected by Almighty 
 God, will never again be honored as the special 
 place of His abode ; that it will be destroyed, 
 and will give place, according to the prophecy 
 
 * Matt, xxvii. 51, 52, 53. 
 
274 After the Death of Jesus. 
 
 of Malachy, to other temples in every nation 
 and in every place, where sacrifice shall never 
 cease to be offered to the Most High, and the 
 clean oblation shall greet Him to the end of 
 time. The veil thus rent and exposing to com- 
 mon view the inner sanctuary also signifies that 
 the veil which covered the tablets of the law is 
 for ever lifted, the shadows are dispelled, the 
 figures realized, and all that they had covered 
 made manifest. This is the word of St. Paul: 
 " All these things happened to them in figure ; 
 and they are written for our correction, upon 
 whom the ends of the world have come."* This 
 word explains the whole ancient covenant, in 
 showing the relations it bore to Jesus Christ, 
 and especially to Him crucified. His cross is 
 the common centre to which the old law is di- 
 rected, and in which the new law is rooted. 
 
 But let us not fail to see other prodigies of a 
 different order, yet not less admirable. Behold 
 the conversions made by Christ in His death. 
 The centurion and the soldiers who kept guard 
 round the cross — that is, the very men, proba- 
 bly, who had so cruelly scourged Him, so rudely 
 crowned Him with thorns, so frightfully out- 
 raged Him in the court of Pilate ; who had di- 
 
 * 1 Cor. x. 11. 
 
After the Death of Jesus. 275 
 
 vided His garments amongst them, and who had 
 insulted Him even on the cross — these, when 
 they felt the earthquake and all things that 
 happened, were filled with fear, and cried out : 
 " Indeed this was the Son of Grod." * Even 
 among the Jews themselves, who had with such 
 persistent malice demanded the death of Christ, 
 many, touched with the spectacle of which they 
 were witnesses, returned in sorrow, striking their 
 breasts. Thus not only does all nature show 
 itself sensible of the death of Christ, but even 
 His persecutors and executioners are stricken 
 with sorrow and remorse. And shall we, for 
 whom this awful scene has been enacted, the 
 objects of this immense love of God towards 
 us, remain harder than the rocks, more obdu- 
 rate than the pagans and Jews ? At the foot 
 of the cross these conversions were effected ; 
 and Jesus Christ is as powerful and as merciful 
 now as He was then. Let us do our part;" let 
 us in sorrow strike our breasts, and the same 
 sorrow will obtain the same pardon. 
 
 The infidels of our time, greater enemies of 
 Christ than those of His own day, blush not 
 to call in question the wonders of His death. 
 These striking miracles, say they, could not have 
 
 * Matt. xx.vii. 54. 
 
276 After the Death of Jesus. 
 
 failed to convert the Pharisees, the scribes, and 
 the priests. We may answer them by asking : 
 What interest conld the Apostles have had in 
 inventing these facts ? For them there was no- 
 thing to be gained by it except the disgrace 
 attached to lying and the penalties due to im- 
 posture. But supposing, against all evidence, 
 that they had the will to deceive the world, 
 where was the possibility of doing it ? When 
 they boldly and openly published these prodi- 
 gies, it was immediately after they had taken 
 place. When St. Matthew wrote them in his 
 Gospel, it was then, at most, only eight years 
 after they had happened. It was even in the 
 city of Jerusalem, where there were innumer- 
 able witnesses of the death of Jesus Christ. 
 Could he possibly have been deprived not only 
 of all virtue but also of all common sense in 
 daring report facts visible to all eyes, if those 
 to whom they are related had not seen them % 
 And if he had had this inconceivable effrontery, 
 would he not have been at once contradicted 
 by every one of those whom he puts down as 
 having taken part in the transaction ? Would 
 not his Gospel have been immediately decried 
 and universally condemned as a fabrication? 
 Would he not have found himself the only 
 
After the Death of Jesus, 277 
 
 Christian living if one fact lie relates had been 
 proven false ? His narrative, made at such a 
 time and in such a place, is an evident and a 
 bold challenge to contradiction. Contradiction 
 could not be successfully resorted to either at 
 that time or in the age immediately follow- 
 ing. Men like Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian, 
 who faithfully copied what the first enemies 
 of Christianity had advanced against it, never 
 raised a doubt as to the reality of its miracles. 
 Infidels of our time, therefore, how do you 
 know that they have not taken place ? Upon 
 what foundation do you place the assertion, 
 when before your time no person dared ad- 
 vance it \ To maintain your position to-day 
 you have to combat not only the testimony of 
 the Apostles, but also that of your original 
 leaders. 
 
 But these miracles, you say, did not convert 
 the priests and scribes. Have those who pro- 
 pose this objection never reflected upon the 
 effects of prejudice, envy, and envenomed ha- 
 tred? Jesus Christ traversed Judea three years, 
 preaching and working miracles everywhere ; 
 but the aversion and fury of His enemies, the 
 chief men of the nation, continually increased 
 against Him. When they saw miracles that 
 
278 After the Death of Jesus. 
 
 could not possibly be denied tliey asserted that 
 it was by the power of Beelzebub, the prince 
 of devils, that he had cast out devils. They 
 made no secret of the fears they entertained 
 lest the entire nation would follow Him on 
 account of His doctrine and wonderful works; 
 and that it was necessary to destroy Him to 
 prevent that result.* When they could not 
 deny that Lazarus had been raised from the 
 dead they resolved to assassinate him, but fail- 
 ed, f Is it surprising that the men who had re- 
 sisted these prodigies with such fury would 
 easily yield to the truth which was confirmed 
 by them? In refusing to believe in them they 
 are unreasonable but consistent. The same im- 
 pulse moves them ; the same passions sway 
 them ; the same principles direct them. And 
 do we not find in the unbelievers of our times 
 an answer to their own sophisms? The mani- 
 fest, incontestable, ever-abiding miracle of the 
 conversion of the world by the power of the 
 cross is before them and cannot determine their 
 faith. How can it astonish them, therefore, 
 that the wonders performed under the cross 
 did not convert the unbelievers of that time ? 
 But the hour approaches which is the be- 
 
 * John xi. 47, etc. t lb. xii. 10, 11. 
 
After the Death of J estes. 279 
 
 ginning of the Sabbath day of the Passover. 
 It is the most solemn of ail the Jewish festi- 
 vals. No bodies of the dead were allowed to 
 remain on a cross that day. Hence the Jews 
 went to Pilate, requesting him to hasten the 
 death of the culprits by breaking their limbs 
 in order to take them away. The soldiers sent 
 by the governor did effectually break the limbs 
 of the two thieves crucified alongside of Christ ; 
 but coming to Him, they found Him already 
 dead, and broke not His bones. But one of the 
 soldiers with a lance opened His side, and wa- 
 ter and blood issued forth.* In the pierced side 
 of Jesus the holy Fathers see a figure of the 
 formation of the Church, His spouse ; in the 
 same manner as the spouse of the first man 
 was formed from Adam's side. In the blood 
 and water they discern the sources of the sac- 
 raments. But, without entering into the mys- 
 tical interpretations, we may give two reasons 
 for this fact : the first is taken from the Evan- 
 gelist who relates it and bears witness to it. 
 He tells us that it was to fulfil the prophecy. 
 It had been decreed in the law that no bone 
 of the paschal larnb, a figure of the Messiah, 
 should be broken ; and of the Messiah Himself 
 
 * John xix. 31, etc. 
 
280 After the Death of Jesus. 
 
 it had been foretold that "they would look 
 upon Him whom they had pierced." * Thus 
 the fierce soldier who, even after the death of 
 Christ, exercises his fury upon Him is only 
 the executor of His designs. He neglects to 
 do what he had been commanded to do ; and 
 he does what he had no orders to do. In all 
 this he acts by a divine impulse and against 
 his own intention. > He performs what had been 
 decreed in the counsels of God ; he omits what 
 the supreme will had forbidden. In like man- 
 ner we, feeble mortals, often believe that we 
 are following our own views, when in reality 
 we are only obeying those of Providence. An- 
 other reason for the actions of the soldiers is 
 to be found in the designs of Heaven to leave no 
 doubt as to the death of Christ. TJiey are the 
 witnesses of His death ; and it is because they find 
 Him dead that they do not break His bones, and 
 their testimony will not be doubted. The soldier 
 who pierced His side would certainly have caused 
 His death, if it had not already taken place. 
 The water and blood which flowed from the 
 wound could only have come from the covering 
 of the heart of our Lord, which being pierced, 
 He could no longer be a living Man. 
 
 * John xix. 31, etc. 
 
After the Death of Jesus. 281 
 
 Evening having come, a Jew of Arimâthea 
 named Joseph, a man of noble rank and an 
 officer, who had been a disciple of Christ, but 
 secretly through fear of his countrymen, now 
 courageously presented himself before Pilate 
 and asked him for the body of Jesus. Pilate 
 wondered that He was already dead ; and, find- 
 ing from the centurion on guard that it was 
 true, gave the body to Joseph.* 
 
 The sacred text presents to us in Joseph of 
 Arimathea the example of many who may even 
 yet be found in the world ; of those, namely, 
 who are at heart Christians, but who are afraid 
 to appear so. They are convinced of the divine 
 truths, but dare not say so openly. They see 
 the full beauty, justice, and utility of Christian 
 morality, but they are ashamed to practise it. 
 Base human respect prevents them from show- 
 ing themselves in their true colors, and often 
 makes them assume a character that does not 
 belong to them. It turns them away from the 
 good which they approve and cherish, and at- 
 taches them to the evil which they detest and 
 despise. This sentiment is injurious to God 
 and ignominious to man. Injurious to G-od, for 
 the good-will of libertines is preferred to His 
 
 * Mark xv, 42-45. 
 
282 After the Death of Jesus. 
 
 esteem. His praise, and His eternal recompense ; 
 His terrible j udgments are less feared than the 
 censures and railleries of men. Ignominious to 
 man, for what fear is more debasing than that 
 which cringes before opinions which one despi- 
 ses, which is false to one 5 s self and contradicts 
 one's own principles in words and actions ? Will 
 any one venture to affirm that it is an honor 
 to be bound and tied by associations which he 
 despises in his heart? In the good old times 
 of our forefathers it was only impiety that 
 dared not parade itself. When it existed at 
 all it was timid and shamefaced, avoiding the 
 public gaze. In those days virtue, faith, and 
 piety, sure of being respected, showed them- 
 selves with confidence. Oh ! shame of our 
 generation ! Can it be that courage is now 
 required only when a man has to show him- 
 self a Christian % Unbelief is let run at large ; 
 faith is held down as a captive ; the impious 
 man glories in his blasphemies ; and the man 
 of faith is silent. 
 
 But see with what firmness, with what a glo- 
 rious spirit, Joseph overcomes the feeling of 
 cowardice that had so long held him down ! 
 Whilst the Apostles of the Saviour, trembling 
 lest they should be subjected to the same hard 
 
After the Death of Jesus. 283 
 
 fate that had befallen their Divine Master, ran 
 to shut themselves in an upper room, he cour- 
 ageously comes to Pilate and asks the body of 
 Jesus, to render to it the last honors. Thus to 
 brave the hatred and fury of all the great men 
 of his nation there was need of unflinching in- 
 trepidity. And in what moment does this he- 
 roic courage show itself ? It is at the moment 
 when Jesus dies, and when, to all human ap- 
 pearance, there is nothing but danger in being 
 His disciple or in professing to be one. But 
 at the foot of the cross his faith is reani- 
 mated ; the supernatural courage which he 
 there witnessed has given back to him all 
 his own. From that moment he feels the merits 
 of the blood which flowed before his eyes. Let 
 us come, in these blessed days of the Passion 
 of our Lord, to contemplate His death ; let us 
 come from it, like this holy man, with tender 
 piety that will render to Christ, now dead for 
 us, all the duties of love and gratitude. Let us 
 come from it with a vigorous courage which 
 will enable us to confess our faith openly, to 
 brave the censures of impious men, and to op- 
 pose to the scandals of the world a conduct 
 openly religious. 
 
 Another disciple of Jesus joined himself to 
 
284 After the Death of Jesus. 
 
 Joseph of Arimatliea. It was Mcodemus, who, 
 in the beginning of our Lord's preaching, had 
 come to Him at night to converse with Him in 
 private. It was the same man who afterwards 
 in the council, desiring to defend Jesus, drew 
 upon himself the reproaches of the Pharisees.* 
 "And Mcodemus also came, he who at first 
 came to Jesus by night, bringing a mixture of 
 myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds. They 
 took, therefore, the body of Jesus, and bound it 
 in linen cloths with the spices, as is the custom 
 of the Jews to bury. And there was in the 
 place where He was crucified a garden ; and 
 in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein no man 
 had yet been laid. There, therefore, by reason 
 of the Parasceve of the Jews, they laid Jesus, 
 because the sepulchre was near at hand."f In 
 the burial of Christ the interpreters see a figure 
 of the august Sacrament of the Eucharist, which, 
 after having been offered up on the altar, is en- 
 tombed in the worthy soul, The care and pains 
 taken by the two disciples in His burial signify 
 the dispositions with which we ought to receive 
 Him ; the spices in which they embalm Him sig- 
 nify the good odor of virtue which is the result 
 of every worthy communion. The white linen 
 
 * John vii. 50, etc, t John xix. 39-42. 
 
After the Death of Jesus. 285 
 
 in which He was enveloped signifies purity of 
 soul in the recipient ; the new tomb in which 
 He was placed signifies a conscience in which 
 there is no mark of the deadly touch of sin. 
 The large stone at the mouth of the sepulchre 
 signifies the good resolutions which prevent all 
 entrance to the heart of anything that would 
 offend Him. 
 
 ' ' The next day (being the Sabbath) the chief 
 priests and Pharisees came together to Pilate, 
 saying : Sir, we have remembered that that se- 
 ducer said while He was yet alive : After three 
 days I will rise again. Command, therefore, the 
 sepulchre to be guarded until the third day, lest 
 His disciples come and steal Him away, and say 
 to the people : He is risen from the dead ; so 
 the last error shall be worse than the first. Pi- 
 late said to them : You have a guard ; go guard 
 it as you know ; and they departing made the 
 sepulchre sure with guards, sealing the stone. "* 
 How profound are the views and how infinitely 
 wise the dispositions of Providence ! 
 
 In the first place, it was infinitely important 
 that the death of Jesus Christ should be estab- 
 lished beyond doubt, so that His resurrection 
 might also be certain. Some of our modern un- 
 
 * Matt, xxvii. 62, etc. 
 
286 After the Death of Jesus. 
 
 believers, after eighteen hundred years, attempt 
 to throw doubts on the death of Christ ; they 
 tell us, in fact, that if Christ rose from the tomb 
 in three days it was because He had been buried 
 alive. Foreseeing this vain device, the eternal 
 wisdom confounded it in the most striking man- 
 ner. It was on this account, as we have seen, 
 that the side of our Lord was pierced with a 
 spear so that the heart itself was struck. It 
 was for the same reason that His body was 
 wrapped in linen and pressed with the weight 
 of the aromatic spices, which would have suffo- 
 cated Him had He been alive. But what reason 
 have these deists been able to adduce to prove 
 the assertion so rashly made % What witnesses 
 can they bring forward on their side % Is it Pi- 
 late? But he gave the order for the burial of 
 the dead body of our Lord. Is it the centurion 
 placed over the guard at His cross % But he also 
 reports the death of Christ. Will they bring 
 up the Roman soldiers % But these, having 
 found Christ already dead, abstained from exe- 
 cuting their orders as to the breaking of His 
 limbs. Is it the chief men of the Jews % But 
 they are so fully persuaded of the fact of His 
 death that they have fixed a seal upon His tomb 
 and a guard around it. Is it the disciples of our 
 
After the Death of J estes. 287 
 
 Lord % But how can we suppose them to bury 
 Him, if they had not seen Him dead ? Great 
 and small, Jews and Romans, Mends and ene- 
 mies, one and all give the same testimony. 
 They unanimously agree that He died upon the 
 cross. Seventeen centuries elapsed before any 
 doubt was raised on this essential point. Is it 
 not, then, the most positive effrontery to contra- 
 dict a fact so decidedly established, so generally 
 attested, and so universally believed ? 
 
 In the second place, God, in His divine om- 
 niscience, had foreseen that the Jews would ac- 
 cuse the Apostles of our Lord of having taken 
 away His body in the night. He makes them 
 answer themselves in advance. There were 
 among them many who had foreseen the possi- 
 bility of the body being stolen, and who conse- 
 quently took all precautions necessary to pre- 
 vent it. The soldiers required as a guard for 
 the sepulchre are named, not by Pilate, but by 
 the Jews themselves ; and who will doubt that 
 they selected the most vigilant, the most incor- 
 ruptible, and the most zealous against our Lord ? 
 When they desired to invent the fable of the 
 body having been stolen, their own action fur- 
 nished the strongest evidence against them. 
 Thus did Providence provide, by the hands of 
 
288 After the Death of Jesus* 
 
 those most anxious to deny it, the most incon- 
 testable proof of the resurrection. 
 
 Let us prepare ourselves for the celebration 
 of this great festival by a firm and lively faith ; 
 let us rise with Jesus Christ from the death of 
 sin to the life of grace which He has purchased 
 for us. Let us commence with Him a new life — 
 a life like His own. " Christ rising from the 
 dead dieth now no more ; death shall no more 
 have dominion over Him. Let not sin therefore 
 reign in your mortal bodies." * 
 
 * Rom. vi