Cotrarieties in The Passion

In the Passion of Our Lord there is a combination of sorrow and consolation. His sorrows were beyond all the united sorrows of the human race; for He carried all the burden of our sins, the sole source of all our miseries, with the full sense of the weight of them, which is deficient in us at present. "Surely He hath borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows . . . the chastisement of our peace was upon Him (Isa. liii. 4, 5). His afflictions were both of body and mind, they filled every sense and faculty of His Human Nature, and there was none capable of consoling Him or helping Him. "The waters have come in, even to My soul. . . I am come into the depths of the sea, and the tempest hath overwhelmed Me" (Ps. Ixviii. 2, 3). On the other hand, in the superior part of Our Lord's being, there was imperturbable calm and peace, arising from the Beatific Vision of the Godhead which He always possessed. In the midst of His baptism of fire, He had the peace of a good conscience, the comfort that God was with Him, the knowledge that He was accomplishing the Divine Will, the sight of the heroic constancy of His elect, their triumph over sin and hell, their salvation through His sufferings. So you may rejoice in Our Lord's Passion while sympathizing with His sorrows. In the bitterness of your own trials and disappointments you may yet possess peace and consolation; you will find in Him the strength to bear them with patience, and dignity, and eternal profit.

 

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Christ on The Cross

Consider the motives and thoughts of Our Lord. Always most perfect, they were especially so in His Crucifixion, the crowning act of His earthly life. 

 

1. Towards the Eternal Father He had a burning love, and He desired to render to Him an infinite sacrifice of praise and service, not only from Himself, but from the human race and all creation. He wished also to make atonement to Him for the wrongs inflicted by men, and to restore that glory of which He had been robbed. 

2. Jesus was moved by an ardent love for men and pity for their miseries. As God, in union with the Father and the Holy Ghost, He had created men; as Man, He was one of them. Mankind were thus doubly His; and He wished to make them still more His, by redeeming them to Himself, and gaining their love in return. 

3. Our Lord suffered a most bitter anguish at the sight of the sins of the world, of which He was bearing all the responsibility and the burden; but most bitter of all was the thought of human ingratitude, of the unprofitableness to so many of all that He was enduring, of their wicked folly in rejecting Him, and of their eternal obstinacy in the midst of most fearful misery. Strive to enter into Our Lord's sentiments, and to carry out His objects and intentions towards His Father and Himself, towards yourself and your brethren.

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Christ's Death for All Men

"He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world" (1 John ii. 2). The magnificent superabundance of Our Lord's Redemption is shown in this, that He did not die for the elect only, but also for the reprobate; He suffered the penalties not only of the sins that we shall repent of, but of those which will remain unforgiven through our perverse obstinacy. No sinner, however atrocious, is excluded from Christ's love and the benefit of His death. He desires the salvation of all, and provides them with the means of obtaining forgiveness and eternal life. "He will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. ii. 4). Some labour under particularly adverse conditions, but there is more abundant grace and more generous allowance for them. However great the disadvantages of a man's surroundings, however handicapped he may be by the prejudices of a bad education and an heredity of evil, he has, somehow, compensation for all this, and the means of saving his soul. So much has been done for us, that nothing remains undone which might have been done. We are saved almost in spite of ourselves. Nothing can outweigh Our Lord's propitiation except a man's own full and deliberate rejection of it. Only by persevering ill-will on our part can we fail of salvation. What immense confidence in Our Lord you ought to have for yourself and others.

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The Excess of The Passion

From one point of view it might seem unnecessary for Our Lord to go to the extreme of suffering so much and dying; for His smallest action was of infinite merit, so that it exceeded all the demerits of the world, and could have purchased life for all. Yet there is a beautiful appropriateness and fitness in the excesses of the Passion. The death of Christ is in accordance with that fundamental law, typified in all the ceremonies of the Old Testament, that "without the shedding of blood there is no remission" (Heb. ix. 22). Throughout nature we may trace the principle that death produces life. The spring is preceded by winter. "That which thou sowest is not quickened unless it die first" (1 Cor. xv. 36). Of old this was represented by the fable of the phoenix. After a hundred years of life it built itself a funeral pyre, and out of its ashes a new phoenix arose. Life, then, must be preceded by an adequate death. Death is a vivifying action, a creative action, we may say, and is itself the cure of death. The supernatural life of man, being a participation in the Infinite, must proceed from an infinite death. Our death in sin is irremediable, as far as we are concerned, and in a manner infinite. It requires to be remedied by a death which is productive of God in us. Therefore God died in His human nature. See then the great efficiency of the death of Jesus; and estimate rightly the greatness of the evil that sin inflicts, and the greatness of the boon bestowed on you.

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The Last Supper

In the Last Supper Jesus Christ exhibits His love, and proves Himself to be our best Friend. The account of it begins: "having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end" (John xiii. 1). This was the farewell banquet on the last evening of His earthly life; in it He delivered His Testament, His final word of love, and bequeathed us a keepsake and eternal memorial of Himself. This bequest was not His portrait, not even the most valuable of His created works, not an empty type or figure of Himself; it was Himself under the form of a simple creature, it was His own Body and Blood, it was the food of eternal life for our souls under the appearance of perishable bodily nourishment. This gift was not bestowed in its reality on the twelve alone, and as a mere historical remembrance for succeeding generations, but it was to be a personal gift for every human being to the end of time; it was to be the means of incorporating Christ, not merely with the human species in general, but with each individual soul. In this Supper Our Lord gives expression in act to that which He declared of old: "My delights are to be with the children of men" (Prov. viii. 31); and He literally fulfils that other promise: "Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world" (Matt, xxviii. 20). This gift is the supreme expression of Christ s love for you: the devout reception of it is the supreme expression of your love for Him. You receive in it the full effects of His love, and you are able to make Him a full and adequate return.

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The Transfiguration

Our Blessed Lord was glorified by His Father and manifested at the beginning of His child-life, again at the beginning of His public life when He was baptized, and a third time at the beginning of the conflict which was to end in His Passion and Death. Each time a special humiliation was illumined by a corresponding glory. In the Transfiguration, Our Lord suspended for a moment the continual miracle which kept His glory concealed. Then He shone like the sun, His garments became brilliant as snow, He was elevated above the earth, and the Father declared Him to be His well-beloved Son. The mysteries of which Our Lord was the center or source were proclaimed, the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Passion, immortality and glory. Around Jesus were the representatives of the past and the future, of the Law, the Prophets, and the Gospel, Moses and Elias, and the three chief apostles. Such magnificence had never been seen on earth, nor will be till the last revelation of Christ as Judge. The Apostles were overwhelmed, they lost all sense of the world below, they knew not what they said for ecstasy. Thenceforth they had a new awe and veneration for their Lord. You have the light of the revelation of faith. This is enough to show you the divine splendour hidden under the lowly forms which Our Lord now assumes. When you enter His presence, forget the world and self, and lose yourself in Him.

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The Ascension

The day had come for Our Lord to conclude the long series of His mysteries, to return whence He came, and to take His place upon the throne of David for ever, on the right hand of His Father. 

It was further necessary that He should cease to exist among us in His visible Humanity, in order that He might be present with us everywhere under the form of the Most Holy Eucharist. 

Our Lord's absence from your sight must not make you think that He has forgotten you; He bears you in His heart as if He were visibly present; He is engaged always on your interests before His Father; and also He is really present with you.

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The Raising of the Dead

FINE ART ➸ HAYWARD, WISCONSIN

The most conclusive miracles worked by Our Lord were the three restorations of the dead to life. These were not more difficult to the supreme power of God than the cure of diseases, but they impressed men more, as being less susceptible of natural explanation, and more unusual events. The first was the ruler's daughter (Matt, ix.); she was twelve years of age and was only just dead. The father, with extraordinary faith, besought Our Lord to restore her to life. Jesus, who refused nothing to those who asked, went to the house, ordered the multitudes to be silenced and put out from the chamber, and, in the presence of a few witnesses, took the maiden by the hand and bade her arise. The fame of this miracle spread rapidly over the whole country, and directed the attention of all towards Jesus. This represents the spiritual restoration of those who have been innocent, who have sinned less grievously, who have not remained long in their sins, but have had recourse at once to God. They are restored quickly, and easily, and quietly to the life of grace. If you unfortunately should fall into sin, do not delay to repent while it is yet easy, before the habit of sin has been established, and before you have hardened in the coldness and rigidity of spiritual death. Do not be discouraged, but call at once on Jesus with vivid faith.

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The Miracles of Christ

FINE ART ➸ HAYWARD, WISCONSIN

Isaias had foretold the many miracles of the Messias (Isa. xxxv. 4-6); and Our Lord recalled this when the disciples of St. John came to ask who He was (Luke vii. 22). This was the crucial and necessary proof of His divine mission. The words of Our Lord were effectual on believers or those who were ready to believe; the miracles were chiefly "a sign not to believers but to unbelievers" (1 Cor. xiv. 22). So it was that Jesus said to the Jews: "I speak to you and you believe not; the works that I do in the name of My Father, they give testimony of Me . . . though you will not believe me, believe the works" (John x. 25, 38). Miracles were necessarily a distinctive feature of Our Lord's life. Nature, otherwise immutable, was plastic in His hands; for all power was given to Him in heaven and on earth. There were wondrous signs in the heavens at His birth and death. He multiplied the loaves, changed water into wine, calmed the storm, walked on the waves, cured all diseases instantaneously, raised the dead to life. Finally Christ gave the same power to His Church. "Amen, I say to you, he that believeth in Me, the works that I do he shall also do, and greater than these shall he do" (John xiv. 12). Thank Our Lord for this communication of His powers. False systems may copy the Church's rites, and usurp her name, and even show some of her results, but this is an inalienable prerogative which they cannot appropriate and dare not counterfeit.

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The Preaching of Christ

FINE ART ➸ HAYWARD, WISCONSIN

Truth, and especially religious truth, is one of God's greatest gifts to men. It is the nourishment of the intelligence, our highest faculty. The enlightenment of our minds was one of the chief functions of the Messias. "To preach the gospel to the poor He hath sent Me" (Luke iv. 18). "For this I came into the world, that I should give testimony to the truth" (John xviii. 37). There were three reasons for this. 

1. As the uncreated Word of God, Our Lord is the repository of all truth. "In Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Col. ii. 3). 

2. Jesus is our chief Pontiff and Pastor, and has charge of us. To such it was said of old: "Son of man, I have made Thee a watch man of the house of Israel: and Thou shalt hear the word out of My mouth, and shalt tell it them from Me" (Ez. iii. 17).

3. His overflowing charity urges Him to communicate to us of His abundance, and make us sharers in His great perfection. The teachings of Our Lord were for all mankind. In the first instance, however, He communicated them to the Jews, according to the divine promise given to Abraham. It was through the medium of that nation that all the world was to be blessed by the communication of divine truth. When the Jews rejected that privilege, a faithful few were selected from them to transfer the great gift to the Gentiles. Take care to value the intellectual benefit of natural and supernatural truth preached to you by Our Lord. You have in Him an infallible Teacher who will not suffer you to go astray in any matter of real importance. 

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Pious Custome of Christ

FINE ART ➸ HAYWARD, WISCONSIN

Consider the thoughts of Our Lord. One of the uses of the material world, as we learn from Wisd. xiii. and Rom. i., is to instruct us about God and raise our thoughts to Him. Our Lord shows us how to read spiritual lessons in every natural event, and to use every object as an occasion for glorifying God. The seed-time and the harvest, the sparrows and the lilies, the weeds amongst the corn, a debtor imprisoned, the grafting of vines, the catching of fish, the tending of sheep all these things He shows in a spiritual aspect. He makes them all exemplify God's dealings and convey lessons of holiness. So we should learn to regard all things in life with the spiritual eye, and by the supernatural light of God's countenance. The knowledge and culture of this age and its wonderful scientific discoveries are not merely for our material progress, but for that which is spiritual. Each subject is a new revelation of divine power and wisdom; each is a corroboration of our faith, a new claim on our service, a new reason for adoring and loving God. Always look below the material surface of things and seek there the action of God. In the many problems of life you will find that religion furnishes the only clue to their comprehension, and that the law of God is the only practical system of action, and the only remedy for the else incurable evils of the world. 

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Companions in Christ's Life

FINE ART ➸ HAYWARD, WISCONSIN

"Being rich He became poor for your sakes, that through His poverty you might be rich" (2 Cor. viii. 9). The first companion of Our Lord's life, and aid in His mission was Poverty. In this there were three degrees of privation. 

1. Our Lord gave up all the wealth and possessions of this world. He was born in a stable of the spouse of a poor artisan. He lived first by daily labour, and lastly by the offerings of the charitable. He died despoiled even of His garments, and was laid in another's sepulchre. 

2. He had no friendship or even acquaintance with great men, with the rich and noble, with chief-priests. His companions were poor ignorant fishermen. During His ministry He deprived Himself of the companionship of His Mother, the only being who understood Him and was in full sympathy with Him. 

3. He resigned the use of His divine power and authority for His own purposes, and employed it solely for the benefit of others. In the methods of the world, money, influential friends, exhibition of power are essential to success; to despise them is madness. In Christ's kingdom they are hindrances; this is the great comfort of the bulk of mankind. Christ's poverty is the cause of our spiritual wealth. This is true also in the economical order. In poor countries all have a sufficiency of work and wealth; but the thirst for riches and the accumulation of wealth is the cause of the abject misery of the millions of poor. Imitate, according to your state, the poverty of Christ; at least be detached from your possessions and generous with them.

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Jesus in The Desert

FINE ART ➸ HAYWARD, WISCONSIN

Immediately after His baptism "Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert" (Matt. iv. 1). 

1. Our Lord was subject to all the conditions of human life; and it was in accordance with law that He should prepare Himself by retirement and mortification for a great supernatural career, and for the temptation that is associated with it. The messenger of God must go straight from the Divine Presence to his task. 

2. The lawgiver of the Old Testament, just before delivering the law and organizing Israel into a nation, retired alone to the recesses of the mountains, and spent forty days face to face with God. With the same solemnity the Lawgiver of the New Testament prepared Himself to proclaim the universal Kingdom of God. 

3. The first epoch of human history had commenced with a personal struggle between the father of the race and the spirit of evil; a like struggle had to take place at the opening of the second epoch. Satan again girded himself to overthrow the divine plan, and hoped to succeed against the second Adam as against the first. You also have a work to do which requires all your vigilance and energy. Critical moments will occur in your life when you have to choose between God and Satan, and the nature of the issues is obscure. You cannot develop the necessary capacity on a sudden. It must be the fruit of a previous preparation like that of Our Lord. 

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The Baptism of Christ

FINE ART ➸ HAYWARD, WISCONSIN

The advent of Christ had been announced by a long series of patriarchs, kings and prophets. St. John the Baptist was the last of the line, a rugged austere figure suddenly appearing from the desert, where he had lived in mortification and hardship for thirty years, in intimate communion with God. He was the immediate herald of the Messias and the greatest of the prophets. Every one of them had represented the Redemption by some symbolic act. Noah had saved the elect in the ark. Jacob begot twelve sons as princes of the people of God. Moses had delivered the Israelites from the avenging angel, and brought them through the waters of the Red Sea to the bounds of the Promised Land. David established his throne in Jerusalem. Solomon, the prince of peace, built the temple. Elias figured the Ascension. To St. John was given the emblem of baptism. This was merely a baptism of penance, and was not for the remission of sins; it was of water only, and not of the Holy Ghost and fire like Our Lord's. It stirred men to a sense of their sins and of their need for a Redeemer, and revived their expectation and desire of the Messias. You in like manner have to prepare for the coming of Jesus in His Holy Sacrament and in death. Do not venture rashly and unprepared into His presence, but cultivate retirement and prayer, penance and desire, in imitation either of St. John or his hearers. 

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Characteristics of Christ's Life

FINE ART ➸ HAYWARD, WISCONSIN

"His name shall be called wonderful" (Isa. ix. 6). The life of Our Lord is most admirable in itself. Amongst all the marvels of the universe and of the human mind and character, there is nothing so rich in matter for admiration as Jesus Our Lord. His life is a source of unfailing interest to men in every age. Unbelievers acknowledge it to be more noble and beautiful than any life imagined or lived. It is a store-house of spiritual and temporal wisdom, it affords us the safest guidance for our lives; and if its lessons were practised, most of the evils of humanity would be cured. Our Lord's being is wonderful as consisting of two natures infinitely distant, united in one person. In every particular we can trace this double influence. Our Lord was created, temporal, born of an earthly mother, yet, as God, He was eternal and without a mother. He was made "a worm and no man" (Ps. xxi. 17), and yet He is recognized by all as "beautiful above the sons of men" (Ps. xliv. 3). He was crushed beneath the burden of our sins, and He destroyed the power of sin. He was condemned by representatives of all mankind, and He is the supreme Judge of the living and the dead. None has been so lowly, and none is so great. He commands our awe and adoration, yet He is the perfection of tenderness and the object of the most ardent love. Consider Our Lord as an object of wonder. What treasures He contains, by many men unknown or despised! Let Him be the chief object of your thoughts, desires and love. 

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The Occupations of Christ

FINE ART ➸ HAYWARD, WISCONSIN

Our Lord lived about thirty-three years on earth. During thirty years of this short time He remained in retirement with His Blessed Mother and His foster-father, St. Joseph, in a quiet village, working at a handicraft. During three brief years He preached and wrought miracles in the limited country of Palestine; He laid the foundations of His Church, He trained His Apostles and prepared them for their future work. Within three days He accomplished the great series of mysteries for which He had principally come to this world, His last Supper, His Prayer, His Passion, Death, and Resurrection. After that He remained in a semi-glorified state long enough to give evidence of His Resurrection, and then departed from this earth. But these were full years. "Being made perfect in a short space, He fulfilled a long time" (Wisd. iv. 13). Not a moment was useless or wasted. Our Lord came into full possession of His powers of mind and soul at the first instant of His existence, and never for a moment ceased from offering Himself to the Heavenly Father, praying efficaciously for our necessities, and forming internal acts of every kind of virtue. Those were years of the highest human activity elevated to a divine activity. They were the most precious and wonderful years in the whole history of the world. They did more for the progress of the world and the happiness of mankind than all the efforts, the thoughts, the inventions of the human race during its whole career. Compare your years "few and evil" with Our Lord's. Most of your time is spent in unconsciousness, much in idleness and unprofitableness, much in doing harm to men and offending God. Endeavour henceforth to "redeem the time because the days are evil" (Eph. v. 16.) 

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The Childhood of Christ

FINE ART AMERICA!

The first thing to be remarked is that Our Redeemer became the object of most violent persecution as soon as He commenced His work of blessing and elevating the human race. This was brought about by Satan, the prince of evil, through men, who have always been too susceptible to his influence. "The dragon stood before the woman, who was ready to be delivered, that when she should be delivered he might devour her Son" (Apoc. xii. 4). The powers of wickedness had always sought to destroy the tree of Jesse so as to prevent the accomplishment of Redemption. Pharaoh wished to exterminate the whole people of the Jews. Aman arranged for a simultaneous and complete massacre. Antiochus the same, in the time of the Maccabees. Athalia destroyed all but one of the direct line of David. Now Herod was inspired by hell to compass the death of the Christ in the general massacre of the innocents. God did not obstruct the freedom of human action; He did not meet it with the methods of the world, with armed resistance, nor did He work a miracle. The Infant was carried into exile, as if too weak to meet the storm, and the efforts of Satan were effectually frustrated. So always; the Church of Jesus is waylaid by the dragon; its destruction seems imminent; it has no material strength for resistance; but God is with it, and it can never fall. Let nothing induce you to lose confidence in the arm of the Almighty and the success of His Church. 

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The Epiphany

FINE ART AMERICA!

The Epiphany was the first formal manifestation of Our Lord on His entrance into the world, and is a type of all His other manifestations. The coming of Christ was lowly, secret and sudden; it was not in the form that men expected or desired; it was both a surprise and a disappointment. There was much that might be alleged against its genuineness, and abundant excuses for those who wished to disbelieve, or doubt, or procrastinate and wait upon events. At the same time, there was clear evidence of divine action, sufficient for all, and convincing to men of good-will. This evidence differed in each case, and was adapted to the differences of men's circumstances. The simple shepherds had been called directly by God through the angels. Those learned in the study of the stars were brought by the evidence that their own science supplied. The Jews had the Sacred Books and prophecies, and the power of interpreting them; but they did not know the time of their visitation. Further evidence was given to them by the coming of the Magi, and their inquiries of Herod and the priests; this called attention both to the place and to the time of the coming of the Messias. The manifestation of Christ comes to you in some peculiar form adapted to your circumstances. It is a distant glimmering light at first, easily extinguished, often hard to detect. You need to be watchful, sincere, and prompt, if you wish to arrive at its fulness. 

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The Circumcision

FINE ART AMERICA!

Circumcision was the outward sign of the ancient covenant between God and Abraham. It was a shedding of blood in punishment of sin, and an acknowledgment of the sinfulness of the race. The observers of it entered into the service of God by submitting to bear the burden of sin, and this by being washed in their own blood; and in consequence they became entitled to a share in the divine promises. God covenanted in return to give them a Messias who should shed His blood for the actual remission of their sins. By circumcision the Jews were spiritually incorporated into the chosen race, they became participants in special graces, and received a first charge on the universal covenant which was to succeed theirs. By this they received either the title to the future remission of original sin, or its actual remission in prevision of the merits of Christ. The Jewish covenant was temporary, it was the assurance of a promise yet to be fulfilled, and ceased when the prefigured Messias appeared. The promise was accomplished in Jesus Christ, and a new, abiding covenant has been made. The last of David's sons has been seated on an eternal throne, and reigns as King over the whole earth. We enter His kingdom and obtain the promise by being washed in His blood instead of our own. Thenceforth "they who are of the faith shall be blessed with faithful Abraham" (Gal. iii. 9). Thank God that He has allowed you to see this happy time, and take care to be faithful to your duties under the new covenant. 

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The Nativity

FINE ART AMERICA!

After four thousand years of expectation, the moment arrived for the Messias to come from heaven and appear on earth to men. The words of the prophet were fulfilled: "The wilderness shall rejoice and shall flourish like the lily. It shall bud forth and blossom, and shall rejoice with joy and praise. . . . They shall see the glory of the Lord and the beauty of our God" (Isa. xxxv. 1, 2). The birth of Christ, like His conception, was miraculous; painless and pure like the budding of the lily or the first rays of the rising sun, as became the sanctity of God the Son and the virginal holiness of His Blessed Mother. The great event which all mankind looked for, and which kings and prophets had celebrated, occurred in profound peace, in the silence and obscurity of midnight. Without observation, the King of glory entered the world that He had made, with no witnesses but the ox and the ass, in the cave-stable of Bethlehem. The work of the sixth day of creation was finished by the birth of the chief member of the human race, the first-born of mankind. The great cycle of the universe was virtually completed. Slowly it had progressed from primeval energy to solid matter, from the inorganic to the organic, from the sentient being to the rational. Man had been the crown of creation, and now Christ became the crown of humanity. Everything converged upon Him; and in Him the universe, in the course of its evolution, came back to God whence it had originally proceeded. Adore God in this wonderful mystery, which holds so important a position in both the cosmical and the super natural order. 

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The Offices of Christ - Part 2

FINE ART AMERICA!

Jesus is our Light. "The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: to them that dwelt in the region of the shadow of death light is risen" (Isa. ix. 2). In consequence of the fall, our perception of truth has been obscured; error, ignorance, spiritual and mental darkness have prevailed. Redemption is an enlightenment, and Our Lord is the Light of the world. Without Him, in present as well as in past time, we are plunged in thickest darkness, we have no supernatural knowledge of God, and the natural knowledge of Him becomes erroneous. Many think now that passions, misery and death belong to man's nature and are ordained by God; that happiness consists in possessions and sensual gratifications; that violence, falsehood, injustice and lust are man's proper occupations and the irresistible needs of his being. No restraint is recognized but what is enforced by the state and its police, by convenience, public opinion, "enlightened selfishness." Jesus, in His Church, by revealing Himself, the future life and the nature of sin, changes our views, and gives us new principles of action that will ensure our well-being in this world and in the next. "He that followeth Me walketh not in darkness, but shall have the light of life" (John viii. 12). How happy you are, first in possessing a light otherwise unattainable, and then in having the firm assurance that you possess it! It is one of your greatest privileges. Be not unfaithful lest you lose it. 

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