MEDITATIONS FOR LENT
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ORD • PRAED
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DOCTRINAE • ANGELICI • EVULGANDAE
DEDITISSIMUS
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OPUSCULUM • DEDICAT • QUAM • PIE
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AMICI
MEDITATIONS FOR LENT
FROM
ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
Translated by
FATHER PHILIP HUGHES
London
SHEED AND WARD
J937
Nil HI, OBSTAT :
ERNESTUS MESSENGER, PH.D.
CENSOR DEPUTATUS
IMPRIMATUR :
*%4 JOSEPH BUTT, VIC. GEN.
\VESTMON-VSTERH, DIE VIII A EEBRUARII MCMXXXVII
PRINTED IN GRJ..VP BRITAIN BY THE BURLEIGH PRESS, BRISTOL
FOR SHEED AND WARD, 3! PATERNOSTER ROW, E.G. 4
The selection of passages here translated
was made by the late Fr. Mezard, O.P.,
and forms a small part of his Medulla S.
Thomae Aquinatis . . . sen Meditatioms ex
Operibus S. Thomae Depromptae, published
by Lethielleux in 1906 (2 vols.).
MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
FROM
ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
Septuagesima Sunday
THE WORK OF THE VINEYARD
Going out about the third hour, he saw others standing
in the market-place idle. And he said to them : Go
you also into my vineyard^ and I will give you what shall
be just. — Matt. xx. 3.
In these words we may notice four things :
i. The goodness of the Lord, going out, that
is, for his people's salvation. For that Christ
should go out to lead men into the vineyard of
justice was indeed an act of infinite goodness.
Our Lord is five times said to have gone out.
He went out in the beginning of the world, as a
sower, to sow his creatures, The sower ivent out to
sow his seed. Then in his nativity to enlighten the
world, Until her just one come forth as brightness (Isa.
Ixii. i). In his Passion to save his own from the
power of the devil and from all evil, My just one is
near at hand, my saviour is gone forth (Isa. li. 5). He
goes out like the father of a family, caring for his
children and his goods. The kingdom of heaven is like
to an householder \ who went out early in the morning
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MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
to hire labourers into his vineyard (Matt. xx. i.).
Finally he goes out to judgment, to make most
strict enquiry after the wicked, like some overseer,
to beat down rebels, like some mighty fighter, and,
like a judge, to punish as they merit, criminals
and malefactors.
2. The foolishness of men. For nothing is
more foolish than that in this present life, where men
ought so to work that they may live eternally, men
should live in idleness. He found them in the market
place idle. That market-place is this our present
life. For it is in the market-place1 that men
quarrel and buy and sell and so the market-place
s rands for our life of every day, full of affairs, of
buying and selling and in which also the prospects
of grace and heavenly glory are sold in exchange
for good works.
These labourers were called idle because they
had aheady let slip a part of their life. And not
evil-doers alone are called idle but also those who
do not do good. And as the idle never attain
their end, so will it be with these. The end of man
is life eternal. He therefore who works in the
proper way will possess that life if he is not an
idler.
It is great folly to live in idleness in this life;
because from idleness, as from an evil teacher, we
learn evil knowledge; because through idleness
we come to lose the good that lasts for ever;
because through the short idleness of this life we
incur a labour that is eternal.
1 forum in the Latin text.
MONDAY AFTER SEPTUAGESIMA
3 . The necessity of working in the vineyard of
the Lord. Go you also into my vineyard.
The vineyard into which the men are sent to
work is the life of goodness, in which there are
as many trees as there are virtues. We are to
work in this vineyard in five ways : Planting in it
good works and virtues ; rooting up and destroying
the thorns, that is, our vices ; cutting down the
superfluous branches, Every branch in me, that
beareth fruit, he will purge it, that it may bring jorth
more fruit (John xv. 2) ; keeping off the little foxes,
that is, the devils ; and guarding it from the thieves,
that is, keeping ourselves indifferent to the praise
and the blame of mankind.
4. The usefulness of labour. The wage of
those who labour in the vineyard is a penny that
outvalues thousands of silver crowns. And this
is what we are told in Holy Scripture, The peaceable
had a vineyard, every man bringeth for the fruit thereof a
thousand pieces of silver (Cant. viii. 1 1). The thousand
crowns are the thousand joys of eternity, and these
are signified by the penny.
(Sermon for Septuagesima Sunday.)
Monday after Septuagesima
ON DOING GOOD
In doing good let us not fail. For in due time we shall
reap, not failing. — Gal. xi. 9.
In these words .St. Paul does three things :
i. He warns us that we must do good. For
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MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
to do good is a duty seeing that all things, by
their nature, teach us to do good.
(i) They so teach us because they are them
selves good. And God san> all the things that he had
made, and they were very good (Gen. i. 31). Sinners
have ample cause to make them blush in the
multitude of created things all of them good,
while sinners themselves are evil.
(ii) Because all things, by their nature, do
good. For every creature gives itself, and this
is a sign of their own goodness and of the goodness
of their Creator. Denis says " God is goodness,
something which must diffuse itself." St. Augus
tine says, " It is a great sign of the divine good
ness, that every creature is compelled to give
itself."
(iii) Because all things by their nature desire
what is good and tend to the good. The good is,
in fact, that for which everything longs.
2. St. Paul warns us, that in doing good we
fail not. There are three things which most of
all cause a man to persevere in doing good :
(i) Assiduous and wholehearted prayer for
help from God lest we yield when we are tempted,
Watch ye, and pray that ye enter not into temptation
(Matt, xx vi. 41).
(ii) Unceasing fearfulness. As soon as a man
feels confident he is safe, he begins to fail in doing
good, Unless thou hold thyself diligently in the fear of
the Lord, thy house shall quickly be overthrown (Ecclus.
xxvii. 4). Fear of the Lord is the guardian of
Life ; without it speedily indeed and suddenly
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MONDAY AFTER SEPTUAGESIMA
is the house thrown down, that is to say, a dwelling
place that is of this world.
(iii) Avoidance of venial sins, for venial sins
are tne occasion of mortal sin and often under
mine the achievement of good works. St. Augus
tine says, " Thou hast avoided dangers that are
great, beware lest thou fall victim to the sand."
3. St. Paul offers a reward that is fitting, is
generous and is everlasting. For in due time we
shall reap not failing.
Fitting : in due time, that is, at a fitting time, at the
day of judgment when each shall receive what he
has accomplished. So the farmer receives the
fruit of his sowing, not immediately but in due
time, The husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit
of the earth ; patiently bearing till he receive the early
and the latter rain (James v. 7).
Generous: We shall reap ; here it is the copious
ness of the reward that is indicated. With the
harvest and reaping we associate abundance, He
who soweth in blessings, shall also reap blessings (2 Cor.
ix. 6). Your reward is very great in heaven (Matt,
v. 12) (Sermon for the i5th Sunday after Pente
cost).
Everlasting : We shall reap, not failing. We
ought then to do good not for an hour merely, but
always and continually. In doing good let us not
fail, that is to say, let us not fail in working, for
we shall not fail in reaping. Whatsoever thy hand
is able to do, do it earnestly (Eccles. ix. 10). And
right it is not to fail in working, for the reward to
which we are looking is everlasting and unfailing.
ii
MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
Whence St. Augustine says : " If man will set no
limit to his labour, God will set no limit to the
reward."
(In Galatians vi. 9.)
Tuesday after Septuagesima
THE PRAYER OF OUR LORD IN THE GARDEN
i . And going a little further ^ Pie fell upon his face,,
praying^ and saying : My Father. (Matt. xxvi. 39.)
Our Lord here recommends to us three conditions
to be observed when we pray.
(i) Solitude : because going a little further he
separated himself even from those whom he had
chosen. When thou sh alt pray enter into thy chamber^
and having shut the door pray to thy Father in secret
(Matt. vi. 6). But notice he went not far away
but a little ', that He might show that he is not far
from those who call upon Him, and also that they
might sec him praying and learn to pray in like
fashion.
(ii) Humility : He fell upon his face , giving there
by an example of humility. This because humility
is necessary for prayer and because Peter had
said : Yea, though I should die with thee, I mil not
deny thee (Matt. xxvi. 35). Therefore did Our
Lord fall, to show us we should not trust in our
own strength.
(iii) Devotion, when He said My Father. It
is essential that when we pray we pray from
devotion. He says My Father because He is uniquely
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TUESDAY AFTER SEPTUAGESIMA
God's Son; we are God's children by adoption
only. (In Matt, xxvi.)
2. If it be possible let this chalice pass from me.
Nevertheless not as I will but as Thou wilt (Matt.
xxvi. 39).
Here we consider the tenor of prayer. Christ
was praying according to the prompting of his
sense nature, in so far, that is, as his prayer, as
advocate for his senses, was expressing the
inclinations of his senses, proposing to God, by
prayer, what the desire of his senses suggested.
And He did this that He might teach us three
things :
(i) That he had taken a true human nature with
all its natural inclinations.
(ii) That it is lawful for man to will, according
to his natural inclination, a thing which God does
not will.
(iii) That man ought to subject his own inclina
tion to the divine will. Whence St. Augustine
says : Christ, living as a man, showed a certain
private human willingness when he said, Let this
chalice pass from me. This was human willingness,
a man's own will and, so to say, his private desire.
But Christ, since He wills to be a man of right
heart, a man directed to God, adds, Nevertheless
not as I will but as thou wilt (3-12-11). *
And in this he teaches by example how we should
arrange our inclinations so that they do not come
into conflict with the divine rule. Whence we
1 i.e., Summa Theologiae, Part 3, Question 12, Article n, and similarly
for similar references.
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MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
learn that there is nothing wrong in our shrinking
from what is naturally grievous, so long as we bring
our emotion into line with the divine will.
Christ had twro wills, one from his Father in so
far as he was God and the other in so far as he was
man. This human will he submitted in all things
to his Father, giving us in this an example to do
likewise, " I came down from heaven, not to do my will,
fort the mil of him that sent me " (John vi. 38).
(In Matt, xxvi.)
Wednesday after Septuagesima
GOOD WORKS
If any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver,
precious stoves, wood, hay, stubble, every man 's work
shall be manifest. — i Cor. iii. 12, 13.
i. The works that man relies on in matters
spiritual and divine are compared to gold, silver
and precious stones, things substantial, brilliant
and precious, yet they are compared in such a way
that gold symbolises those things by which
man tends to God Himself by contemplation and
love. " I counsel thee to buy of me gold fire-tried "
(Apoc. iii. 1 8), that is, wisdom with charity. By
silver are meant those acts by which man clings
to the spiritual realities he must believe, love and
contemplate. Whence in the Glossa silver is
interpreted as referring to love of one's neigh
bour. By precious stones is to be understood
the work of the different virtues with which man's
soul is decked.
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WEDNESDAY AFTER SEPTUAGESIMA
Those human activities, on the other hand, by
means of which man acquires material goods,
are compared to stubble, or chafT, worthless rubbish,
glittering and easily burnt. There are however
grades in this rubbish, some things being more
stable than others, some things more easily con
sumed than the rest. Men themselves, for example,
are more worthy than other carnal things, and,
by succession, humanity escapes destruction. Men
are hence compared to wood. Man's flesh how
ever is easily corrupted, by sickness and by death,
whence it is compared to hay. All things which
make for the glory of such a being speedily come to
naught, whence they are compared to chaff or
stubble.
To build with gold, silver and precious stones
is therefore to build, upon the foundation of faith,
something related to the contemplation of the
wisdom of divine things, to trie love of God, to
a following of the saints, to the service of one's
neighbour and to the exercise of virtues. To
build with wood, hay and chaff is to build according
to plans that are no more than human, for the
convenience of the body, and for outward show.
2. That men occupy themselves with purely
human things may come about in three ways :
(i) They may place the whole ultimate purpose
of their life in the satisfaction of bodily needs.
Now to do this is a mortal sin, and therefore in
this way a man does not so much build as destroy
the foundation, and lay another of a different kind.
For the end or ultimate purpose is the foundation
in all that relates to desires.
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MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
(ii) They may in using purely corporal things
have nothing else in view but the glory of God.
In this case they are not building with wood, hay
and chaff, but with gold, silver and precious stones.
(iii) Although they do not place in purely
corporal things the ultimate purpose of life, nor
because of them will to act against God, they are
more influenced by these things than they ought
to be. The result is that they are thereby held
back somewhat from a care for the things that
are God's, and thus they sin venially. And it is
this which is really meant by the phrase about
building with wood, hay, and chaff, because
activities that relate merely to the care of earthly
goods have about them something of a venial
fault, since they provoke a love of earthly things
that is greater than it should be. It is in fact
this love which, according to the degree of its
tenacity, is compared to wood, to hay and to
chaff.
(In i Cor. iii.)
Thursday after Septuagesima
THE REWARD
Every man shall receive his own reward, according to
his own labour. — i Cor. iii. 8.
i. This re\\ard is at once common to all men
and particular to each.
(i) It is common to all because that which
all shall see and all enjoy is the same, that is to say
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THURSDAY AFTER SEPTUAGESI M A
God, Then shalt thou abound in delights in the
almighty (job xxii. 26). In that day the Lord of hosts
shall be a crown of glory, and a garland of joy to the
residue of his people (Is a. xxviii. 5). And therefore
St. Matthew says (xx. 9) that to every labourer in
the vineyard there is given one penny.
(ii) The reward is yet special for each individual.
One man shall see more clearly than another, and
shall enjoy more fully, according to the measure
allotted him. Hence the words in St. John
(xiv. 2), In my father's house there are many mansions^
for which reason too, it was said, "Everyone shall
receive his oivn reward.
St. Paul shows how the extent of each one's re
ward will be measured when he says, according to
his own labour. Not that by this is meant an
equality as between the amount of labour and the
amount of the reward, for as it is said in 2 Cor.
iv. 17, That which is at present Momentary and light
of our tribulation, workcth for us above measure ex
ceedingly an eternal weight of glory. The equality
promised is the equality of proportion, an equality
such that where there has been greater labour
there will be greater reward.
2. The labour can be considered as greater
in three ways :
(i) According to the degree of love that in
spires it. It is to this indeed that the essence
of the reward — the vision and enjoyment of God-
makes a return. St. John (xiv. 21) says, He that
loveth me, shall be loved of my Father : and I will love
him, and will manifest myself to him. Whence it
17 B
MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
follows that he who labours with greater love,
even though the labour entailed is less, will receive
more of the essential reward.
(ii) According to the kind of work it is. As
in human enterprises the greater rewards go to those
whose labour is itself of a more noble character
(for example, the architect, though he labours less
with his body, receives more than the manual
worker), so it is in spiritual matters. He who is
engaged in a work itself more noble, even though
it be that he has laboured less with his body, will
receive a greater reward — at any rate as far as
some accidental privilege of glory. Thus there
is a special splendour reserved for those who
teach, for the virgins and for the martyrs.
(iii) According to the amount of work done,
and this can be understood in two ways. Some
times it is the actual larger amount of work which
merits the larger reward. This is especially true
in what concerns remission of punishment ; the
longer one fasts, for example, or the more distant
the place of one's pilgrimage, the greater the
remission merited. So too, there is a greater
joy from the greater amount of work done.
Sometimes however, the labour is greater from
lack of will to do the work, for the things we do
willingly are less laborious in the doing. And in
such cases the amount of the labour does not in
crease the reward. Rather does it reduce the
reward. As Isaias says (xl. 31), They shall take
wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they
shall walk and not faint, and in the preceding verse
18
FRIDAY AFTER SEPTUAGESIMA
warning us, Youths shall faint '-, and labour, and young
men shall fall by infirmity.
(In i Cor. iii.)
Friday after Septuagesima
THE NEED FOR CAUTION
Wherefore he that thinketh himself to stand, let him
take heed lest he fall. — i Cor. x. 12.
i. The case of the Jews who, in punishment,
were overthrown in the desert (ibid. v. 5 ) is a warning
for us. These words of the Scripture contain
four things which should attract the wise man's
attention, namely the multitude ot those who fell,
for it says Wherefore ; then the uncertainty of those
who still stand, for it adds he that thinketh himself to
stand \ thirdly, the need for caution, for it adds
let him take heed \ and finally the ease with which
disaster comes, for it says lest he fall.
St. Paul says wherefore as if to say these men,
for all that they have had the advantage of God's
gifts, nevertheless, because of their sins, perished,
wherefore, bearing this in mind, he that thinketh
himself, by whatever kind of subtle reasoning, to
stand, that is, to be in a state of grace and charity,
let him take heed, diligently attending to it, lest he
fall, whether by sinning himself or by inducing
others to sin. How art thou fallen from heaven, O
Lucifer says Isaias (xiv. 12), and the Psalmist, A
thousand shall fall at thy side (Ps. xc. 7), and St. Paul
himself, in another place, says therefore, See how
you walk, circumspectly (Eph. v. 15).
MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
2. We must note that the things which drive
us to a fall are numerous.
(i) Weakness, lack of strength ; as children,
the aged and the sick fall in the natural life. As
Isaias says, They shall fall through infirmity (Isa. xl. 30).
This happens to us through lukewarmness in well
doing and through too frequent changing.
(ii) We fall under the weight of our sins, as
asses fall under a load that is too heavy. The
workers of iniquity have fallen (Ps. xxxv. 13). And
this happens through our neglect to repent.
(iii) Through a multitude of things drawing us,
as a tree or a house falls over on the crowd that
tugs at it. We fall in this way by the onrush of
enemies.
(iv) The slipperiness of the road, and so we
fall as travellers fall into the mud. Take heed lest
thou slip with thy tongue and fall (Ecclus. xxviii. 30).
We fall thus through carelessness in guarding our
senses.
(v) A variety of traps and we fall like the bird
taken in the nets. A just man shall fall seven times
(Prov. xxiv. 1 6). And this happens through the
corruption of created things.
(vi) Ignorance of what one ought to do, and
we fall easily as do the blind. If the blind lead the
blind, both fall into the pit (Matt. xv. 14). This
comes about through our not learning things
necessary to us.
(vii) The example of others who fall, as the
angels fell by the example of Lucifer. A just
man falling down before the wicked, is as a fountain
troubled by the foot, a spring that has suffered defilement
20
SATURDAY AFTER SEPTUAGESIMA
(Prov. xxv. 26). And this happens when we imitate
the wicked.
(viii) The heaviness of the flesh : for the body
when corrupted weighs down the soul, as does a
stone that hangs at the neck of a swimmer. A
mountain in falling cometh to naught (Job xiv. 18).
And this is what comes of pampering the body.
(In i Cor. x.)
Saturday after Septuagesima
ON REFORMING OURSELVES
Be not conformed to this world, but be reformed in the
newness of your mind, that you may prove what is the
good, and the acceptable, and the perfect will of God. —
Romans xii. 2.
1. What is forbidden is the forming of one
self after the pattern of the world. Be not conformed
to this world, that is, to the things which pass away
with time. For this present world is a kind of
measure of those tilings which pass away with
time. A man forms himself after the pattern of
things transitory when, willingly and lovingly, he
gives himself to serve them. Those also form
themselves after that pattern who imitate the
lives of the worldly, This then I say and testify in
the Lord : That henceforward you walk not as also
the Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind (Eph.
iv. 17).
2. We are bidden to undertake a reformation
of the interior man when it is said, But be reformed
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MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
in the newness of your mind. By mind is here meant
the reason, considered as the faculty by which man
makes judgments about what he ought to do. In
man, as God first created him, this faculty existed
in all the completeness and vigour it could need.
Holy Scripture tells us of our first parents that
God filled their hearts n'ith wisdom^ and shewed them
both good and evil (Ecclus. xvii. 6). But through sin
this faculty declined in power and, as it were,
grew old, losing its beauty and its brilliance.
The Apostle warns us to form ourselves again,
that is, to recover that completeness and distinction
of mind that once \vas ours. This can indeed be
regained by the grace of the Holy Ghost, and we
should therefore use every endeavour to share
in that grace — those who lack that grace that they
may obtain it, and those who already have gained it
faithfully to progress and persevere. Be renewed
in the spirit of your mind, says St. Paul (Eph. iv. 23).
Or again, in another sense, be renewed in your
external actions, that is to say, in the newness oj your
mindy i.e., according to the new thing, grace,
which you have internally received.
3. The reason for this warning is that you may
prove what is the will of God. We know what befalls
a man whose sense of taste suffers in an illness,
how he ceases to have a true judgment of flavours
and begins to loathe pleasantly-tasting things and
to crave for what is loathsome. So it is with the
man whose inclinations are corrupted from his
conforming himself to the things of this world.
He has no longer a true judgment where what
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SATURDAY AFTER SEPTUAGESIMA
is good for him is concerned. It is only the man
whose inclinations are healthy and well directed,
whose mind is made new again by grace, who can
truly judge what is good and what is not. There
fore on this account is it written, Be not conformed
to this world, but be reformed in the newness of jour
mind that you may prove, that is, that you may know
by experience/ As again it says in the _ psalm,
'Taste and see that the Lord is siveet (Ps. xxxiii. 9).
What is the will of God: that is, to say the will by
which he wills us to be saved. This is the mil of
God jour sanctification (i Thess. iv. 3).
The will of God is good, because God wills that
we should will to do what is good, and He leads
us to this through His commandments. I will
shew thee, O man, what is good, and what the Lord
requireth of thee (Micheas vi. 8).
The will of God is agreeable in as much as to him
who is rightly ordered it is a pleasure to do what
God wills us to do.
Nor is the will of God merely useful as a means
to achieve our destiny, it is a link joining us with
our destiny and in that respect it is perfect.
Such then is the will of God as those experience
it who are not formed after the pattern of this
world, but are formed over again in the^ newness
of their minds. As to those who remain in the
old staleness, fashioned after the world, they
judge the will of God not to be a good but a burden
and useless.
(In Rom. xii.)
M E D ITATIONS AND READINGS FOR L E N T
Sexagesima Sunday
THE SEED
The Sower went out to sow bis seed. — Luke viii. 4.
1. The keenness of the sower. It is Christ
who goes forth, and in three ways. He goes
from the bosom of the Father, and yet without a
change of place; from Jewry to the Gentiles ; from
the private depths of wisdom to the public life of
teaching. It is Christ who sows. Now the seed
is the source ot fruit. Whence every good action
is clue to God. What is it that He sows ? His
own seed, says the gospel. That seed is the Word of
God. And what docs it produce ? It produces
others, like unto Him from whom itself proceeds,
for it makes them sons of God.
2. The obstacle in the way of the seed. The
obstacle is threefold, because for the growth of
the seed three conditions are necessary, namely
it must be remembered, it must take roct in love,
it must have loving care. The growth is therefore
hindered if in place of the first condition there is
flightiness of mind, instead of the second there is
hardness of heait, and if, in place of the loving
care, there is a development of vices.
(i) Some fell by the wayside. As the way is free
for all who care to walk, so does the heart lie open to
every chance thought. So it is that when the word
of God falls upon a heart that is careless and vain,
it falls by the wayside and is doubly imperilled.
St. Matthew speaks of one danger only, that the
2-4
SEXAGESIMA SUNDAY
birds of the air came and ate it tip. St. Luke speaks of
two, for the seed is trampled into the ground as
well as carried off by the birds. So when the
careless receive the word of God it is crushed
by their worthless thoughts or their evil company.
Whence great joy for the devil if only he can
steal away this seed and trample upon it.
(ii) Hardness of heart. This is contrary to
charity, for it is in the nature of love to melt things.
Hardness means "locked up in itself" or "nar
rowed within its own limits," and love, since it
causes the lover to be moved to what he loves,
is a thing that liberates, widens, pours itself out.
St. Matthew says therefore, some fell upon stony
ground, and Ezechiel, I will take away the stony heart
out of your flesh, and I IP ill give you a heart of flesh
(Ezech. xxxvi. 26). For there are some men whose
hearts are so deprived of love of any kind that they
are scarcely flesh and blood at all.
There are others who have indeed a natural
affection but it is slight and has no deepness. To
have deepness is to have a power of loving deeply.
The man may be said to love deeply who loves all
things and whatever he loves for the love of God,
and who puts the love of God before all else. There
is another type of man that does indeed delight in
God, but delights more in things. Men of this
sort do not pour themselves out, nor have they
much deepness of earth.
The gospel continues, And they spring up im
mediately ^ for they who think deeply, think long,
but they whose thought is shallow plunge into
action at once, and inevitably pass away quickly.
MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
So these men hear quickly, but take no root in
what they hear, for they have no deepness of earth,
that is in the earth of loving charity.
(iii) Destruction of the fruit. The fruit is
lost because when there ariseth tribulation each man
snatches for what he most loves, and the man
who loves wealth looks only to his riches. And
when the sun was up they were scorched, that is,
because they lacked strength. And because they had
not root, they withered away, for God was not their
root. Others fell among thorns, anxieties, quarrels and
such like things. And the thorns grew up and choked
them.
(In Matt, xiii.)
Monday after Sexagesima
THE GOODNESS OF GOD
He that spared not even his own Son, but delivered him
up for us all, how hath he not also, with him, given
us all things? — Romans viii. 32.
i. Since the Apostle makes mention of many
sons when he says (ibid. v. 15), You have received
the spirit of adoption of sons, he now separates this
Son from all these by saying his own Son, that is to
say, not an adoptive son, but a son of his own
nature, co-eternal with him, that son of whom the
Father says, in St. Matthew (iii. 17), This is my
beloved Son.
The words he spared not mean only that God did
not exempt Him from the penalty, for there was
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MONDAY AFTER SEXAGESIMA
not in Him any fault to be matter for sparing.
God the Father did not withhold from his Son an
exemption from the penalty as a way of adding
anything to himself. God is perfect. But he so
acted, subjecting his Son to the Passion, because this
was useful for us.
This is why St. Paul adds, but delivered him up for
us ally meaning that God exposed Christ to the
Passion for the expiation of all our sins. He was
delivered for our sins, says Isaias, and the Lord laid
on him the iniquity of us all (liii. 5,6). God the Father
delivered him over to death, decreeing him to
take flesh and to suffer, inspiring his human will
with a burning love by which, eagerly, he would
undergo his Passion. He delivered himself for us,
St. Paul says of Our Lord (Eph. v. 2). Judas, too,
and the Jews delivered him, but by an activity
external to His.
There is something else to notice in the words,
He that spared not his own Son. It is as though it said :
Not only has God given other saints over to suffer
ing for the benefit of mankind, but even his own,
proper Son.
2. God's own Son, then, being made over for
us, all things have been given us, for St. Paul
adds, How hath he not also with him, that is, in giving
Him to us, given us all things. In other words, all
things thereby are turned to our profit. We are
given the highest things of all, namely the Divine
Persons, for our ultimate joy. We are given
reasoning minds in order to live together with them
now. We are given the lower things of creation
M E DITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
for our use, not only the things which appeal to
us but the things which are hostile. All things
are yours, says St. Paul to us, and you are Christ's
and Christ is Cod's (i Cor. iii. 22, 23). Whence we
may see how evidently true are the words of the
Psalm (Ps. xxxiii. 10), There is no want to them that
fear him.
(In Rom. viii.)
Tuesday after Sexagesima
THE REMEMBRANCE OF OUR LORD'S PASSION
Think diligently upon him that endured such opposition
from sinners against himself ; that you be not wearied,
fainting in your minds. — Hebrews xii. 3.
i. We are advised to think diligently^ that is, to
think upon Him over and over again. In all thy
ways, says Holy Scripture, think upon him (Prov.
iii. 6). The reason for which is that no matter
what anxiety may befall us, we have a remedv in
the cross.
For there we find obedience to God. He humbled
himself ^ becoming obedient, says St. Paul (Phil. ii. 8).
Likewise, we find a loving forethought for those
akin to him, shown in the care he had, when upon
the very cross, for his mother. We find, too,
charity for his fellows, for on the cross he prayed
for sinners, Father, forgive them, for they know not
what they do (Luke xxiii. 34). He showed, also,
patience in suffering, I was dumb and was humbled,
and kept silence from good things : and my sorrow
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TUESDAY AFTER SEXAGESIMA
was renewed (Ps. xxxviii. 3). Finally he showed, in
all things, a perseverance to the end, for he perse
vered until death itself. Father, into thy bands I
commend my spirit (Luke xxiii. 46).
So on the cross we find an example of all the
virtues. As St. Augustine says, the cross was not
only the gallows where Our Lord suffered in
patience, it was a pulpit from which he taught
mankind.
2. But what is it that we are to think, over
and over again ? Three things :
(i) The kind of Passion it was. He endured
opposition,1 that is, suffering from spoken words.
For instance they said, Vah, thoit that destroyest the
temple of God (Matt, xxvii. 40). It is said in the
Psalms (Ps. xvii. 44), Thou wilt deliver me from the
contradictions of the people, and it was foretold that
Our Lord should be, A. sign which shall be contra
dicted (Luke ii. 34). St. Paul, in the text, says
such opposition, meaning so grievous and so humiliat
ing an opposition. 0 all ye that pass by the way,
attend, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my
sorrow (Lamentations i. 12).
(ii) From whom He suffered the Passion.
It was from sinners, from those for whom He was
suffering. Christ died once for our sins, the just for
the unjust (i Pet. iii. 18).
(iii) Who it was that suffered. Before the
Passion, from the beginning of the world he had
suffered in his members, but in the Passion He
1 The word in the Latin text which St. Thomas has before him is
contradictio .
MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
suffered in his own person. Whence the words
against himself. Who his own se/f, says St. Peter
(i Pet. ii. 24), bore our sins in his body upon the tree.
3. To think diligently upon Our Lord's Passion
is a very profitable employment, which is why St.
Paul adds that you be not wearied^ fainting in jour minds.
The Passion of Christ keeps us from fainting.
St. Gregory says, " If we recall the Passion of Christ,
nothing seems so hard that it cannot be borne with
equanimity." You will not then fail, worn out in
spirit, in loyalty to the true faith, nor in the prosecu
tion of good works.
St. Paul again gives a reason for our courageous
perseverance when he says, in the following verse,
You have not yet resisted unto blood (Heb. xii. 4).
As though he said, " You must not faint at these
anxieties your own troubles cause you. You have
not yet borne as much as Christ. For He indeed
shed his blood for us."
(In Heb. xii.)
Wednesday after Sexagesima
THE NEED TO BE WATCHFUL
Watch ye therefore because you know not what hour your
Lord will come. — Matt. xxiv. 42.
i. Our Lord warns us to be watchful, placing
before us our uncertainty as to when we shall die.
He says to us, " The day is not certain. Of two
that are working one shall be taken and the other
left and no man can be certain which of the two
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WEDNESDAY AFTER SEXAGESIMA
shall be his lot. Therefore you should be careful
and watchful. Watch ye therefore"
Then, too, as St. Jerome says, Our Lord left
the moment of life's ending uncertain to help us
ever to be watchful. For there are three ways
in which man may sin ; his senses are idle, or he
ceases to move, or he sleeps. Hence, Watch ye,
that your senses may be lifted up in contemplation.
I sleep, says Holy Scripture, but my heart watcheth
(Cant. v. 2). Likewise, Watch ye, lest you sleep
in death. Whoever occupies himself with good
works may be said to watch. Be sober and watch :
because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth
about seeking whom he may devour (i Pet. v. 8). Again
watch, lest you carelessly fall asleep. How long
wilt thou sleep 0 sluggard (Prov. vi. 9).
2. Because you know not what hour jour Lord will
come. St. Augustine says this is written for the
Ape sties, for those who lived before us, and for
ourselves and it is necessary for all of us because
Our Lord comes to all and comes in two ways.
He comes at the end of the world to all men gener
ally, and he comes to each man at his own end,
that is, at his death. There is thus a double coming
and in each case God has willed that its hour
should be uncertain. Moreover these two comings
answer each to the other, for the second will find
us as we were found at the first. As St. Augustine
says, e The World's last day finds unprepared
all those whom their own last day found in like
condition."
Our Lord's words, Watch ye therefore and the
MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
rest may also be understood with reference to the
unseen coming of the Lord into our souls. If he
come to me, it is written in Sacred Scripture, I shall
not see him (lob ix. n). And so it is that He
comes to many and they do not see Him. There
fore should we watch with much carefulness, so
that when He knocks we may open to Him. Behold
I stand at the gate and knock. If any man shall hear
my voice and open to me the door, I will come in to him,
and will sup with him and he with me (Apoc. iii. 20).
(In Matt, xxiv.)
Thursday after Sexagesima
OUR WATCH MUST BE CEASELESS
But this know ye, that if the goodman of the house
knew at what hour the thief would come, he would cer
tainly watch, and not suffer his house to be broken open. —
Mat. xxiv. 43.
Since we are uncertain which hour it will be,
we must watch the whole night long.
The house is the soul. Therein man should be
at rest. When I go into my house, that is, into my
conscience, I shall repose myself with her (Wisdom
viii. 1 6). The goodman of the house is as that
king, that sitteth on the throne of judgment, who
scattereth away all evil with his look (Prov. xx. 8).
Sometimes a thief breaks into the house. The
thief is any plausible false theory, or indeed any
temptation. It is said to be a thief in the sense
of the gospel, He that entereth not by the door into the
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THURSDAY AFTER SEXAGESIMA
sheep/old, but climbeth up another way, the same is a
thief and a robber (John x. i). The door is an
excellent name for natural knowledge or natural
rights. Whoever enters through his reason, enters
through the door. But whoever comes in through
desires, or through wrath or the like, is a thief.
Thieves work by night. We have no fear of
what comes to us in the day. So it is that tempta
tions never come to the man whose mind is given
to contemplation of divine things. Let him
however slacken in that service and presently
comes temptation. Hence the timely prayer of
Holy Scripture, When my strength shall jail ', do not
Thou forsake me (Ps. Ixx. 9).
We must then watch, since we know not when
the Lord shall come, shall come that is, to judg
ment. Or perhaps we may refer it to the day we
shall die. For yourselves know perfectly, that the
day of the Lord shall so come as a thief in the night,
for when they shall say peace and security, then shall
sudden destruction come upon them (i Thess. v. 23).
Wherefore, says Our Lord, be you also ready, because
at what hour you know not the Son of Man shall come
(Matt. xxiv. 44).
St. John Chrysostom notes that men attached
to their property will sit up all the night to watch
over it. If they can be so watchful for the things
that pass away, how much more should they not
be watchful over spiritual treasures.
We may notice also a parable of St. Augustine's.
There are three servants and they look forward
affectionately to the return of their master. The
first says, " My lord will come quickly, therefore
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MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
I shall watch for him." The second says, " My
lord will be late, but I will watch none the less."
The third says, " At what hour my lord will come
I know not, and for this reason I will take care to
watch." Which servant spoke best ? St. Augus
tine says the third. The first risks a sad deception,
for if he thinks the lord will soon arrive, and in
fact the lord is delayed, the servant runs the danger
of sleeping through weariness. The second, too,
may find he has made a mistake, but he runs no
danger. But it is the third who does well, for
being uncertain he is continually on the alert.
It is therefore a misfortune to fix in our minds
any special time.
(In Matt, xxiv.)
Friday after Sexagesima
THE WORSHIP DUE TO GOD
Thou shalt not have strange Gods before me. — Exod. xx. 3 .
We are forbidden to worship any but the one
God, and there are five things which show the
prohibition to be reasonable.
i. God's dignity. If this is disregarded we
insult God. To all dignity is due proper reverence.
And we call a man a traitor who refuses to do the
King due reverence. This is what some men do
with respect to God. They changed the glory of the
incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of a
34
FRIDAY AFTER SEXAGESIMA
corruptible man, and of birds , and of fourfooted beasts,
and of creeping things, says St. Paul (Romans i. 23).
And this is the most serious of all offences against
God.
2. God's bountiful ness. Every good thing
we possess comes from God. It is in fact part
of God's dignity that he is the maker and giver
of all good things. When thou opemst thy hand,
all things shall be filled with good (Ps. ciii. 28). You
are therefore ungrateful beyond measure if you
do not recognise that the good you have is his gift.
Nay, you make to yourself another god as truly
as the children of Israel, delivered from Egypt,
made themselves an idol. This is to be like the
harlot of whom the prophet writes, I will go after
my lovers that give me my bread and my water, my wool
and my flax, my oil and my drink (Osee ii. 5).
This sin is also committed by those who place
their hope in another than God, that is, when they
seek help from another in preference to asking it
from God. Blessed is the man whose trust is in the
name of the Lord (Ps. xxxix. 5), and St. Paul marvels
at the Galatians, But now, after that you have known
God, or are rather known by God, how turn you again
to the weak and needy elements, which you desire to serve
again ? (Gal. iv. 9).
3. Our promises. We have renounced the
devil and pledged our fidelity to God alone. This
pledge we must keep unbroken. A man making
void the law of Moses, dieth without any mercy, under
two or three witnesses. How much more do you think
he deserveth worse punishment, who hath trodden under-
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MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
foot the Son of God, and bath esteemed the blood of the
testament unclean, by which he was sanctified, and hath
offered an affront "to the Spirit of Grace ? (Heb. x.
28, 29).
The woman that hath an husband, whilst her husband
liveth she shall be called an adulteress, if she be with
another man (Rom. vii. 3), and such deserves to be
burned. Woe to the sinner, to whoever enters the
land by a double way, to those who limp one foot
on each side of the division.
4. The weight of the devil's yoke. You shall
serve strange gods day and night, says the Prophet,
which shall not give you any rest (Jer. xvi. 13). For the
devil does not rest content with one sin, but, the
first sin committed, strives all the more to induce
us to another. Whoever commits sin is the slave
of sin. Hence it is not an easy thing to find one's
way out from sin. St. Gregory says, " The sin
which is not lightened by penance, soon, by its
very weight, drags us to further sin."
It is the very contrary that is characteristic of
God's dominion over us. For God's commands
are not burdensome. My yoke is sweet and my
burden is light (Matt. xi. 30). A man is accounted
as doing enough if he does for God as much as
he has done for sin. St. Paul, for example, says,
A.S you have yielded your ?n embers to serve uncle an ness
and iniquity, unto iniquity ; so now yield your members
to serve justice, unto sanctification (Rom. vi. 19).
But of the slaves of the devil the Scripture says,
We ivearied ourselves in the way of iniquity and des
truction, and have walked through hard ways (Wis.
36
SATURDAY AFTER. SEXAGESIMA
v. 7), and also, They have laboured to commit iniquity
(Jer. ix. 5).
5. The immensity of our reward. No law
promises so great a recompense as that which
we are promised in the law of Christ. To the
Saracens are offered rivers of milk, and honey, to
the Jews the promised land. But to Christians
angelic glory. They shall be as the angels of God in
heaven (Matt. xxii. 30). Thinking on this St.
Peter says, in the Gospel, Lord to whom shall we go ?
Thou hast the words of eternal life (John vi. 69).
(In Decalog. xii.)
Saturday after Sexagesima
HOW ARE WE TO SERVE GOD ?
i. We must serve God both by external acts
and by internal acts. We are possessed of a double
nature, we are intellectual beings and sentient
beings also. We should therefore offer to God
a double adoration — a spiritual adoration, con
sisting in the interior devotion of the mind, and a
bodily adoration made up of the external humilia
tion of the bcdy. And since in all acts done in
acknowledgment that God is God the external
act depends on the internal — for the internal
act is the more important — so the external acts of
adoration are done for the sake of the internal
adoration. That is to say, that it is by our gestures
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MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
of humility that we are moved to subject ourselves
to God in our inclinations and our will. This is
due to our nature being what it is, for it is natural
to man to proceed to things that can only be known
through the intelligence from the starting point of
things seen, felt, heard and known by the senses.
So, just as prayer has its origin as something in
the mind, and is only in the second place expressed
in words, adoration also consists, primarily and
in its origin, in an internal reverence of God and
only secondarily in certain bodily signs that we
are humbling ourselves : such bodily signs, for
example, as genuflections to show our weakness by
comparison with God, or prostrations to show
that we are nothing of ourselves.
(2-2 84 n.)
2. In doing external acts we must use a certain
measure of discretion. The attitude of a religious
man towards the acts by which he acknowledges
God to be God, is quite different according as
those acts are internal or external. It is principally
in the internal acts, the acts by which he believes,
hopes and loves, that man's good consists and
what makes man good in God's sight. Whence
it is written, The kingdom of God is within you (Luke
xvii. 21). Man's good and what makes man good
in God's sight does not, principally, consist in
external acts. The kingdom of God is not meat and
drink, says St. Paul (Rom. xv. 17).
Whence the internal acts are as the end, the thing
that is to say, which is sought for its own sake :
the external acts, through which the body is shown
38
QUINQUAGESIMA SUNDAY
as God's creature, are but as means, i.e., things
directed to and existing for the sake of the end.
Now when it is a question of seeking the end
we do not measure our energy or resource, but
the greater the end the better our endeavour.
When, on the other hand, it is a question of
things we only seek because of the end, we measure
our energy according to the relation of the things
to the end. Thus a physician restores health as
much as he possibly can. He does not give as
much medicine as he possibly can, but only just
so much as he sees to be necessary for the attain
ment of health.
In a similar way man puts no measure to his
faith, his hope, and his charity, but the more he
believes, hopes and loves, so much the better man
he is. That is why it is said, Thou shalt love the
Ijord thy God, with thy whole heart \ and with thy whole
soul, and with thy whole strength (Deut. vi. 5).
But in the external actions we must use dis
cretion and make charity the measure of our use
of them.
(In Rom. xii.)
Quinquagesima Sunday
HOW WE SHOULD SERVE GOD ON THE LORD'S
DAY
Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath Day -
Exod. xx. 8.
Man is bound to keep feast days holy. Now a
39
MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
thing is said to be holy in one of two ways, either
because the thing is itself unspotted or because
it is consecrated to God. We must say something
then of the kind of works from which we should
abstain on such days and also of the kind with
which we should occupy ourselves.
i. Sacrifices. In Sacred Scripture (Num. xxviii.
3) it is related how God commanded that every
day, in the morning and again in the evening, a
lamb should be offered up, but that on the sabbath
this offering should be doubled. This teaches
us that we too ought on the sabbath to offer a
sacrifice, a sacrifice taken from all that \ve possess.
(i) We ought to make an offering of our soul,
lamenting our sins and giving thanks for the bene
fits we have received. Let my prayer, 0 Lord, be
directed as incense in thy sight (Ps. cxl. 2). Feast
days are instituted to give us spiritual joy, and the
means to this is prayer. Whence on such days
we should multiply our prayers.
(ii) We should offer our body. I beseech you
therefore brethren, says St. Paul, by 'the mercy of God,
that you offer your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing
unto God (Rom. xii. i). And we should give
praise to God. The psalm says, The sacrifice of
praise shall glorify me (Ps. clix. 23). Wherefore on
feast days hymns should be numerous.
^ (iii) We should offer our goods, and this by
giving alms — by giving on feast days a double
amount, for these are times of universal rejoicing.
40
QUINQUAGESIMA SUNDAY
2. Study of the word of God. This indeed
was the practice of the Jews, as we read in the
Acts of the Apostles (xfii. 27). The voices of ^ the
prophets, which are read every sabbath. Christians
therefore, whose spiritual state should be more
perfect than that of the Jews, ought on such
days to meet together for sermons and for the
Church's office. And likewise for profitable
conversation. Here are two things truly
profitable for the soul of the sinner, sure means
to his amendment. For the word of God
instructs the ignorant and stirs up those that are
lukewarm.
3. Direct occupation with the things of God.
This do those who are perfect. In the psalms
(xxxiii. 9) we read, Taste and see that the Lord is
sweet, and this because He gives rest to the soul.
For just as the body worn out with toil craves
for rest, so too does the soul. Now the soul's
place is God. Be thou unto me a God, a protector
and a place of refuge, is written in the Psalms (xxx. 3).
And St. Paul, too, says, There remaineth therefore
a day of rest for the people of God; for he that is entered
into his rest, the same also hath rested from his works,
as God aid from his (HeD. iv. 9, 10). Again in
the book of Wisdom (viii. 16), When I go into my
house, that is, my conscience, I shall repose with her,
that is, with Wisdom.
But before the soul can attain to this peace,
it must already have found peace in three other
ways.
It must have peace from the uneasiness of sin.
MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
The heart of the wicked man is like a raging sea, which
cannot rest (Isa. Ivii. 20).
It must have peace from the attractions of bodily
desires. For the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and
the spirit against the flesh (Gal. v. 17).
It must have peace from the cares of everyday
life. Martha, Martha, thou art careful and art
troubled about many things (Luke x. 41).
But after these are attained the soul shall truly
rest in God. If thou call the sabbath delightful .
then shalt thou be delighted in the Lord (Is. Iviii. 14).
It is tor this that the saints have left all things,
for this is that treasure ivhich a man having found,
hid it, and for joy thereof goeth and selkth all that he
hath, and buyeth (Matt. xiii. 44). For this is the
peace of eternal life and of the joy that shall last
for ever, This is my rest for ever and ever : here
I dn'ell, for I have chosen it (Ps. cxxxi. 4).
(In Decalog. 17.)
Monday after Quinquagesima
HOLINESS
_The gospel says (Luke i. 75) That we may serve
him in holiness and justice. But to serve God is an
act of religion. Therefore religion is the same
thing as holiness.
The word " holiness " seems to imply two
things.
^ (i) Cleanness, and in this it accords with the
Greek word agios which means " free of earth/'
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MONDAY AFTER QUINQUAGESIMA
(ii) Firmness, whence, of old, those things were
called holy which were protected by the law and
thereby rendered inviolable. Whence also things
are said to be sanctioned, because they are defended
by law. Things which belong to the worship of
God may be said to be holy in both of the senses
just described. Not only men, therefore, but the
temple and the vessels and so forth are said to be
made holy from the fact that they are used in the
service of God.
Cleanness is essential if the human mind is to
be applied to God, because what stains the human
mind is its being joined to lower things: as all
kinds of things are cheapened by mixture with
things less valuable, for example, silver when
it is" mixed with lead. Now if the mind is to be
united to the highest thing of all, i.e., to God, it
must be altogether taken away from the things
that are lower. And that is why a mind that is
lacking in purity cannot be applied to God. Follow
peace with all men and holiness1 : without which no man
shall see God (Heb. xii. 14).
Firmness, too, is required in whoever would
set his mind to God. The mind must be set to
God as to one's last end and first beginning. But
ends and beginnings are the kinds of things which
above all others need to be immovable. Whence
St. Paul says, I am sure that neither death nor life,
nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things
present nor things to come, nor wight, nor height, nor
depth, nor any other creatures, shall be able to separate
* Sanctimoniam in the Latin text which St. Thomas is using.
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MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, Our
Lord (Romans xiii. 38, 39).
Holiness is then the quality whereby men apply
themselves and their actions to God. Hence it
does not differ from religion as though it had a
different essence, but only according to the way
these two things exist. For religion gives God
the service due to him in what particularly con
cerns divine worship — in sacrifices, for example,
in offerings and in other things of that kind.
Holiness, however, gives to God not only these
things but the acts of the other virtues too, or
again, it ensures that by good works a man makes
himself fit for the service of God in worship.
(2-2 81 8.)
Tuesday after Quinquagesima
OUR LORD is SCOURGED
Having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to them to be
crucified. — Matt, xxvii. 26.
Why did he scourge him before he delivered
him to them ? St. Jerome says because it was a
Roman custom that prisoners condemned to death
should be scourged before execution. So it was
that the prophecy was fulfilled, I was made ready
by a scourging (Ps. xxxvii. 18).
Some writers think that Pilate had Our Lord
scourged that the Jews might be moved to pity
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TUESDAY AFTER QUINQUAGESIMA
and so, once He was scourged, they would let him
go.
Pilate therefore took Jesus and scourged him (John
xix. i). He did not, that is, scourge him with
his own hands but handed him over to the soldiers.
And this that the Jews — sated with his sufferings-
might be softened somewhat, and cease to rage
for his death. For it is the natural thing that a
man's anger dies down when he sees the cause of
his anger humiliated and punished. This is true
of anger, for anger seeks to inflict harm only to a
certain degree. But it is not true of hatred, for
hatred seeks utterly to destroy the thing hated.
Hence the words of Sacred Scripture, If an enemy
findeih an opportunity^ he will not be satisfied with
blood (Ecclus. xii. 16).
Now it was hatred that moved the Jews against
Christ, and therefore it did not satisfy them to
see him scourged. I have been scourged all the day^
says the Psalm (kxii 14), and in Isaias (1. 6) we read,
I 'have given my body to the strikers.
Did Pilate's intention excuse him from the guilt
of scourging Our Lord ? By no means, for no
action which is bad in itself can be made wholly
good by the good intention with which it is
done. But to inflict injury on one who is inno
cent, and especially on the Son of God, is of all
things the one most evil in itself. No intention
therefore could possibly excuse it.
(In John, xix.)
45
MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
Ash Wednesday
DEATH
By one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death.
Rom. v. 12.
i. If for some wrongdoing a man is deprived
of some benefit once given to him, that he should
lack that benefit is the punishment of his sin.
Now in man's first creation he was divinely
endowed with this advantage that, so long as his
mind remained subject to God, the lower powers
of his soul were subjected to the reason and the
body was subjected to the soul.
But because by sin man's mind moved away
from its subjection to God, it followed that the
lower parts of his mind ceased to be wholly sub
jected to the reason. From this there followed
such a rebellion of the bodily inclination against
the reason, that the body was no longer wholly
subject to the soul.
Whence followed death and all the bodily
defects. For life and wholeness of body are bound
up with this, that the body is wholly subject to
the soul, as a thing which can be made peifect is
subject to that which makes it perfect. So it
comes about that, conversely, there are such things
as death, sickness and every other bodily defect,
for such misfortunes are bound up with an in
complete subjection of body to soul.
2. The rational soul is of its nature immortal,
and therefore death is not natural to man in so far
46
ASH WEDNESDAY
as man has a soul. It is natural to his body, for
the body, since it is formed of things contrary
to each other in nature, is necessarily liable to
corruption, and it is in this respect that death
is natural to man.
But God who fashioned man is all powerful.
And hence, by an advantage conferred on the
first man, He took away that necessity of dying
which was bound up with the matter of which
man was made. This advantage was however
withdrawn through the sin of our first parents.
Death is then natural, if we consider the matter
of which man is made and it is a penalty, inasmuch
as it happens through the loss of the privilege
whereby man was preserved from dying.
(2-2 164 i.)
3. Sin — original sin and actual sin — is taken
away by Christ, that is to say, by Him who is also
the remover of all bodily defects. He shall quicken
also your mortal bodies, because of his Spirit that
dwelleth in you (Rom. viii. n).
But, according to the order appointed by a
wisdom that is divine, it is at the time which best
suits that Christ takes away both the one and the
other, i.e., both sin and bodily defects.
Now it is only right that, before we arrive at
that glory of impassibility and immortality which
began in Christ, and which was acquired for us
through Christ, we should be shaped after the
pattern of Christ's sufferings. It is then only
right that Christ's liability to suffer should remain
in us too for a time, as a means of our coming to the
47
MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
impassibility of glory in the way He himself came
to it.
(1-2 85 5 ad 2.)
Thursday
FASTING
i. We fast for three reasons.
(i) To check the desires of the flesh. So
St. Paul says in fastings, in chastity (z Cor. vi. 5),
meaning that fasting is a safeguard for chastity.
As St. Jerome says, " Without Ceres, and Bacchus,
Venus would freeze," as much as to say that lust
loses its heat through spareness of food and drink.
(ii) That the mind may more freely raise itself
to contemplation of the heights. We' read in the
book of Daniel that it was after a fast of three
weeks that he received the revelation from God
(Dan. x. 2-4).
(iii) To make satisfaction for sin. This is
the reason given by the prophet Joel, Be converted
to me with all your heart, in fasting and in weeping and
in mourning (Joel ii. 12). And' here is what St.
Augustine writes on the matter. " Fasting purifies
the soul. It lifts up the mind, and it brings the
body into subjection to the spirit. It makes the
heart contrite and humble, scatters the clouds of
desire, puts out the flames of lust and
the true light of chastity."
48
THURSDAY
2. There is commandment laid on us to fast.
For fasting helps to destroy sin, and to raise the
mind to thoughts of the spiritual world. Each
man is then bound, by the natural law of the matter,
to fast just as much as is necessary to help him in
these matters. Which is to say that fasting in
general is a matter of natural law. To determine,
however, when we shall fast and how, according
to what suits and is of use to the Catholic body, is
a matter of positive law. To state the positive
law is the business of the bishops, and what is thus
stated by them is called ecclesiastical fasting, in
contradistinction with the natural fasting previously
mentioned.
3 . The times fixed for fasting by the Church are
well chosen. Fasting has two objects in view :
(i) The destruction of sin, and
(ii) the lifting of the mind to higher things.
The times self-indicated for fasting are then
those in which men are especially bound to free
themselves from sin and to raise their minds to
God in devotion. Such a time especially is that
which precedes that solemnity of Easter in which
baptism is administered and sin thereby destroyed,
and when the burial of Our Eord is recalled, for
we are buried together with Christ by baptism into
death (Rom. vi. 4). Then, too, at Easter most of
all, men's minds should be lifted, through devotion
to the glory of that eternity which Christ in his
resurrection inaugurated.
Wherefore the Church has decreed that im
mediately before the solemnity of Easter we must
49 D
MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
fast, and, for a similar reason, that we must fast
on the eves of the principal feasts, setting apart
those days as opportune to prepare ourselves for
the devout celebration of the feasts themselves.
(2~2 97 i>3> 5-)
Friday
THE CROWN OF THORNS
Go forth, ye daughters of Sion, and see king Solomon
in the diadem, wherewith his mother crowned him
in the day of his espousals, and in the day of the joy of
his heart. — Cant. iii. n.
This is the voice of the Church inviting the
souls of the faithful to behold the marvellous
beauty of her spouse. For the daughters of Sion,
who are they but the daughters of Jerusalem,
holy souls, the citizens of that city which is above,
who with the angels enjoy the peace that knows
no end, and, in consequence, look upon the glory
of the Lord ?
i . Go forth ', shake off the disturbing commerce
of this world so that, with minds set free, you
may be able to contemplate him whom you love.
And see king Solomon, the true peacemaker, that is
to say, Christ Our Lord.
In the diadem wherewith his mother crowned him,
as though the Church said, " Look on Christ garbed
with flesh for us, the flesh He took from the flesh
of his mother." For it is his flesh that is here called
5°
FRIDAY
a diadem, the flesh which Christ assumed for us, the
flesh in which he died and destroyed the reign of
death, the flesh in which, rising once again, he
brought to us the hope of resurrection.
This is the diadem of w^hich St. Paul speaks,
We see Jesus for the suffering of death crowned with
glory and honour (Heb. ii. 9). His mother is spoken
of as crowning him because Mary the Virgin it
was wrho from her own flesh gave him flesh.
In the day of his espousals, that is, in the hour of his
Incarnation, when he took to himself the Church
not having spot or wrinkle (Eph. v. 27), the hour again
when God was joined with man. And in the day
of the joy of his heart. For the joy and the gaiety
of Christ is for the human race salvation and
redemption. And coming home, he calls together
his friends and neighbours saying to them, Rejoice
with me, because I have found my sheep that was lost
(Luke xv. 6).
2. We can however refer the whole of this
text simply and literally to the Passion of Christ.
For Solomon, foreseeing through the centuries
the Passion of Christ, was uttering a warning for
the daughters of Sion, that is, for the Jewish
people.
Go forth and see king Solomon, that is, Christ, in his
diadem, that is to say, the crown of thorns with
which his mother the Synagogue has crowned him ;
in the day of his espousals, the day when he joined to
himself the Church ; and in the day of the joy of his
heart, the day in which he rejoiced that by his
Passion he was delivering the world from the
51
MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
power of the devil. Go forth, therefore, and leave
behind the darkness of unbelief, and see, under
stand with your minds that he who suffers as man
is really God.
Go forth, beyond the gates of your city, that
you may see him, on Mount Calvary, crucified.
(In Cant. 3 .)
Saturday
THE GRAIN OF WHEAT
Unless the gram of wheat falling into the ground die,
itself remaineth alone. — John xii. 24.
We use the grain of wheat in two ways, for bread
and for seed. Here the word is to be taken in
the second sense, grain of wheat meaning seed
and not the matter out of which we make bread.
For in this sense it never increases so as to bear
fruit. When it is said that the grain must die,
this does not mean that it loses its value as seed,
but that it is changed into another kind of thing.
So St. Paul (i Cor. xv. 36) says, That which then
thou sowest is not quickened, except it die first.
The Word of God is a seed in the soul of man,
in so far as it is a thing introduced into man's
soul, by words spoken and heard, in order to
produce the fruit of good works, The seed is the
Word of God (Luke viii. n). So also the Word of
God garbed in flesh is a seed placed in the world, a
seed from which great crops should grow, whence
52
SATURDAY
it is compared in St. Matthew's Gospel (xiii. 31, 32)
to a grain of mustard seed.
Our Lord therefore says to us, " I came as
seed, something meant to bear fruit and therefore
I say to you, Unless the grain of wheat falling into
the ground die, itself remaimth alone" which is as
much as to say, " Unless 1 die the fruit of the con
version of the Gentiles will not follow." He
compares himself to a grain of wheat, because he
came to nourish and to sustain the minds of men,
and to nourish and sustain are precisely what
wheaten bread does for men. In the Psalms it is
written, That bread may strengthen man's heart (Ps.
ciii. 15), and in St. John, The bread that I will give
is my flesh for the life of the world (John vi. 52).
2. ~But if it die it bringeth forth much fruit (John
xii. 25). What is here explained is the usefulness
of the Passion. It is as though the gospel said,
Unless the grain fall into the earth through the
humiliations of the Passion, no useful result will
follow, for the grain itself remaineth alone. But
if it shall die, done to death and slain by the Jews,
it bringeth forth much fruit, for example :
(i) The remission of sin. This is the whole fruit,
that the sin thereby should be taken away (Isaias xxvii. 9).
And this is the fruit of the Passion of Christ as is
declared by St. Peter, Christ died once for our sins,
the just for the unjust that he might offer us to God
(i Pet. iii. 1 8).
(ii) The conversion of the Gentiles to God.
I have appointed you that you shall go forth and bring
forth fruit and that your fruit should remain (John
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MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
xv. 1 6). This fruit the Passion of Christ bore,
if I be lifted tip from the earth, I will draw all things to
myself (John xii. 32).
(iii) The fruit of Glory. The fruit of good
labours is glorious (Wis. iii. 15). And this fruit
also the Passion of Christ brought forth ; We
have therefore a confidence in the entering into the Holies
by the blood of Christ : a new and living way which he
hath dedicated for us through the veil, that is to say, his
flesh (Hebr. x. 19).
(In John xii.)
First Week in Lent —Sunday
IT WAS FITTING THAT CHRIST SHOULD BE
TEMPTED
Jesus was led by the spirit into the desert, to be tempted
by the devil. — Matt. iv. i.
Christ willed to be tempted :
1. That he might assist us against our own
temptations. St. Gregory says, " That our Re
deemer, who had come on earth to be killed, should
will to be tempted was not unworthy of him.
It was indeed but just that he should overcome our
temptations by his own, in the same way that he
had come to overcome our death by his death."
2. To warn us that no man, however holy he
be, should think himself safe and free from tempta
tion. Whence again His choosing to be tempted
after His baptism, about which St. Hilary says,
54
FIRST MONDAY
" The devil's wiles are especially directed to trap
us at times when we have recently been made
holy, because the devil desires no victory so much
as a victory over the world of grace." Whence
too, the scripture warns us, Son, when thou comest
to the service of God, stand in justice and in fear, and
prepare thy soul for temptation (Ecclus. ii. i).
3. To give us an example how we should over
come the temptations of the devil, St. Augustine
says, " Christ gave himself to the devil to be
tempted, that in the matter of our overcoming
those same temptations He might be of service
not only by his help but by his example too."
4. To fill and saturate our minds with confi
dence in His mercy. For we have not a high-priest
who cannot have compassion on our infirmities, but one
tempted in all things, like as we are, without sin (Heb.
iv. 15).
(3 4i i.)
First Monday
CHRIST HAD TO BE TEMPTED IN THE DESERT
He was in the desert forty days and forty nights : and
was tempted by Satan. — Mark i. 13.
i. It was by Christ's own will that he was
exposed to the temptation by the devil, as it was
also by his own will that he was exposed to be
slain by the limbs of the devil. Had He not so
willed, the devil would never have dared to approach
him.
55
MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
The devil is always more disposed to attack those
who are alone, because, as is said in Sacred Scrip
ture, If a man shall prevail against one, two shall with
stand him easily (Eccles. iv. 12). That is why
Christ went out into the desert, as one going out
to a battle-ground, that there he might be tempted
by the devil. Whereupon St. Ambrose says that
Christ went into the desert for the express purpose
of provoking the devil. For unless the devil had
fought, Christ would never have overcome him
for me.
St. Ambrose gives other reasons too. He says
that Christ chose the desert as the place to be
tempted for a hidden reason, namely that he might
free from his exile Adam who, from Paradise, was
driven into the desert ; and again that he did it
for a reason in which there is no mystery, namely
to show us that the devil envies those who are
tending towards a better life.
2. We say with St. Chrysostom that Christ
exposed himself to the temptation because the
devil most of all tempts those whom he sees alone.
So in the very beginning of things he tempted the
woman, when he found her away from her husband.
It docs not however follow from this that a man
ought to throw himself into any occasion of
temptation that presents itself.
Occasions of temptation are of two kinds.
One kind arises from man's own action, when,
for example, man himself goes near to sin, not
avoiding the occasion of sin. That such occasions
are to be avoided we know, and Holy Scripture
56
FIRST TUESDAY
reminds us of it. Stay not in any part of the country
round about Sodom (Gen. xix. 17). The second
kind of occasion arises from the devil's constant
envy of those who are tending to better things,
as St. Ambrose says, and this occasion of temptation
is not one we must avoid. So, according to Si..
John Chrysostom, not only Christ was led into
the desert by the Holy Ghost, but all the children
of God wiio possess the Holy Ghost are led in
like manner. For God's children are never con
tent to sit down with idle hands, but the Holy Ghost
ever urges them to undertake for God some great
work. And this, as far as the devil is concerned,
is to go into the desert, for in the desert there is
none of that wickedness which is the devil's delight.
Every good work is as it were a desert to the eye
of the world and of our flesh, for good works are
contrary to the desire of the world and of our
flesh.
To give the devil such an opportunity of tempta
tion as this is not dangerous, for it is much more
the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, who is the
promoter of every perfect work, that prompts us
than the working of the devil who hates them
all.
(3 4i 2.)
First Tuesday
CHRIST UNDERWENT EVERY KIND OF SUFFERING
" Every kind of suffering." The things men
suffer may be understood in two ways. By " kind "
57
MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
we may mean a particular, individual suffering,
and in this sense there was no reason why Christ
should suffer every kind of suffering, for many
kinds of suffering are contrary the one to the other,
as for example, to be burnt and to be drowned.
We are of course speaking of Our Lord as suffering
from causes outside himself, for to suffer the
suffering effected by internal causes, such as bodily
sickness, would not have become him. But if
bv " kind " we mean the class, then Our Lord did
suffer by every kind of suffering, as we can show
in three ways :
1. By considering the men through whom he
suffered. For he suffered something at the hands
of Gentiles and of Jews, of men and even of women
— as the story of the servant girl who accused
St. Peter goes to show. He suffered, again, at
the hands of rulers, of their ministers, and of the
people, as was prophesied, Why have the Gentiles
raged ; and the people devised vain things ? The
kings of the earth stood up, and the princes met together
against the Lord and against his Christ (Ps. ii. i, 2).
He suffered, too, from his friends, the men
he knew best, for Peter denied him and Judas
betrayed him.
2. If we consider the things through which
suffering is possible. Christ suffered in the friends
who deserted him, and in his good name through
the blasphemies uttered against him. Lie suffered
in the respect, in the glory, due to him through
the derision and contempt bestowed upon him.
58
FIRST TUESDAY
He suffered in things, for he was stripped even of
his clothing ; in his soul, through sadness, through
weariness and through fear ; in his body through
wounds and the scourging.
3. If we consider what he underwent in his
various parts. His head suffered through the
crown of piercing thorns, his hands and feet through
the nails driven through them, his face from the
blows and the defiling spittle, and his whole body
through the scourging.
He suffered in every sense of his body. Touch
was afflicted by the scourging and the nailing,
taste by the vinegar and gall, smell by the stench
of corpses as he hung on the cross in that place of
the dead which is called Calvary. His hearing was
torn with the voices of mockers and blasphemers,
and he saw the tears of his mother and of the
disciple whom he loved. If we only consider the
amount of suffering required, it is true that one
suffering alone, the least indeed of all, would have
sufficed to redeem the human race from all its
sins. But if we look at the fitness of the matter,
it had to be that Christ should suffer in all the
kinds of sufferings.
(3 46 5-)
59
MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
First Wednesday
HOW GREAT WAS THE SORROW OF OUR LORD IN
His PASSION ?
Attend and see if there be any sorrow like unto my
sorrow. — Lam. i. 12.
Our Lord as He suffered felt really, and in his
senses, that pain which is caused by some harmful
bodily thing. Lie also felt that interior pain which
is caused by the fear of something harmful and
which we call sadness. In both these respects
the pain suffered by Our Lord was the greatest
pain possible in this present life. There are four
reasons why this was so.
i. The causes of the pain.
The cause of the pain in the senses was the break
ing up of the body, a pain whose bitterness derived
partly from the fact that the sufferings attacked every
part of His body, and partly from the fact that of
all species of torture death by crucifixion is un
doubtedly the most bitter. The nails are driven
through the most sensitive of all places, the hands
and the feet, the weight of the body itself increases
the pain every moment. Add to this the long
drawn-out agony, for the crucified do not die
immediately as do those who are beheaded.
The cause of the internal pain was :
(i) All the sins of all mankind for which, by
suffering, he was making satisfaction, so that, in a
sense, he took them to him as though they were
his own. The words of my sins, it says in the Psalms
(Ps. xxi. 2).
60
FIRST WEDNESDAY
(ii) The special case of the Jews and the others
who had had a share in the sin of his death, and
especially the case of his disciples for whom his
death had been a thing to be ashamed of.
(iii) The loss of his bodily life, which, by the
nature of things, is something from which human
nature turns away in horror.
2. We may consider the greatness of the pain
according to the capacity, bodily and spiritual, for
suffering of Him who suffered. In his body He
was most admirably formed, for it was formed
by the miraculous operation of the Holy Ghost,
and therefore its sense of touch — that sense through
which we experience pain — \vas of the keenest.
His soul likewise, from its interior powers, had a
knowledge as from experience of all the causes of
sorrow.
3. The greatness of Our Lord's suffering can
be considered in regard to this that the pain and
sadness were without any alleviation. For in
the case of no matter what other sufferer the sad
ness of mind, and even the bodily pain, is lessened
through a certain kind of reasoning, by means of
which there is brought about a distraction of the
sorrow from the higher powers to the lower.
But when Our Lord suffered this did not happen,
for he allowed each of his powers to act and suffer
to the fullness of its special capacity.
4. We may consider the greatness of the suffer
ing of Christ in the Passion in relation to this fact
61
MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
that the Passion and the pain it brought with it
were deliberately undertaken by Christ with the
object of freeing man from sin. And therefore
he undertook to suffer an amount of pain pro
portionately equal to the extent of the fruit that
was to follow from the Passion.
From all these causes, if we consider them
together, it will be evident that the pain suffered
by Christ was the greatest pain ever suffered.
(3 46 6.)
First Thursday
IT WAS FITTING THAT CHRIST SHOULD BE
CRUCIFIED WITH THE THIEVES
Christ was crucified between the thieves because
such was the will of the Jews, and also because
this was part of God's design. But the reasons
why this was appointed were not the same in
each of these cases.
i. As far as the Jews were concerned Our
Lord was crucified with the thieves on either side
to encourage the suspicion that he too was a
criminal. But it fell out otherwise. The thieves
themselves have left not a trace in the remembrance
of man, while His cross is everywhere held in
honour. Kings laying aside their crowns have
broidered the cross on their royal robes. They have
placed it on their crowns ; on their arms. It
has its place on the very altars. Everywhere,
62
FIRST THURSDAY
throughout the world, we behold the splendour
of the cross.
In God's plan Christ was crucified with the
thieves in order that, as for our sakes he became
accursed of the cross, so, for our salvation, he is
crucified like an evil thing among evil things.
2. The Pope, St. Leo the Great, says that the
thieves were crucified, one on either side of him,
so that in the very appearance of the scene of his
suffering there might be set forth that distinction
which should be made in the judgment of each
one of us. St. Augustine has the same thought.
" The cross itself," he says, " was a tribunal.
In the centre was the judge. To the one side a man
who believed and was set free, to the other side
a scoffer and he was condemned." Already there
was made clear the final fate of the living and the
dead, the one class placed at his right, the other
on his left.
3. According to St. Hilary the two thieves,
placed to right and to left, typify that the whole
of mankind is called to the mystery of Our Lord's
Passion. And since division of things according
to right and left is made with reference to believers
and those who will not believe, one of the two,
placed on the right, is saved by justifying faith.
4. As St. Bede says, the thieves who were
crucified with Our Lord, represent those who for
the faith and to confess Christ undergo the agony
of martyrdom or the severe discipline of a more
perfect life. Those who do this for the sake of
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MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
eternal glory are typified by the thief on the right
hand. Those whose motive is the admiration of
whoever beholds them imitate the spirit and the
act of the thief on the left-hand side.
As Christ owed no debt in payment for which
a man must die, but submitted to death of his own
will, in order to overcome death, so also he had
not done anything on account of which he deserved
to be put with the thieves. But of his own will
he chose to be reckoned among the wicked, that
by his power he might destroy wickedness itself.
Which is why St. John Chrysostom says that to
convert the thief on the cross and to turn him to
Paradise was as great a miracle as the earthquake.
(3 4<$ ii.)
First Friday
THE FEAST OF THE HOLY LANCE AND THE
NAILS OF OUR LORD
One of the soldiers with a spear opened his side, and
immediately there came out blood and water. —
John xix. 34.
1. The gospel deliberately says opened and not
wounded, because through Our Lord's side there
was opened to us the gate of eternal life. After
these things I looked, and behold a gate was opened in
heaven (Apoc. iv. i). This is the door opened
in the ark, through which enter the animals who
will not perish in the flood.
2. But this door is the cause of our salvation.
FIRST FRIDAY
Immediately there came forth blood and water ^ a thing
truly miraculous, that, from a dead body, in which
the blood congeals, blood should come forth.
This was done to show that by the Passion of
Christ we receive a full absolution, an absolution
from every sin and every stain. We receive
this absolution from sin through that blood which
is the price of our redemption. You were not
redeemed with corruptible things as gold or silver^ from
your vain conversation with the tradition of your fathers ;
but with the precious blood of Christ^ as of a lamb
unspotted and unde filed (i Pet. i. 18).
We were absolved from every stain by the water,
which is the laver of our redemption. In the
prophet Ezechiel it is said, I iv ill pour upon you clean
water \ and you shall be cleaned from all your filthiness
(Ezech. xxxvi. 28), and in Zacharias, There shall
be a fountain open to the house of David and to the in
habitants of Jerusalem for the washing of the sinner
and the unclean woman (Zach. xiii. i).
And so these two things may be thought of in
relation to two of the sacraments, the water to
baptism and the blood to the Holy Eucharist.
Or both may be referred to the Holy Eucharist
since, in the Mass, water is mixed with the wine.
Although the water is not of the substance of the
sacrament.
Again, as from the side of Christ asleep in death
on the cross there flowed that blood and water
in which the Church is consecrated, so from the
side of the sleeping Adam was formed the first
woman, who herself foreshadowed the Church.
(In John xix.)
65
MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
First Saturday
THE LOVE OF GOD SHOWN IN THE PASSION OF
CHRIST
God commendeth his charity towards us : because when
as yet we were sinners, according to the time, Christ
died for us. — Rom. v. 8, 9.
1. Christ died for the ungodly (ibid. 6) This is
a great thing if we consider who it is that died,
a great thing also if we consider on whose behalf
he died. For scarce for a just man, will one die
(ibid. 6), that is to say, that you will hardly find
anyone who will die even to set free a man who
is innocent, nay even it is said, The just perisheth,
and no man layeth it to heart (Isaias Ivii).
Rightly therefore does St. Paul say scarce will
one die. There might perhaps be found one, some
one rare person who out of superabundance of
courage would be so bold as to die for a good man.
But this is rare, for the simple reason that so to
act is the greatest of all things. Greater love than
this no man hath, says Our Lord himself, that a man
lay down his life for his friends (John xv. 13).
But the like of what Christ did himself, to die
for evildoers and the wicked, has never been seen.
Wherefore rightly do we ask in wonderment why
Christ did it.
2. If in fact it be asked why Christ died for the
wicked, the answer is that God in this way com
mendeth his charity towards us. He shows us in this
way that He loves us with a love that knows no
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FIRST SATURDAY
limits, for while we were as yet sinners Christ died for
us.
The very death of Christ for us shows the love
of God, for it was His son whom He gave to die
that satisfaction might be made for us. God so
loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son (John
iii. 1 6). And thus as the love of God the Father
for us is shown in his giving us His Holy Spirit, so
also is it shown in this way, by his gift of his only
Son.
The Apostle says God commendeth^ signifying
thereby that the love of God is a thing which
cannot be measured. This is shown by the very
fact of the matter, namely the fact that he gave
His Son to die for us, and it is shown also by reason
of the kind of people we are for whom He died.
Christ was not stirred up to die for us by any merits
of ours, when as yet we were sinners. God (who is rich
in mercy) for his exceeding charity wherewith he loved us,
even when ive were dead in sins, hath quickened us together
in Christ (Eph. ii. 4).
(In Rom. v.)
3. All these things are almost too much to be
believed. A. work is done in jour days, which no
man will believe when it shall be told (Habac. i. 5).
This truth that Christ died for us is so hard a truth
that scarcely can our intelligence take hold of it.
Nay it is a truth that our intelligence could in no
way discover, And St. Paul, preaching, makes
echo to Habacuc, I work a work in your days, a work
which you will not believe, if any man shall tell it to
you (Acts xiii 14).
MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
So great is God's love for us and his grace towards
us, that he does more for us than we can believe
or understand.
(In Symbolum.)
Second Week in Lent — Sunday
GOD THE FATHER DELIVERED CHRIST TO His
PASSION
God spared not even His own Son, but delivered Him up
for us all. — Rom. viii. 32.
Christ suffered willingly, moved by obedience
to His Father. Wherefore, God the Father de
livered Christ to his Passion, and this in three
ways :
1. Because the Father, of His eternal will, pre
ordained the Passion of Christ as the means whereby
to free the human race. So it is said in Isaias,
The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all (Isa.
liii. 6), and again, The Lord was pleased to bruise him
in infirmity (ibid. liii. 10).
2. Because He inspired Our Lord with the
willingness to suffer for us, pouring into his soul
the love which produced the will to suffer. Whence
the prophet goes on to say, He was offered because it
was his own will (Isa. liii. 7).
3. Because He did not protect Our Lord from
the Passion, but exposed him to his persecutors.
Whence we read in St. Matthew's Gospel, that as
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SECOND WEEK IN LENT SUNDAY
he hung on the cross Christ said, My God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken met (Matt, xxvii. 46). For
God the Father, that is to say, had left him at the
mercy of his torturers.
To hand over an innocent man to suffering and
to death, against his will, compelling him to die
as it were, would indeed be cruel and wicked.
But it was not in this way that God the Father
handed over Christ. He handed over Christ by
inspiring Film with the will to suffer for us. By
so doing the severity of God is made clear to us,
that no sin is forgiven without punishment under
gone, which St. Paul again teaches when he says,
God spared not his own Son.
At the same time God's goodhearteclness is
shown in the fact that whereas man could not,
no matter what his punishment, sufficiently make
satisfaction, God has given man someone who can
make that satisfaction for him. Which is what
St. Paul means by, He delivered him up for us all,
and again when he says, God hath proposed Christ
to be a propitiation, through faith in his blood (Rom.
iii. 25).
The same activity in a good man and in a bad
man is differently judged inasmuch as the root
from which it proceeds is different. The Father,
for example, delivered over Christ and Christ
delivered himself, and this from love, and therefore
They are praised. Judas delivered Him from love
of gain, the Jews from hatred, Pilate from the
worldly fear with which he feared Gesar, and these
are rightly regarded with horror.
(3 47 3-)
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MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
Christ therefore did not owe to death the debt
of necessity, but of charity — the charity to men by
which he willed their salvation, and the charity
to God by which he willed to fulfil God's will,
as it says in the gospel, Not as I mil but as Thou
wilt (Matt, xx vi. 39).
(2 Dist. xx. i 5.)
Second Monday
IT WAS FITTING THAT OUR LORD SHOULD SUFFER
AT THE HANDS OF THE GENTILES
They shall deliver him to the Gentiles^ to be mocked.,
and scourged^ and crucified. — Matt. xx. 19.
In the very manner of the Passion of Our Lord
its effects are foreshadowed. In the first place,
the Passion of Our Lord had for its effect the
salvation of Jews, many of wThom were baptised
in his death.
Secondly, by the preaching of these Jews, the
effects of the Passion passed to the Gentiles also.
There was thus a certain fitness in Our Lord's
Passion beginning with the Jews and then, the
Jews handing him on, that it should be com
pleted at the hands of the Gentiles.
To show the abundance of the love which moved
him to suffer, Christ, on the very cross, asked
mercy for his tormentors. And since He wished
that Jew and Gentile alike should realise this
truth about His love, so he wished that both should
have a share in making him suffer.
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SECOND TUESDAY
It was the Jews and not the Gentiles who offered
the figurative sacrifices of the Old Law. The
Passion of Christ was an offering through sacrifice,
inasmuch as Christ underwent death by his own
will moved by charity. But in so far as those
who put him to death were concerned, they were
not offering a sacrifice but committing a sin.
When the Jews declared, // is not lawful for us to
put atiy man to death (John xix. 31), they may have
had many things in mind. It was not lawful for
them to put anyone to death on account of the
holiness of the feast they had begun to keep. Per
haps they wished Christ to be killed not as a trans
gressor of their own law but as an enemy of the
state, because he had made himself a king, a
charge concerning which they had no jurisdiction.
Or again, they may have meant that they had no
power to crucify — which was what they longed
for — but only to stone, as they later stoned St.
Stephen. Or, the most likely thing of all, that
their Roman conquerors had taken away their
power of life and death.
(3 47 40
Second Tuesday
THE PASSION OF CHRIST BROUGHT ABOUT OUR
SALVATION BECAUSE IT WAS A MERITORIOUS ACT
i. Grace was given to Christ not only as to a
particular person, but also as far as he is the head
of the Church, in order that the grace might pass
over from him to his members.
7*
MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
And the good works Christ performed, therefore,
stand in this same way in relation to him and to his
members, as the good works of any other man in
a state of grace stand to himself.
Now it is evident that any man who, in a state
of grace, suffers for justice' sake, merits for himself,
by this very fact alone, salvation. As is said in
the gospel, Blessed are they that suffer persecution for
justice' sake (Matt. v. 10).
Whence Christ by his Passion merited salvation
not only for himself but for all his members.
Christ, indeed, from the very instant of his
conception, merited eternal salvation for us. But
there still remained certain obstacles on our part,
obstacles which kept us from possessing our
selves of the effect of what Christ had merited.
Wherefore, in order to remove these obstacles,
// behoved Christ to suffer (Luke xxiv. 46).
Now although the love of Christ for us was not
increased in the Passion, and was not greater in
the Passion than before it, the Passion of Christ
had a certain effect which His previous meritorious
activity did not have. The Passion produced
this effect not on account of any greater love shown
thereby, but because it was a kind of action fitted
to produce that effect, as is evident from wrhat
has been said already on the fitness of the Passion
of Christ.
(3 48 i.)
Head and members belong to one and the same
person. Now Christ is our head, according to
his divinity and to the fullness of his grace which
SECOND TUESDAY
overflows upon others also. We are his members.
What Christ then meritoriously acquires is not
something external and foreign to us, but, by
virtue of the unity of the mystical body, it over
flows upon us too (3 Dist. xviii. 6).
2. We should know, too, that although Christ
by his death acquired merit sufficient for the whole
human race, there are special things needed for
the particular salvation of each individual soul,
and these each soul must itself seek out. The
death of Christ is, as it were, the cause of all sal
vation, as the sin of the first man was the cause of
all condemnation. But if each individual man is
to share in the effect of a universal cause, the uni
versal cause needs to be specially applied to each
individual man.
Now the effect of the sin of the first parents is
transmitted to each individual through his bodily
origin (i.e., through his being a bodily descendant
of the first man). The effect of the death of Christ
is transmitted to each man through a spiritual re
birth, a re-birth in which man is, as it were, con
joined with Christ and incorporated with him.
Therefore it is that each individual must seek
to be born again through Christ, and to receive
those other things in which works the power of
the death of Christ.
(Contra Gen. iv. 55.)
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MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
Second Wednesday
THE PASSION OF CHRIST BROUGHT ABOUT OUR
SALVATION BECAUSE IT WAS AN ACT OF SATISFACTION
Pie is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours
only but also for those oj the whole world. — i John ii. 2.
i. Satisfaction for offences committed is truly
made when there is offered to the person offended
a thing which he loves as much as, or more than,
he hates the offences committed.
Christ, however, by suffering out of love and
out of obedience, offered to God something
greater by far than the satisfaction called for by all
the sins of all mankind, and this for three reasons.
In the first place, there was the greatness of the
love which moved him to suffer. Then there
was the worth of the life which he laid down in
satisfaction, the life of God and man. Finally,
on account of the way in which his Passion involved
every part of his being, and of the greatness of
the suffering he undertook.
So it is that the Passion of Christ was not merely
sufficient but superabundant as a satisfaction for
men's sins. It would seem indeed to be the
case that satisfaction should be made by the person
who committed the offence. But head and mem
bers are as it were one mystical person, and there
fore the satisfaction made by Christ avails all the
faithful as they are the members of Christ. One
man can always make satisfaction for another,
so long as the two are one in charity.
(3 48 2.)
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SECOND WEDNESDAY
2. Although Christ, by his death, made sufficient
satisfaction for original sin, it is not unfitting that
the penal consequences of original sin should
still lemain even in those who are made sharers
in Christ's redemption. This has been done
fittingly and usefully, so that the penalties remain
even though the guilt has been removed.
(i) It has been done so that there might be
conformity between the faithful and Christ, as
there is conformity between members and head.
Just as Christ first of all suffered many pains and
came in this way to his glory, so it is only right
that his faithful should also first be subjected to
sufferings and thence enter into immortality,
themselves bearing as it were the livery of the
Passion of Christ so as to enjoy a glory somewhat
like to his.
(ii) A second reason is that if men coming to
Christ were straightway freed from suffering and
the necessity of death, only too many would come
to him attracted rather by these temporal advan
tages than by spiritual things. And this wrould be
altogether contrary to the intention of Christ,
who came into this world that he might convert
men from a love of temporal advantages and win
them to spiritual things.
(iii) Finally, if those who came to Christ were
straightway rendered immortal and impassible,
this would in a kind of way compel men to receive
the faith of Christ, and so the merit of believing
would be lessened.
(Contra Gen. iv. 55.)
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MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
Second Thursday
THAT THE PASSION OF CHRIST BROUGHT ABOUT
ITS EFFECT BECAUSE IT WAS A SACRIFICE
i. A sacrifice properly so called is something
done to render God the honour specially due to
Him, in order to appease Him. St. Augustine
teaches this, saying, " Every work done in order
that we may, in a holy union, cleave to God is a true
sacrifice — every work, that is to say, related to that
final good whose possession alone can make us
truly happy." Christ in the Passion offered himself
for us, and it was just this circumstance that he
offered himself willingly which wTas to God the
most precious thing of all, since the willingness
came from the greatest possible love. Whence it is
evident that the Passion of Christ was a real sacri
fice.
And as he himself adds later. The former sacri
fices of the saints were so many signs, of different
kinds, of this one true sacrifice. This one thing
w^as signified through many things, as one thing
is said through many words, so that it may be
repeated often without beginning to weary people.
St. Augustine speaks of four things being found
in every sacrifice, namely a person to whom the
offering is made, one by whom it is made, the thing
offered and those on whose behalf it is offered.
These are all found in the Passion of Our Lord.
It is the same person, the only, true mediator
himself, \vho through the sacrifice of peace recon
ciles us to God, yet remains one with him to whom
76
SECOND THURSDAY
he offers, who makes one with him those for whom
he offers, and is himself one who both offers and
is offered.
2. It is true that in those sacrifices of the old
law which were types of Christ, human flesh was
never offered, but it does not follow from this that
the Passion of Christ was not a sacrifice. For
although the reality and the thing that typifies it
must coincide in one point, it is not necessary that
they coincide in every point, for the reality must
go beyond the thing that typifies it. It was then
very fitting that the sacrifice in which the flesh of
Christ is offered for us was typified by a sacrifice
not of the flesh of man but of other animals, to
foreshadow the flesh of Christ which is the most
perfect sacrifice of all. It is the most perfect
sacrifice of all.
(i) Because since it is the flesh of human nature
that is offered, it is a thing fittingly offered for
men and fittingly received by men in a sacra
ment.
(ii) Because, since the flesh of Christ was
able to suffer and to die it was suitable for immola
tion.
(iii) Because since that flesh was itself without
sin, it had a power to cleanse from sin.
(iv) Because being the flesh of the very offerer,
it was acceptable to God by reason of the un
speakable love of the one who was offering his
own flesh.
Whence St. Augustine says, " What is there more
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MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
suitably received by men, of offerings made on
their behalf, than human flesh, and what is so
suitable for immolation as mortal flesh ? And
what is so clean for cleansing mortal viciousness
as that flesh born, without stain of carnal desire,
in the womb and of the womb of a virgin ? And
what can be so graciously offered and received
as the flesh of our sacrifice, the body so produced
of our priest ?"
(3 48 30
Second Friday
FEAST OF THE HOLY WINDING SHEET
Joseph taking the body, wrapped it up in a clean linen
cloth and laid it in his own new monument. —
Matt, xxvii. 59.
1. By this clean linen cloth three things are
signified in a hidden way, namely :
(i) The pure body of Christ. For the cloth
was made of linen which by much pressing is made
white and in like manner it was after much pressure
that the body of Christ came to the brightness of the
resurrection. Thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and
to rise again from the dead the third day (Luke xxiv. 46).
(ii) The Church, which without spot or wrinkle
(Eph. v. 27), is signified by this linen woven out of
many threads.
(iii) A clear conscience, where Christ reposes.
2. And laid him in his own new monument.
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SECOND SATURDAY
// was Joseph 's own grave ^ and certainly it was some
how appropriate that he who had died for the sins
of others should be buried in another man's grave.
Notice that it was a new grave. Had other
bodies already been laid in it, there might have
been a doubt which had arisen. There is another
fitness in this circumstance, namely that he who
was buried in this new grave, was he who was
born of a virgin mother.
As Mary's womb knew no child before him nor
after him, so was it with this grave. Again we
may understand that it is in a soul renewed that
Christ is buried by faith, that Christ may dwell by
faith in our hearts (Eph. iii. 17).
St. John's Gospel adds, Now there was in the
place where he was crucified^ a garden ; and in the
garden a new sepulchre (John xix. 41). Which recalls
to us that as Christ was taken in a garden and
suffered his agony in a garden, so in a garden
was he buried, and thereby we are reminded that
it was from the sin committed by Adam in the
garden of delightfulness that, by the power of his
Passion, Christ set us free, and also that through
the Passion the Church was consecrated, the
Church which again is as a garden closed.
(In Matt. 26.)
Second Saturday
THE PASSION OF CHRIST WROUGHT OUR SALVATION
BY REDEEMING US
St. Peter says, You were not redeemed with cor-
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MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
ruptible things as gold or silver, from your vain con
versation of the tradition of your fathers : but with the
precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb unspotted and
unde filed (i Pet. i. 18).
St. Paul says, Christ hath redeemed us from the
curse of the laiv, being made a curse for us (Gal. iii. 13).
He is said to be accursed in our place inasmuch as
it was for us that he suffered on the cross. There
fore by his Passion he redeemed us.
Sin, in fact, had bound man with a double
obligation.
(i) An obligation that made him sin's slave.
For Jesus said, whosoever committeth sin is the servant
of sin (John viii. 34). A man is enslaved to whoever
overcomes him. Therefore since the devil, in
inducing man to sin, had overcome man, man was
bound in servitude to the devil.
(ii) A further obligation existed, namely be
tween man and the penalty due for the sin com
mitted, and man was bound in this way in accord
with the justice of God. This too was a kind of
servitude, for to servitude or slavery it belongs
that a man must suffer otherwise than he chooses,
since the free man is the man who uses himself
as he wills.
Since then the Passion of Christ made sufficient,
and more than sufficient, satisfaction for the sins
of all mankind and for the penalty due to them,
the Passion was a kind of price through which
we were free from both these obligations. For
the satisfaction itself — that by means of which one
makes satisfaction, whether for oneself or for
80
SECOND SATURDAY
another — is spoken of as a kind of price by which
one redeems or buys back oneself or another from
sin and from merited penalties. So in Holy
Scripture it is said, Redeem thou thy sins with alms
(Dan. iv. 24).
Christ made satisfaction not indeed by a gift of
money or anything of that sort, but by a gift that
was the greatest of all, by giving for us Himself.
And thus it is that the Passion of Christ is called
our redemption.
By sinning man bound himself not to God but
to the devil. As far as concerns the guilt of what
he did, he had offended God and had made him
self subject to the devil, assenting to his will.
Hence he did not, by reason of the sin com
mitted, bind himself to God, but rather, deserting
God's service, he had fallen under the yoke of the
devil. And God, with justice if we remember
the offence committed against Him, had not pre
vented this.
But, if we consider the matter of the punishment
earned, it was chiefly and in the first place to God
that man was bound, as to the supreme judge.
Man was, in respect of punishment, bound to the
devil only in a lesser sense, as to the torturer, as it
says in the gospel, Lest the adversary deliver thee
to the judge^ and the judge deliver thee to the officer
(Matt. v. 25), that is, to the cruel minister of punish
ments .
Therefore, although the devil unjustly, as far as
was in his power, held man — whom by his lies
he had deceived — bound in slavery, held him
bound both on account of the guilt and of the
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MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
punishment due for it, it was nevertheless just that
man should suffer in this way. The slavery which
he suffered on account of the thing done God
did not prevent, and the slavery he suffered as
punishment God decreed.
Therefore it was in regard to God's claims that
justice called for man to be redeemed, and not in
regard to the devil's hold on us. And it was to
God the price was paid and not to the devil.
(3 48 4-)
Third Week in Lent — Sunday
IT is THE PASSION OF CHRIST THAT HAS FREED
us FROM SIN
He hath loved us^ and washed us from our sins in his
own blood. — Apoc. i. 5.
The Passion of Christ is the proper cause of the
remission of our sins, and that in three ways.
1. Because it provokes us to love God. St.
Paul says, God commendeth his charity towards us ;
because when as yet ive ivere sinners^ Christ died for us
(Rom. v. 8).
Through charity we obtain forgiveness for sin,
as it says in the gospel, Many sins are forgiven her^
because she hath loved -much (Luke vii. 47).
2. The Passion of Christ is the cause of the
forgiveness of sins because it is an act of redemp
tion. Since Christ is himself our head, he has,
82
THIRD WEEK IN LENT SUNDAY
by his own Passion — undertaken from love and
obedience — delivered us his members from our
sins, as it were at the price of his Passion. Just
as a man might by some act of goodness done with
his hands buy himself off for a wrong thing he
had done with his feet. For as man's natural
body is a unity, made up of different limbs, so the
whole Church, which is the mystical body of Christ,
is reckoned as a single person with its own head,
and this head is Christ.
3. The Passion of Christ was a thing equal
to its task. For the human nature through which
Christ suffered his Passion is the instrument of
His divine nature. Whence all the actions and
all the sufferings of that human nature wrought
to drive out sin, are wrought by a power that
is divine.
Christ, in His Passion, delivered us from our
sins in a causal way, that is to say, he set up for
us a thing which would be a cause of our emanci
pation, a thing whereby any sin might at any time
be remitted, whether committed now, or in times
gone by, or in time to come : much as a physician
might make a medicine from which all who are
sick may be healed, even those sick in the years
yet to come.
But since what gives the Passion of Christ its
excellence is the fact that it is the universal cause
of the forgiveness of sins, it is necessary that we
each of us ourselves make use of it for the for
giveness of our own particular sins. This is done
through Baptism, Penance and the other sacra-
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MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
ments, whose power derives from the Passion
of Christ.
By faith also we make use of the Passion of
Christ, in order to receive its fruits, as St. Paul says,
Christ Jesus, whom God hath proposed to be a propitia
tion, through faith in his blood (Rom. iii 25). But the
faith by which we are cleansed from sin is not that
faith which can exist side by side with sin — the
faith called formless — but faith formed, that is
to say, faith made alive by charity. So that the
Passion of Christ is not through faith applied merely
to our understanding but also to our will. Again,
it is from the power of the Passion of Christ that
the sins are forgiven which are forgiven by faith in
this way.
(3 49 x)-
Third Monday
THE PASSION OF CHRIST HAS DELIVERED us FROM
THE DEVIL
Our Lord said, as His Passion drew near, Noiv
shall the princes of this world be cast out. And I,
if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to
myself (John xii. 31, 32).
He was lifted up from the earth by His Passion
on the cross. Therefore by that Passion the devil
was driven out from his dominion over men.
With reference to that power, which, before the
Passion of Christ, the devil used to exercise over
mankind, three things are to be borne in mind.
THIRD MONDAY
1. Man had by his sin earned for himself
enslavement to the devil, for it was by the devil's
temptation that he had been overcome.
2. God, whom man in sinning had offended,
had, by his justice, abandoned man to the enslave
ment of the devil.
3. The devil by his own most wicked will
stood in the way of man's achieving his salvation.
With regard to the first point the Passion of Christ
set man free from the devil's power because the
Passion of Christ brought about the forgiveness of
sin. As to the second point the Passion delivered
man from the devil, because it brought about a
reconciliation between God and man. As to the
third point, the Passion of Christ freed us from the
devil's power because in his action during the
Passion the devil over-reached himself. He went
beyond the limits of the power over men allowed
to him by God, when he plotted the death of
Christ, upon whom, since he was without sin,
there lay no debt payable by death. Whence St.
Augustine's words, " The devil was overcome by
the justice of Christ. In Him the devil found
nothing that deserved death, but, none the less, he
slew him. And it was but just that those debtors
that the devil detained should go free since they
believed in Him whom, though he was under
no bond to him, the devil had slain."
The devil still continues to exercise a power
over men. He can, God permitting it, tempt them
in soul and in body. There is, however, made
available for man a remedy in the Passion of Christ,
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MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
by means of which he can defend himself against
these attacks, so that they do not lead him into
the destruction of eternal death. Likewise all
those who before the Passion of Christ resisted the
devil had derived their power to resist from the
Passion, although the Passion had not yet been
accomplished. But in one point none of those
who lived before the Passion had been able to
escape the hand of the devil, namely, they all had
to go down into hell, a thing from which, since the
Passion, all men can, by his power, defend them
selves.
God also allows the devil to deceive men in
certain persons, times and places, according to the
hidden character of His designs. Such, for
example, will be anti-Christ. But there always
remains, and for the age of anti-Christ too, a
remedy prepared for man through the Passion of
Christ, a power of protecting himself against the
wickedness of the devils. The fact that there are
some who neglect to make use of this remedy does
not lessen the efficacy of the Passion of Christ.
(3 49 20
Third Tuesday
CHRIST is TRULY OUR REDEEMER
You were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ,
as of a lamb unspotted and undefiled. — i Pet. i. 19.
By the sin of our first parents, the whole human
race was alienated from God, as is taught in the
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THIRD TUESDAY
second chapter of the epistle to the Ephesians.
It was not from God's power that we were thereby
cut off, but from that sight of God's face to which
His children and His servants are admitted.
Then again we descended beneath the usurped
power of the devil. Man had consented to the
devil's will and, thereby, had made himself subject
to the devil ; subject, that is to say, as far as lay
in man's power, for since he was not his own
property, but the property of another, he could
not really give himself away to the devil.
By His Passion, then, Christ did two things.
He freed us from the power of the enemy, con
quering him by virtues which were the very con
traries to the vices by which he had conquered man
— by humility, namely, by obedience and by an
austerity of suffering that was in direct opposition
to the enjoyment of forbidden food.
Furthermore, by making satisfaction for the sin
committed, Christ joined man with God and made
him the child and servant of God.
This emancipation had about it two things that
make it a kind of buying. Christ is said to have
bought us back or to have redeemed us inasmuch
as he snatched us from the power of the devil,
as a king is said, by hard-fought battles, to re
deem his kingdom that the enemy has occupied.
Christ is again said to have redeemed us inasmuch
as He placated God for us, paying as it were the
price of His satisfaction on our behalf, that we
might be freed both from the penalty and from the
sin.
This price, His precious blood, he paid — that
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MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
he might make satisfaction for us — not to the
devil but to God. Again, by the victory that
His Passion was, he took us away from the devil.
The devil had indeed had dominion over us,
but unjustly, since what power he had was usurped.
Nevertheless, it was but just that we should fall
under his yoke, seeing that it was by him we were
overcome. This is why it was necessary that the
devil should be overcome by the very contrary of
the forces by which he had himself overcome.
For he had not overcome by violence, but by a
lying persuasion to sin.
(3 Dist. 19 91, a 4.)
Third Wednesday
THE PRICE OF OUR REDEMPTION
You are bought with a great price. — i Cor. vi. 20.
The indignities and sufferings anyone suffers
are measured according to the dignity of the person
concerned. If a king is struck in the face he
suffers a greater indignity than does a private
person. But the dignity of Christ is infinite, for
He is a divine person. Therefore, any suffering
undergone by him, even the least conceivable
suffering, is infinite. Any suffering at all, then,
undergone by Him, without His death, would
have sufficed to redeem the human race.
St. Bernard says that the least drop of the blood
of Christ would have sufficed for the redemption
of us all. And Christ could have shed that one
THIRD WEDNESDAY
drop without dying. Therefore, even without
dying he could, by some kind of suffering, have
redeemed, that is, bought back, all mankind.
Now in buying two things are required, an
amount equal to the price demanded and the
assigning of that amount to the purpose of buying.
For if a man gives a price that is not equal in
value to the thing to be bought, we do not say
that he has bought it, but only that he has partly
bought it, and partly been given it. For example,
if a man buys for ten shillings a book that is worth
twenty shillings, he has partly bought the book and
it has, partly, been given to him. Or again, if he
puts together a greater price but does not assign
it to the buying, he is not said to buy the book.
If therefore when we speak of the redemption
and buying back of the human race we have in
view the amount of the price, we must say that
any suffering undergone by Christ, even without
His death, would have sufficed, because of the
infinite worth of His person. If, however, we
speak of the redemption with reference to the
setting of the price to the purpose in hand, we
have then to say that no other suffering of Christ
less than His death, was set by God and by Christ
as the price to be paid for the redemption of man
kind. And this was so for three reasons :
1. That the price of our redemption should
not only be infinite in value, but be of the same kind
as what it bought, i.e., that it should be with a
death that He bought us back from death.
2. That the death of Christ would be not only
MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
the price of our redemption but also an example of
courage, so that men would not be afraid to die
for the truth. St. Paul makes mention of this
and the preceding cause when he says, That, through
death, he might destroy him who had the empire of death
(this is the first cause), and might deliver them, who
throng the fear of death rvere all their lifetime subject
to servitude (this for the second cause) (Heb. ii.
3. That the death of Christ might be a sacra
ment to work our salvation ; we, that is, dying
to sin, to bodily desires and to our own will through
the power of the death of Christ. These reasons
are given by St. Peter when he says, Christ who
died once for our sins, the just for the unjust ; that he
might offer us to God, being put to death indeed in the
flesh, but enlivened in the spirit (i Pet. iii. 18).
And so it is that mankind has not been re
deemed by any other suffering of Christ without
his death.
But, as a matter of fact, Christ would have paid
sufficiently for the redemption of mankind not only
by giving His own life but by suffering any suffering
no matter how slight, if this slight suffering had
been the thing divinely appointed, and Christ would
thereby have paid sufficiently because of the
infinite worth of His person.
(Quodlib. 2 q i, a 2.)
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THIRD THURSDAY
Third Thursday
THE PREACHING OF THE SAMARITAN WOMAN
The woman therefore left her water-pot, and went her
way into the city. — John iv. 28.
This woman, once Christ had instructed her,
became an apostle. There are three things which
we can gather from what she said and what she
did.
i. The entirety of her surrender to Our Lord.
This is shown :
(i) From the fact that she left lying there, almost
as if forgotten, that for which she had come to the
well, the water and the water-pot. So great was
her absorption. Hence it is said, The woman left her
water-pot and went away into the city, went away to
announce the wonderful works of Christ. She
cared no longer for the bodily comforts in view
of the usefulness of better things, following in this
the example of the Apostles of whom it is said that,
Leaving their nets they followed the ~Lord (Mark i. 18).
The water-pot stands for fashionable desire, by
means of which men draw up pleasures from those
depths of darkness signified by the well, that is,
from practices which are of the earth earthy.
Those who abandon such desires for the sake of
God are like the woman who left her water-pot.
(ii) From the multitude of people to whom she
tells the news, not to one nor to two or three but
to a whole city. This is why she went away into
the city.
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MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
2. A method of preaching.
She salth to the men there : Come, and see a man who
has told me all things whatsoever I have done. Is not
he the Christ? — John iv. 29.
(i) She invites them to look upon Christ :
Come, and see a man — she did not straightway say
that they should give themselves to Christ, for
that might have been for them an occasion for
blasphemy, but, to begin with, she told them
things about Christ which were believable and
open to observation. She told them he wras a man.
Nor did she say, Believe, but come and see, for she
knew that if they, too, tasted of that well, looking
that is upon Our Lord, they, too, would feel
all she had felt. And she follows the example of
a true preacher in that she attracts the men not
to herself but to Christ.
(ii) She gives them a hint that Christ is God
when she says, A man who has told me all things
whatsoever I have done, that is to say, how many
husbands she had had. She is not ashamed to
bring up things that make for her own confusion,
because the soul, once it is lighted up with the divine
fire, in no way looks to earthly values and standards,
cares neither for its own glory nor its shame, but
only for that flame which holds and consumes it.
(iii) She suggests that this proves the majesty
of Christ, saying, Is not he the Christ? She does
not dare to assert that he is the Christ, lest she have
the appearance of wishing to teach others, and
the others, irritated thereat, refuse to go out to
Him. Nor, on the other hand, does she leave
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THIRD FRIDAY
the matter in silence, but she puts it before them
questioningly, as though she left it to their own
judgment. For this is the easiest of all ways of
persuasion.
3. The Fruit of Preaching.
They therefore went out of the city^ and came unto
Christ. — John iv. 30.
Hereby it is made clear to us that if we would
come to Christ, we too must go out of the city,
which is to say, we must lay aside all love of
bodily delights.
Let us go forth therefore to him without the camp
(Heb. xiii. 13).
(In John iv.)
Third Friday
IT is BY THE PASSION OF CHRIST THAT WE HAVE
BEEN FREED FROM THE PUNISHMENT DUE TO SlN
Surely he hath borne our infirmities and carried our
sorrows. — Isaias liii. 4.
By the Passion of Christ we are freed from the
liability to be punished for sin with the punish
ment that sin calls for, in two ways, directly and
indirectly.
We are freed directly inasmuch as the Passion of
Christ made sufficient and more than sufficient
satisfaction for the sins of the whole human race.
Now once sufficient satisfaction has been made,
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MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
the liability to the punishment mentioned is
destroyed.
We are freed indirectly inasmuch as the Passion
of Christ causes the sin to be remitted, and it is
from the sin that the liability to the punishment
mentioned derives.
Souls in hell, however, are not freed by the
Passion of Christ, because the Passion of Christ
shares its effect with those to whom it is applied
by faith and by charity and by the sacraments of
faith. Therefore the souls in hell, who are not
linked up with the Passion of Christ in the way just
mentioned, cannot receive its effects.
Now although we are freed from liability to the
precise penalty that sin deserves, there is, never
theless, enjoined on the repentant sinner a penalty
or penance of satisfaction. For in order that the
effect of the Passion of Christ be fully worked out
in us, it is necessary for us to be made of like form
with Christ. Now we are made of like form with
Christ in baptism by the sacrament, as is said by
St. Paul, We are buried together with him by baptism
into death (Rom. vi. 4). Whence it is that no
penalty of satisfaction is imposed on those who
are baptised. Through the satisfaction made by
Christ they are wholly set free. But since Christ
died once for our sins (i Pet. iii. 18), once only, man
cannot a second time be made of like form with
the death of Christ through the sacrament of
baptism. Therefore those who, after baptism,
sin again, must be made like to Christ in his
suffering, through some kind of penalty or suffering
which they endure in their own persons.
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THIRD SATURDAY
If death, which is a penalty due to sin, continues
to subsist, the reason is this : The satisfaction made
by Christ produces its effect in us in so far as we
are made of one body with him, in the way limbs
are one body with the head. Now it is necessary
that the limbs be made to conform to the head.
Wherefore since Christ at first had, together with
the grace in his soul, a liability to suffer in his body,
and came to His glorious immortality through the
Passion, so also should it be with us, who are his
limbs. By the Passion we are indeed delivered
from any punishment as a thing fixed on us, but
we are delivered in such a way that it is in the soul
we first receive the spirit of the adoption of sons,
by which we are put on the list for the inheritance
of eternal glory, while we still retain a body that
can suffer and die. It is only afterwards, when
we have been fashioned to the likeness of Christ
in his sufferings and death, that we are brought
into the glory of immortality. St. Paul teaches
this when he says, If sons, heirs also ; heirs indeed of
God, and joint heirs with Christ : jet so, if ire suffer
n'ith him, that n>e may be also glorified with him (Rom.
viii. 17).
(3 49 30
Third Saturday
THE PASSION OF CHRIST RECONCILES us TO GOD
We wen reconciled to God through the death of his son.—
Rom. v. 10.
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MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
1. The Passion of Christ brought about our
reconciliation to God in two ways.
It removed the sin that had made the human
race God's enemy, as it says in Holy Scripture,
To God the wicked and his wickedness are alike hateful
(Wis. xiv. 9), and again, Thou hatest all the workers
of iniquity (Ps. v. 7).
Secondly, the Passion was a sacrifice most
acceptable to God. It is in fact the peculiar effect
of sacrifice to be itself a thing by which God is
placated : just as a man remits offences done against
him for the sake of some acknowledgment, pleasing
to him, which is made. Whence it is said, If the
Lord stir thee up against me, let him accept of sacrifice
(i Kings xxvi. 19). Likewise, the voluntary suffer
ing of Christ was so good a thing in itself, that for
the sake of this good thing found in human nature,
God was pleased beyond the totality of offences
committed by all mankind, as far as concerns all
those who are linked to Christ in his suffering by
faith and by charity.
When we say that the Passion of Christ recon
ciled us to God we do not mean that God began to
love us all over again, for it is written, I have loved
thee with an everlasting love (Jer. xxxi. 3). We mean
that by the Passion the cause of the hatred was
taken away, on the one hand by the removal of
the sin, on the other hand by the compensation
of a good that was more than acceptable.
(3 49 4-)
2. As far as those who slew Our Lord were
concerned the Passion was indeed a cause of wrath.
THIRD SATURDAY
But the love of Christ suffering was greater than
the wickedness of those who caused Him to suffer.
And therefore the Passion of Christ wras more
powerful in reconciling to God the whole human
race, than in moving God to anger.
God's love for us is shown by what it does for
us. God is said to love some men because he
gives them a share in His own goodness, in that
vision of His very essence from which there follows
this that we live with Him, in His company, as
His friends, for it is in that delightful condition of
things that happiness (beatitude) consists.
God is then said to love those whom He admits
to that vision, either by giving them the vision
directly or by giving them what will bring them
to the vision — as when he gives the Holy Spirit
as a pledge of the vision.
It was from this sharing in the divine goodness,
from this vision of God's very essence, that man,
by sin, had been removed, and it is in this sense
that we speak of man as deprived of God's love.
And inasmuch as Christ, making satisfaction
for us by His Passion, brought it about that men
were admitted to the vision of God, therefore
it is that Christ is said to have reconciled us to
God.
(2 Dist. 19 q i, a 5.)
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MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
Fourth Week in Lent — Sunday
CHRIST BY His PASSION OPENED TO us THE GATES
OF HEAVEN
We have a confidence in the entering into the holies by
the blood of Christ. — Heb. x. 19.
The closing of a gate is an obstacle hindering
men's entrance. Now men are hindered from
entrance to the heavenly kingdom by sin, for Isaias
says, // shall be called the holy way : the unclean shall
not pass over it (Is. xxxv. 8).
Now the sin that hinders man's entrance into
heaven is of two kinds. There is, first of all,
the sin of our first parents. By this sin access
to the kingdom of heaven was barred to man.
\X-'e read in Genesis (iii. 24) that after the sin of
our first parents God placed before the paradise of
pleasure Cherubim s and a flaming sword, turning every
ivay^ to fceep the way of the tree of life. The other
kind of hindrance arises from the sins special to
each individual, the sins each man commits by his
owrn particular action.
By the Passion of Christ we are freed not only
from the sin common to all human nature, and
this both as to the sin and as to its appointed
penalty, since Christ pays the price on our behalf,
but also we are delivered from our personal sins
if we are numbered among those who are linked
to the Passion by faith, by charity and by the
sacraments of the Faith. Thus it is that through the
Passion of Christ the gates of heaven are thrown
open to us. And hence St. Paul says that Christ,
FOURTH WEEK IN LENT SUNDAY
being come an high priest of the good things to come,
by his onm blood entered once into 'the holies ', having ob
tained a redemption that is eternal (Heb. ix. n).
And this was foreshadowed in the Old Testa
ment, where we read (Num. xxxv. 25, 28), the man-
slayer shall abide there, that is, in the city of refuge,
until the death of the high priest, that is anointed with
holy oil. And after he is dead, then shall the man-
slayer return to his onm country.
The holy fathers who (before the coming of
Christ) wrought works of justice earned their
entrance into heaven through faith in the Passion
of Christ, as is written, The saints by faith conquered
kingdoms, wrought justice (Heb. xi. 33). By faith,
too, it was that individuals wrere cleansed from the
sins they had individually committed. But faith
or goodness, no matter who the person was that
possessed it, was not enough to be able to move
the hindrance created by the guilty state of the
whole human creation. This hindrance was only
removed at the price of the blood of Christ. And
therefore before the Passion of Christ no one could
enter the heavenly kingdom, to obtain that eternal
happiness that consists in the full enjoyment of
God.
Christ by his Passion merited for us an entrance
into heaven, and removed what stood in our way.
By His Ascension, however, he, as it were, put
mankind in possession of heaven. And therefore
it is that He ascended opening the way before
them.
(3 49 5-)
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M EDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
Fourth Monday
CHRIST BY His PASSION MERITED TO BE EXALTED
He became obedient unto death^ even to the death of the
cross : for which cause God hath exalted him. — •
Phil. ii. 8.
Merit is a thing which implies a certain equality
of justice. Thus St. Paul says, To him that worketh^
the reward is reckoned according to debt (Rom. iv. 4).
Now since a man who commits an injustice
takes for himself more than is due to himself, it
is just that he suffer loss even in what is actually
due to him. If a man steals one sheep, he shall
give back four as it says in Holy Scripture (Exod.
xxii. i). And this is said to be merited inasmuch
as in this way the man's evil will is punished.
In the same way the man who acts with such
justice that he take less than what is due to him,
merits that more shall be generously superadded
to what he has, as a kind of reward for his just
will. So, for instance, the gospel tells us, He
that humbleth himself shall be exalted (Luke xiv. 1 1).
Now in His Passion Christ humbled himself
below His dignity in four respects :
(i) In respect of His Passion and His death,
things which He did not owe to undergo.
(ii) In respect to places, for His body was
placed in a grave and his soul in hell.
(iii) In respect to the confusion and shame that
He endured.
(iv) In respect to His being delivered over to
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FOURTH MONDAY
human authority, as He said Himself to Pilate,
Thou shouldst not have any power against me, unless it
were given thee from above (John xix. n).
Therefore, on account of His Passion, He
merited a fourfold exaltation.
(i) A glorious resurrection. It is said in the
Psalm (Ps. cxxxviii. i), Thou hast known my sitting
down, that is, the humiliation of my Passion, and
my rising up.
(ii) An ascension into heaven. Whence it is
said, He descended first into the lower parts of the earth :
He that descended is the same also that ascended above
all the heavens (Eph. iv. 9, 10).
(iii) To be seated at the right hand of the Father,
with His divinity made manifest. Isaias says, He
shall be exalted, and extolled, and shall be exceeding
high. As many have been astonished at thee, so shall
his visage be inglorious among men, and St. Paul says,
He became obedient unto death, even to the death of the
cross. For which cause God hath exalted him and hath
given him a name which is above all names (Phil. ii. 8, 9),
that is to say, He shall be named God by all, and
all shall pay Him reverence as God. And this is
why St. Paul adds, That in the name of Jesus every
knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth,
and under the earth (ibid. x).
(iv) A power of judgment. For it is said, Thy
cause hath been judged as that of the wicked. Cause and
judgment thou shalt recover (Job xxxvi. 17).
(3 49 60
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MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
Fourth Tuesday
THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST CRUCIFIED
Christ assumed human nature in order to restore
fallen humanity. He had therefore to suffer and
to do, according to human nature, the things which
could serve as a remedy against the sin of the fall.
Man's sin consists in this that he so cleaves to
bodily goods that he neglects what is good spiri
tually. It was therefore necessary for the Son of
God to show this in the humanity he had taken,
through all he did and suffered, so that men should
repute temporal things, whether good or evil, as
nothing, for otherwise, hindered by an exaggerated
affection for them, they would be less devoted to
spiritual things.
Christ therefore chose poor people for his
parents, people nevertheless perfect in virtue, so
that none of us should glory in the mere rank or
wealth of our parents.
He led the life of a poor man, to teach us to
set no store by wealth.
He lived the life of an ordinary man, without
any rank, to wean men from an undue desire for
honours.
Toil, thirst, hunger, the aches of the body,
all these he endured, to encourage men, whom
pleasures and delights attract, not to be deterred
from virtue by the austerity a good life entails.
He went so far as to endure even death, lest
the fear of death might at any time tempt man
to abandon the truth. And lest any of us might
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FOURTH TUESDAY
dread to die even a shameful death for the truth,
he chose to die by the most accursed death of all,
by crucifixion.
That the Son of God, made man, should suffer
death was also fitting for this reason, that by his
example he stimulates our courage, and so makes
true what St. Peter said, Christ suffered for us, leaving
you an example that you should jollow his steps (i
Pet. ii. 21).
(Contra Armen. Sarac. 7)
Christ truly suffered for us, leaving us an example
in anxieties, contempts, scourgings, the cross,
death itself, that we might follow in his steps.
If we endure for Christ our own anxieties and suffer
ings, we shall also reign together with Christ in
the happiness that is everlasting. St. Bernard
says, " How few are they, O Lord, who yearn to
go after Thee, and yet there is no one that desireth
not to come to Thee, for all men know that in Thy
right hand are delights that will never fail. All
desire to enjoy Thee, but not all to imitate Thee.
They would willingly reign with Thee, but spare
themselves from suffering with Thee. They have
no desire to look for Thee, whom yet they desire
to find."
(De humanitate Chris ti, cap. 47.)
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MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
Fourth Wednesday
THE DIVINE FRIEND
His sisters sent to bun saying : Lord, behold, he whom
tbou lovest is sick. — John xi. 3.
Three things here call for thought.
1. God's friends are from time to time afflicted
in the body. It is not, therefore, in any way a
proof that a man is not a friend of God that he is
from time to time sick and ailing. Eliphaz argued
falsely against Job when he said, Remember, I
pray the?, who ever perished being innocent ? or when
iv ere the just destroyed? (Job iv. 7).
The gospel corrects this when it says, Lord, behold,
he whom tbou loves t is sick, and the Book of Proverbs,
too, where we read, For whom tie Lord lovetb, be
chastiseth : and as a father in the son he pleasetb him
self (Prov. iii. 12).
2. The sisters do not say, " Lord, come and
heal him." They merely explain that Lazarus
is ill, they say, He is sick. This is to remind us
that, when we are dealing with a friend, it is enough
to make known our necessity, wre do not need to
add a request. For a friend, since he wills the
welfare of his friend as he wills his own, is as
anxious to ward off evil from his friend as he is to
ward it off from himself. This is true most of
all in the case of Him who, of all friends, loves
most truly. The Lord keepeth all them that love him
(Ps. cxliv. 20).
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FOURTH THURSDAY
3. These two sisters, who so greatly desire the
cure of their sick brother, do not come to Christ
personally, as did the centurion and the man sick
of the palsy. From the special love and familiarity
which Christ had shown them, they had a special
confidence in Him. And, possibly, their grief
kept them at home, as St. Chrysostom thinks.
A friend if he continue steadfast, shall be to thee as
thyself, and shall act with confidence among them of
thy household (Ecclus. vi. n).
(In John xi.)
Fourth Thursday
THE DEATH OF LAZARUS
i. Lazarus our friend skepeth (John xi. n).
Our friend — for the many benefits and services
he rendered us, and therefore we owe it not to fail
in his necessity. Slcepeth, therefore we must come
to his assistance : a brother is proved in distress
(Prov. xvii. 17).
He skepeth -, I say, as St. Augustine says, to the
Lord. But to men he was dead, nor had they
power to raise him.
Sleep is a word we use with various meanings.
We use it to mean natural sleep, negligence,
blameworthy inattention, the peace of contem
plation, the peace of future glory, and we use it
also to mean death. We will not have you ignorant,
concerning the last sleep, that jou be not sorrowful, even
as others that have no hope, says St. Paul (i Thess.
iv. 12).
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MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
Death is called sleep because of the hope of
resurrection, and so it has been customary to
give death this name since the time when Christ
died and was raised again, I have slept and have taken
my rest (Ps. iii. 6).
2. I go that I may awake him out of sleep (John
xi. n).
In these words Jesus gives us to understand
that he could raise Lazarus from the tomb as
easily as we raise a sleeper from his bed. Nor is
this to be wondered at, for He is none other than
the Lord who raiseth up the dead and giveth life
(John v. 21). And hence He is able to say, The
hour ccmeth when all that are in the graves shall hear
the voice of the Son of God (ibid. v. 28).
3. Let us go to him (John xi. 15).
Here it is the mercifulness of God that we are
shown. Men, living in sin and as it were dead,
unable to any power of their own to come to
him, He mercifully draws, anticipating their
desire and need. Jeremias speaks of this when he
says, Thus saith the Lord I have loved thee mtb an
everlasting love., therefore have I drawn tbee, taking pity
on thee (Jer. xxxi. 3).
4. Jesus therefore came and found that he had been
four days already in the grave (John xi. 17).
St. Augustine sees in the four-days' dead Lazarus
a figure of the fourfold spiritual death of the
sinner. He dies in tact through original sin,
through actual sin, against the natural law, through
1 06
FOURTH FRIDAY
actual sin against the written law, through actual
sin against the law of the gospel and of grace.
Another interpretation is that the first day repre
sents the sin of the heart, Take away the evil of jour
thoughts, says Isaias (i. 16) ; the second day repre
sents sins of the tongue ; Let no evil speech proceed
from your mouth , says St. Paul (Eph. iv. 29) ; the
third day represents the sins of evil action, Cease
to do perversely (Isaias i. 16) ; the fourth day stands
for the sins of wicked habit.
Whatever explanation we give, Our Lord at
times does heal those who are four days dead, that
is, those who have broken the law of the gospel
and are bound fast by habits of sin.
(In John xi.)
Fourth Friday
THE PRECIOUS BLOOD
i. Through the blood of Christ the New
Testament was confirmed. This chalice is the neiv
testament in my blood (i Cor. xi. 25). Testament
has a double meaning.
(i) It may mean any kind of agreement or pact.
Now God has twice made an agreement with
mankind. In one pact God promised man temporal
prosperity and deliverance from temporal losses,
and this pact is called the Old Testament. In
another pact God promised man spiritual blessings
and deliverance from spiritual losses, and this is
called the New Testament, I mil make a nen> covenant ,
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saith the Lord, with the house of Israel and with the
hoi^e of ]uda : not according to the covenant which I
made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by
the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt : but
this shall be the covenant : I will give my law in their
bosoms and I will write it in their hearts and I will be
their God and they shall be my people (]er. xxxi. 31-3 3).
Among the ancients it was customary to pour
out the blood of some victim in confirmation of a
pact. This Moses did when, taking the blood,
he sprinkled it upon the people and he said, This is the
blood of the covenant which the Lord hath made with
you (Rxod. xxiv. 8). As the Old Testament or
pact was thus confirmed in the figurative blood
of oxen, so the NewT Testament or pact was con
firmed in the blood of Christ, shed during his
Passion.
(ii) Testament has another more restricted
meaning when it signifies the arrangement of an
inheritance among the different heirs, i.e., a will.
Testaments, in this sense, are only confirmed by
the death of the testator. As St. Paul says, For a
testament is of force, after men are dead: otherwise
it is as yet of no strength, whilst the testator liveth
(Keb. ix. 17). God, in the beginning, made an
arrangement of the eternal inheritance we were to
receive, but under the figure of temporal goods.
This is the Old Testament. But afterwards He
made the New Testament, explicitly promising the
eternal inheritance, which indeed was confirmed
by the blood of the death of Christ. And there
fore, Our Lord, speaking of this, says, This chalice
is the new testa went in my blood (i Cor. xi. 25), as
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though to say, " By that which is contained in
this chalice, the new testament, confirmed in the
blood of Christ, is commemorated."
(In i Cor. xii.)
2. There are other things which make the
blood of Christ precious. It is :
(i) A cleansing of our sins and uncleanness.
Jesus Christ hath "loved us and washed us from our
sins in his own blood (Apoc. i. 5).
(ii) Our redemption, Thou hast redeemed us in
Thy blood (ibid. v. 9).
(iii) The peacemaker between us and God
and his angels, making peace through the blood of his
cross, both as to the things that are on earth and the
things that are in the heavens (Coloss. i. 20).
(iv) A draught of life to all who receive it.
Drink ye all of this (Matt. xxvi. 27). That they might
drink the purest blood of the grape (Deut. xxxii. 14).
(v) The opening of the gate of heaven. Hairing
therefore brethren, a confidence in the entering into the
holies bj the blood of Christ (Heb. x. 19), that is to say,
a continuous prayer for us to God. For His
blood daily cries for us to the Father, as again we
are told, You are come to the sprinkling of blood which
speaketh better than that of Abel (ibid. xii. 22-24).
The blood of Abel called for punishment. The
blood of Christ calls for pardon.
(vi) Deliverance of the saints from hell. Thou
also bj the blood of thy testament hast sent forth thy
prisoners out of the pit, wherein is no water (Zach.
ix. n).
(Sermon for Passion Sunday.)
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MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
Fourth Saturday
THERE WAS NOT ANY MORE FITTING WAY TO FREE
THE HUMAN RACE THAN THROUGH THE PASSION
OF CHRIST
The suitability of any particular way for the
attainment of a given end is reckoned according
to the greater or less number of things useful to
that end which the way in question brings about.
The more things helpful to the end the method
chosen brings about, the better and more suitable
is that method or way. Now owing to the fact
that it was through the Passion of Christ that
man was delivered, many things, helpful to man's
salvation, came together — in addition to his being
freed from sin.
(i) Thanks to the fact that it was through the
Passion that man was delivered, man learns how
much God loves him, and is thereby stimulated
to that love of God, in which is to be found
the perfection of man's salvation. God commendeth
his chanty towards us : because when as yet we were
sinners^ Christ died for us (Rom. v. 8).
(ii) In the Passion He gave us an example of
obedience, humility, constancy, justice and of other
virtues also, all of which we must practise if we
are to be saved. Christ suffered for us^ leaving you
an example that you should follow His steps (i Pet. ii.
21).
(iii) Christ by His Passion not only delivered
man from sin, but also merited for man the grace
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PASSION WEEK SUNDAY
which makes him acceptable to God, and the
glory of life with God for eternity.
(iv) The fact that it is through the Passion
that man has been saved, brings home to man the
need of keeping himself clear from sin. Man
has only to realise that it was at the price of the
blood of Christ that he was bought back from sin.
You are bought with a great price. Glorify God and
bear him in your body (i Cor. vi. 20).
(v) The fact that the Passion was the way chosen
heightens the dignity of human nature. As it
was man that was deceived and conquered by the
devil, so now it is man by whom the devil in turn
is conquered. As it was man who once earned
death, so it is man who, by dying, has overcome
death. Thanks be to God^ who hath given us the
victory through Our Lord Jesus Christ (i Cor. xv. 57).
(3 46 3.)
Passion Week — Sunday
THE PASSION OF CHRIST
As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert^ so must
the Son of Man be lifted up : that whosoever believeth
in him may not perish ; but may have life everlasting. —
John iii. 14, 15.
We may note here three things.
^i. The Figure of the Passion. As Moses
lifted up the serpent in the desert. When the Jews
said, Our soul now loathe th this very light food (Num.
MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
xxi. 5), the Lord sent serpents in punishment,
and afterwards, for a remedy, He commanded the
brazen serpent to be made — as a remedy against
the serpents and also as a figure of the Passion.
It is the nature of a serpent to be poisonous, but
the brazen serpent had no poison. It was but the
figure of a poisonous serpent. So also Christ had
no sin, which is the poison, but He had the likeness
of sin. God sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful
flesh and of sin (Rom. viii. 3). Therefore Christ
had the effect of the serpent against the move
ments of our blazing desires.
2. The Mode of the Passion. So must the Son
of Man be lifted up. This refers to His being raised
upon the cross. He willed to die lifted up, (i)
To purify the air : already He had purified the
earth by the holiness of His living there, it still
remained for Him to purify, by His dying there,
the air ; (ii) To triumph over the devils, who in
the air, make their preparations to war on us ;
(iii) To draw our hearts to His heart, I, if I be lifted
up from the earth ^ will draw all things to myself (John
xii. 32). Since in the death of the cross he was
exalted, and since it was there that He overcame
his enemies, we say that he was exalted rather than
that he died. He shall drink of the torrent by the
iv ay side ; therefore shall lie lift up His head (Ps.
cix. 7).
The cross was the cause of His exaltation.
He became obedient unto death ^ even to the death of the
cross, wherefore God hath exalted Him (Phil. ii. 8).
3. The Fruit of the Passion. The fruit is
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PASSION MONDAY
eternal life. Whence Our Lord says Himself,
Whosoever belicvetb in Him, doing good works, may
not perish, but may have life everlasting (John iii. 16).
And this fruit corresponds to the fruit of the
serpent that foreshadowed Him. For whoever
looked upon the brazen serpent was delivered from
the poison and his life was preserved. Now the
man who looks upon the Son of Man lifted up is
the man who believes in Christ crucified, and it is
in this way that he is delivered from the poison
that is sin and preserved for the life that is eternal.
(In John iii.)
Passion Monday
THE PASSION OF CHRIST is A REMEDY AGAINST SIN
We find in the Passion of Christ a remedy against
all the evils that we incur through sin. Now these
evils are five in number.
(i) We ourselves become unclean. When a
man commits any sin he soils his soul, for just as
virtue is the beauty of the soul, so sin is a stain upon
it. How happeneih it, O Israel, that thou art in thy
enemies' land? Thou art grown old in a strange
country ', thou art defiled with the dead (Baruch iii. 10, 1 1).
The Passion of Christ takes away this stain.
For Christ, by His Passion, made of His blood a
bath wherein He might wash sinners. The soul
is washed with the blood of Christ in Baptism, for
it is from the blood of Christ that the sacra
ment draws its power of giving new life. When
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therefore one who is baptised soils himself again
by sin, he insults Christ and sins more deeply
than before.
(ii) Wre offend God. As the man who is fleshly-
minded loves what is beautiful to the flesh, so God
loves spiritual beauty, the beauty of the soul.
When the soul's beauty is defiled by sin God is
offended, and holds the offender in hatred. But
the Passion of Christ takes away this hatred,
for it does what man himself could not possibly
do, namely it makes full satisfaction to God for the
sin. The love and obedience of Christ was greater
than the sin and rebellion of Adam.
(iii) We ourselves are weakened. Man believes
that, once he has committed the sin, he \\ill be able
to keep from sin for the future. Experience shows
that what really happens is quite otherwise. The
effect of the first sin is to weaken the sinner and
make him still more inclined to sin. Sin dominates
man more and more, and man left to himself,
whatever his powers, places himself in such a
state that he cannot rise from it. Like a man who
has thrown himself into a well, there he must lie,
unless he is drawn up by some divine power.
After the sin of Adam, then, our human nature
was weaker, it had lost its perfection and men
were more prone to sinning.
But Christ, although He did not utterly make an
end of this weakness, nevertheless greatly lessened
it. Man is so strengthened by the Passion of Christ
• — and the effect of Adam's sin is so weakened—
that he is no longer dominated by it. Helped by
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PASSION MONDAY
the grace of God, given him in the sacraments,
which derive their power from the Passion of
Christ, man is now able to make an effort and
so rise up from his sins. Before the Passion
of Christ there were few who lived without mortal
sin, but since the Passion many have lived and do
live without it.
(iv) Liability to the punishment earned by
sin. This the justice of God demanded, namely,
that for each sin the sinner should be punished,
the penalty to be measured according to the sin.
Whence, since mortal sin is infinitely wicked, seeing
that it is a sin against what is infinitely good, that
is to say, God whose commands the sin despises,
the punishment due to mortal sin is infinite too.
But by His Passion Christ took away from us
this penalty, for He endured it Himself. Who his
own self bore our sins, that is the punishment due to
us for our sins, in his body upon the tree (i Pet.
ii. 24).
So great was the power and value of the Passion
of Christ that it was sufficient to expiate all the sins
of all the world, reckoned by millions though they
be. This is the reason why baptism frees the
baptised from all their sins, and why the priest
can forgive sin. This is why the man who more
and more fashions his life in conformity with the
Passion of Christ, and makes himself like to Christ
in His Passion, attains an ever fuller pardon and
ever greater graces.
(v) Banishment from the kingdom. Subjects
who offend the king are sent into exile. So, too, man
MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
was expelled from Paradise. Adam, having sinned,
was straightway thrown out and the gates barred
against him.
But, by His Passion, Christ opened those gates,
and called back the exiles from banishment. As
the side of Christ opened to the soldier's lance,
the gates of heaven opened to man, and as Christ's
blood flowed, the stain was washed out, God was
appeased, our weakness taken away, amends made
for our sins, and the exiles were recalled. Thus
it was that Our Lord said immediately to the repent
ant thief, This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise
(Luke xxiii. 43). Such a thing was never before
said to any man, not to Adam nor to Abraham, nor
even to David. But This day, the day on which the
gate is opened, the thief does but ask and he finds.
Having confidence in the entering into the holies by the
blood of Christ (Heb. x. 19).
(In Symb.)
Passion Tuesday
THE BURIAL OF CHRIST
She hath nr ought a good work upon me. She in pouring
this ointment upon me hath done it for my burial.—
Matt. xxvi. 10-12.
It was right that Christ should be buried.
i. It proved that He had really died. No one
is placed in the grave unless he is undeniably
dead. And, as we read in St. Mark (ch. xv),
Pilate, before he gave leave for Christ to be buried,
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PASSION TUESDAY
made careful enquiry to assure himself that Christ
was dead.
2. The very fact that Christ rose again from the
grave gives a hope of rising again through Him
to all others who lie in their graves. As it says in
the gospel, All that are in the grave shall hear the
voice of the Son of God. And they that hear shall live
(John v. 28, 25).
3. It was an example for those who by the
death of Christ are spiritually dead to sin, for those,
that is, who are hidden awray from the turmoil of
human affairs. So St. Paul says, You are dead ;
and your life is hid with Christ in God (Col. iii. 3).
So, too, those who are baptised, since by the death
of Christ they die to sin, are as it were buried with
Christ in their immersion, as St. Paul again says,
We are buried together with Christ by baptism unto
death (Rom. vi. 4).
As the death of Christ efficiently wrought our
salvation, so too is his burial effective for us.
St. Jerome, for example, says, " By the burial of
Christ we all rise again," and explaining the words
of Isaias (liii. 9), He shall give the ungodly for his
burial, the Gloss says, " This means He shall give
to God and the Father the nations lacking in filial
devotion : for through his death and burial he
has obtained possession of them."
The Psalm (Ps. Ixxxvii. 6) says, I am become as
a man without help, free among the dead. Christ by
being buried showed himself free among the dead
indeed, for His being enclosed in the tomb was
MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
not allowed to hinder His coining forth in the
Resurrection.
(3 5i I-)
Passion Wednesday
ON BEING BURIED SPIRITUALLY
The sepulchre is a figure by which is signified
the contemplation of heavenly things. So, St.
Gregory, commenting on the words of Job (iii. 22),
They rejoice exceedingly when they have found the grave ^
says, " As in the grave the body is hidden away
when dead, so in divine contemplation there lies
concealed the soul, dead to the world. There,
at rest from the world's clamour, it lies, in a three
days' burial through, as it were, its triple immersion
in baptism. Thou shalt hide them in the secret of
thy face^ from the disturbance of men (Ps. xxx. 21).
Those in great trouble, tormented with the hates
of men, enter in spirit the presence of God and
they are at rest."
Three things are required for this spiritual
burial in God, namely, that the mind be perfected
by the virtues, that the mind be all bright and
shining with purity, and that it be wholly dead
to this world. All these things are shown figura
tively in the burial of Christ.
The first is shown in St. Mark's Gospel where
we read how Alary Magdalen anointed Our Lord
for His burial by anticipation, as it were. She
hath done what she could : she is come beforehand to
anoint my body for the burial (Mark xiv. 8). The
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PASSION WEDNESDAY
ointment of precious spikenard (ibid, iii) stands
for the virtues, for it is a thing very precious,
and in this life nothing is more precious than the
virtues. The soul that wishes to be holy and to be
buried in divine contemplation, must first, then,
anoint itself by the exercise of the virtues. Job
(v. 26) says, Thou shalt enter into the grave in abundance
—and the Gloss explains the grave as meaning
here, " divine contemplation ' —as a heap of
wheat is brought in its season, and the explanation
given in the Gloss is that eternal contemplation
is the prize of a life of action, and therefore it
must be that the perfect, first of all, exercise their
souls in the virtues and then, afterwards, bury
them in the barn where all quiet is gathered.
The second of the three things required is also
noted in St. Mark, where we read (xv. 46) that
Joseph bought a winding sheet, that is, a sheet of
fine linen, which is only brought to its dazzling
whiteness with great labour. Hence it signifies
that brightness of the soul, which also is not per
fectly attained except with great labour. He that
is just let him be justified still (Apoc. xxii. n). Let
us walk in newness of life (Rom. vi. 4), going from
good to better, through the justice inaugurated
by faith to the glory for which we hope. There
fore it is that men, bright with a spotless interior
life, should be buried in the sepulchre of divine
contemplation. St. Jerome, commenting on the
words, Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see
God (Matt. v. 8), says, " The clean Lord is seen by
the clean of heart."
The third point for consideration is given by
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MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
St. John where, in his gospel (xix. 30), he writes,
Nicodemus also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh
and aloes, about an hundred pound weight. This
hundred pounds weight of myrrh and aloes,
brought to preserve the dead body, symbolises
that perfect mortification of the external senses,
the means by which the spirit, dead to the world,
is preserved from the vices that would corrupt it.
Though our outward wan is corrupted, jet the inward
man is renewed day by day (2 Cor. iv. 16), which is as
much as to say the inward man is most thoroughly
purified from vices by the fire of tribulation.
Therefore man's soul must first, with Christ,
become dead to this world, and then, afterwards,
be buried with him in the hiding place of divine
contemplation. St. Paul says, You are dead with
Christ, to the things that, are vain and fleeting,
and jour life is hid with Christ in God (Col. iii. 3).
(De humanitate Chris ti, cap. 42.)
Passion Thursday
WHICH IS THE GREATEST SIGN OF HlS LOVE OUR
LORD HAS GIVEN us ?
It would seem that Christ gave us a greater
sign of His love by giving us His body as our
food than by suffering for us. For the love that
will be in the life to come is a more perfect thing
than the love that is in this life. And the benefit
that Christ bestows on us by giving us His body
as food is more like to the love of the life to come
1 20
PASSION THURSDAY
in which we shall fully enjoy God. The Passion
that Christ underwent for us is, on the other hand,
more like to the love that is of this life, in which
\ve, too, are to suffer for Christ. Therefore it is
a greater sign of Christ's love for us that he de
livered His body to us as our food, than that He
suffered for us.
Nevertheless, it is an argument against this that
in St. John's gospel Our Lord himself says, Greater
love than this no man hath^ that a man lay down bis
life for his friends (John xv. 13).
The strongest of human loves is the love with
which a man loves himself. Therefore this love
must be the measure, by comparison with which
we estimate the love by which a man loves others
than himself. Now the extent of a man's love
for another is shown by the extent of good desired
for himself that he forgoes for his friend. As Holy
Scripture says, He that neglectetb a loss for the sake
of a friend^ is just (Prov. xii. 26). Now a man
wishes well to himself as to three things, namely,
his soul, his body, and things outside himself.
It is then already a sign of love that, for another,
a man is willing to suffer loss of things outside
himself.
It is a greater sign if he is also willing to suffer
loss in his body for another, that is, by bearing the
burden of work or undergoing punishment.
It is the greatest of all signs of love if a man
is willing, by dying for his friend, to lay do\vn his
very life.
Therefore, that Christ, in suffering for us, laid
down Ins life was the greatest of all signs that He
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MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
loved us. That He has given us His body for our
food in the sacrament does not entail for Him any
loss. It follows then that the first is the greater
sign. Also this sacrament is a kind of memorial
and figure of the Passion of Christ. But the truth
is always greater than that which figures it, the
thing is always greater than the memorial that
recalls it.
The showing forth of the body of Christ in the
sacrament has about it, it is true, a certain figure
of the love with which God loves us in the life
to come. But Christ's Passion is associated with
that love itself, by which God calls us from per
dition to the life to come. The love of God,
however, is not greater in the life to come than it
is in this present life.
(Quodlibeta 5 q 3 a 2.)
Passion Friday
OUR LADY'S SUFFERING IN THE PASSION
Thy own soul a sword shall pierce. — Luke ii. 35.
In these words there is noted for us the close
association of Our Lady with the Passion of Christ.
Four things especially made the Passion most
bitter for her.
Firstly, the goodness of her son, Who did no sin
(i Pet. ii. 22).
Secondly, the cruelty of those who crucified Him,
shown, for example, in this that as He lay dying
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PASSION FRIDAY
they refused Him even water, nor would they allow
His mother, who would most lovingly have given
it, to help Him.
Thirdly, the disgrace of the punishment, Let us
condemn him to a most shameful death (Wis. ii. 20).
Fourthly, the cruelty of the torment. O ye
that pass by the way, attend and see if there be any
sorrow like to my sorroiv (Lam. i. 12).
(Serm.)
The words of Simeon, Thy own soul a sword shall
pierce^ Origen, and other doctors with him, ex
plain with reference to the pain felt by Our Lady
in the Passion of Christ. St. Ambrose, however,
says that by the sword is signified Our Lady's
prudence, thanks to which she was not without
knowledge of the heavenly mystery. For the word
of God is a living thing, strong and keener than the
keenest sword (cf. Heb. iv. 12).
Other writers again, St. Augustine for example,
understand by the sword the stupefaction that
overcame Our Lady at the death of her Son, not
the doubt that goes with lack of faith but a certain
fluctuation of bewilderment, a staggering of the
mind. St. Basil, too, says that as Our Lady
stood by the cross with all the detail of the Passion
before her, and in her mind the testimony of Gabriel,
the message that words cannot tell of her divine
conception, and all the vast array of miracles, her
mind swayed, for she saw Him the victim of such
vileness, and yet knew Him for the author of
such wonders.
(3 27 4 ad 2.)
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MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
Although Our Lady knew by faith that it was
God's will that Christ should suffer, and although
she brought her will into unity with God's will
in this matter, as the saints do, nevertheless, sad
ness filled her soul at the death of Christ. This
was because her lower will revolted at the particular
thing she had willed and this is not contrary to
perfection.
(i Dist. 48 q unica a 3.)
Passion Saturday
HOW WE, EACH OF US, SHOULD WASH ONE ANOTHER'S
FEET
If I then being your Lord and Master, have iv a shed your
feet ; you also ought to n'ash one another' 's feet —
(John xiii. 14).
Our Lord wishes that His disciples shall imitate
His example. He says therefore, If I, who am the
greater, being your master and the Lord, have
washed jour feet, you also, all the more who are the
less, who are disciples, slaves even, ought to ivash
one another's feet. Whosoever will be the greater among
you.; let him be your minister. . . . P.ven as the Son of
'Man is not come to be ministered unto, but to minister
(Matt. xx. 26-28).
St. Augustine says every man ought to wash the
feet of his fellows, either actually or in spirit. And
it is by far the best, and true beyond all contro
versy, that we should do it actually, lest Christians
scorn to do what Christ did. For when a man
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bends his body to the feet of a brother, human
feeling is stirred up in his very heart, or, if it be
there already, it is strengthened. If we cannot
actually wash his feet, at least we can do it in spirit.
The washing of the feet signifies the washing
away of stains. You therefore wrash the feet of
your brother when, as far as lies in your power,
you wash away his stains. And this you may do
in three wavs :
(i) By forgiving the offences he has done to
you. Forgiving one another, if any have a complaint
against another : even as the Lord hath forgiven jo/t,
so do you also (Coloss. iii. 13).
(ii) By praying for the forgiveness of his sin,
as St. James bids us, Pray for one another^ that you
may be saved (James v. 16). This way of washing,
like the first, is open to all the faithful.
(iii) The third way is for prelates, who should
wash by forgiving sins through the authority of
the keys, according to the gospel, deceive ye the
Holy Ghost ; whose sins you shall forgive ', they are
forgiven them (John xx. 23).
We can also say that in this one act Our Lord
showed all the works of mercy. He who gives
bread to the hungry, washes his feet, as also does
the man wTho harbours the harbourless or he who
clothes the naked.
Communicating to the necessities of the saints (Rom.
xii. 13).
(In John xiii.)
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MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
Holy Week— Palm Sunday
CHRIST'S PASSION SERVES us AS AN EXAMPLE
The Passion of Christ is by itself sufficient to
form us in every virtue. For whoever wishes to
live perfectly, need do no more than scorn what
Christ scorned on the cross, and desire what He
there desired. There is no virtue of which, from
the cross, Christ does not give us an example.
If you seek an example of charity, Greater love
than this no man hath, than that a man lay down His
life for his friends (John xv. 13), and this Christ
did on the cross. And since it was for us that He
gave his life, it should not be burdensome to bear
for Him whatever evils come our way. What
shall I render to the Lord, for all the things that He
hath rendered to me (Ps. cxv. 12).
If you seek an example of patience, in the cross
you find the best of all. Great patience shows
itself in two ways. Either when a man suffers
great evils patiently, or when he suffers what he
could avoid and forbears to avoid. Now Christ
on the cross suffered great evils. O all ye that
pass by the way, attend and see, if there be any sorrow
like to my sorrow (Lam. i. 12). And He suffered
them patiently, for, when he suffered he threatened not
(i Pet. ii. 23) but led as a sheep to the slaughter, he
was dumb as a lamb before his shearer (Isaias liii. 7).
Also it was in His power to avoid the suffering
and He did not avoid it. Thinkest thou that I
cannot ask my Father, and he will give me presently more
than twelve legions of angels? (Matt. xxvi. 53). The
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patience of Christ, then, on the cross was the
greatest patience ever shown. Let us run by
patience to the fight proposed to us : looking on Jesus,
the author and finisher of faith, who having joy set before
Him, endured the cross, despising the shame (Heb.
xii. i, 2).
If you seek an example of humility, look at the
crucified. For it is God who wills to be judged and
to die at the will of Pontius Pilate. Thy cause hath
been judged as that of the wicked (job xxxvi. 17).
Truly as that of the wicked, for Let us condemn him
to a most shameful death (Wis. ii. 20). The Lord
willed to die for the slave, the life of the angels
for man.
If you seek an example of obedience, follow Him
who became obedient unto death (Phil. ii. 8), for as by
the disobedience of one man, many were made sinners ;
so also by the obedience of one, many shall be made just
(Rom. v. 19).
If you seek an example in the scorning of the
things of this world, follow Him who is the King
of Kings, and the Lord of Lords, in whom are all
the treasures of wisdom. Lo ! on the cross He
hangs naked, fooled, spit upon, beaten, crowned
with thorns, sated with gall and vinegar, and dead.
My garments they parted among them ; and upon my
vesture they cast lots (Ps. xxi. 19).
Error to crave for honours, for He was exposed to
blows and to mockery. Error to seek titles and
decorations for platting a crown of thorns, they
put it upon His head, and a reed in his right hand.
And bowing the knee before him, they mocked him,
saying Hail, king of the jews (Matt, xxvii. 29).
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MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
Error to cling to pleasures and comfort for
they gave me gall for my food, and in my thirst they
gave me vinegar to drink (Ps. Ixviii. 22).
(In Symb.)
Monday in Holy Week
IT IS NECESSARY THAT WE BE WHOLLY CLEAN
1. If I wash thee not, thou shaft have no part with
me (John xiii. 8). No one can be made a sharer
in the inheritance of eternity, a co-heir with Christ,
unless he is spiritually cleansed, for in the Apocalypse
it is so stated. There shall not enter info it anything
defiled (Apoc. xxi. 27), and in the Psalms we read,
Lord who shall dwell in thy tabernacle ? (Ps. xiv.)
Who shall ascend into the mountain of the Lord ;
or who shall stand in his holy place ? The inno
cent in hands, and clean of heart (Ps. xxiii. 3, 4).
It is therefore as though Our Lord said, If I
wash thee not, thou shalt not be cleansed, and if
thou art not cleansed, thou shalt have no part with
me.
2. Simon Peter saith to him : Lord, not only my
feet but also my hands and my head (John xiii. 9).
Peter, utterly stricken, offers his whole self to be
washed, so confounded is he with love and with
fear. We read, in fact, in the book called The
journeying of Clement, that Peter used to be so over
come by the bodily presence of Our Lord, which
he had most fervently loved, that whenever, after
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MONDAY IN HOLY WEEK
Our Lord's Ascension, the memory of that dearest
presence and most holy company came to him,
he used so to melt into tears, that his cheeks seemed
all worn out with them.
We can consider three parts in man's body,
the head, which is the highest, the feet, which are
the lowest part, and the hands which lie in between.
In the interior man, that is to say, in the soul, there
are likewise three parts. Corresponding to the
head there is the higher reason, the power by means
of which the soul clings to God. For the hands
there is the lower reason by which the soul operates
in good works. For the feet there are the senses
and the feelings and desires arising from them.
Now Our Lord knew the disciples to be clean as
far as the head was concerned, for He knew they
were joined to God by faith and by charity. He
knew their hands also were clean, for He knew their
good works. But as to their feet, Fie knew that
the disciples were still somewhat entangled in
those inclinations to earthly things that derive
out of the life of the senses.
Peter, alarmed by Our Lord's warning (v. 8),
not onlv consented that his feet should be washed,
but begged that his hands and his head should be
washed too.
Lord, he said, not only my feet, but also my hands
and my head. As though to say, " I know not
whether hands and head need to be washed.
For I am not conscious to myself of anything, yet am I
not hereby justified (i Cor. iv. 4). Therefore I am
ready not only for my feet to be washed, that is,
those inclinations that arise out of the life of my
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MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
senses, but also my hands, that is, my works, and
my head, too, that is, my higher reason."
3. Jesus saith to him : He that is washed^ needeth
not but to wash his feet, but is clean wholly. And you
are dean (John xiii. 10). Origen, commenting
on this text, says that the Apostles were clean,
but needed to be yet cleaner. For reason should
ever desire gifts that are better still, should ever
set itself to achieve the very heights of virtue, should
aspire to shine with the brightness of justice itself.
He that is holy, let him be sanctified still (Apoc.
xxii. n).
(In John xiii.)
Tuesday in Holy Week
CHRIST PREPARING TO WASH THE APOSTLE'S FEET
Pie riseth from supper , and layeth aside his garments^
and having taken a towel, girded himself. — John xiii. 4.
i. Christ, in his lowly office, shows Himself
truly to be a servant, in keeping with His own
words, The Son of Man is not come to be ministered
/#, but to minister., and to give His life a redemption for
many (Matt. xx. 28).
Three things are looked for in a good servant or
minister :
(i) That he should be careful to keep before
him the numerous details in which his serving
may so easily fall short. Now for a servant to sit
or to lie down during his service is to make this
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TUESDAY IN HOLY WEEK
necessary supervision impossible. Hence it is
that servants stand. And therefore the gospel
says of Our Lord, He riseth from supper. Our
Lord himself also asks us, For which is^ greater, he
that sitteth at table or he that serve th ? (Luke xxii. 27).
(ii) That he should show dexterity in doing
at the right time all the things his particular office
calls for. Now elaborate dress is a hindrance to
this. Therefore Our Lord layeth aside his gar
ments. And this was foreshadowed in the Old
Testament when Abraham chose servants who
were well appointed (Gen. xiv. 14).
(iii) That he should be prompt, having ready
to hand all the things he needs. St. Luke (x. 40)
says of Martha that she was busy about much serving.
This is why Our Lord, having taken a towel, girded
himself. Thus he was ready not only to wash the
feet, but also to dry them. So He (who came from
God and goeth to God — John xiii. 3), as He washes
their feet, crushes down for ever our swollen,
human self-importance.
2. After that, he putteth water into a basin, and
to wash (John xiii. 5).
We arc given for our consideration this service
of Christ ; and in three ways his humility is set
for our example.
(i) The kind of service this was, for it was the
lowest kind of service of all ! The Lord of all
majesty bending to wash the feet of his slaves.
(ii) The number of services it contained, for,
we are told, he put water into a basin, he washed
their feet, he dried them and so forth.
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MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
(iii) The method of doing the service, for He
did not do it through others, nor even with others
helping him. He did the service Himself. The
greater thou art, the more humble thyself in all things
(Ecclus. iii. 20).
(In John xiii.)
Holy Wednesday
THREE THINGS ARE SYMBOLISED BY THE WASHING
OF THE FEET
He putteth "water into a basin, and began to wash the
feet of the disciples, and to wipe them with the towel
wherewith he was girded (John xiii. 5).
There are three things which this can be taken
to symbolise.
1. The pouring of the water into the basin is a
symbol of the pouring out of His blood upon the
earth. Since the blood of Jesus has a power of
cleansing it may in a sense be called water. The
reason why water, as well as blood, came out of
His side, was to show that this blood could wash
away sin.
Again we might take the water as a figure of
Christ's Passion. He putteth water into a basin,
that is, by faith and devotion He stamped into the
minds of faithful followers the memory of His
Passion. Remember my poverty, and transgression,
the wormwood and the gall (Lam. iii. 19).
2. By the words and began to ivash it is human
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HOLY WEDNESDAY
imperfection that is symbolised. For the Apostles,
after their living with Christ, were certainly more
perfect, and yet they needed to be washed, there
were still stains upon them. We are here made to
understand that no matter what is the degree of any
man's perfection he still needs to be made more
perfect still ; He is still contracting uncleanness of
some kind to some extent. So in the Book of
Proverbs we read, Who can say My heart is clean^ I am
pure from sin (Prov. xx. 9).
Nevertheless the Apostles and the just have this
kind of uncleanness only in their feet.
There are however others who are infected, not
only in their feet, but wholly and entirely. Those
who make their bed upon the soiling attractions
of the world are made wholly unclean thereby.
Those who wholly, that is to say, with their senses
and with their wills, cleave to their desire of earthly
things, these are wholly unclean.
But they who do not thus lie down, they who
stand, that is, they who, in mind and in desire, are
tending towards heavenly things, contract this
uncleanness in their feet. Whoever stands must,
necessarily, touch the earth at least with his feet.
And we, too, in this life, where we must, to main
tain life, make use of earthly things, cannot but
contract a certain uncleanness, at least as far as those
desires and inclinations are concerned which begin
in our senses.
Therefore Our Lord commanded His disciples
to shake off the dust from their feet. The text
says, " He began to w^ash," because this washing
away on earth of the affection for earthly things is
MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
only a beginning. It is only in the life to come
that it will be really complete.
Thus by putting water into the basin, the pouring
out of His blood is signified, and by His beginning
to wash the feet of His disciples the washing away
of our sins.
3. There is symbolised finally Our Lord's
taking upon Him the punishment due to our sins.
Not only did He wash away our sins but He also
took upon Himself the punishment that they had
earned. For our pains and our penances would
not suffice were they not founded in the merit
and the power of the Passion of Christ. And
this is shown in His wiping the feet of the disciples
with the linen towel, that is the towel which is
His body.
(In John xiii.)
Maundy Thursday
THE LAST SUPPER
It was most fitting that the sacrament of the
body of the Lord should have been instituted at
the Last Supper.
i. Because of what that sacrament contains.
For that which is contained in it is Christ Himself.
When Christ in Flis natural appearance was about
to depart from His disciples, Fie left Flimself to
them in a sacramental appearance, just as in the
absence of the emperor there is exhibited the
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MAUNDY THURSDAY
emperor's image. Whence St. Eusebius says,
" Since the body he had assumed was about to be
taken away from their bodily sight, and was about
to be carried to the stars, it was necessary that, on
the day of His last supper, He should consecrate
for us the sacrament of His body and blood, so
that what, as a price, was offered once should,
through a mystery, be worshipped unceasingly."
2. Because without faith in the Passion there
can never be salvation. Therefore it is necessary
that there should be, for ever, among men some-
tiling that would represent the Lord's Passion
and the chief of such representative things in the
Old Testament was the Paschal Lamb. To this
there succeeded in the New Testament the sacrament
of the Eucharist, which is commemorative of the
past Passion of the Lord as the Paschal Lamb was a
foreshadowing of the Passion to come.*
And therefore was it most fitting that, on the very
eve of the Passion, the old sacrament of the Paschal
Lamb having been celebrated, Our Lord should
institute the new sacrament.
3. Because the last wrords of departing friends
remain longest in the memory, our love being at
such moments most tenderly alert. Nothing can
be greater in the realm of sacrifice than that of the
body and blood of Christ, no offering can be more
effective. And hence, in order that the sacrament
might be held in all the more veneration, it was in
* Quod est rernemorativum praeteritae Dominicas Passionis, sicut et
illud fuit future praefigurativum.
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MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
His last leave-taking of the Apostles that Our Lord
instituted it.
Hence St. Augustine says, " Our Saviour, to
bring before our minds with all His power the
heights and the depths of this sacrament, willed,
ere He left the disciples to go forth to His Passion,
to fix it in their hearts and their memories as His
last act."
Let us note that this sacrament has a threefold
meaning :
(i) In regard to the past, it is commemorative
of the Lord's Passion, which was a true sacrifice,
and because of this the sacrament is called a sacri
fice.
(ii) In regard to a fact of our own time, that is,
to the unity of the church and that through this
sacrament mankind should be gathered together.
Because of this the sacrament is called communion.
St. John Damascene says the sacrament is called
communion because by means of it we com
municate with Christ, and this because we hereby
share in His body and in His divinity, and because
by it we are communicated to and united with one
another.
(iii) In regard to the future, the sacrament
foreshadows that enjoyment of God which shall
be ours in our fatherland. On this account the
sacrament is called viaticum, since it provides us
with the means of journeying to that fatherland.
GOOD FRIDAY
And on this account, too, the sacrament is also called
Eucharist, that is to say, the good grace, either
because the grace of God is life eternal^ or because it
really contains Christ who is the fullness of grace.
In Greek the sacrament is also called Metalipsis,
that is, Assumption, for through the sacrament we
assume the divinity of the Son of God.
(De Humanitate Christi.)
Good Friday
THE DEATH OF CHRIST
That Christ should die was expedient.
1. To make our redemption complete. For,
although any suffering of Christ had an infinite
value, because of its union with His divinity, it
was not by no matter which of His sufferings that
the redemption of mankind was made complete,
but only by His death. So the Holy Spirit declared
speaking through the mouth of Caiaphas, It is
expedient for you that one man shall die for the people
(John xi. 50). Whence St. Augustine says, "Let
us stand in wonder, rejoice, be glad, love, praise,
and adore since it is by the death of our Redeemer,
that we have been called from death to life, from
exile to our own land, from mourning to joy."
2. To increase our faith, our hope and our
charity. With regard to faith the Psalm says (Ps.
cxl. 10), I am alone until J pass from this world, that
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MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
is, to the Father. When I shall have passed to
the Father, then shall I be multiplied. Unless
the grain of wheat falling into the ground diey itself
remaineth alone (John xii. 24).
As to the increase of hope St, Paul writes, He
that spared not evm his own Son, but delivered him up
for us all, how hath he not also, with him, given us all
things? (Rom. viii. 32). God cannot deny us this,
for to give us all things is less than to give His
own Son to death for us. St. Bernard says, " Who
is not carried away to hope and confidence in prayer,
when he looks on the crucifix and sees how Our
Lord hangs there, the head bent as though to kiss,
the arms outstretched in an embrace, the hands
pierced to give, the side opened to love, the feet
nailed to remain with us."
Come, my dove, in the clefts of the rock (Cant. ii. 14).
It is in the wounds of Christ the Church builds
its nest and waits, for it is in the Passion of Our
Lord that she places her hope of salvation, and
thereby trusts to be protected from the craft of the
falcon, that is, of the devil.
With regard to the increase of charity, Holy
Scripture says, At noon he burneth the earth (Ecclus.
xliii. 3), that is to say, in the fervour of His Passion
He burns up all mankind with His love. So St.
Bernard says, " The chalice thou didst drink, O
good Jesus, maketh thee lovable above all things."
The work of our redemption easily, brushing
aside all hindrances, calls out in return the whole of
our love. This it is which more gently draws out
our devotion, builds it up more straightly, guards
it more closely, and fires it with greater ardour.
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HOLY SATURDAY
3. Because our salvation is wrought in the
manner of a sacrament, we dying to this world in
a likeness to His death, So that my soul chooseth
hanging, and my bones death (Job vii. 15). St. Gregory
says, " The soul is the mind's aspiration, the bones
are the strength of the body's desires. Things
hanged are raised thereby from the depths. The
soul, then, is hanged to things eternal that the
bones may die, for it is with the love of eternal
life that the soul slays the strong attraction earthly
things possess for it."
It is a sign that a soul is dead to the uorld when
a soul is despised by the world. Again, to quote
St. Gregory, "The 'sea keeps the bodies that are
alive in it. Once they are dead it quickly casts
them up."
(De Humanitate Christi, cap. 47.)
Holy Saturday
WHY OUR LORD WENT DOWN TO LIMBO
From the descent of Christ to hell we may learn,
for our instruction, four things :
i. Firm hope in God. No matter what the
trouble in which a man finds himself, he should
always put trust in God's help and rely on it. There
is no trouble greater than to find oneself in hell.
If then Christ freed those who were in hell, any
man who is a friend of God cannot but have great
confidence that he too shall be freed from what-
MEDITATIONS AND READINGS FOR LENT
ever anxiety holds him. Wisdom forsook not the
just when he was sold, but delivered him from sinners ;
she went down with him into the pit and in bands she
left him not (Wis. x. 13-14). And since to His
servants God gives a special assistance, he who
serves God should have still greater confidence.
He that fear eth the Lord shall tremble at nothing^ and
shall not be afraid : for he is his hope (Ecclus. xxxiv.
16).
2. We ought to conceive fear and to rid our
selves of presumption. For although Christ
suffered for sinners, and went down into hell to
set them free, he did not set all sinners free, but
only those who were free of mortal sin. Those
who had died in mortal sin He left there. Where
fore for those who have gone down to hell in
mortal sin there remains no hope of pardon. They
shall be in hell as the holy Fathers are in heaven,
that is for ever.
3. We ought to be full of care. Christ went
down into hell for our salvation, and we should
be careful frequently to go down there too, turning
over in our minds hell's pain and penalties, as
did the holy king Ezechias as we read in the
prophecy of Isaias, I said : In the midst of my dajs
I shall go to the gates of hell (Isaias xxxviii. 10).
Those who in their meditation often go down
to hell during life, will not easily go down there
at death. Such meditations are a powerful arm
against sin, and a useful aid to bring a man back
from sin. Daily we see men kept from evildoing
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HOLY SATURDAY
by the fear of the law's punishments. How much
greater care should they not take on account of
the punishment of hell, greater in its duration, in
its bitterness and in its variety. Kemember thy
last end and thou shalt neve?' sin (Ecclus. vii. 40).
4. The fact is for us an example of love. Christ
went down into hell to set free those that were his
own. We, too, therefore, should go down there
to help our own. For those who are in purgatory
are themselves unable to do anything, and there
fore we ought to help them. Truly he would
be a harsh man indeed who failed to come to the
aid of a kinsman who lay in prison, here on earth.
How much more harsh, then, the man who will
not aid the friend who is in purgatory, for there
is no comparison between the pains there and the
pains of this world. Have pity on me, have pity on
me, at least you my friends, because the hand of the Lord
hath touched me (Job xix. 21).
We help the souls in purgatory chiefly by these
three means, by masses, by prayers, and by alms
giving. Nor is it wonderful that we can do so,
for even in this world a friend can make satisfaction
for a friend.
(In Symb.)
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