Simple Thoughts on the Rosary: Sorrowful Mysteries: The Carrying of the Cross
I.—And bearing His own cross He went forth.—John xix.
And after they had mocked Him, they took off the purple from Him, and put His own garments on Him, and they led Him out to crucify Him.
And bearing His own cross He went forth.
And there were also two other malefactors led with Him to be put to death.
And as they led Him away, they laid hold of one Simon of Cyrene coming from the country, the father of Alexander and of Rufus; and they laid the cross on him to carry after Jesus.
And there followed Him a great multitude of people and of women, who bewailed and lamented Him. But Jesus turning to them said: “Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not over Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children... For if in the green wood they do these things what shall be done in the dry?
And they bring Him into the place called Golgotha, which being interpreted, is the place of Calvary (Matth. 27, Mark 15, Luke 23, John 19).
See the Praetorium of Pilate, and to the west, at a distance of about three-quarters of a mile, Calvary. The road descending from the Praetorium into the Tyropean Valley, then climbing a steep ascent to the Gate of Judgment. “The place of Calvary” at a short distance outside the Gate.
See the streets through which the procession is to pass—dark, narrow, dirty, roughly paved with large stones, here and there crossed by arches.
See the multitudes come up for the Pasch lining the whole length of the road. Eager sight-seers in every doorway, on every roof.
Watch the procession coming from the Praetorium—the centurion on horseback taking the lead; a herald walking beside him; the thieves, filled with rage and despair; our Lord tottering under His heavy load, His right hand trying to steady the cross on His shoulder, His left to gather His long robe from under His feet. Around the prisoners, executioners, soldiers, priests, Pharisees, a vast crowd insulting them, children throwing stones at them.
See the ladders, ropes, and nails.
Notice there, at a corner of the street, the Blessed Mother with Magdalen and John. Hear the babel of sounds—the herald proclaiming the sentence; the tongues of every nation under heaven; the yells, jeers, blasphemy of the crowds; hear on every side the words: “impostor,” “seducer,” “blasphemer.”
II.—I have given you an example that as I have done, so you do also.—John xiii.
Our Lord accepts His cross at the time and in the shape in which it is presented to Him.
He does not examine it, but embraces it.
He does not consider the cruelty of those who lay it upon Him, but the love of the Father who has chosen it for Him.
He does not complain of its weight, or seek to cast it upon others, but summons up all His strength to bear it.
He accepts, not only the cross itself, but all the painful circumstances that accompany it.
If He is relieved of His burden for a time, it is not by His own act. He is grateful for the relief, but readily accepts the load when it is laid on Him anew.
His heavy cross does not make Him unmindful of the lesser sorrows of others, or unsympathising, or ungracious. He will stop on His road to Calvary to speak to the women of Jerusalem, to greet His Mother at least by a look, to reward Veronica, to thank the Cyrenean.
He will not come down from His cross when defied by His enemies, but only at the bidding of His Father.
He will be taken down by the hands of others when His work is finished; the last pang endured; the Will of Him who sent Him fully accomplished.
Does my way of bearing my cross show that I have studied my Master on His way to Calvary?
III.—Come thou also with thy servants. He answered: I will come. So he went with them.—4 Kings vi.
The disciples of Eliseus with a toilsome journey before them asked for their master’s company as encouragement. Could the servants of God do the like? Had we stood by the smoking Mount of Sinai and seen the lightnings and the flames, and heard the thunders and “the noise of the trumpet exceeding loud,” and the voice of the Lord speaking, should we not have cried out with the children of Israel: “Let not the Lord speak to us lest we die”? Would the boldest of us have dared to ask for the intimate presence of that God of majesty in our midst? That He should be a wayfarer like ourselves through the desert, our Elder Brother, our Pioneer, going before us to point out and smoothe the way?
The Incarnation has done for us what we could not have asked or imagined. It has brought Him down among us. The God of Sinai is toiling along the dusty road. He is bent beneath His burden, faint, footsore, weary. Why? Because His servants, His brethren, are on that painful path. Where we are He must be with us. The cry of our heart to the God who made us was: “Come Thou also with Thy servants.” He answered: “I will come.” So He went with them.
IV.—In all things like as we are, without sin.—Heb. iv.
Is there anything so disheartening on the road to heaven as the repeated falls that follow upon our best resolutions! We know they should not cast us down as they do. They are not without their advantages. They teach us self-knowledge. They incite us to humility and contrition. They serve as a stimulus to greater fidelity and fervour in the future. On the other hand, discouragement does more harm than the fall itself. Its source and its fruits are distinctly bad. It springs from pride, for if we knew ourselves better we should be less surprised to find ourselves so weak. It aggravates the evil done in the past. It weakens us for the future. All this we have been told a hundred times. We believe it, we have experienced it, and—we remain discouraged.
Hast Thou any better comfort for us, dear Master, anything that comes home to us more in those moments of depression when we are too weary to reason, too sad to seek a remedy? Thou art wont to come down to the level of our miseries, and lighten them by taking them upon Thyself. Canst Thou do this here? Was it for our encouragement that in spite of Thine efforts to reach Calvary Thou didst stumble and fall again and again? Fall as we fall, Thou couldst not. But the contrivances of Thy love bring Thee marvellously near to us. In Thy desire to show Thyself our Brother, like to us in all things excepting sin, Thou dost take appearances where Thou mayst not take the reality. Thou dost suffer the effects of guilt as Thou canst not incur its stain. Thou art like us, O Son of Man, in our sorrows; like us, O Holy One, in the sadness that comes of sinfulness; like us, O mighty God, in our fears!
O dear Lord Jesus, how touching is Thy faltering and failing on the uphill road! How reassuring is it for us, Thy weak brethren, to creep up to Thee after our own falls, and see Thee lying prostrate, spent, powerless. And—here is our example—whilst still trembling with the shock and pain of Thy fall,—with all the weariness of failure upon Thee, with the knowledge that at no great distance Thy strength will give way anew—rising and struggling on, in no wise shaken in Thy resolve to pursue Thy way, and to prove by Thy very falls Thy unconquerable love of us. In many things I am too weak to follow Thee, dear Lord. But on the toilsome path of daily duty my very weakness makes me like Thee. I fall, oh how many times! My falls bring with them soreness, dejection, the temptation to give up the struggle. But this with the help of Thy grace I will never do. I will remember Thou art at hand still, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever; indulgent, easily appeased, ready to forgive. Thou dost deplore far more than I do anything like estrangement between us, and only waitest for me to turn to Thee with my “Peccavi” to put all right again. The mother whose little one has fallen and bruised itself, does not beat or even blame it, but runs at its first cry and kisses the sore place, and makes it well. Her instinct is God-given. But tenderer still is the love of the Divine Heart Itself. “He will have compassion on thee more than a mother” (Ecclus. 4). This shall be my consolation, Lord. I will think more of Thy mercy than of Thy justice, of having disappointed than of having displeased Thee. I will even count on a kind of fellow-feeling with me in my falls, and look to Thee who didst stumble and fall on the road to Calvary, to pity me and help me again on my way. After Thy example I will rise at once and trudge on by Thy side as before, trusting to Thy more abundant grace. By Thy weakness, O Lord, strengthen me. By Thy weariness refresh me. By Thy perseverance uphold me to the end. Give me the trust in Thee that holds on its way, undismayed by slips and by bruises, fixed in its resolution to reach Thee at last. Thou art watching, waiting, stretching out Thy arms to me. Draw me into their embrace when life is done, and reward throughout eternity by the possession of Thyself a trust that has never failed.
In Thee, O Lord, have I hoped, I shall never be confounded (Ps. 30).
V.—They laid the cross on him to carry after Jesus.—Luke xxiii.
It was for Simon’s sake much more than for His own that our Lord shared His cross with him. The virtue that came from its contact with the Son of God went out to him who was following in His footsteps. Quickly he learned his lesson. From bearing the cross reluctantly, he came to bear it patiently, willingly, joyfully, reaching thus the highest perfection of which love is capable on earth.
To carry after Jesus. With Him toiling on in front, it was not hard to follow. He had taken the galling weight from the cross when He bore it on His shoulder.
They laid the cross on him. True, but did Simon stop at the instruments? When, after years spent in his Master’s service, he looked back to the meeting on the road to Calvary, did he so much as think of the hands that constrained him? Was not the hand of God too plain? Was it not God who planned that meeting, who chose him for the honour of being the first to carry the cross after Jesus?
Looking back on their lives from the bed of death and from their place in heaven, the servants of God see that what they could least spare out of their life would be its crosses. It is the cross that has stamped them all with the mark special to the elect. “For whom He foreknew He also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of His Son” (Rom. 8).
How wonderful are God’s dealings with us! How continually He turns our days of trouble into times of richest blessing! The thieves led out of prison on the first Good Friday to die with our Lord, looked on that day as the most miserable in their lives, whereas it was to bring them an offer of mercy and happiness such as they had never had before, A grace was preparing for them strong enough to set right all that was wrong and bring them after a few hours of sorrow into eternal joy.
Little did Simon of Cyrene suspect that Friday morning as he went forth to his daily toil, that grace was lying in wait for him on the road to Calvary; that hidden in the cross of pain and shame was laid up for him the highest honour and never-ending joy!
We rise in the morning and make our plans for the day. God has made His for us. Turning a corner, we find the cross of Christ awaiting us, and with it the grace that with a little effort on our part will enable us to bear it bravely after our Master. How is it that whilst we have plenty of congratulations for Simon, we have nothing but compassion for ourselves!
Teach me, dear Lord, to bear my crosses with faith, and hope, and love. With faith—to believe they come from Thy hand, to cry out when I see one in the distance: “It is the Lord!” With hope—because if I follow Thee to Calvary now, I shall follow Thee into Thy Kingdom by and by. With love—that will make me glad to bear something for Thee who hast borne so much for me.
And bearing His own cross He went forth.—John xix, Who but Himself might such a burden bear! All weariness, all woe concentred there; Framed for Christ’s dauntless charity alone, Uneased, unshared, in very truth—His own.
Weighed, Lord and Master, with Thy load of pain, How light the servant’s lot! yet I complain:
Up, coward heart! shoulder thy cross and cry: “Let us, too, go with Him to bleed and die.”
VI.—In death they were not divided.—2 Kings i. Our Lord has taught us many a lesson in His journeyings up and down the land of Judea during the years of His Ministry. On His way to Calvary He must teach us at every turn, for His time is short. His Blessed Mother, too, the first and most faithful of His disciples, is to serve us for an example on the Way of the Cross. They have a lesson for us at the corner of this street where they are to meet.
Let us watch the meeting and see the kind of consolation they bring to one another in this hour of bitter anguish for both. What fortitude! What forgetfulness of self! What control of the strongest, holiest affection earth has ever seen by the all-absorbing thought of the Will of God! Mary’s heart beats in perfect unison with the Heart of her Son. Like His, it throws itself into the Divine Will for the redemption of the world with a strength of purpose that over-masters the instincts of nature.
See them! Listen! There is no shrinking in their self-immolation, no lamentation at the sight of the anguish of the one dearer to each than life. The Son and the Mother meet, but it is as the Redeemer and the Co-Redemptrix of the world. The Sacrifice their sublime office demands occupies them entirely. Their eyes meet. Dimly, through the tears and blood that obscure His sight, our Lord discerns His Mother’s face, and His glance carries strength to her soul. He summons her, His well-beloved, to ratify the oblation made at Nazareth in the hour of the Incarnation, when she consented to become the Mother of the Man of Sorrows; the oblation made solemnly in the Temple on the day of His Presentation, and renewed again and again as the time of the Passion drew near:
“Behold the handmaid of the Lord.” At every stage of His Redemption she is His handmaid, waiting upon Him always, His fellow-worker on whose sympathy and absolute fidelity He can rely.
And now His hour has come; the hour of which He had so often spoken to her at Nazareth; the hour that was the subject of such earnest prayer put up together as they knelt there side by side; the hour for which He had promised to strengthen her, that, first in privilege as in dignity, she might drink deeper than any other of His chalice. His glance recalls all this to her now.
And it is met by a response such as that handmaid alone could give. No cry of pain escapes her. To bring Him the only comfort in her power—the assurance that she accepts with Him every jot and tittle of the Father’s Will; that she does not grudge one pang; that she is ready for more, for the consummation of the Sacrifice, for Calvary—this is her one thought. She cannot speak her “Ecce ancilla.” Her heart would break with a word to Him. But her eyes, her quivering lip, her clasped hands speak for her. It is but for a moment that the Son and the Mother meet. Yet in that moment are rehearsed the thoughts and desires and resolves of the Three-and-Thirty Years.
I turn to myself. What kind of consolation do I bring to my friends in the path of daily life that is for so many the Way of the Cross? Is it a help to them, a spiritual support to meet me?
Do I try to take the sting out of wounds, or are they the worse for my handling?
Do I by injudicious sympathy accentuate vexations or misunderstandings?
If I listen to angry words, is it with the view of relieving an overcharged heart, and of saying a soothing and helpful word later?
Do I try to put a favourable construction on painful words or acts, and abstain from repeating what would work further mischief?
Do I ever speak to my friends of finding light, strength, remedy—in prayer? “And Jonathan went to David and strengthened his hands in God” (I. Kings 23). Are my friends moved by my words to bear up bravely, to trust in God, “and humbly wait for His consolation”? (Judith 8).
In a word, have I studied the meeting of Jesus and Mary on the road to Calvary and learned how true friendship comports itself in the hour of trial?
VII.—Thou also wast with Jesus of Nazareth.—Mark xiv.
Thou wert glad, dear Lord, to suffer for me. Not that Thou couldst desire suffering for its own sake for Thou wert truly man, and Thine exquisitely sensitive nature shrank as none other ever shrank from pain. But Thou didst long to go through that pain which was to purchase my happiness and to prove Thy love to me. If Thou didst look forward with eagerness to Thy Passion, it was for my sake.
So must it be with me. I cannot desire suffering for itself. But with the grace which Thou wilt give to me as to Thy saints I may come to love that which will bring me nearer to Thee; will forward Thy designs for my sanctification and happiness; will enable me to glorify Thee more; will be proof to Thee of my gratitude and my love. We speak of the sign of the Cross. I can love the Cross at least inasmuch as it is a sign to heaven and earth, to angels and to men, to Thee, my God, and to myself, that I am on Thy side, that I belong to Thee, that I am marked here with that seal which is to be the salvation of the elect on the last tremendous Day: “Hurt not the earth, nor the sea, nor the trees, till we sign the servants of our God in their foreheads.” O Lord, when Thou dost send me the Cross here to give me a right to bear it hereafter, let me not turn away rebellious or disconsolate. Let me not sorrow as those that have no hope, bitterly because unwillingly. I shall be so glad, so proud on the Last Day to bear the Cross on my forehead, to hear the congratulations of the saints: “Thou also wast with Jesus of Nazareth.” Why should I not feel at least the beginnings of that gladness now?
VIII.—Christ suffered for us leaving you an example that you should follow His steps.—1 Peter ii.
(1) Whither I go you know and the way you know (John 14).
(2) If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me (Luke 9).
(3) He that taketh not up his cross and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me (Matth. 10).
(4) The disciple is not above the master, nor the servant above his lord (Id.).
(5) It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord (Id.).
(6) Come to Me all you that labour and are burdened, and I will refresh you (Matth. 11).
(7) Take up My yoke upon you and learn of Me because I am meek and humble of heart, and you shall find rest to your souls (Id.).
(8) Master, I will follow Thee whithersoever Thou shalt go (Matth. 8).
(9) Go whither thou wilt and I will be with thee (I. Kings 14).
(10) In what place soever thou shalt be, lord my king, either in death or in life, there will thy servant be (II. Kings 15).