Simple Thoughts on the Rosary: Sorrowful Mysteries: The Crucifixion
How different is the live crucifix from the white figure, unscathed except for the wounds in hands and feet, that we behold so often and so heedlessly! The Form hung aloft on Calvary is a sight almost too fearful to look upon. One alone of the many tortures inflicted on It was sufficient to cause death. The scourging, the thorny crown, the thirst, would have killed the strongest man. This Man is the most exquisitely fashioned of the children of men: His Body the most delicate, His Soul the most sensitive. How, then, can He endure so much? Because His Divinity supports Him, not for the mitigation but for the prolongation of His pain. It sustains the physical frame that it may suffer beyond the limit of natural endurance. But It hides Itself from the Soul that He may sorrow as no other has ever sorrowed: “He treadeth the winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of God, the Almighty” (Apoc. 19). “I have trodden the winepress alone” (Isaias 63).
Besides the agony in hands and feet, and the dislocation of the bones, there is the torture suffered on or near the surface of the body, where physicians say pain is most intense by reason of the nerves that are there. These nerves through the rending of the flesh in the scourging, are exposed, and the pain caused by dragging the limbs to and fro over the rough wood has been excruciating.
The crosses are raised into position; dropped into their sockets and made firm by wedges driven in with heavy blows. The dislocated limbs have to bear the shock and the torture of these blows and of those by which the title of the cross is nailed above His head. The whole weight of the disjointed frame is now borne by the wounded hands and feet. The head falls forward, unable in its agony to hold itself erect. The eyes see, dimly through the darkness that has fallen on the earth, a vast throng pouring through the Judgment Gate and massing itself round Calvary; every face turned towards Him, some few in pity, almost all in hate. He sees into every soul there. He knows what He has done for each, what He is doing now for each. He offers His torments and His death, not only for all before Him there, but for every soul that has been created and that is to be created to the end of time.
Pushing their way through the people, come a crowd of priests, scribes, and ancients. They stand triumphant before the cross to mock Him in His misery: “Vah! thou that destroyest the Temple of God and in three days dost rebuild it, save thy own self. If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross... He saved others, Himself He cannot save. Let Christ the King of Israel come down now from the cross that we may see and believe.” The soldiers mock Him, offering Him vinegar and saying: “If thou be the King of the Jews, save thyself.” One of the robbers blaspheming says: “If thou be Christ, save thyself and us.” Priests, soldiers, thieves—all taunting Him with His helplessness; all defying Him; all uniting in the cry: “Come down from the cross!”
The darkness deepens. With it comes fear over the souls of men. The scoffers are silent. “And all the multitude of them that were come together to that sight, and saw the things that were done, returned striking their breasts.” Now at last there is room for the Mother by the side of her Son. John leads her to the foot of the cross. Magdalen, heart-broken, falls down before it. The Beloved disciple looks up into His face on whose breast he leaned at supper last night.
The hours drag slowly on. Three hours the Son hangs in torture, His limbs trembling, His wounds smarting in the chill March air. Three hours His Mother stands beside Him—erect, not swooning, not turning her eyes or her mind from the contemplation of the Victim hanging there, with whose bloody Sacrifice she unites the agony of her bleeding heart. She stands: her delicate, sensitive frame strung up to that endurance. She stands: unfaltering in her oblation, whilst Simeon’s sword makes its way deeper and deeper into her soul. No weakness, no lamentation: “Ecce ancilla!” as in the quiet midnight at Nazareth. It is the Father’s Will: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord!”
The end draws on. During the three hours the body has been continually sinking, widening the wounds till it seems as if the hands must give way and it will be torn from the nails. The words that have come painfully at intervals have ceased. The breathing becomes more and more laboured. The head droops lower on the breast. The eyes get glazed and fixed. A grey shadow settles on the face. There are two gasping sobs—the next, surely, must be the last. Suddenly, the head lifts; the lips part. A loud cry goes out over the Mount and is carried far into the distance: “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit!” The head drops on the breast. The Heart is still. The Soul is with the Father. He has been obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. He has loved us to the end.
Was Jesus comforted that hour By thought of me;
Counting my love a meet return For Calvary?
Or was it my ingratitude These many years That filled His Heart with agony His eyes with tears?
III.—Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.—Luke xxiii.
Mark the time and the place of this prayer.
Our Lord is lying on the cross. His right hand has been nailed. The left is being violently dragged to its place. The sinews give way under the strain. The joints are dislocated. At last it is stretched to the hole, and with heavy strokes of the hammer the second nail is driven in. The whole body writhes in agony. The knees are drawn up; the eyes close; the brow contracts with the intensity of the torture. Now is the moment of His prayer. He begins at once His work of Mediator; begins as men are nailing Him to the cross, to secure their pardon: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” Is not the self-forgetfulness of our Blessed Lord almost beyond belief! Would not His charity prove Him to be divine were all other evidence wanting!
The Jews had seen Him give sight to the blind, cleanse the lepers, free the possessed, cure every disease and every infirmity, raise the dead. They had heard Him preach a sublime doctrine, silence all cavillers, speak as never man spake. He had read their thoughts, fulfilled their prophecies, proved Himself their long-expected Messiah. And they had hated and rejected Him. They had shut their eyes to His miracles, and their ears to His invitations and His warnings. They had stirred up His people against Him, delivered Him to the Gentiles to be put to death, and invoked His Blood in condemnation upon themselves and upon their children. How could He find excuse for them? How could He plead their ignorance?
O tender and forgiving Lord! who will fear Thy condemnation after this? Who will fear Thee even as Judge, provided we do not refuse the pardon for which Thou pleadest so earnestly! Can I mistrust Thee, or doubt Thy most earnest desire to save me? Will not the charity that made Thee defend Thy crucifiers help Thee to find excuse, too, for me. Indeed I did not know what I was doing when I sinned against Thee. I do not understand even now the hatefulness and ingratitude of sin. It does not fill me with horror for I am blind. I fall into it easily for I am weak. Plead for me, dear Lord, with the Father that I may be forgiven for the past, and so enlighten and strengthen me that I may be kept from sin for the time to come.
“They know not what they do.” How different are my harsh judgments and my vindictiveness from the charity of my Saviour. How hard I find it to make excuses for those who injure or annoy me. Do I even attempt to make any? Have I not a habit of taking the severest view of an action which will bear an unfavourable interpretation? And of justifying my severity on the ground that I cannot shut my eyes to the truth? What should I have said on Calvary? Could I have found a single pretext for extenuating the sin of the Jews? Yet the Eternal Truth excused them and pleaded for them.
O meek and loving Lord, make my heart like unto Thine, patient, kind, thinking no evil, bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things, enduring all things!
“Father, forgive them!” Offer this tender prayer, O Lord, for all near and dear to me who stand in need of Thy special mercy; for all who at this hour are crucifying again the Son of God (Heb. 6). In Thy prayer is my trust. “For if any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the just. And He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for those of the whole world” (I. John 2). Wherefore, “O God, our Protector, look on the face of Thy Christ” (Ps. 83). Hear His prayer for all sinners. Be infinitely merciful in Thy judgments of us all. “Thou sparest all because they are Thine, O Lord who lovest souls” (Wisd. 11). “For if we sin we are Thine” (Wisd. 15). Frail children, yet Thy children still. Recall us to Thyself by the grace of contrition. Receive us for His sake who gave Himself for us. And grant us that forgiveness for which He prayed.
IV.—And he said to Jesus: Lord, remember me when Thou shalt come into Thy Kingdom.
And Jesus said to him: Amen, I say to thee this day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise.—Luke xxiii.
What is there kingly about Him as He hangs on His cross between the thieves? He lies under the same condemnation with them. He is placed in the midst as the most guilty. He has been followed to the place of execution with a vehemence of hatred which they have been spared. Above His head is His cause written: “King of the Jews.” But it is nailed there in derision. Covered with wounds and bruises, defiled with spittle, the reproach of men and the outcast of the people, what is there to proclaim Him King?