Simple Thoughts on the Rosary: Sorrowful Mysteries: The Crucifixion
And now the Father’s face was turned away from Him. The chastisement of our sins was upon Him. The loneliness, helplessness, terror that the sense of estrangement from God brings upon the soul, He allowed Himself to feel for our sakes. Can He descend lower than this? Is He not now at last like to us in all things?
VII.—I thirst.—John xix.
God’s way is to reward, to punish, to satisfy for sin, in kind. The working of this law we see throughout the Passion. To make reparation for our misuse of the senses our Lord suffers from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head. His thirst on the cross is an atonement for the sin that lost Paradise and occasions the loss daily of so many souls.
“T tharst.” Nothing causes thirst like loss of blood. Think of all He had lost since the Agony on Thursday night. The abundance of His sweat in the Garden is shown by the words, “trickling down upon the ground.” Therefore it had first soaked His garments. The scourging left the body one raw wound. The bleeding of His head pierced with the thorns was a still further drain. A terrible thirst was upon Him when He came to His Crucifixion. They offered Him the drink provided for the condemned, wine mingled with a stupifying substance to deaden somewhat the sufferer’s pangs. “And when He had tasted He would not drink” (Matth. 27). He refused the draught because He would admit of no relief. He tasted the gall that the only sense in Him which had escaped torment might pay the penalty due to our sinful indulgence of the taste.
“TI thirst.” We are told that crucifixion is one of the most awful forms of death the cruelty of man has devised. And that among its tortures the most intolerable is thirst. In itself this is sufficient to cause death. We know what our Lord could bear in silence. Yet even He exclaimed: “TI thirst.” It was not a complaint. He suffered too willingly for that. It was a revelation of the extremity of His pain. And it was a warning. He would let us know something of what our self-indulgence was costing Him; of what the sin of intemperance deserves. Hoarsely the words came from the parched throat. He could scarcely speak. The tongue was cleaving to the palate. Think what His Mother felt as she looked up and saw His agony and was powerless to help Him.
Happy the man who—we may hope in pity—raised the sponge of vinegar and water to His lips to give Him some slight relief! Have I no desire to give Him any? Can I watch Him in His torments and be content with a little barren compassion? Can I find it in my heart to leave Him to suffer quite alone? O my Lord let me bear Thee company by a little voluntary penance. By some privation, trifling it may be but constant, let me prove my gratitude for the burning thirst Thou hast endured for me!
VIII.—Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.—Luke xxiii.
Had we been told that our God was coming to live with us on earth to teach us the way to heaven, could we have dreamed that He would show us by His own example how to die? Yet this is the lesson of all others it behoves us to learn. Death is the all-important act that cannot be practised or repeated, and on the right performance of which the first time eternity depends.
Would it have been like Him, then, to leave us untaught? Or to leave the task of teaching us to any other? No. Therefore He calls us all round the Cross to see Him die. He will show us by His own words and example what is the safest, the most perfect disposition in which we can render up our souls to God. Let us listen:
“Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.” A while ago it was the piteous cry to the Creator: “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” Now it is the filial commendation to the Father. The lesson He wants us to have ready for our last hour is confidence. Had there been any other better He would have taught it. We must learn it now. We ought to be perpetually rehearsing for the hour of our death, as the Church teaches us in the Hail Mary. And the most important thing to rehearse is confidence. Again and again the trusting commendation now, that it may come helpfully to our lips then: “Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.”
Father—my Father, “who hast loved me with an everlasting love, and drawn me taking pity on me” (Jer. 31), “who hast made me and created me” (Deut. 22), and “called me by my name” (Isaias 45), remember that it is not as Maker and Creator but as Father that Thy Son has taught us to speak to Thee: “Our Father who art in heaven.”
I am a prodigal; I have wasted my substance. I am not worthy to be called Thy child. But Thou art my Father still, merciful, long-suffering, and full of compassion (2 Esdras 9). “For if we sin we are Thine” (Wisd. 15).
O my Father, when life on earth is ending, take me to the Home where Thou art awaiting me, Thy House with its many mansions where Thou hast prepared my place. Take me to Thyself who alone canst satisfy me: “for what have I in heaven besides Thee!” (Ps. 72).
Into Thy hands—the hands that have formed me and guided me, provided for me, shielded me, blessed me, sustained me to the end:
I commend—with a child’s unquestioning trust—My spirit—my one possession in the hour of my death, all that will remain to me of what I have in this world. As it goes forth from the body, alone and trembling, assailed by enemies, beyond the reach of friends, receive it, O Father, into Thy hands. Have pity on it because it is my only one. “Let not the enemy prevail against it, nor the son of iniquity have power to hurt it” (Ps. 88). “To the work of Thy hands stretch out Thy right hand” (Job 14). In union with my dying Saviour I confide it to Thy mercy now for the hour of my death: Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.
IX.—Come down from the Cross!—Mark xv.
“Come down from the cross!” is like that other taunt in the desert: “If Thou be the Son of God, cast Thyself down” (Luke 4). The challenge was given, not on Calvary only or in the wilderness. Not to Him alone who he suspected might be the Son of God by nature, but to the adopted children of God also, the enemy cries out: “Cast thyself down.”
There is nothing the devil fears like perseverance in well doing. He can put up with spasmodic piety, with good works zealously begun. What he dreads is the courage that holds out under difficulties, that perseveres to the end. “Come down from the cross,” he says to us.
What is our cross? All that goes against self. All that it costs to reduce self; to act on principle; to submit to authority; to accommodate ourselves to others; to be faithful to irksome duties; to struggle against self-indulgence and the softness of our times; to be energetic in attention to our weak point; to bear up against failure and the monotony of daily routine; to be resigned when all seems to go wrong. Whatever goes counter to our liking, in our circumstances, our health, our companions, the way things are done, the way things turn out—all this is our cross.
And our enemy says: “Come down from the cross.” Why so much self restraint? Take things easily: violence never lasts. Do as others do, as So-and-so, a good person does. Have a good time whilst you can.
We, like our Master, have to turn a deaf ear to the tempter, to hold out to the end, to persevere on our cross as long as God wills; battling with suffering, battling with self, often by that hardest form of conflict—endurance. The hour of rest will come for us as it came for Him. After the temptation in the desert “the devil left Him, and behold Angels came and ministered to Him” (Matth. 4). After the final contest with the Evil One on Calvary, “Christ dieth no more, death shall no more have dominion over Him”(Rom. 6). But until God’s hour came for the cessation of the struggle, He persevered on His cross. He was taken down by the Father’s Will when the time was come.
X.—So he became their Saviour... in His love and in His mercy He redeemed them.—Isaias lxiii.
(1) God so loved the world as to give His Only-begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him may not perish but may have everlasting life (John 3).
(2) If thou didst know the gift of God! (John 4).
(3) You were not redeemed with corruptible things, as gold and silver, but with the precious Blood of Christ (1 Pet. 1).
(4) You are not your own for you are bought with a great price (1 Cor. 6).
(5) Christ hath loved us and hath delivered Himself for us (Ephes. 5).
(6) Loved us and washed us from our sins in His own Blood (Apoc. 1).
(7) Loved me and delivered Himself for me (Galat. 2).
(8) Who, then, shall separate us from the love of Christ? (Rom. 8).
(9) The Lamb that was slain is worthy to receive power, and divinity, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and benediction (Apoc. 5).
(10) If any man love not our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema (1 Cor. 16).‸