The Three Theaters of Calvary
“Father, if thou wilt, remove this chalice from me: but yet not my will, but thine be done.”—Luke 22:42
Alas, what mournful signs I behold in this temple! I see the air darkened, the altars stripped, I hear a sorrowful chant. Oh God! now I understand; these are signs of the sorrow that the Church suffers, weeping the death of her Spouse Jesus. It is just, therefore, that on this day we accompany with our tears the weeping of our Mother the Church, and pause to consider the death of our God, who after a life of suffering willed to die upon an infamous gibbet in a sea of reproach and sorrow.
Come, O holy cross, come and show yourself to this people. You are the blessed ark in which salvation can be found in the shipwreck of this world: you are the wondrous rod that gives men the strength to be transformed from monsters of iniquity into flowering rods of holy virtues: you are the bronze serpent, at whose sight sinners poisoned by guilt can regain their former health: you are the elect and resplendent tree, chosen among thousands to bear the members of the Redeemer.
You, finally, were the sorrowful altar on which the Savior of the world willed to be sacrificed for our salvation; therefore give me strength and help to portray to these faithful souls the ignominies, the pain and the agonies that Jesus Christ suffered when upon you he gave up his life.
The entire life of Jesus Christ was sown with sorrows and ignominies; but there were especially three sorrowful theaters of his sufferings, where he showed us most clearly the love he bore us. The first theater was the garden: the second was the praetorium: the third was Calvary. The first theater was hidden from the eyes of men, but open to those of God and the angels; this was the Garden of Gethsemane: there our Redeemer began his final Passion.
First Theater of the Garden
1. After he had on Thursday night washed the feet of the disciples, after he had left us himself in the most Blessed Sacrament of the altar as a pledge of the tender love he bore us, he arrives at the garden around midnight, and throwing himself to the ground, he enters into prayer. There he is assailed by great fear, great weariness, and great sadness.
2. He began first to feel great fear of death and of the sufferings he was to endure: Coepit pavere—“He began to fear.” But how is this? Had not he himself voluntarily offered himself to such sufferings? Oblatus est, quia ipse voluit—“He was offered because he himself willed it” (Is. 53:7). Had he not so ardently desired this hour of his Passion, having shortly before said: Desiderio desideravi hoc pascha manducare vobiscum—“With desire I have desired to eat this pasch with you” (Luke 22:15)?
And then how is it that he came to feel such fear of his death that he even prayed his Father to deliver him from it? “My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me” (Matt. 26:39). Ah yes, the loving Lord truly willed to die for us, to show us the love he bore us; but so that men might understand what bitterness of anguish and what sea of sorrows he was going forth to meet in his Passion, he permitted himself to be overwhelmed with such horrible fear: Coepit timere—“He began to fear.”
3. Coepit taedere—“He began to be weary.” He also began to feel great weariness of the sufferings that were prepared for him. When there is weariness, even delights become painful. Now what anguish, united with such weariness, the horrid array must have caused Jesus—appearing so vividly to his mind—of all the internal and external torments which in that remainder of his life were to cruelly torment his blessed body and soul!
Ah yes, then there came distinctly before him all the pains, the scorns, the ignominies, the infamies, the scourges, the thorns, the cross; and especially there came before him that reproachful and desolate death he was to suffer upon the infamous gibbet, abandoned by all—by men and by God—in a sea of pain and contempt. And this is what caused him such bitter weariness that constrained him to seek comfort from his eternal Father: Coepit taedere—“He began to be weary.”
4. But together with fear and weariness, Jesus began to feel a great sorrow and affliction of soul: “He began to grow sorrowful and to be sad” (Matt. 26:37). But, my Lord, are you not the one who has given your martyrs such joy in suffering that they came to despise torments and death? And how is it that you yourself, O my Jesus, chose for yourself in dying such great sorrow?
Ah yes, in that instant there were presented to his mind all the sins of the world—the blasphemies, the sacrileges, the impurities, and all the other offenses that were to be committed by men after his death, each of which came then, like a cruel beast, to lacerate his heart by its own malice. Thus it is as though our afflicted Lord, now agonizing in the garden, said: So this, O men, is the recompense that you will render to my immense love? Ah yes, the sight of so many sins after so many sufferings of mine, so much ingratitude after so much love of mine—this it is that afflicts me, that makes me sorrowful unto death, and that makes me sweat living blood: “And his sweat became as drops of blood trickling down upon the ground” (Luke 22:44).
5. Ah my beloved Jesus, I see in this garden neither scourges, nor thorns, nor nails that wound you; and yet I behold you all bathed in blood from head to foot. Therefore my sins were that cruel press which by force of affliction and sadness pressed so much blood from your heart! Therefore I also was, at that hour, one of your most cruel executioners!
6. But let us not linger here, for Jesus already hastens to his most loving Passion! Indeed behold Judas together with the Jews and soldiers already on his way to seize Jesus Christ in the garden: Jesus already sees them, and what does he do? Still bathed in blood, and having his heart all inflamed with love toward us, he rises and says to the three disciples who were with him: “Rise, let us go. Behold he is at hand that will betray me” (Matt. 26:46). Let us go therefore to meet the enemies who come to capture me.
7. And having now met them, Judas comes forward, embraces him and kisses him. This kiss was the sign of betrayal, and Jesus Christ reproached him for it: “Judas, dost thou betray the Son of man with a kiss?” (Luke 22:48). Then, turning to the Jews he said: “Whom seek ye?” (John 18:4); they responded: “Jesus of Nazareth”; and then they laid hands on him without respect and bound him like a criminal: “They laid hands on Jesus and held him” (John 18:12).
8. Alas! a God bound like a criminal! St. Bernard weeps: “O King of kings, what have you to do with chains?” Chains are for malefactors, but not for you who are innocent and the Holy of Holies. Behold, says St. Bonaventure, Intuere, homo, canes illum trahentes—“Behold, O man, the dogs dragging him.”
9. Jesus Christ, now bound in the midst of that rabble, is driven from the garden and taken to Jerusalem to the high priest Caiaphas. And the disciples—where are they? At least let them accompany their Master to defend him: No, all have abandoned him: “Then his disciples leaving him, all fled away” (Mark 14:50).
10. He thus enters by night into Jerusalem. At the noise of so many people passing, those who were in the houses awaken, look out their windows, and ask who that prisoner is: and they are answered: “It is Jesus of Nazareth who has been discovered to be an impostor and a deceiver.”
11. He is presented to the high priest, who was awaiting him. The proud man sits, and Jesus stands before him, bound like a criminal, with eyes lowered, all humble and meek. The high priest asks him what he had been teaching. Jesus responds: “I have spoken openly to the world… behold they know what I have said” (John 18:20–21).
But after so just and meek a response, a servant comes forward and gives him a violent blow on the face, saying to him with fury: “Answerest thou the high priest so?” (John 18:22). But how did such a humble response deserve so great an injury in the presence of so many people? And the high priest, instead of reproving that insolent servant, is silent, and by his silence approves the injury done. Then Jesus Christ said: “If I have spoken evil, give testimony of the evil; but if well, why strikest thou me?” (John 18:23).
12. Then Caiaphas adjured the Lord in the name of God to confess whether he was truly the Son of God: “I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us if thou be the Christ the Son of God” (Matt. 26:63). The Lord, hearing the name of God, responded with the truth and said: Ego sum—“I am”; and one day you will see me sitting at the right hand of the Father and coming on the clouds of heaven to judge the world.
Hearing this, Caiaphas, instead of throwing himself with his face to the ground to adore the Son of God, tore his garments, exclaiming that Christ had blasphemed: “He hath blasphemed”; and turning to the priests his companions, said: “You have now heard the blasphemy: What think you?” (Matt. 26:65–66). And then all responded that he was guilty of death: Reus est mortis—“He is guilty of death.” Yes, my Savior, you are truly guilty of death, since you willed to oblige yourself to pay the penalty of our sins.
13. Then the servants took him, and as a man already condemned to death they began to spit in his face and mistreat him with punches and slaps: “Then did they spit in his face and buffeted him. And others struck his face with the palms of their hands” (Matt. 26:67). And deriding him as a false prophet, they covered his face and then said to him: “Prophesy unto us, O Christ: who is he that struck thee?” (Matt. 26:68).
14. When morning came, at daybreak they led Jesus to Pilate to have him condemned to death; but Pilate finding no reason to condemn him declared him innocent: “I find no cause in this man” (Luke 23:4). But because the Jews insisted, he sent Jesus Christ to be judged by Herod. Herod rejoiced to see Jesus before him because he was curious to see one of the many miracles he had heard had been done by the Lord. Wherefore he made him several demands, but Jesus never responded to him; wherefore the proud king had him dressed as a madman with a white garment, and in this guise sent him back to Pilate, having him mocked and despised along the way by all his court: “And Herod with his army set him at nought and mocked him, putting on him a white garment: and sent him back to Pilate” (Luke 23:11).
O Son of God, O Eternal Wisdom, this further contempt remained for you: to be treated as a madman!
15. Pilate, seeing that sending Jesus to Herod had not served to spare himself from condemning that innocent one, thought to free him by another way. At that time of Passover the people had the liberty to obtain the liberation of a criminal; wherefore he proposed to the people whom they wished freed, Jesus Christ or Barabbas the murderer and scoundrel. But the people, stirred up by the rage of the priests who wanted Jesus Christ dead, cried out: “Not this man, but Barabbas” (John 18:40).
Behold therefore what happens to a man who commits a mortal sin: then there is proposed to him a choice of whom he wants—Jesus Christ, or that sin, that vengeance, that pleasure, etc. When he gives consent to sin, then he says: Non hunc, sed Barabbas—“Not this man, but Barabbas.”
16. Pilate, after he saw that the means of proposing Jesus with Barabbas had not succeeded, thought to have him scourged and then to release him: “I will chastise him therefore and release him” (Luke 23:16). And here we are at the second theater of the sufferings of Jesus Christ: “Then therefore Pilate took Jesus and scourged him” (John 19:1). How much less would the Lord have suffered if Pilate had had less compassion for him and had condemned him immediately to die crucified! Everything served to increase the torments of our Savior.
Second Theater of the Praetorium
17. Once he had arrived at the Praetorium, the loving Jesus, at the command of the servants, himself strips off his garments, embraces the column, and then stretches out his hands to be bound to it. O God, the cruel torment already begins! Angels of heaven, come and assist at this sorrowful spectacle; and if you are not permitted to free your King from the barbarous torture which men prepare for him, at least come and weep out of compassion.
And you, Christian soul, imagine yourself present at this horrendous butchery of your beloved Redeemer. Behold how your afflicted Jesus stands, with his head bowed, looking at the ground, all modest out of shame, awaiting the cruel slaughter.
18. Now those barbarians, like so many rabid dogs, already hurl themselves upon the innocent Lamb with their scourges. See there: one beats his breast, another strikes his shoulders, another wounds his sides, another his legs; even the sacred head and his beautiful face are not spared from blows. Alas, already that divine blood flows from every part; already the scourges, the hands of the executioners, the column, and the earth are bathed in blood! Laeditur weeps St. Peter Damian, totoque flagris corpore laniatur; nunc scapulas, nunc crura cingunt; vulnera vulneribus, et plagas plagis recentibus addunt—“He is wounded, and with scourges his whole body is torn; now they surround his shoulders, now his legs; they add wounds to wounds, and blows to fresh blows.”
19. Ah cruel men, against whom do you rage so much? Stop, stop: this man whom you torment is innocent and holy; we are the guilty ones, to us belong the scourges and torments. Eternal Father, and how can you endure that your beloved Son should undergo so many agonies and not succor him? What crime has he ever committed that deserves so shameful and savage a butchery?
“For the wickedness of my people have I struck him” (Isa. 53:8). I know well, says the eternal Father, that this my Son is holy, innocent, and undefiled; but since he has offered himself to satisfy my justice for all the sins of men, it is necessary that I thus abandon him to the fury of his most fierce enemies.
20. Barbarians, are you content? No, they are not content. Those executioners, after having thus scourged him, want to make him a mock king: and what do they do? They make him sit upon a stone; they place upon his wounded shoulders a red rag as a sign of royal purple, a reed in his hand as a sign of scepter, and for a crown a bundle of thorns upon his head, in the form of a helmet, which covered the entire head from the forehead to the neck; and so that the thorns might enter deeper, they beat them in with the reed: “And they took the reed and struck his head” (Matt. 27:30).
21. Not content with this, they kneel before him and mock him, saying to him: Hail, O King of the Jews; and then rising with laughter and scorn, they gave him slaps: “And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying: Hail, King of the Jews; and they gave him blows” (Mark 15:19). Go, devout soul, and recognize him as your Lord, while his enemies torment him and mock him. He is King, but now he is made King of sorrow: he is nonetheless still King of love, while he suffers so much for the love he bears you.
22. After having thus scourged him and crowned him with thorns, they take him, and just as he was, all covered with wounds and blood, they bring him to Pilate. Pilate, seeing him in such a state, believed he could quiet the Jews by merely showing him to them thus disfigured as he was: therefore leading him out of the gallery, he showed him to them, saying: Behold the man: Exivit Pilatus foras, et dixit eis: Ecce homo—“Pilate therefore went forth again and saith to them: Behold the man” (John 19:4–5).
As if to say: Behold that man whom you feared would make himself your king: behold him reduced to a state in which he can no longer live; let him go to die in his house since he has little life left. Behold him now reduced to such a state that he scarcely seems a man anymore, and so little life remains to him: so permit him to remain at liberty, your fury being sufficiently satisfied. But if you nevertheless insist that I condemn him to death, I tell you that I cannot do it, since I find no reason to condemn him: Non invenio in eo causam—“I find no cause in him” (John 19:6).
23. But just as Pilate from the gallery showed Jesus to that people, so at the same time the eternal Father from heaven presented to us his beloved Son, saying to us likewise: Ecce Homo—“Behold the man”; behold this man who is my only beloved Son loved by me as much as myself: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17). Behold the man, your Savior, promised by me and so much awaited by you. Behold him become the man of sorrows. See to what a pitiable state he has reduced himself for the love he bears you. Ah behold him and love him, and if his divine merits do not move you, at least let these sorrows and these ignominies—that he suffers for you—move you to love him.
24. But does the cruelty of the enemies of Jesus perhaps grow calm at the voice of Pilate? Behold the high priests raise their voices from below and cry: “Away with him: Away with him. Crucify him” (John 19:15). Pilate, why show him to us? Take him from before our eyes, let us see him no more by making him die crucified.
But nevertheless, Pilate still resisted condemning him; and so they threatened to accuse him as an enemy of Caesar if he did not condemn him: “If thou release this man, thou art not Caesar’s friend” (John 19:12). And thus they succeeded in obtaining the condemnation from Pilate, who then first washed his hands, declaring that he had no guilt in the death of that man: “I am innocent of the blood of this just man. Look you to it” (Matt. 27:24). O injustice never heard of in the world! The judge declares the accused innocent, and in the same moment condemns him to death!
25. Poor Jews! You then said: “His blood be upon us and upon our children” (Matt. 27:25). You yourselves called down the punishment upon yourselves, which has now already overtaken you; your children already bear the penalty of that innocent blood, and will bear it until the end of the world.
26. The sentence is read; Jesus, obedient, accepts it in punishment for our sins: “He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:8).
27. The sentence having been published, they put his garments back on him so that he might be recognized, since he was so disfigured. They present him the cross; Jesus embraces it and takes it upon his shoulders: “And bearing his own cross, he went forth to the place which is called Calvary” (John 19:17). The officers of justice go out with the condemned, and among these goes our Redeemer, carrying that wood on which he was to lay down his life.
O God! That Messiah who a few days before had been acclaimed on Palm Sunday (Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini—“Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord”), was then seen going bound and cursed by all through those same streets, to die as a criminal. What a marvel to see a God executed!
28. Jesus made such a lamentable sight on this journey that he moved all to weep: “And there followed him a great multitude of people and of women, who bewailed and lamented him” (Luke 23:27). Behold him also, you souls who love Jesus Christ; see how he goes with his flesh so lacerated and streaming with blood, with that bundle of thorns on his head, with that heavy wood on his shoulders; and while one of those ministers pulls him violently with a rope, see him as he goes with his body bent, with trembling knees, streaming blood, and walks with such difficulty that at every step he seems to expire!
29. O Divine Lamb, are you not yet sated with sorrows? How dearly it cost you to make me understand the charity you have had for me! Ah! Grant me therefore those helps to love you that you have merited for me with so many sufferings. Give me that holy fire that you came to kindle on earth by dying for us. Always remind me of your death, so that I may never forget to love you.
30. “And the government is upon his shoulder” (Isa. 9:6). The cross precisely, says Tertullian, was the noble instrument with which Jesus Christ acquired so many souls. Yes, because dying on it he paid the penalty for our sins, and thus redeemed us from hell and made us his: “Who his own self bore our sins in his body upon the tree” (1 Pet. 2:24).
Therefore, O my Jesus, if the eternal Father loaded you with all the sins of men, “The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:6), I—with my sins—made heavier the cross that you carried to Calvary.
31. Ah my sweetest Savior, already you saw then all the injuries that I was to do you; despite all this you did not cease to love me and to prepare for me so many mercies that you have since shown me! If therefore I have been so dear to you, I most vile and ungrateful sinner who have so offended you, it is right that you also be dear to me—you my God, infinite beauty and goodness, who have so loved me. Ah! Would that I had never displeased you! Now I know, my Jesus, the wrong I have done you. O my accursed sins, what have you done! You have made me embitter the loving heart of my Redeemer—a heart that has so loved me.
Ah! My Jesus, pardon me, for I repent of having despised you. For the future you must be the only object of my love. I love you, O infinitely lovable one, with all my heart, and I resolve to love no one but you. Lord, pardon me, and give me your love, and I ask nothing more of you. I say to you with St. Ignatius, Amorem tui solum cum gratia tua mihi dona, et dives sum satis—“Give me only your love with your grace, and I am rich enough.”
Third Theater of Calvary
32. Behold Jesus Christ already arrived at the third and final theater of Calvary where his life ends. When the afflicted Lord arrived there, they tear from him the garments attached to his torn flesh and throw him with fury upon the cross. The Divine Lamb presents his hands and feet to the executioners to be nailed, and offers to the eternal Father the great sacrifice of his life for our salvation.
Once one hand had been nailed, the nerves contracted; therefore it was necessary that with ropes and violence they forcibly drag the other hand, and the feet also, to the place of the nails, whereby the nerves and veins were stretched and torn with great agony: Manus et pedes cum fune trahebant ad loca clavorum, ita ut nervi et venae extenderentur et rumperentur—“They drew the hands and feet with ropes to the places of the nails, so that the nerves and veins were stretched and broken”; thus it was revealed to St. Bridget. Thus all his bones could be numbered, as David already predicted: “They have dug my hands and my feet. They have numbered all my bones” (Ps. 21:17–18).
33. St. Augustine says there is no death more bitter than death on the cross: Peius nihil fuit in genere mortium—“Nothing was worse among the kinds of death.” For, as St. Thomas observes, the crucified are pierced in the hands and feet—places which, being wholly composed of nerves, muscles, and veins, are most sensitive to pain—and the very weight of the body that hangs makes the pain continuous and ever increasing until death.
But the pains of Jesus surpassed all other pains, for the Angelic Doctor says that the body of Jesus Christ, being perfectly formed, was more sensitive and responsive to suffering—a body fitted to him by the Holy Spirit expressly for suffering, as he foretold and the Apostle attests: “A body thou hast fitted to me” (Heb. 10:5). Moreover, St. Thomas says that Jesus Christ assumed such great pain as was proportioned to satisfy for the temporal punishment that the sins of all men deserved.
34. My soul, behold your Lord; behold your life hanging from that wood: “And thy life shall be as it were hanging before thee” (Deut. 28:66). See him, how upon that sorrowful gibbet, suspended on those cruel hooks, he finds neither place nor rest. Now he leans upon his hands, now upon his feet; but wherever he leans, the agony increases. He turns his afflicted head now to one side, now to the other; if he abandons it upon his breast, the hands are more torn under the weight; if he lowers it upon his shoulders, the shoulders are pierced by the thorns; if he rests it upon the cross, the thorns enter more deeply into his head. Ah, my Jesus, what a bitter death is this that you die!
35. My crucified Redeemer, I adore you upon this throne of ignominies and sufferings. I read it written upon this cross that you are king: Iesus Nazarenus rex iudaeorum—“Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews” (John 19:19). But apart from this title of scorn, what sign do you show of being a king? Ah, these nailed hands, this thorny head, this throne of pain, this lacerated flesh indeed make you known as king—but king of love.
I therefore approach, humbled and moved, to kiss your sacred feet, pierced for love of me. I embrace this cross, on which, made a victim of love, you willed to sacrifice yourself to divine justice for me. “Becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:8). O happy obedience that obtained for us the pardon of sins! And what would have become of me, O my Savior, if you had not paid for me!
36. Once he has been nailed, the cross is raised. Behold, Jesus now stands upon the cross. St. Francis of Paola, contemplating Jesus Christ on the cross, could never weary of praising the love of this God, exclaiming: O charity, O charity, O charity! Behold, you too, devout soul; behold your Lord hanging from that wood; see how he is suspended on those three hooks, leaning with his whole body upon his very wounds of hands and feet. Wherever he leans, the pain increases. O God, the afflicted Lord finds neither place nor rest!
37. Behold the King of heaven, who hanging from that gibbet is already dying. Let us ask him with the prophet: “What are these wounds in the midst of thy hands?” (Zach. 13:6). Tell me, my Jesus, what are these wounds in the midst of your hands? Abbot Rupert responds for Jesus: Sunt monumenta caritatis, pretia redemptionis—“They are monuments of charity, the price of redemption.” They are signs, says the Redeemer, of the great love I bear you; they are the price with which I freed you from the hands of enemies and from eternal death.
Love therefore, O faithful soul, love your God who has so loved you. And if you ever doubt his love, look (says St. Thomas of Villanova), look at that cross, those sorrows, and that bitter death that he suffered for you, for such witnesses will indeed make you know how much your Redeemer loves you: Testis crux, testes dolores, testis amara mors, quam pro te sustinuit—“The cross is witness, the pains are witnesses, the bitter death which he sustained for you is witness.” St. Bernard added that the cross cries out, every wound of Jesus cries out, that he has loved us with true love: Clamat crux, clamat vulnus, quod ipse vere dilexit—“The cross cries out, the wound cries out, that he truly loved.”
38. While on the cross he sought someone to console him, but found none: “And I looked for one that would comfort me, and I found none” (Ps. 69:21). Some blasphemed him from one side and some from another; some said: “If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross” (Matt. 27:40). Some said: “Vah, thou that destroyest the temple of God, save thy own self” (Mark 15:29–30). Some said to him: “He saved others: himself he cannot save” (Matt. 27:42). Oh God, and why do you afflict a poor condemned man with insults and derisions while he is dying on the gibbet!
39. And Jesus, while they insult him, what does he do from the cross? Does he perhaps pray to the eternal Father to punish them? No; he prays him to forgive them: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Yes (says St. Thomas), to show his immense love for men the Redeemer asked God to pardon his very crucifiers: Ad ostendendam abundantiam suae caritatis, veniam persecutoribus postulavit—“To show the abundance of his charity, he asked pardon for his persecutors” (Summa III, q. 49, a. 4, ad. 1). He asked it and obtained it; so that afterward, when they had seen him dead, they repented of their sin: “They returned striking their breasts” (Luke 23:48).
40. Ah, my dear Savior, behold me at your feet; I have been one of your most ungrateful persecutors; pray also for me to your Father that he may pardon me! It is true that the Jews and executioners did not know what they were doing in crucifying you; but I well knew that in sinning I offended a God crucified and dead for me; but your blood, your death have also merited divine mercy for me. I cannot despair of being pardoned, seeing you die to obtain pardon for me.
41. The afflicted Mother stood at the foot of the cross together with the other devout women: Stabant autem iuxta crucem Iesu mater eius etc.—“Now there stood by the cross of Jesus, his mother” (John 19:25). Oh God! Who would not have compassion for a mother who is beside her son as he is dying before her eyes? Behold Mary, who, standing under the cross and contemplating the sufferings amid which her beloved Son was dying, longed to give him some relief; but on the contrary she saw that with her presence she increased the sorrow of the Son who so pitied her; and this was the great martyrdom of Mary, which made her Queen of Martyrs.
42. Therefore, Jesus Christ, seeing himself abandoned and afflicted by all in his death, turned to the eternal Father to obtain some comfort; but the Father, seeing him covered with all our sins, of which he was paying the penalty to divine justice for us, also abandons him; and then it was that Jesus cried with a loud voice: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46). My God, my God (he said), so even you have abandoned me?
43. But already the loving Savior approaches death. My Christian, raise your eyes to that cross; look at his beautiful face that already grows pale, those eyes that grow dark, and that sacred body that abandons itself to death. Before expiring, Jesus Christ said those words: Consummatum est—“It is consummated” (John 19:30). All is accomplished; as if he said, turning toward us: men, men, love me, since I have nothing more to do to make myself loved by you. See my afflicted life, which I have led for 33 years for love of you; for you I also willed to be scourged, crowned with thorns, slapped, and wounded from head to foot. What remains? It remains to see me dead for your love; yes, I will die.
Come, death, I give you license; kill me, take my life, so that my sheep may live: “And Jesus crying with a loud voice said: Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46). Father (he said), I die for your glory and for the salvation of men; I commend my spirit to you. Behold, Jesus already dies. Come, angels, from heaven to assist at the death of your God. And you, sorrowful Mother, come a little closer to the cross; behold more attentively your Son who is near to expiring.
44. And you, O Christians, behold him, already agonizing, among the last breaths of his life. Behold those dying eyes, the pallid face, the heart that palpitates with languid motion, the body that already abandons itself to death, and that beautiful soul that is already near to leaving the torn body. Already the sky grows dark, the earth trembles, the sepulchers open. Alas, what horrid signs are these! They are signs that the Maker of the world is already dying.
45. Behold finally how our Redeemer, having commended his blessed soul to his eternal Father, first gives a great sigh from his afflicted heart, then bows his head in sign of his obedience, offers his death for the salvation of men, and finally, by the violence of pain, expires and renders his spirit into the hand of his beloved Father: “And crying with a loud voice, he said: Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. And saying this, he gave up the ghost” (Luke 23:46).
46. All the people who stood watching him, seeing him expire and observing that he made no more movement, say: he is dead, he is dead. Thus Mary heard it said by all, and thus she also said: Ah, my Son, you are already dead!
47. He is dead! Oh God! Who is dead? The King of heaven, the Creator of the world, a God has willed to die: for whom? For us poor sinners.
Act of Sorrow while Showing the Image of the Crucified
Come, sinners; behold Jesus Christ who stands with arms open to embrace you.
What fear do you have that he will not pardon you, if he died to pardon you?
Do you fear not being pardoned? Do you not trust yourselves to do the penance that your sins deserve? Be cheerful; because, see here, Jesus Christ has done the penance for you on this cross. It suffices that you repent with all your heart of having offended him.
Look here, go and find one who has loved you more than Jesus Christ. Come now, souls, love him, since he died to be loved by you. Say to him: ah my Lord, and whom shall I love, if I do not love a God who died for me!
O sorrowful Mother, ah by that sorrow you had in seeing him expire, obtain for me holy perseverance and a true love for Jesus Christ!
Points for Reflection
1. “See my afflicted life, which I have led for 33 years for love of you; for you I also willed to be scourged, crowned with thorns, slapped, and wounded from head to foot. What remains? It remains to see me dead for your love; yes, I will die” (§43)
2. “Ah, these nailed hands, this thorny head, this throne of pain, this lacerated flesh indeed make you known as king—but king of love” (§35)
3. “What fear do you have that he will not pardon you, if he died to pardon you? Be cheerful; because, see here, Jesus Christ has done the penance for you on this cross. It suffices that you repent with all your heart of having offended him” (Act of Sorrow)