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Day 18
Jesus Christ Shown by Pilate to the People
Meditation
Pilate, on beholding the Redeemer of the world in the lamentable condition
to which His executioners have reduced Him, imagines that His appearance alone
must move the people to compassion, and therefore takes Him to the balcony in
front of his palace, from whence He may be seen by the assembled multitude,
saying "Ecce Homo." - "Behold the Man!" Consider:
1. The state in which Jesus is shown to the people.
He is so deformed and disfigured as scarcely to preserve the semblance of a
man. His face is pale and bruised with the blows He has received, and defiled
with the spittle - His adorable head is bending beneath the painful weight of
the sharp thorns, which pierce His brow and form a crown of sorrow and ignominy
- His torn, mangled, and bleeding frame is clothed with a garment of scorn and
derision. He suffers in every part of His sacred Body, and His position is one
of the deepest degradation. In this state of indescribable shame and confusion,
the adorable Son of God is presented by Pilate to the people with these few
words: "Behold the Man!" As though he had said: "Behold
to what a condition the Man whom you accuse of aspiring to royalty is reduced!
See whether He is not rather worthy of tears and compassion than of hatred!"
And thou, my soul, attentively contemplate this Man-God, the King of Glory,
overwhelmed with ignominy, in the presence of so great a multitude, His adorable
Body streaming with blood and loaded with shame. He who was the most beautiful
of the sons of men, is now the abomination of His people. He has assumed so
painful and humiliating an appearance to induce His Father to take pity upon
us, and deliver us from the eternal punishments which we have deserved. Love
for our souls, and desire for their salvation, have reduced Him to so pitiable
a condition. But, on your part, what efforts do you make for the salvation of
your soul which has been purchased by Jesus at so dear a rate? Are you anxious
to guard its purity and save it from eternal misery? Or are you, on the contrary,
willing for a mere trifle to sacrifice your right to that Paradise which Jesus
has purchased for you at the price of so many humiliations and sufferings?
2. The feelings aroused in the hearts of the people by the appearance of
Jesus.
The sight of the lamentable condition to which the most innocent Redeemer of
the world is reduced, would have touched hearts of stone, and ought to inspire
the Jews with feelings of compassion and mercy toward our suffering Jesus. But
no sooner do they behold Him than they seem to lose every feeling of humanity,
and, with the fury of wild beasts, clamorously demand His death, and seek with
unexampled fury to deprive Him of that life which is all but extinct in His
martyred Body. The diabolical hatred and implacable rage animating them against
our blessed Lord urge them on to demand with loud cries that he should be crucified!
Behold the consequences of allowing a passion once to take possession of the
heart! There is no excess into which a man blinded by any one passion may not
fall. All passions delight but ruin the soul, and must therefore be combated
with untiring energy. Pilate is well aware of the innocence of Jesus, and is
by no means willing to yield to the iniquitous wishes of the Jews, but they
fiercely and clamorously reply that according to their law He ought to die,
because He has made Himself the Son of God. The laws of the world condemn Jesus
to die. All worldlings who seek solely to gratify their passions exclaim by
the voice of the Jews that Jesus must be put to death, that Jesus must be crucified!
And do you regulate your conduct by such laws as these? Do you follow the maxims
of worldlings? If such is the case, you will very speedily desert Jesus, and
seek to crucify Him anew. Jesus beholds the rage of His enemies, He hears their
furious outcries, and bitterly deplores their insensibility to His sufferings,
but rejoices at the prospect of that Cross on which He is to die for love of
me, while I tremble at the very name of crosses and sufferings. Why are my sentiments
so contrary to those of Jesus?
3. The feelings which the sight of Jesus Christ should awaken in our hearts.
While the people display no compassion whatever on beholding Jesus, let us imagine
that the Eternal Father shows Him to us to excite at least in our hearts feelings
of love, veneration, and of desire to imitate Him. Let us imagine that we hear
the Eternal Father addressing us in the words of Pilate to the Jews, "Ecce
Homo" - "Behold the Man!" He is your King, the King
of wisdom, of love, and of holiness, but also the King of sorrow and ignominy.
He has acquired possession of His kingdom by humiliation and suffering; He has
purchased it for you at the price of His blood and of His wounds: for your sake
He has sacrificed His dignity, and permitted Himself to be thus outraged and
tormented. Adore this King, be subject to Him, and if you wish to enter His
blessed Kingdom, follow Him in the way of the Cross and of suffering. He is
desirous of reigning in your hearts, and He has purchased possession of them
at the price of a most painful death. Consecrate then to Him all your thoughts
and all your affections. Behold the Man! He is your Father; the most
sweet, tender and loving of fathers - a Father who, for the love of His children,
and in order to restore them to the life of grace which they had lost by sin,
has sacrificed His own most precious life on the Cross, and is yet the most
despised and abhorred of fathers. Love so good a Father, obey His commands,
and never grieve His tender Heart. Behold the Man! He is your Master
and your Model. Observe the virtues which He practices on this occasion. Extreme
mildness amid so many provocations, perfect silence under so many outrages,
great humility amid so many insults, and wonderful patience under so many sufferings.
Contemplate, and endeavor to imitate Him. Never will you resemble Him in the
honors of Paradise, never will you be His companions in glory, if you resemble
Him not in His virtues. Resolve to do so by the help of His grace.
The Fruit
Remain for some time with your eyes fixed on a Crucifix, and say to yourself,
"Behold the condition to which a God has been reduced for love of me, and
to satisfy for my sins." Offer Him all the powers of your soul, and all
the senses of your body, in testimony of your love, and determine to use them
solely for His glory. Ask Him, through the merits of His humiliations, to bestow
upon you the spirit of humility and penance.
Example
The venerable servant of God, Ursula Benincasa, took such great delight in having
constantly before her eyes a picture representing Jesus crowned with thorns,
and in the state in which He was shown by Pilate to the people, that she had
it fastened on her working frame. When working she would frequently breathe
forth fervent sighs of love to her suffering Lord, and beseech Him to allow
her to partake in His sorrows, and to share His crown of thorns. She caused
Crucifixes to be placed in every part of her house, and kept many in her room,
so that, whichever way she turned, she might always behold her suffering Redeemer.
Having become a Religious, and Superior of a Convent, she ordered each of her
nuns to keep in her cell an image of Christ Crucified, and to say at least thirty-three
times every day, "My Crucified Jesus! I repent of all my sins. Have
mercy on me, and help me at the hour of my death." (See her Life).
Day 19
Jesus Condemned to the Death of the Cross
Meditation
Pilate, seing that he gains nothing by all his attempts to liberate Jesus, but
that, on the contrary, the people are being excited by the high priests to demand
that He should be crucified, at last makes up his mind to pronounce sentence,
and condemn Our Saviour to the death of the Cross. Consider:
1. The people desire the death of Jesus
The Jews are not satisfied with the scourging of Jesus, nor yet with His crowning
with thorns, nor with His having been overwhelmed with disgrace and ignominy;
they require nothing less than his death, and urge Pilate to have Him crucified.
You also have desired His death as often as you have sinned, and the voice of
your perfidious, malicious will has uttered the cry, Crucifige, against
your tender Father, Saviour and God, as loudly as ever the Jews did! Oh, what
ingratitude and cruelty!
The Jews had sought for Jesus to make Him king; they had experienced the effects of His beneficence; they had received the most signal favors from His hand, both for soul and body; and now with unexampled ingratitude they demand that He should be put to death on the Cross like a malefactor, and cannot even endure the sight of His adorable Person. Hence they desire Pilate to take Him away; as though they had said, "We cannot longer endure to behold Him, so hateful and disagreeable is His presence to us!" This is always the aim of the wicked. They have no wish to know God, or to contemplate His infinite perfections, and they will not reflect upon His benefits, goodness and love for us. If they once did so, they would have no difficulty in abstaining from sin. The sight of Jesus reminded the Jews of His miracles and beneficence, and was a reproach to them for their atrocious injustice and fearful ingratitude in desiring His death. On this account they would not look at Him whose appearance aroused remorse in their hearts. You commit sin, offend God, and persecute Jesus even unto death, because you never will pause and consider how much Jesus has loved you, nor how much He has suffered for your sake. You live in forgetfulness of God, with scarcely any knowledge of Him, immersed in vanity and idle curiosity, and absolutely unmindful of your loving Benefactor and Sovereign Good; hence it follows that you feel no horror of crying out, by your hateful sins, that He must be crucified, that He must die. And what has Jesus done to deserve such treatment at your hands?
2. Pilate condemns Jesus.
Pilate would willingly liberate Jesus, but his courage fails him. He fears to
condemn Him because the thought of His evident innocence causes him to tremble.
And yet when he hears the people threaten him with the anger of Caesar, Pilate
betrays his conscience, and condemns the Just Man, the Holy of Holies, to death,
delivering Him up into the hands of His most furious enemies! O accursed human
respect! How many times have you, O Christian, put the Son of God to death in
your heart by committing sin through human respect? Not to displease a friend,
not to lose the favor of a person who is agreeable to you, not to be deprived
of some vain transitory honor, not to lose some wretched pleasure, you have
committed the monstrous evil of offending God! And yet you knew that He was
your Lord, that He had a right to be obeyed and preferred by you to all things
else. You knew that He commanded you to sacrifice friends and inclinations alike
to His Will and law. How is it possible that you have made more account of a
creature than of God, and that, through human respect and fear of men, you have
renounced the friendship of God your Father? How is it possible that you can
have been more afraid of displeasing men than of outraging the infinite Majesty
of God by sin? Bewail your error, and hold human respect in detestation. Pilate
trembles and is filled with horror when pronouncing sentence of death against
the God of life; yet all his knowledge, remorse of conscience, and the evident
proofs he has of the innocence of Jesus, are not sufficient to restrain him
from committing so awful a crime, and he consents to the deicide. Indulge in
no feelings of anger against Pilate, but rather turn them against yourself,
who, in despite of the light of faith, the assistance of grace, and remorse
of conscience, have sentenced Jesus Christ to death each time that you have
committed mortal sin. And ought not the mere remembrance of this to cause you
to die of grief?
3. Jesus Christ accepts death.
[...]
The Fruit
Human Respect, and your own passions, have caused you to become so often, like
the Jews, a rebel to your God. Resolve, then, to be vigilant in mortifying your
passions, and in despising all human respect, when the good pleasure of God
is in question. Never forget your God, the benefits you have received from His
hand, His love and His sufferings. Pious thoughts such as these will prevent
you from committing sin. Pay great attention to Divine inspirations, and to
remorse of conscience, for they are graces by which God proposes either to save
you from consenting to sin, or to raise you up if you have fallen.
Example
Tears shed over the Passion of Our Lord are very pleasing to Him. Blessed Johanna
of the Cross, who was filled with devotion to the sufferings of Jesus, even
from her mother's womb, (as was evident from that fact that, while yet a babe,
she refused the breast on Fridays), was one day contemplating in spirit the
streams of Blood which flowed down the sacred Body of her Crucified Redeemer.
She was lamenting that it was not granted to her to shed at least a portion
of her blood for love of Him who, for her sake, had shed every drop of His,
when an Angel appeared. He bade her be comforted, for that Our Lord regarded
all the tears shed over His Passion in the light of so many drops of blood.
(See her Life).
Taken from The School of Jesus Crucified by TAN Books & Publishers, Inc.
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