Meditations & Readings: Maundy Thursday

THE LAST SUPPER

It was most fitting that the sacrament of the body of the Lord should have been instituted at the Last Supper.

1. Because of what that sacrament contains. For that which is contained in it is Christ Himself. When Christ in His natural appearance was about to depart from His disciples, He left Himself to them in a sacramental appearance, just as in the absence of the emperor there is exhibited the emperor's image. Whence St. Eusebius says, "Since the body he had assumed was about to be taken away from their bodily sight, and was about to be carried to the stars, it was necessary that, on the day of His last supper, He should consecrate for us the sacrament of His body and blood, so that what, as a price, was offered once should, through a mystery, be worshipped unceasingly."

2. Because without faith in the Passion there can never be salvation. Therefore it is necessary that there should be, for ever, among men something that would represent the Lord s Passion and the chief of such representative things in the Old Testament was the Paschal Lamb. To this there succeeded in the New Testament the sacrament of the Eucharist, which is commemorative of the past Passion of the Lord as the Paschal Lamb was a foreshadowing of the Passion to come.* 

And therefore was it most fitting that, on the very eve of the Passion, the old sacrament of the Paschal Lamb having been celebrated, Our  Lord should institute the new sacrament.

3. Because the last words of departing friends remain longest in the memory, our love being at such moments most tenderly alert. Nothing can be greater in the realm of sacrifice than that of the body and blood of Christ, no offering can be more effective. And hence, in order that the sacrament might be held in all the more veneration, it was in His last leave-taking of the Apostles that Our Lord instituted it.

Hence St. Augustine says, "Our Saviour, to bring before our minds with all His power the heights and the depths of this sacrament, willed, ere He left the disciples to go forth to His Passion, to fix it in their hearts and their memories as His last act."


Let us note that this sacrament has a threefold meaning:

(i) In regard to the past, it is commemorative of the Lords Passion, which was a true sacrifice, and because of this the sacrament is called a sacrifice.

(ii) In regard to a fact of our own time, that is, to the unity of the church and that through this sacrament mankind should be gathered together. Because of this the sacrament is called communion.

St. John Damascene says the sacrament is called communion because by means of it we communicate with Christ, and this because we hereby share in His body and in His divinity, and because by it we are communicated to and united with one another.

(iii) In regard to the future, the sacrament foreshadows that enjoyment of God which shall be ours in our fatherland. On this account the sacrament is called viaticum, since it provides us with the means of journeying to that fatherland. And on this account, too, the sacrament is also called Eucharist, that is to say, the good grace, either "because the grace of God is life eternal," or because it really contains Christ who is the fullness of grace. In Greek the sacrament is also called Metalipsis, that is, Assumption, for through the sacrament we assume the divinity of the Son of God.

(De Humanitate Christi.)

* Quod est rememorativum praeteritae Dominicas Passionis, sicut et illud fuit future praefigurativum.

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St. Thomas Aquinas. Meditations for Lent. Passages selected from the works of St. Thomas by Fr. Mezard, O.P.; translated here by Fr. Philip Hughes. London: Sheed and Ward, 1937. 134-137.

The Last Supper, by Juan de Juanes.

Panel, 1560s; Museo del Prado, Madrid.

Meditations & Readings: Holy Week—Wednesday

THREE THINGS ARE SYMBOLISED BY THE WASHING

OF THE FEET

"He putteth water into a basin, and began to wash the feet of the disciples, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded" (Jn. xiii. 5).

There are three things which this can be taken to symbolise.

1. The pouring of the water into the basin is a symbol of the pouring out of His blood upon the earth. Since the blood of Jesus has a power of cleansing it may in a sense be called water. The reason why water, as well as blood, came out of His side, was to show that this blood could wash away sin.

Again we might take the water as a figure of Christ's Passion. "He putteth water into a basin," that is, by faith and devotion He stamped into the minds of faithful followers the memory of His Passion. "Remember my poverty, and transgression, the wormwood and the gall" (Lam. iii. 19).

2. By the words and began to wash it is human imperfection that is symbolised. For the Apostles, after their living with Christ, were certainly more perfect, and yet they needed to be washed, there were still stains upon them. We are here made to understand that no matter what is the degree of any man's perfection he still needs to be made more perfect still; He is still contracting uncleanness of some kind to some extent. So in the Book of Proverbs we read, "Who can say My heart is clean, I am pure from sin" (Prov. xx. 9).

Nevertheless the Apostles and the just have this kind of uncleanness only in their feet. 

There are however others who are infected, not only in their feet, but wholly and entirely. Those who make their bed upon the soiling attractions of the world are made wholly unclean thereby. Those who wholly, that is to say, with their senses and with their wills, cleave to their desire of earthly things, these are wholly unclean.

But they who do not thus lie down, they who stand, that is, they who, in mind and in desire, are tending towards heavenly things, contract this uncleanness in their feet. Whoever stands must, necessarily, touch the earth at least with his feet. And we, too, in this life, where we must, to maintain life, make use of earthly things, cannot but contract a certain uncleanness, at least as far as those desires and inclinations are concerned which begin in our senses.

Therefore Our Lord commanded His disciples to shake off the dust from their feet. The text says, "He began to wash," because this washing away on earth of the affection for earthly things is only a beginning. It is only in the life to come that it will be really complete. 

Thus by putting water into the basin, the pouring out of His blood is signified, and by His beginning to wash the feet of His disciples the washing away of our sins.

3. There is symbolised finally Our Lord's taking upon Him the punishment due to our sins. Not only did He wash away our sins but He also took upon Himself the punishment that they had earned. For our pains and our penances would not suffice were they not founded in the merit and the power of the Passion of Christ. And this is shown in His wiping the feet of the disciples with the linen towel, that is the towel which is His body.

(In John xiii.)

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St. Thomas Aquinas. Meditations for Lent. Passages selected from the works of St. Thomas by Fr. Mezard, O.P.; translated here by Fr. Philip Hughes. London: Sheed and Ward, 1937. 132-134.

Washing of the Feet, by Giovanni Agostino da Lodi.

Panel, 1500; Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice.

Meditations & Readings: Holy Week—Palm Sunday

CHRIST'S PASSION SERVES US AS AN EXAMPLE

The Passion of Christ is by itself sufficient to form us in every virtue. For whoever wishes to live perfectly, need do no more than scorn what Christ scorned on the cross, and desire what He there desired. There is no virtue of which, from the cross, Christ does not give us an example.

If you seek an example of charity, "Greater love than this no man hath, than that a man lay down His life for his friends" (Jn xv. 13), and this Christ did on the cross. And since it was for us that He gave his life, it should not be burdensome to bear for Him whatever evils come our way. "What shall I render to the Lord, for all the things that He hath rendered to me" (Ps. cxv. 12).

If you seek an example of patience, in the cross you find the best of all. Great patience shows itself in two ways. Either when a man suffers great evils patiently, or when he suffers what he could avoid and forbears to avoid. Now Christ on the cross suffered great evils. "O all ye that pass by the way, attend and see, if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow" (Lam. i. 12). And He suffered them patiently, for, "when he suffered he threatened not" (I Pet. ii. 23) but "led as a sheep to the slaughter, he was dumb as a lamb before his shearer" (Is. liii. 7).

Also it was in His power to avoid the suffering and He did not avoid it. "Thinkest thou that I cannot ask my Father, and he will give me presently more than twelve legions of angels?" (Mt. xxvi. 53). The patience of Christ, then, on the cross was the greatest patience ever shown. "Let us run by patience to the fight proposed to us: looking on Jesus, the author and finisher of faith, who having joy set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame" (Heb.xii. i, 2).

If you seek an example of humility, look at the crucified. For it is God who wills to be judged and to die at the will of Pontius Pilate. "Thy cause hath been judged as that of the wicked" (Job xxxvi. 17). Truly as that of the wicked, for "Let us condemn him to a most shameful death" (Wis. ii. 20). The Lord willed to die for the slave, the life of the angels for man.

If you seek an example of obedience, follow Him "who became obedient unto death" (Phil. ii. 8), "for as by the disobedience of one man, many were made sinners; so also by the obedience of one, many shall be made just" (Rom. v. 19). If you seek an example in the scorning of the things of this world, follow Him who is the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords, in whom are all the treasures of wisdom. Lo! on the cross He hangs naked, fooled, spit upon, beaten, crowned with thorns, sated with gall and vinegar, and dead. "My garments they parted among them; and upon my vesture they cast lots" (Ps. xxi. 19). 

Error to crave for honours, for He was exposed to blows and to mockery. Error to seek titles and decorations for "platting a crown of thorns, they put it upon His head, and a reed in his right hand. And bowing the knee before him, they mocked him, saying Hail, king of the Jews" (Mt. xxvii. 29).

Error to cling to pleasures and comfort for "they gave me gall for my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink" (Ps. lxviii. 22).

(In Symb.)

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St. Thomas Aquinas. Meditations for Lent. Passages selected from the works of St. Thomas by Fr. Mezard, O.P.; trans. by Fr. Philip Hughes. London: Sheed and Ward, 1937. 126-128.

Scenes from the Life of Christ, by Fra Angelico.
Tempera on panel, 1451-52; Museo di San Marco, Florence.

Meditations & Readings: Passion Week—Saturday

HOW WE, EACH OF US, SHOULD WASH ONE ANOTHER'S FEET

"If I then being our Lord and Master, have washed your

feet; you also ought to wash one another's feet."—(Jn. xiii. 14).

Our Lord wishes that His disciples shall imitate His example. He says therefore, "If I", who am the greater, "being your master and the Lord, have washed your feet, you also, all the more who are the less, who are disciples, slaves even, ought to wash one another's feet. Whosoever will be the greater among you, let him be your minister. . . . Even as the Son of Man is not come to be ministered unto, but to minister" (Mt. xx. 26-28).

St. Augustine says every man ought to wash the feet of his fellows, either actually or in spirit. And it is by far the best, and true beyond all controversy, that we should do it actually, lest Christians scorn to do what Christ did. For when a man bends his body to the feet of a brother, human feeling is stirred up in his very heart, or, if it be there already, it is strengthened. If we cannot actually wash his feet, at least we can do it in spirit. The washing of the feet signifies the washing away of stains. You therefore wash the feet of your brother when, as far as lies in your power, you wash away his stains. And this you may do in three ways:

(i) By forgiving the offences he has done to you. "Forgiving one another, if any have a complaint against another: even as the Lord hath forgiven you, so do you also" (Col. iii. 13).

(ii) By praying for the forgiveness of his sin, as St. James bids us, "Pray for one another, that you may be saved" (Jam. v. 16). This way of washing, like the first, is open to all the faithful.

(iii) The third way is for prelates, who should wash by forgiving sins through the authority of the keys, according to the gospel, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost; whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them" (Jn. xx. 23). We can also say that in this one act Our Lord showed all the works of mercy. He who gives bread to the hungry, washes his feet, as also does the man who harbours the harbourless or he who clothes the naked. 

"Communicating to the necessities of the saints" (Rom. xii. 13).

(In John xiii.)

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St. Thomas Aquinas. Meditations for Lent. Passages selected from the works of St. Thomas by Fr. Mezard, O.P.; translated here by Fr. Philip Hughes. London: Sheed and Ward, 1937. 124-126.

Washing of the Feet, by Pieter van Edingen van Aelst (or Pieter van Aelst III).

Gold thread, silk and wool on a woolen warp, 1510's; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Meditations & Readings: Passion Week—Wednesday

ON BEING BURIED SPIRITUALLY

The sepulchre is a figure by which is signified the contemplation of heavenly things. So, St. Gregory, commenting on the words of Job (iii. 22), "They rejoice exceedingly when they have found the grave" says, "As in the grave the body is hidden away when dead, so in divine contemplation there lies concealed the soul, dead to the world. There, at rest from the world's clamour, it lies, in a three days burial through, as it were, its triple immersion in baptism. 'Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy face, from the disturbance of men' (Ps. xxx. 21). Those in great trouble, tormented with the hates of men, enter in spirit the presence of God and they are at rest." 

Three things are required for this spiritual burial in God, namely, that the mind be perfected by the virtues, that the mind be all bright and shining with purity, and that it be wholly dead to this world. All these things are shown figuratively in the burial of Christ.

The first is shown in St. Mark's Gospel where we read how Mary Magdalen anointed Our Lord for His burial by anticipation, as it were. "She hath done what she could: she is come beforehand to anoint my body for the burial" (Mk. xiv. 8). The ointment of precious spikenard (ibid, iii) stands for the virtues, for it is a thing very precious, and in this life nothing is more precious than the virtues. The soul that wishes to be holy and to be buried in divine contemplation, must first, then, anoint itself by the exercise of the virtues. Job (v. 26) says, "Thou shalt enter into the grave in abundance"—and the Gloss explains the grave as meaning here, "divine contemplation"—"as a heap of wheat is brought in its season," and the explanation given in the Gloss is that eternal contemplation is the prize of a life of action, and therefore it must be that the perfect, first of all, exercise their souls in the virtues and then, afterwards, bury them in the barn where all quiet is gathered.

The second of the three things required is also noted in St. Mark, where we read (xv. 46) that Joseph bought a winding sheet, that is, a sheet of fine linen, which is only brought to its dazzling whiteness with great labour. Hence it signifies that brightness of the soul, which also is not perfectly attained except with great labour. "He that is just let him be justified still" (Apoc. xxii. n). "Let us walk in newness of life" (Rom. vi. 4), going from good to better, through the justice inaugurated by faith to the glory for which we hope. Therefore it is that men, bright with a spotless interior life, should be buried in the sepulchre of divine contemplation. St. Jerome, commenting on the words, "Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God" (Mt. v. 8), says, "The clean Lord is seen by the clean of heart."

The third point for consideration is given by St. John where, in his gospel (xix. 30), he writes, "Nicodemus also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight." This hundred pounds weight of myrrh and aloes, brought to preserve the dead body, symbolises that perfect mortification of the external senses, the means by which the spirit, dead to the world, is preserved from the vices that would corrupt it. "Though our outward man is corrupted, yet the inward man is renewed day by day" (2 Cor. iv. 16), which is as much as to say the inward man is most thoroughly purified from vices by the fire of tribulation. Therefore man's soul must first, with Christ, become dead to this world, and then, afterwards, be buried with him in the hiding place of divine contemplation. St. Paul says, "You are dead" with Christ, to the things that, are vain and fleeting, "and your life is hid with Christ in God" (Col. iii. 3).

(De humanitate Christi, cap. 42.)

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St. Thomas Aquinas. Meditations for Lent. Passages selected from the works of St. Thomas by Fr. Mezard, O.P.; trans. by Fr. Philip Hughes. London: Sheed and Ward, 1937. 118-120.

Burial, by Duccio di Buoninsegna.
Tempera on wood, 1308-11; Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Siena.

Meditations & Readings: Passion Week—Monday

THE PASSION OF CHRIST IS A REMEDY AGAINST SIN

We find in the Passion of Christ a remedy against all the evils that we incur through sin. Now these evils are five in number.

(i) We ourselves become unclean. When a man commits any sin he soils his soul, for just as virtue is the beauty of the soul, so sin is a stain upon it. "How happeneth it, O Israel, that thou art in thy enemies land? Thou art grown old in a strange country, thou art defiled with the dead" (Bar. iii. 10, 1 1). 

The Passion of Christ takes away this stain. For Christ, by His Passion, made of His blood a bath wherein He might wash sinners. The soul is washed with the blood of Christ in Baptism, for it is from the blood of Christ that the sacrament draws its power of giving new life. When therefore one who is baptised soils himself again by sin, he insults Christ and sins more deeply than before.

(ii) We offend God. As the man who is fleshly-minded loves what is beautiful to the flesh, so God loves spiritual beauty, the beauty of the soul.

When the soul's beauty is defiled by sin God is offended, and holds the offender in hatred. But the Passion of Christ takes away this hatred, for it does what man himself could not possibly do, namely it makes full satisfaction to God for the sin. The love and obedience of Christ was greater than the sin and rebellion of Adam.

(iii) We ourselves are weakened. Man believes that, once he has committed the sin, he will be able to keep from sin for the future. Experience shows that what really happens is quite otherwise. The effect of the first sin is to weaken the sinner and make him still more inclined to sin. Sin dominates man more and more, and man left to himself, whatever his powers, places himself in such a state that he cannot rise from it. Like a man who has thrown himself into a well, there he must lie, unless he is drawn up by some divine power. After the sin of Adam, then, our human nature was weaker, it had lost its perfection and men were more prone to sinning.

But Christ, although He did not utterly make an end of this weakness, nevertheless greatly lessened it. Man is so strengthened by the Passion of Christ—and the effect of Adam's sin is so weakened—that he is no longer dominated by it. Helped by the grace of God, given him in the sacraments, which derive their power from the Passion of Christ, man is now able to make an effort and so rise up from his sins. Before the Passion of Christ there were few who lived without mortal sin, but since the Passion many have lived and do live without it.

(iv) Liability to the punishment earned by sin. This the justice of God demanded, namely, that for each sin the sinner should be punished, the penalty to be measured according to the sin. Whence, since mortal sin is infinitely wicked, seeing that it is a sin against what is infinitely good, that is to say, God whose commands the sin despises, the punishment due to mortal sin is infinite too. But by His Passion Christ took away from us this penalty, for He endured it Himself. "Who his own self bore our sins," that is the punishment due to us for our sins, "in his body upon the tree" (I Pet. ii. 24).

So great was the power and value of the Passion of Christ that it was sufficient to expiate all the sins of all the world, reckoned by millions though they be. This is the reason why baptism frees the baptised from all their sins, and why the priest can forgive sin. This is why the man who more and more fashions his life in conformity with the Passion of Christ, and makes himself like to Christ in His Passion, attains an ever fuller pardon and ever greater graces.

(v) Banishment from the kingdom. Subjects who offend the king are sent into exile. So, too, man was expelled from Paradise. Adam, having sinned, was straightway thrown out and the gates barred against him.

But, by His Passion, Christ opened those gates, and called back the exiles from banishment. As the side of Christ opened to the soldier's lance, the gates of heaven opened to man, and as Christ's blood flowed, the stain was washed out, God was appeased, our weakness taken away, amends made for our sins, and the exiles were recalled. Thus it was that Our Lord said "immediately" to the repentant thief, "This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise" (Lk. xxiii. 43). Such a thing was never before said to any man, not to Adam nor to Abraham, nor even to David. But "This day," the day on which the gate is opened, the thief does but ask and he finds. "Having confidence in the entering into the holies by the blood of Christ" (Heb. x. 19).

(In Symb.)

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St. Thomas Aquinas. Meditations for Lent. Passages selected from the works of St. Thomas by Fr. Mezard, O.P.; trans. by Fr. Philip Hughes. London: Sheed and Ward, 1937. 113-116.

Crucifixion, by Pedro de Campaña.
Canvas backed by wood, c. 1550; Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Meditations & Readings: Passion Week—Sunday

THE PASSION OF CHRIST

"As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must

the Son of Man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth

in him may not perish; but may have life everlasting."

—John iii. 14, 15.

We may note here three things.

(1) The Figure of the Passion. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert." When the Jews said, "Our soul now loatheth this very light food" (Num. xxi. 5), the Lord sent serpents in punishment, and afterwards, for a remedy, He commanded the brazen serpent to be made as a remedy against the serpents and also as a figure of the Passion. It is the nature of a serpent to be poisonous, but the brazen serpent had no poison. It was but the figure of a poisonous serpent. So also Christ had no sin, which is the poison, but He had the likeness of sin. "God sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and of sin" (Rom. viii. 3). Therefore Christ had the effect of the serpent against the movements of our blazing desires.

2. The Mode of the Passion. "So must the Son of Man be lifted up." This refers to His being raised upon the cross. He willed to die lifted up, (i) To purify the air: already He had purified the earth by the holiness of His living there, it still remained for Him to purify, by His dying there, the air; (ii) To triumph over the devils, who in the air, make their preparations to war on us; (iii) To draw our hearts to His heart, I, "if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself" (Jn. xii. 32). Since in the death of the cross he was exalted, and since it was there that He overcame his enemies, we say that he was exalted rather than that he died. He shall drink of the torrent by the wayside; therefore shall He lift up His head (Ps. cix. 7).

The cross was the cause of His exaltation. "He became obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross, wherefore God hath exalted Him" (Phil. ii. 8).

3. The Fruit of the Passion. The fruit is eternal life. Whence Our Lord says Himself, "Whosoever believeth in Him, doing good works, may not perish, but may have life everlasting" (Jn. iii. 16). And this fruit corresponds to the fruit of the serpent that foreshadowed Him. For whoever looked upon the brazen serpent was delivered from the poison and his life was preserved. Now the man who looks upon the Son of Man lifted up is the man who believes in Christ crucified, and it is in this way that he is delivered from the poison that is sin and preserved for the life that is eternal.

(In John iii.)

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St. Thomas Aquinas. Meditations for Lent. Passages selected from the works of St. Thomas by Fr. Mezard, O.P.; trans. by Fr. Philip Hughes. London: Sheed and Ward, 1937. 111-113.

Lamentation over Christ, by Fra Angelico.
Tempera and gold on panel, 1436-41; Museo di San Marco, Florence.

Meditations & Readings: 4th Week in Lent—Saturday

THERE WAS NOT ANY MORE FITTING WAY TO FREE THE HUMAN RACE THAN THROUGH THE PASSION OF CHRIST

The suitability of any particular way for the attainment of a given end is reckoned according to the greater or less number of things useful to that end which the way in question brings about. The more things helpful to the end the method chosen brings about, the better and more suitable is that method or way. Now owing to the fact that it was through the Passion of Christ that man was delivered, many things, helpful to man's salvation, came together in addition to his being freed from sin.

(i) Thanks to the fact that it was through the Passion that man was delivered, man learns how much God loves him, and is thereby stimulated to that love of God, in which is to be found the perfection of man's salvation. God commendeth his charity towards us: because when as yet we were sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. v. 8).

(ii) In the Passion He gave us an example of obedience, humility, constancy, justice and of other virtues also, all of which we must practise if we are to be saved. Christ suffered for us, leaving you an example that you should follow His steps (I Pet. ii. 21).

(iii) Christ by His Passion not only delivered man from sin, but also merited for man the grace which makes him acceptable to God, and the glory of life with God for eternity.

(iv) The fact that it is through the Passion that man has been saved, brings home to man the need of keeping himself clear from sin. Man has only to realise that it was at the price of the blood of Christ that he was bought back from sin. You are bought with a great price. Glorify God and bear him in your body (I Cor. vi. 20).

(v) The fact that the Passion was the way chosen heightens the dignity of human nature. As it was man that was deceived and conquered by the devil, so now it is man by whom the devil in turn is conquered. As it was man who once earned death, so it is man who, by dying, has overcome death. Thanks be to God, who hath given us the victory through Our Lord Jesus Christ (I Cor. xv. 57).

(S.T. 3, 46, 3.)

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St. Thomas Aquinas. Meditations for Lent. Passages selected from the works of St. Thomas by Fr. Mezard, O.P.; trans. by Fr. Philip Hughes. London: Sheed and Ward, 1937. 110-111.

Vision of St. Thomas Aquinas, by Santi di Ito.
Oil on panel, 1593; San Marco, Florence.

Meditations & Readings: 4th Week in Lent—Sunday

CHRIST BY HIS PASSION OPENED TO US THE GATES OF HEAVEN

"We have a confidence in the entering into the holies by

the blood of Christ." —Heb. x. 19.

The closing of a gate is an obstacle hindering men's entrance. Now men are hindered from entrance to the heavenly kingdom by sin, for Isaias says, "It shall be called the holy way: the unclean shall not pass over it" (Is. xxxv. 8). 

Now the sin that hinders mans entrance into heaven is of two kinds. There is, first of all, the sin of our first parents. By this sin access to the kingdom of heaven was barred to man. We read in Genesis (iii. 24) that after the sin of our first parents God "placed before the paradise of pleasure Cherubims and a flaming sword, turning every way," to keep the way of the tree of life. The other kind of hindrance arises from the sins special to each individual, the sins each man commits by his own particular action.

By the Passion of Christ we are freed not only from the sin common to all human nature, and this both as to the sin and as to its appointed penalty, since Christ pays the price on our behalf, but also we are delivered from our personal sins if we are numbered among those who are linked to the Passion by faith, by charity and by the sacraments of the Faith. Thus it is that through the Passion of Christ the gates of heaven are thrown open to us. And hence St. Paul says that Christ, "being come an high priest of the good things to come, by his own blood entered once into the holies, having obtained a redemption that is eternal" (Heb. ix. n).

And this was foreshadowed in the Old Testament, where we read (Num. xxxv. 25, 28), "the manslayer shall abide there, that is, in the city of refuge, until the death of the high priest, that is anointed with holy oil. And after he is dead, then shall the manslayer return to his own country."

The holy fathers who (before the coming of Christ) wrought works of justice earned their entrance into heaven through faith in the Passion of Christ, as is written, "The saints by faith conquered kingdoms, wrought justice" (Heb. xi. 33). By faith, too, it was that individuals were cleansed from the sins they had individually committed. But faith or goodness, no matter who the person was that possessed it, was not enough to be able to move the hindrance created by the guilty state of the whole human creation. This hindrance was only removed at the price of the blood of Christ. And therefore before the Passion of Christ no one could enter the heavenly kingdom, to obtain that eternal happiness that consists in the full enjoyment of God.

Christ by his Passion merited for us an entrance into heaven, and removed what stood in our way. By His Ascension, however, he, as it were, put mankind in possession of heaven. And therefore it is that He ascended opening the way before them.

(S.T. 3, 49, 5.)

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St. Thomas Aquinas. Meditations for Lent. Passages selected from the works of St. Thomas by Fr. Mezard, O.P.; translated by Fr. Philip Hughes. London: Sheed and Ward, 1937. 98-99.

The Expulsion from Paradise, by Charles-Joseph Natoire.
Oil on copper, 1740; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Meditations & Readings: 3rd Week in Lent—Monday

THE PASSION OF CHRIST HAS DELIVERED US FROM

THE DEVIL

Our Lord said, as His Passion drew near, Now shall the princes of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself (Jn. xii. 31, 32).

He was lifted up from the earth by His Passion on the cross. Therefore by that Passion the devil was driven out from his dominion over men. With reference to that power, which, before the Passion of Christ, the devil used to exercise over mankind, three things are to be borne in mind.

1. Man had by his sin earned for himself enslavement to the devil, for it was by the devil's temptation that he had been overcome.

2. God, whom man in sinning had offended, had, by his justice, abandoned man to the enslavement of the devil.

3. The devil by his own most wicked will stood in the way of man s achieving his salvation. With regard to the first point the Passion of Christ set man free from the devil's power because the Passion of Christ brought about the forgiveness of sin. As to the second point the Passion delivered man from the devil, because it brought about a reconciliation between God and man. As to the third point, the Passion of Christ freed us from the devil's power because in his action during the Passion the devil over-reached himself. He went beyond the limits of the power over men allowed to him by God, when he plotted the death of Christ, upon whom, since he was without sin, there lay no debt payable by death. Whence St. Augustine's words, "The devil was overcome by the justice of Christ. In Him the devil found nothing that deserved death, but, none the less, he slew him. And it was but just that those debtors that the devil detained should go free since they believed in Him whom, though he was under no bond to him, the devil had slain."

The devil still continues to exercise a power over men. He can, God permitting it, tempt them in soul and in body. There is, however, made available for man a remedy in the Passion of Christ, by means of which he can defend himself against these attacks, so that they do not lead him into the destruction of eternal death. Likewise all those who before the Passion of Christ resisted the devil had derived their power to resist from the Passion, although the Passion had not yet been accomplished. But in one point none of those who lived before the Passion had been able to escape the hand of the devil, namely, they all had to go down into hell, a thing from which, since the Passion, all men can, by his power, defend them selves.

God also allows the devil to deceive men in certain persons, times and places, according to the hidden character of His designs. Such, for example, will be anti-Christ. But there always remains, and for the age of anti-Christ too, a remedy prepared for man through the Passion of Christ, a power of protecting himself against the wickedness of the devils. The fact that there are some who neglect to make use of this remedy does not lessen the efficacy of the Passion of Christ.

(S.T. 3, 49, 2.)

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St. Thomas Aquinas. Meditations for Lent. Passages selected from the works of St. Thomas by Fr. Mezard, O.P., & translated here by Fr. Philip Hughes. London: Sheed and Ward, 1937. 84-86.

Sermon and Deeds of the Antichrist. By Luca Signorelli.

Fresco, 1499-1502; Chapel of San Brizio, Duomo, Orvieto.

Meditations and Readings: 2nd Week in Lent—Saturday

THE PASSION OF CHRIST WROUGHT OUR SALVATION

BY REDEEMING US

St. Peter says, You were not redeemed with corruptible things as gold or silver, from your vain conversation of the tradition of your fathers: but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb unspotted and undefiled (1 Pet. i. 18).

St. Paul says, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us (Gal. iii. 13). He is said to be accursed in our place inasmuch as it was for us that he suffered on the cross. Therefore by his Passion he redeemed us. 

Sin, in fact, had bound man with a double obligation.

(i) An obligation that made him sin's slave. For Jesus said, whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin (Jn. viii. 34). A man is enslaved to whoever overcomes him. Therefore since the devil, in inducing man to sin, had overcome man, man was bound in servitude to the devil.

(ii) A further obligation existed, namely between man and the penalty due for the sin committed, and man was bound in this way in accord with the justice of God. This too was a kind of servitude, for to servitude or slavery it belongs that a man must suffer otherwise than he chooses, since the free man is the man who uses himself as he wills.

Since then the Passion of Christ made sufficient, and more than sufficient, satisfaction for the sins of all mankind and for the penalty due to them, the Passion was a kind of price through which we were free from both these obligations. For the satisfaction itself that—by means of which one makes satisfaction, whether for oneself or for another—is spoken of as a kind of price by which one redeems or buys back oneself or another from sin and from merited penalties. So in Holy Scripture it is said, Redeem thou thy sins with alms (Dan. iv. 24).

Christ made satisfaction not indeed by a gift of money or anything of that sort, but by a gift that was the greatest of all, by giving for us Himself. And thus it is that the Passion of Christ is called our redemption.

By sinning man bound himself not to God but to the devil. As far as concerns the guilt of what he did, he had offended God and had made himself subject to the devil, assenting to his will. Hence he did not, by reason of the sin committed, bind himself to God, but rather, deserting God's service, he had fallen under the yoke of the devil. And God, with justice if we remember the offence committed against Him, had not prevented this.

But, if we consider the matter of the punishment earned, it was chiefly and in the first place to God that man was bound, as to the supreme judge. Man was, in respect of punishment, bound to the devil only in a lesser sense, as to the torturer, as it says in the gospel, Lest the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer (Mt. v. 25), that is, to the cruel minister of punishments.

Therefore, although the devil unjustly, as far as was in his power, held man—whom by his lies he had deceived—bound in slavery, held him bound both on account of the guilt and of the punishment due for it, it was nevertheless just that man should suffer in this way. The slavery which he suffered on account of the thing done God did not prevent, and the slavery he suffered as punishment God decreed.

Therefore it was in regard to God's claims that justice called for man to be redeemed, and not in regard to the devil's hold on us. And it was to God the price was paid and not to the devil.

(S.T. 3, 48, 4.)

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St. Thomas Aquinas. Meditations for Lent. Passages selected from the works of St. Thomas by Fr. Mezard, O.P., and translated here by Fr. Philip Hughes. London: Sheed and Ward, 1937. 79-82.

Meditations and Readings: 2nd Week in Lent—Tuesday

THE PASSION OF CHRIST BROUGHT ABOUT OUR

SALVATION BECAUSE IT WAS A MERITORIOUS ACT

1. Grace was given to Christ not only as to a particular person, but also as far as he is the head of the Church, in order that the grace might pass over from him to his members.

And the good works Christ performed, therefore, stand in this same way in relation to him and to his members, as the good works of any other man in a state of grace stand to himself.

Now it is evident that any man who, in a state of grace, suffers for justice sake, merits for himself, by this very fact alone, salvation. As is said in the gospel, Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice' sake (Mt. v. 10). 

Whence Christ by his Passion merited salvation not only for himself but for all his members.

Christ, indeed, from the very instant of his conception, merited eternal salvation for us. But there still remained certain obstacles on our part, obstacles which kept us from possessing ourselves of the effect of what Christ had merited. Wherefore, in order to remove these obstacles, it behoved Christ to suffer (Lk. xxiv. 46).

Now although the love of Christ for us was not increased in the Passion, and was not greater in the Passion than before it, the Passion of Christ had a certain effect which His previous meritorious activity did not have. The Passion produced this effect not on account of any greater love shown thereby, but because it was a kind of action fitted to produce that effect, as is evident from what has been said already on the fitness of the Passion of Christ.

(S.T. 3, 48, 1.)

Head and members belong to one and the same person. Now Christ is our head, according to his divinity and to the fullness of his grace which overflows upon others also. We are his members. What Christ then meritoriously acquires is not something external and foreign to us, but, by virtue of the unity of the mystical body, it overflows upon us too (3 Dist. xviii. 6).

2. We should know, too, that although Christ by his death acquired merit sufficient for the whole human race, there are special things needed for the particular salvation of each individual soul, and these each soul must itself seek out. The death of Christ is, as it were, the cause of all salvation, as the sin of the first man was the cause of all condemnation. But if each individual man is to share in the effect of a universal cause, the universal cause needs to be specially applied to each individual man.

Now the effect of the sin of the first parents is transmitted to each individual through his bodily origin (i.e., through his being a bodily descendant of the first man). The effect of the death of Christ is transmitted to each man through a spiritual rebirth, a rebirth in which man is, as it were, conjoined with Christ and incorporated with him.

Therefore it is that each individual must seek to be born again through Christ, and to receive those other things in which works the power of the death of Christ.

(Contra Gen. iv. 55.)

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St. Thomas Aquinas. Meditations for Lent. Passages selected from the works of St. Thomas by Fr. Mezard, O.P., and translated here by Fr. Philip Hughes. London: Sheed and Ward, 1937. 71-73.

Meditations and Readings: 2nd Week in Lent—Sunday

GOD THE FATHER DELIVERED CHRIST TO HIS

PASSION

God spared not even His own Son, but delivered Him up

for us all. —Rom. viii. 32.

Christ suffered willingly, moved by obedience to His Father. Wherefore, God the Father delivered Christ to his Passion, and this in three
ways:

1. Because the Father, of His eternal will, preordained the Passion of Christ as the means whereby to free the human race. So it is said in Isaias, The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all (Is. liii. 6), and again, The Lord was pleased to bruise him in infirmity (ibid. liii. 10).

2. Because He inspired Our Lord with the willingness to suffer for us, pouring into his soul the love which produced the will to suffer. Whence the prophet goes on to say, He was offered because it was his own will (Is. liii. 7).

3. Because He did not protect Our Lord from the Passion, but exposed him to his persecutors. Whence we read in St. Matthew's Gospel, that as he hung on the cross Christ said, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me (Mt. xxvii. 46). For God the Father, that is to say, had left him at the mercy of his torturers.

To hand over an innocent man to suffering and to death, against his will, compelling him to die as it were, would indeed be cruel and wicked. But it was not in this way that God the Father handed over Christ. He handed over Christ by inspiring Him with the will to suffer for us. By so doing the severity of God is made clear to us, that no sin is forgiven without punishment undergone, which St. Paul again teaches when he says, God spared not his own Son.

At the same time God's good heartedness is shown in the fact that whereas man could not, no matter what his punishment, sufficiently make satisfaction, God has given man someone who can make that satisfaction for him. Which is what St. Paul means by, He delivered him up for us all, and again when he says, God hath proposed Christ to be a propitiation, through faith in his blood (Rm. iii. 25).

The same activity in a good man and in a bad man is differently judged inasmuch as the root from which it proceeds is different. The Father, for example, delivered over Christ and Christ delivered himself, and this from love, and therefore They are praised. Judas delivered Him from love of gain, the Jews from hatred, Pilate from the worldly fear with which he feared Cesar, and these are rightly regarded with horror.

(S.T. 3, 47, 3.)

Christ therefore did not owe to death the debt of necessity, but of charity the charity to men by which he willed their salvation, and the charity to God by which he willed to fulfil God's will, as it says in the gospel, Not as I will but as Thou wilt (Mt. xxvi. 39).

(2 Dist. xx. i 5.)

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St. Thomas Aquinas. Meditations for Lent. Passages selected from the works of St. Thomas by Fr. Mezard, O.P., & trans. by Fr. Philip Hughes. London: Sheed and Ward, 1937. 68-69. 

Ecce Homo, by Antonio Ciseri.

Oil on canvas, 1891; Galleria dell'Arte Moderna, Palazzo Pitti, Florence.

Meditations & Readings for Lent—First Wednesay

HOW GREAT WAS THE SORROW OF OUR LORD IN

HIS PASSION?

Attend and see if there be any sorrow
like unto my sorrow. —Lam. i. 12.

Our Lord as He suffered felt really, and in his senses, that pain which is caused by some harmful bodily thing. He also felt that interior pain which is caused by the fear of something harmful and which we call sadness. In both these respects the pain suffered by Our Lord was the greatest pain possible in this present life. There are four reasons why this was so.

1. The causes of the pain. 

The cause of the pain in the senses was the breaking up of the body, a pain whose bitterness derived partly from the fact that the sufferings attacked every part of His body, and partly from the fact that of all species of torture death by crucifixion is undoubtedly the most bitter. The nails are driven through the most sensitive of all places, the hands and the feet, the weight of the body itself increases the pain every moment. Add to this the long drawn-out agony, for the crucified do not die immediately as do those who are beheaded.

The cause of the internal pain was:

(i) All the sins of all mankind for which, by suffering, he was making satisfaction, so that, in a sense, he took them to him as though they were his own. The words of my sins, it says in the Psalms (Ps. xxi. 2).

(ii) The special case of the Jews and the others who had had a share in the sin of his death, and especially the case of his disciples for whom his death had been a thing to be ashamed of.

(iii) The loss of his bodily life, which, by the nature of things, is something from which human nature turns away in horror.

2. We may consider the greatness of the pain according to the capacity, bodily and spiritual, for suffering of Him who suffered. In his body He was most admirably formed, for it was formed by the miraculous operation of the Holy Ghost, and therefore its sense of touch that sense through which we experience pain was of the keenest. His soul likewise, from its interior powers, had a knowledge as from experience of all the causes of sorrow.

3. The greatness of Our Lord's suffering can be considered in regard to this that the pain and sadness were without any alleviation. For in the case of no matter what other sufferer the sadness of mind, and even the bodily pain, is lessened through a certain kind of reasoning, by means of which there is brought about a distraction of the sorrow from the higher powers to the lower. But when Our Lord suffered this did not happen, for he allowed each of his powers to act and suffer to the fullness of its special capacity.

4. We may consider the greatness of the suffering of Christ in the Passion in relation to this fact that the Passion and the pain it brought with it were deliberately undertaken by Christ with the object of freeing man from sin. And therefore he undertook to suffer an amount of pain proportionately equal to the extent of the fruit that was to follow from the Passion. From all these causes, if we consider them together, it will be evident that the pain suffered by Christ was the greatest pain ever suffered.

(S.T. 3, 46, 6.)

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St. Thomas Aquinas. Meditations for Lent. Passages selected by Fr. Mezard, O.P., trans. by Fr. Philip Hughes. London: Sheed and Ward, 1937. 60-62.

Christ on the Cross, by Albrecht Altdorfer. 

Wood, c. 1520; Szépmûvészeti Múzeum, Budapest.

The Crucifixion

Whether it was necessary for Christ to suffer for the deliverance of the human race?

"IT IS written (Jn 3:14): "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him may not perish, but may have life everlasting."

"...As the Philosopher teaches (Met. v), there are several acceptations of the word "necessary." In one way it means anything which of its nature cannot be otherwise; and in this way it is evident that it was not necessary either on the part of God or on the part of man for Christ to suffer. In another sense a thing may be necessary from some cause quite apart from itself; and should this be either an efficient or a moving cause then it brings about the necessity of compulsion; as, for instance, when a man cannot get away owing to the violence of someone else holding him. But if the external factor which induces necessity be an end, then it will be said to be necessary from presupposing such end—namely, when some particular end cannot exist at all, or not conveniently, except such end be presupposed. It was not necessary, then, for Christ to suffer from necessity of compulsion, either on God's part, who ruled that Christ should suffer, or on Christ's own part, who suffered voluntarily. Yet it was necessary from necessity of the end proposed; and this can be accepted in three ways. First of all, on our part, who have been delivered by His Passion, according to John (3:14): "The Son of man must be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him may not perish, but may have life everlasting."

"Secondly, on Christ's part, who merited the glory of being exalted, through the lowliness of His Passion: and to this must be referred Luke 24:26: "Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into His glory?"

"Thirdly, on God's part, whose determination regarding the Passion of Christ, foretold in the Scriptures and prefigured in the observances of the Old Testament, had to be fulfilled. And this is what St. Luke says (22:22): "The Son of man indeed goeth, according to that which is determined"; and (Lk 24:44-46): "These are the words which I spoke to you while I was yet with you, that all things must needs be fulfilled which are written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms concerning Me: for it is thus written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise again from the dead.""

~St. Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae, III, q. 46, a. 1.

• See this and related questions in the Summa here.

Artwork: Crucifixion (detail), by Andrea da Firenze. Fresco, 1366-67; Cappellone degli Spagnoli, Santa Maria Novella, Florence.