Reflections
on the Passion
by Father
Doyle
October 12, 1956
NIHIL OBSTAT:
JOANNES A. SCHULIEN, S.T.D.
Censor liborium
IMPRIMATOR:
+ ALBERTUS G.MEYER
Archiepiscopus Milwauchiensis
Monday
After the Third
Sunday in Lent:
WHEN the
Apostles had asked
our Lord whether they should draw their
swords to defend Him from those who came to the entrance of the Garden
of Olives to arrest Him, our Divine Savior posed a question of His
own. He said: “Shall I not drink the cup that the Father
has given me?” (Jn. 18:11), or in other words, “Must I not do the will
of my Father?”
Those words must have struck
the Apostles with a particular force, for
had they not heard this same Christ but a few short moments before ask
His Father three separate times to let this same cup of agony pass from
Him. If they heard our Lord ask that the chalice pass from Him,
they also herd His humble submission: “Not My will but Thine be
done.”
The first Adam went
wrong
from the moment he refused to identify
himself with God’s design for him. both Adam and Eve were called
upon to accept God as the ruler of their hearts and actions and were
given a test of their obedience and loyalty. They were asked, as
we are all asked, to accept His law with their whole hearts and souls
and by an act of the free will.
Both Adam and Eve
rejected
God as their law giver and by their act of
rebellion decided to be law unto themselves – to do what they
themselves chose and not what God chose for them. Our First
Parents each in turn said: “My will, not Thine be done,” and in
so doing, turned Paradise into a desert. The words of Christ
spoken in the olive grove: “Thy will, not mine be done” turned
the desert into Paradise, and made Gethsemani the gate to Heaven.
The Son of God,
according to
the Fathers, descended from heaven and
clothed Himself with our flesh for three reasons: the one to
redeem us by His Blood, the others to teach us by His doctrine the way
to heaven, and finally to instruct us by His example.
Among many other instructions
Christ has given us, one of the chief is
that we should live in entire conformation to the will of God.
This is a doctrine He taught us not only in words, when He bid us say
to His eternal Father, “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”
(Mt. 6:10), but what He has confirmed by His own example, because He
Himself tells us, “I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will,
but the will of him who sent me” (Jn. 6:38).
It is the testimony
of
millions who have tried to find peace of mind
and happiness in this life by shunning the will of God, that they have
tasted nothing but the bitter and persistent feelings of
disillusionment, and agonizing sense of incompleteness, and a painful
sense of frustration. These symptoms are seldom isolated, but
usually hang together, one or the other predominating. Blessed is
the person who can recognize the symptoms and straightway start to
return to God’s plan for them.
Christ accepted the
bitter
cup offered by His Father and in doing so
did the will of God. We must have the same trust in God. If
God offers us a bitter chalice to drink to the dregs, let us do so with
courage and faith. If God gives us a cup, it must be the very
best that the wisest love can provide for us.
Pray – one our
Father and
Hail Mary today that you may always have
faith enough to accept any type of cup God offers you. Say to God:
If there should be
some other thing
Better than all the rest
That I have failed to ask, I
pray
Give Thou the very best
Of every gift Thou dost deem
Better than ought I hope or
dream.
Tuesday
After the Third
Sunday in Lent:
NO
SOONER had Christ offered
to drink the cup from His Father offered
Him than the soldiers laid hand their hands upon the gentle Savior and
the arrest was completed. At the very moment when Christ could
have used the moral support of His disciple, Scripture records these
sad words: “Then all the disciples left Him and fled” (Mt. 26:56).
If we ever needed
proof of
the weakness of the apostles, we need look
no further than to the story of their desertion of Christ at the moment
of His arrest. We can determine several reasons for the flight, a
general one resulting from the inherent inconstancy of man, and the
other resulting from the adoption of false notions. The Apostles
may have become infected with the notion that Christ’s kingdom would be
a material one and that if it was to be established on this earth, they
themselves would be in the best position to be leaders. Had they
not given proof on occasion of the very false notion of the Kingdom of
God, by disputing among themselves about leadership? You know,
there was a good deal of pride in the group of ignorant fishermen from
the most insignificant provinces of the civilized world who allowed
themselves to gloat over the possibility of their being autocratic
leaders in the new kingdom.
It is quite possible
too that
Christ permitted the desertion without
protest (1) to aggravate His sufferings, and (2) to prove His love.
Keep before you in
mind, in
studying the whole story of the Passion,
that Christ accepted the chalice offered Him by His Father – a chalice
filled to the brim with the sins of the world. It is possible
that the desertion of the Apostles was permitted that he might taste of
every ingredient of bitterness which is mingled in man’s cup of woe,
and there are few things more bitter than being forsaken by friends in
the hour of need.
I am more inclined
to believe
that the desertion was permitted to prove
Christ’s love for man. Who can ever say that his sins are too
great to be forgiven, or his heart too depraved to be renewed?
Only trust Him. His grace is sufficient for you. Such a
scene as the desertion of the Apostles and yet His continued love for
them, must encourage the worst of the backsliders to return to
Him. Christ did not disown His disciple, though they deserted Him
in His distress, but after His resurrection, He sent to them the
faithful women, messages of tenderness and love, “Go”, said He to Mary
Magdalen, “go to my brethren, and say to them, ‘I ascend to my Father
and your Father, to my God and your God” (Jn. 20:17). And to the
other women Christ said: “Go, take word to my brethren that they set
out for Galilee; there they shall see me” (Mt. 28:10). Go
to our Lord in the tabernacle today and console Him for the number of
times you have deserted Him. Tell Him how much you appreciate His
efforts to make you realize the greatness of His love for, and mercy
toward you. Pray especially today for the grace of final
perseverance.
Wednesday
After the Third
Sunday in Lent:
IN THE
account of the arrest
of Christ, there is a particular and
rather curious event that is mentioned by only one of the four
Evangelists. The story is told by St. Mark in these words:
“Then all his disciples left him and fled. And a certain young
man was following him, having a linen cloth wrapped around his naked
body, and they seized him. But leaving the linen cloth behind, he
fled away from them naked” (Mk. 14:50).
Since Mark is the
only
Evangelist to record this circumstance, it is
fairly well accepted by Scripture scholars that the young man referred
to was St. Mark himself. It was common among the Evangelists to
relate transactions in which they themselves took part without
mentioning their own names. An added bit of proof that it was
Mark himself who started out to follow Christ at the time of His false
arrest and then deserted under the most embarrassing circumstance, is
due to the fact that Mark did much the same after the
resurrection. It was in his very marrow to be an enthusiastic
starter but an easily discouraged person.
When St. Paul and
St.
Barnabas set out on their missionary journey they
were attended by Mark. As long as they were sailing across blue
waters and as long as they were in the island of Cyprus, Mark stuck
with them. Even while they traveled along the coast of Asia
Minor, John Mark was their minister. But the moment they went up
into the island countries, among the rocks and the mountain streams,
among robbers and crude natives, Mark left them. How tragically
sad this whole missionary story would be if it ended there. But
it did not end there. Mark, by the grace of God and the example
and counsels of Barnabas, rose to the occasion and went back to his
missionary work and later we find him working with St. Paul, who called
him in fond words – “My fellow laborer” (Phil. 24). The
vacillating in Mark became Mark the martyr, for he was martyred for the
faith in Alexandria in Egypt.
Two powerful lessons
come to
us from the story of St Mark; First, Mark
in his youth may have followed Christ without counting the cost.
He was impetuous. He dashed out to the assistance of Christ at
the moment of His arrest. Not until he was seized by a
soldier as a follower and associate of Christ did he realize that he of
all the disciples had ventured too close and with too much false zeal
and without the necessary accompanying virtue of prudence. It was
not till Mark stood naked before His master and heard the jeers of the
soldiery who saw him make his escape that he realized his folly in
relying on his own strength. It was then that he was emptied of
his vanity.
The second lesson
from the
gospel story of Mark should be one of great
encouragement for sinners. Mark had made some good starts but he
had failed miserably; yet he did not become discouraged even when the
great St. Paul refused to trust him after his debacle of the missionary
journey he had made in the company of Paul and Barnabas. Paul
refused to take him on the second trip. Barnabas, on the other
hand, had faith in him and he made good. If you have made good
starts, if you have weakened in your Lenten resolutions, take them up
again with courage. With men we are given few chances. But
God is patient and merciful. Forget the past and look with new
hope to the future.
Thursday
After the Third
Sunday in Lent:
ST. LUKE
gives us this
cryptic description of Christ’s arrest:
“Now having seized him, they led him away to the high priest’s house;
but Peter was following at a distance” (Lk.22:54).
Peter was deeply in
earnest
when he said at the Last Supper that if
everyone else denied Christ he would never deny Him. Peter’s high
profession of loyalty and love partook somewhat of the nature of
boasting. Doubtless, Peter knew his own weaknesses and he just
had to make vows and assurances of fidelity in public and in a loud
voice to convince himself. Such a mode of acting is the product
and sign of a weak, unreliable character. I have heard of a
little boat that carried such an immense whistle that it took all the
steam to blow it, so, whenever it whistled, it stopped running.
Peter was somewhat like that – he talked big, he boasted, and in doing,
he stopped thinking about his own weakness and dependence on God.
When peter saw the
soldiers
seize Christ and take Him away, it must
have struck him how much easier it was to make vows and protestations
of loyalty and fidelity in the heavenly atmosphere of the Upper Room
than it was to make protestations amid the awesomeness of the Garden of
Gethsemani and the excitement of the Judgment Hall.
But Peter was such a
bundle
of contradictions. It is worthy of
note that Peter fled when Christ was arrested but then, soon after the
senseless and useless panic, it appears that at least two of the
Apostles rallied their wavering courage and came back to Christ. The
two were John and Peter. Perhaps the courage of John served to
strengthen Peter. Certainly on this occasion John’s zeal and
courage outweighed Peter’s. John did his best to make up for his
temporary defection by edging his way directly through all the
obstacles into the very apartment where Jesus had been taken for
trial. John “entered with Jesus. . . but Peter was standing
outside the gate” (Jn. 18: 15, 16).
To what may ascribe
Peter’s
initial flight? It may not have been
simply the sudden fright of alarm but rather because of his piety, at
that period of his history, was fashioned more by feeling than by
principle. He was the man who grew ecstatic on the mount of the
Transfiguration and proposed that Jesus and himself and others never
quit that great place. No one can hope to stand firm in time of
stress or opposition if his or her piety has been nurtured only in
tender hours of emotional enjoyment. Christ Himself announced the
basis for His friendship and service when He said: “He who
does not carry his cross and follow me, cannot be my disciple” (Lk. 14:
27). Peter failed because he placed too much confidence in his
own strength, and he failed even more miserably when he abandoned the
cause he had espoused.
Ask your self these
questions
today. Whom do you follow?
The obligations you are under is to follow Christ closely and so learn
from Peter’s plight that, if the consequences of following Christ afar
off be so dreadful, what must be the consequences of not following Him
at all?
Friday
After the Third Sunday
in Lent:
IT WAS about
midnight when
our Lord reached the palace of Annas, the
high priest who, with the Pharisees who had assembled there, was
impatiently awaiting the arrival of the detested Nazarene with feelings
of malicious pleasure and bitter scorn. The Jews did right in
bringing Christ to Annas. Legally, he was the high priest, and
held that high office for life. The truth is that, after only
some nine years in office, he was deposed by the Roman authorities. He
had various successors, each of whom served but a short time until
Caiphas came into Roman favor and took the office of high priest, a
position, Josephus Flavius says, he purchased at a high price.
This interloper Caiphas had occupied the position of High Priest for
sixteen years when Christ was arrested.
It must be noted
that Caiphas
was the son-in-law of Annas – and that
whenever, in Scripture, the two names are mentioned together, Annas
takes precedence. Annas, therefore, was the leading figure in the
conspiracy hatched against the Master, upon him primarily rests the
crime of deicide.
For blind men to be
fair
critics of Michelangelo, for deaf men to
be judges of the musical works of Verdi, for moles to be fair critics
of sunshine would be more conceivable than the possibility of men like
Annas and Caiphas being fair judges of Jesus Christ! How could
such cruel, base sinners ever be able to understand the sinless Son of
God made Man? Besides their bias, there was natural unfitness,
their unfairness from the fact that they were desperate conspirators,
plotting against the Messias to curry favor with the Jews and Romans.
Before this mock
trial begins
let us look at the Prisoner – Jesus
Christ. See Him as He stands bound before His judges and the mob
that had dragged Him from the Garden of Olives. He had gone
through the horrible agony in the Garden of Gethsemani; He was weak and
exhausted from the emotional strain of seeing on of His own followers
betray Him to His enemies; He had seen His other friends desert Him;
and he had been dragged through the streets to His mock trial.
The Son of God who had been so faithful to the Mosaic Law was to be a
victim of its nonobservance. You see, the Mosaic law prohibited
trial by night or on the vigil of a festival day. Nevertheless,
Christ was dragged before the tribunal in the very middle of the
night: indeed the night preceding the great Jewish solemnity.
Honor with every
power of
your soul and body the great humility of
Christ, the God of infinite greatness and majesty, who allows Himself
to be arrested, bound, and led captive by the very men whom, but a few
moments before, He had overthrown and cast on the ground by a few
simple words from His lips. Honor Christ’s charity too – charity
that placed Him a captive of the Jews in order to deliver you and me
from the captivity of the devil – charity that thrust Him into prison
to save you and me from the prison of Hell. Go to the gentle
Prisoner of the tabernacle today; for He is right here our voluntary
Prisoner, where He remains night and day out of the love for us.
Ask yourselves if you have resembled those who arrested Christ, if you
have ever taken our Lord out of His voluntary prison house in order, by
your unworthy communion, to drag Him to Calvary and crucify Him anew?
Saturday
After the Third
Sunday in Lent:
WHILE
CHRIST was being
arraigned before Annas, the high priest, Peter
mingled with the crowd in the courtyard. A fire was soon kindled
to ward off the cold of the night, and Peter drew closer and sat down
with the rest. St. Luke remarks that a certain maidservant saw
him sitting at the blaze, and after gazing upon him she said:
“This man too was with Him.” But he denied Him, saying, “Woman, I do
not know Him” (Lk. 22:56-57). St. Mark adds that Peter “went
outside into the vestibule; and the cock crowed” (Mk. 14:68).
If there ever was a
Jekyll
and Hyde it was Peter. At the Last
Supper, Peter was superb. He was fervent, generous, and
brave. Hear him as he says to Christ: “I will lay down my
life for thee.” Jesus answered him: “Wilt thou lay down thy life
for me? Amen, amen I say to thee, the cock will not crow before
thou dost deny me thrice” (Jn. 13: 37,38). Certainly Peter was
brave, if foolhardy, in drawing his sword to defend Christ against the
soldiers who came to seize Him in the Garden of Gethsemani. Now,
look at the other Peter in the court of the High Priest. What a
pitiful change! The closest friend of the Messias takes his place
in the midst of Christ’s enemies. He sits around the fire with
them. A maidservant taunts him about being a friend, associate,
and companion of Jesus of Nazareth, and hears Peter: “Woman, I do
not know Him.”
For our instruction
and
warning, note the steps Peter took to this
dismal state wherein he could deny Christ. First, Peter was too
self-confident. When Christ forewarned him, he resented the
Master’s foretelling, and declared that others might deny Christ, he
would never do so. Whenever we grow boastful we are in
peril. Safety lies in a consciousness of our own weakness and in
implicit trust in God.
Next, Peter slept in
the
Garden of Olives when he should have been
watched and prayed. Again, Peter was rash in drawing his sword in
the garden. That incident made him nervous and afraid of
recognition. He had a right to fear recognition lest he be
arrested for his assault on the servant of the high priest. Still
another step toward the denial resulted from the fact that Peter
followed Christ from afar. Following Christ at a distance is
always perilous. It shows a weakening attachment and a trembling
loyalty. The only way to follow Christ is by thorough, unwavering
devotion and wholehearted consecration, no matter what the cost.
The final step that led Peter to his denial of Christ lay in the fact
that he had sat down among the servants of the high priest. He had gone
among them in order to hide his relation to Christ. The only safe
way for any follower of Christ is to disclose, unequivocally and nobly,
complete attachment and discipleship.
Learn to avoid
beginnings. The time to check yourselves is at the
onset of your defections. |
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