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Christ or Chaos
As We Enter Holy Week in 2019: From Eden to Palm Sunday
Life and death. Each of us is born to die. But the passage of a body from conception to physical death is only part of the story of a human life. Every human being has a rational, immortal soul that God infuses into him at the moment of his conception. That soul is the animating principle of the human body. It is the state of the soul which determines where the body will spend eternity after the Second and Final Coming of Our Lord at the end of time. And it was to make it possible for all souls to live in the glory of the Beatific Vision of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost that Our Lord endured His fearful Passion and Death.
Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity made Man, is the New Adam. His death on the Cross put an end to the power of sin and death forever. His perfect obedience to the Father's will canceled out the disobedience of the first Adam in the Garden of Eden. The shedding of His Most Precious Blood on Calvary paid back the blood-debt that finite beings owed their Infinite Creator. His forty hours in the tomb prior to His Resurrection on Easter Sunday give us the hope of eternal joy. He underwent His death so that we could live. Yet nearly two thousand years after He instituted the New and Everlasting Covenant of the New Passover from death to life, so few of His followers truly understand how they are to fashion everything in their lives--and in that of their societies--in light of the mysteries of our redemption.
There is a simple explanation for the fact that most people in the world today, including so many Catholics, especially those attached to the structures of the conciliar church, do not understand the mysteries of salvation: they have never been instructed in them. If people do not understand what happened in the Garden of Eden, then they will have no understanding of their own identity as fallen creatures in need of redemption. And if they do not understand their identity as fallen creatures in need of redemption, then they will look to everything except the true religion instituted by Our Lord at the Last Supper to save them from the problems of the world. Like many of the people of Our Lord's time who were looking for a political or secular savior, so are many people today looking for their salvation in all of the wrong places, especially in politics, politicians, political parties, ideologies, and in government programs.
The truth of the matter is, of course, that the Triune God--the Infinite Being, the Uncreated Good, the Uncaused Cause--created both the invisible and the visible worlds out of love. He is a community of love consisting of three Divine Persons, each with His own distinctive identity and mission. The love of each of the Persons of the Blessed Trinity for each other is meant of its nature to be bestowed on others. He created the angels, pure spirits possessing an intellect and a will, out of love. And He created human beings out of love. But God's love is not an act of sentimentality. Not at all. God's love is an act of the Divine Will. He created angels and men out of love so that they would love Him, their First and Last End. He willed their good, which is the possession of His glory for all eternity.
However, God created angels and men as free beings. He wanted his creatures to choose to serve Him out of love, a return of love to Love Himself. Although He knew that certain of the angels, headed by Lucifer, would make an irrevocable choice against Him, God bestowed a free will upon angels in order to show forth His omnipotence. He wanted to teach men that it was the misuse of free will that caused the rebellion of Lucifer. And He wanted to teach them that it was Lucifer's hatred of Him that would impel the fallen angel to lead them to misuse their free wills against Him.
Satan hates God. He knows God and he hates Him. "Non serviam est!" ("I will not serve!") is the devil's motto. Our ancient adversary knows God, hates Him, and refuses to serve Him, the very antithesis of the purpose of human existence, which is, naturally, to know, to love, and to serve God here on earth in order to be happy with Him for all eternity in Heaven. The devil hates us because we are made in the image and the likeness of the One he hates, namely, God. That is why he wants to deceive us into mimicking him by disobeying God and serving ourselves--to the detriment of ourselves and those around us. The Master of Lies and the Prince of Darkness was permitted by God to tempt our first parents, Adam and Eve, in the Garden of Eden.
Adam and Eve had been created by God and placed in a world of Original Innocence. They possessed the preternatural gifts of a perfect human nature, one unspotted by sin. They had a superior intellect and a superior will. And they had a delicate balance between their higher rational faculties and their lower sensual passions. Adam and Eve were in harmony with God, and they were in harmony with each other. They were in harmony with the natural world. There was work without sweat and painless child-birth. The Gates of Heaven were opened to them.
God commanded only two things from our first parents. He asked them to love Him in return for all that He had bestowed upon them, including life itself. And He commanded them not to eat of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. He knew full well that they would succumb to the allure of the tempter. But He wanted the human race to understand that His love for us is so perfect that He will never force Himself upon us. He wants us to choose to love Him of our own free wills. And He wants us to realize how the misuse of our free wills leads to unhappiness and misery, that we are utterly lost without Him and His Holy Church. He wanted us to know that our souls face eternal death without Him.
The Devil appealed to Eve's pride when he manifested himself as a serpent in the Garden of Eden. He wanted Adam and Eve to be robbed of their birthright of the possession of the vision of God in Heaven. He wanted them to be in a state of war with God and with each other. He wanted them to live lives of despair. He wanted them to hate God as he did.
Eve, the Mother of the Living, did as the serpent wanted, eating of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, believing that she would be like unto God, knowing all things. Her act of prideful disobedience tied shut the Gates of Heaven. Adam did as she had requested, and his act of disobedience irreparably wounded human nature itself. Original Sin entered the world. Adam and Eve lost the preternatural gifts that had been bestowed upon them by God at their creation. Their intellects were darkened and their wills weakened. The delicate balance between their higher rational faculties and their lower sensual passions was overthrown in favor of the passions. All of the problems of the world--death, disease, injustice, war, poverty, work with sweat, painful childbirth, hatred, gluttony, envy, lust, anger, pride--descended upon the human race. Man had disobeyed the Infinite Being.
Now the serpent was more subtle than any of the beasts of the earth which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman: Why hath God commanded you, that you should not eat of every tree of paradise? And the woman answered him, saying: Of the fruit of the trees that are in paradise we do eat: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of paradise, God hath commanded us that we should not eat; and that we should not touch it, lest perhaps we die. And the serpent said to the woman: No, you shall not die the death. For God doth know that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened: and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil.
And the woman saw that the tree was good to eat, and fair to the eyes, and delightful to behold: and she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave to her husband who did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened: and when they perceived themselves to be naked, they sewed together fig leaves, and made themselves aprons. And when they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in paradise at the afternoon air, Adam and his wife hid themselves from the face of the Lord God, amidst the trees of paradise. And the Lord God called Adam, and said to him: Where art thou? And he said: I heard thy voice in paradise; and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.
And he said to him: And who hath told thee that thou wast naked, but that thou hast eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat? And Adam said: The woman, whom thou gavest me to be my companion, gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the Lord God said to the woman: Why hast thou done this? And she answered: The serpent deceived me, and I did eat. And the Lord God said to the serpent: Because thou hast done this thing, thou art cursed among all cattle, and beasts of the earth: upon thy breast shalt thou go, and earth shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.
To the woman also he said: I will multiply thy sorrows, and thy conceptions: in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children, and thou shalt be under thy husband's power, and he shall have dominion over thee. And to Adam he said: Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat, cursed is the earth in thy work; with labour and toil shalt thou eat thereof all the days of thy life. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herbs of the earth. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return to the earth, out of which thou wast taken: for dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return. And Adam called the name of his wife Eve: because she was the mother of all the living.
And the Lord God made for Adam and his wife, garments of skins, and clothed them. And he said: Behold Adam is become as one of us, knowing good and evil: now, therefore, lest perhaps he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever. And the Lord God sent him out of the paradise of pleasure, to till the earth from which he was taken. And he cast out Adam; and placed before the paradise of pleasure Cherubims, and a flaming sword, turning every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.(Genesis 3: 1-23)
God did not abandon His creatures, however. He knew that He would personally enter human history to redeem them, to make it possible for men to overcome the effects of original sin and actual sin in the world if they cooperated with the graces He would win for them on the wood of the Holy Cross. "O happy fault, O necessary sin, which made possible so great a Redeemer," the Easter Exultet proclaims. Yes, the felix culpa of Adam and Eve made it possible for us to know how much God loved us, that the Father would send His only-begotten Son to be made flesh in the Virginal and Immaculate womb of Our Blessed Mother, she who is the New Eve.
In the mystery of His Divine Providence, God wanted to prepare the human race for the Redemption. He works in His time, not ours, something that we have to be reminded of all times, especially in light of the difficulties Holy Mother Church is facing at the early beginnings of the Third Millennium. All of the pages of the Old Testament point to the First Coming of Our Lord. They detail how meticulously God prepared His Chosen People for His own entry into human history in order to redeem the human race.
The Book of Genesis tells us that God chose Abram, a nomadic sheep herder, to be the father in faith of many people. Elongating his name to Abraham, God made a covenant with Abraham, as he had with Noah at the time of the flood. God promised to give Abraham, whose old wife Sarah was beyond her child-bearing years, descendants as numerous as the sands on the seashore or the stars in the sky:
[1] After these things, God tempted Abraham, and said to him: Abraham, Abraham. And he answered: Here I am. [2] He said to him: Take thy only begotten son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and go into the land of vision: and there thou shalt offer him for an holocaust upon one of the mountains which I will shew thee. [3] So Abraham rising up in the night, saddled his ass: and took with him two young men, and Isaac his son: and when he had cut wood for the holocaust he went his way to the place which God had commanded him. [4] And on the third day, lifting up his eyes, he saw the place afar off. [5] And he said to his young men: Stay you here with the ass: I and the boy will go with speed as far as yonder, and after we have worshipped, will return to you.
[6] And he took the wood for the holocaust, and laid it upon Isaac his son: and he himself carried in his hands fire and a sword. And as they two went on together, [7] Isaac said to his father: My father. And he answered: What wilt thou, son? Behold, saith he, fire and wood: where is the victim for the holocaust? [8] And Abraham said: God will provide himself a victim for an holocaust, my son. So they went on together. [9] And they came to the place which God had shewn him, where he built an altar, and laid the wood in order upon it: and when he had bound Isaac his son, he laid him on the altar upon the pile of wood. [10] And he put forth his hand and took the sword, to sacrifice his son.
[11] And behold an angel of the Lord from heaven called to him, saying: Abraham, Abraham. And he answered: Here I am. [12] And he said to him: Lay not thy hand upon the boy, neither do thou any thing to him: now I know that thou fearest God, and hast not spared thy only begotten son for my sake. [13]Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw behind his back a ram amongst the briers sticking fast by the horns, which he took and offered for a holocaust instead of his son. [14] And he called the name of that place, The Lord seeth. Whereupon even to this day it is said: In the mountain the Lord will see. [15] And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven, saying:
[16] By my own self have I sworn, saith the Lord: because thou hast done this thing, and hast not spared thy only begotten son for my sake: [17] I will bless thee, and I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand that is by the sea shore: thy seed shall possess the gates of their enemies. [18]And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice. (Gensis 22: 1-18.)
Why did God choose Abraham? Why did He choose the Hebrew people to be the instrument by which He would prepare the whole of mankind for the redemption? That is a mystery. There is no human explanation for it. Why did God favor Abel's offering over Cain's? Again, a mystery. But it was in God's ineffable Providence to choose Abraham, the patriarch who is invoked in The Roman Canon as our "father in faith," to build up a people singularly his own
In a foreshadowing of the Redemption itself, God asked Abraham to sacrifice his long-awaited son, Isaac, on a pyre of wood. Abraham did not know why God was asking him to do such a thing. But He trusted in the word of God. God had asked him to make a sacrifice of his son. Who was he to deny the request? He trusted that God had some greater design beyond human comprehension. And by showing his desire to obey God without question and without delay, Abraham proved himself to be faithful. The sacrifice he was asked to make was a foreshadowing of how the Father had planned to redeem us by offering His only Son on the wood of the Holy Cross.
Catholics are the spiritual descendants of Abraham. His physical descendants formed the Twelve Tribes of Israel, which were sold into slavery in Egypt through Joseph, the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham. The Hebrew people spent 440 years in cruel slavery in Egypt, symbolic of the captivity of the human race to the Devil by means of original sin (and also symbolic of each person's captivity to the Devil prior to receiving the Sacrament of Baptism). They grumbled and they complained, wondering when their liberation would occur. Many of them thought that God had abandoned them.
God showed his favor on the Hebrews when He chose Moses to lead them out of their captivity to the Promised Land. It was to Moses that God definitively revealed Himself as the one and only God (Abraham believed that he had been visited by the true God, but he and the Hebrews remained polytheistic until God spoke to Moses face-to-face). Although he considered himself to be ill-equipped to speak to the oppressor of his people, the Pharaoh, he accepted the assignment that God had given him to lead his people to freedom. As one of the several foreshadowings of Our Lord found in the Old Testament, Moses was the one with whom God established the Covenant of the Old Dispensation, the one that would last until Our Lord established His New and Everlasting Covenant at the Last Supper.
The Covenant of the Old Dispensation was inaugurated with the first Passover, an event recounted in The Book of Exodus. The Hebrew people sprinkled the blood of lambs on their doorposts so that the angel of death would "pass over" their houses as every first-born male in Egypt was struck dead. As St. Paul noted in his Letter to the Hebrews, the blood of animals can save no one. But the use of the blood of lambs during the first Passover was a foreshadowing of the fact that each of us is now signed with the Most Precious Blood of the Lamb of God, He Who takest away the sins of the world, Our Blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And the ritual Passover meal was a foreshadowing of the Most Holy Eucharist, the fruit of the eternal Sacrifice offered to God the Father by His C-Eternal and Co-Equal Divine Son on the wood of the Cross--re-presented to us in an unbloody manner today in every sacrifice of the Mass.
Led by a column of fire at night and by a cloud during the day, Moses marched the Chosen People to the Red Sea, where they were to cross over to commence their desert journey to the Promised Land. The parting of the waters of the Red Sea was a real event in the history of salvation. But we participated in that parting of the waters when we were baptized. For just as the Pharaoh and his army were swallowed up by the waters of the Red Sea when Moses used his staff to signal the wall of water to come crashing down upon them, so is it the case that the Devil and his minions are swallowed up by the waters stirred up in the baptismal font. We are freed from captivity to him just as the Chosen People were freed from their captivity to the Pharaoh.
Human nature being what it is, however, the Chosen People did not remain grateful to God for long. They grumbled about the harsh conditions of the desert, muttering that they were better off in slavery to the Egyptians. Are we any better? Having been freed from captivity to original sin, how many of us patiently endure the crosses that we are asked to bear? How many of us slowly give ourselves back to the service of the Devil by slipping into venial sins over and over again? How many of us excuse our own spiritual sloth, satisfied with doing the minimum, satisfied with giving First and Last Things only a passing thought now and then? How many of us feel enslaved by our baptismal calling and not by sin?
The desert journey of our spiritual ancestors is symbolic of several things. It is in the first place symbolic of the desert journey of life. We are called to wander in this vale of tears without grumbling. We are called to be faithful in the midst of great trials. We are called to be satisfied with the true manna come down from Heaven, the Eucharist, and to long for no other food. And we are called to realize that the Ten Commandments are written on the flesh of our hearts, being content to worship the true God Who has Revealed Himself entirely in the Person of Our Lord.
The Chosen People worshiped the Golden Calf while Moses was receiving the Ten Commandments. They grumbled so loudly about the manna that had come down from Heaven that God sent them quail to feed them. They got sick of the quail! Their grumbling at the waters of Meribah and Massah resulted in their being bitten by seraph serpents. Many of them died. They repented of their grumbling, being healed by looking at the bronze serpent Moses had made. He lifted high the bronze serpent to heal the people of the wounds they had suffered from the seraph serpents. We are called to look upon Our Lord, Who was lifted high on the Cross to heal us of the wounds caused by our sins.
Although Moses died before the Jews entered the land of Canaan (a result of his having complained about the stiff-necked people God had entrusted to his leadership), the desert journey was completed in forty years. But it was a short time thereafter that they began to worship false gods. Their leaders frequently were most concerned about pursuing the political lusts of their heart rather than being faithful to the Mosaic covenant. Even King David, chosen from the fields to shepherd God's chosen flock, became drunk with his own power and influence for a time, forgetting Who it was Who had chosen him to be king.
This is true, of course, even in our own day. Those who should know the true faith serve the false gods of public opinion and personal political expediency. Materialism and hedonism are rationalized as being consonant somehow with the faith. Both the spirit and the letter of the law written on the flesh of our hearts are ignored. The consequences of all of this in our day are eerily similar to those which faced the Jews: social disarray and anarchy. Over and over again, though, God spoke to the Chosen People through the Prophets--and through all of the events of their history. Micah, Amoz, Hosea, Nathan, Gad, Daniel, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah were among the prophets God used to speak about the coming of the Messias. But there are none so blind as those who refused to see. As Scripture tells us, they had eyes but could not sea, ears but could not hear. The Chosen People expected the Messias would liberate them from political bondage, never more so than when they were suffering under the cruel oppression imposed by their Roman occupiers. It was as though they had learned almost nothing from the Exodus or the Babylonian captivity. No, they were still looking for the political Messias. And aren't many people looking for such a Messias today?
There are few passages in the Old Testament which describe the sort of Messias that would redeem the human race more telling than those found in Chapters 52 and 53 of the Book of the Prophet Isaias:
[13] Behold my servant shall understand, he shall be exalted, and extolled, and shall be exceeding high. [14] As many have been astonished at thee, so shall his visage be inglorious among men, and his form among the sons of men. [15] He shall sprinkle many nations, kings shall shut their mouth at him: for they to whom it was not told of him, have seen: and they that heard not, have beheld.
[1] Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? [2] And he shall grow up as a tender plant before him, and as a root out of a thirsty ground: there is no beauty in him, nor comeliness: and we have seen him, and there was no sightliness, that we should be desirous of him: [3]Despised, and the most abject of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with infirmity: and his look was as it were hidden and despised, whereupon we esteemed him not. [4] Surely he hath borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows: and we have thought him as it were a leper, and as one struck by God and afflicted. [5] But he was wounded for our iniquities, he was bruised for our sins: the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his bruises we are healed.
[6] All we like sheep have gone astray, every one hath turned aside into his own way: and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. [7] He was offered because it was his own will, and he opened not his mouth: he shall be led as a sheep to the slaughter, and shall be dumb as a lamb before his shearer, and he shall not open his mouth. [8] He was taken away from distress, and from judgment: who shall declare his generation? because he is cut off out of the land of the living: for the wickedness of my people have I struck him. [9] And he shall give the ungodly for his burial, and the rich for his death: because he hath done no iniquity, neither was there deceit in his mouth. [10] And the Lord was pleased to bruise him in infirmity: if he shall lay down his life for sin, he shall see a long-lived seed, and the will of the Lord shall be prosperous in his hand.
[11] Because his soul hath laboured, he shall see and be filled: by his knowledge shall this my just servant justify many, and he shall bear their iniquities.[12] Therefore will I distribute to him very many, and he shall divide the spoils of the strong, because he hath delivered his soul unto death, and was reputed with the wicked: and he hath borne the sins of many, and hath prayed for the transgressors. (Isaias 52: 13-15; 53: 1-12.)
Jeremias wrote:
[5] Behold the days come, saith the Lord, and I will raise up to David a just branch: and a king shall reign, and shall be wise, and shall execute judgement and justice in the earth. (Jeremias 23: 5-6.)
Ezechiel prophesied of the Good Shepherd:
[11] For thus saith the Lord God: Behold I myself will seek my sheep, and will visit them. [12] As the shepherd visiteth his flock in the day when he shall be in the midst of his sheep that were scattered, so will I visit my sheep, and will deliver them out of all the places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day. [13] And I will bring them out from the peoples, and will gather them out of the countries, and will bring them to their own land: and I will feed them in the mountains of Israel, by the rivers, and in all the habitations of the land. [14] I will feed them in the most fruitful pastures, and their pastures shall be in the high mountains of Israel: there shall they rest on the green grass, and be fed in fat pastures upon the mountains of Israel. [15] I will feed my sheep: and I will cause them to lie down, saith the Lord God. (Ezechiel 34: 11-15.)
The new Israel, the new Zion, as we know, is the Catholic Church. It is through her that Our Lord shepherds us to the true Promised Land of Heaven. And it was to give birth to her from His Wounded Side on the wood of the Holy Cross that He personally entered human history at the Incarnation, fulfilling all of the promises that had been made about Him in the Law and in the Prophets.
Our Lady, having been preserved from all stain of Original and Actual sin when she was conceived in her mother's womb, became the singular vessel of honor through which the Logos, the Word, would enter human history. Denying Himself nothing of the human experience save sin, Our Lord condescended to spend nine months in the tabernacle of Our Lady's virginal and immaculate womb. The world was expecting the Savior to manifest Himself thunderously from a mountainside. But He came as a helpless embryo, unseen to the human eye. He came to do His Father's will. He came to offer Himself up as the blood-offering in propitiation for our own sins. But He came in such a way as to reveal Himself gradually to the creatures He was about to redeem. He wanted us to have faith in Him:
[26] And in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee, called Nazareth, [27] To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin' s name was Mary. [28] And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. [29] Who having heard, was troubled at his saying, and thought with herself what manner of salutation this should be.[30] And the angel said to her: Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God.
[31] Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name Jesus. [32] He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the most High; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father; and he shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever. [33] And of his kingdom there shall be no end. [34] And Mary said to the angel: How shall this be done, because I know not man? [35] And the angel answering, said to her: The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
[36] And behold thy cousin Elizabeth, she also hath conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her that is called barren: [37] Because no word shall be impossible with God. [38] And Mary said: Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her. [39] (Luke 1: 26-38.)
It was complete trust in the word of God that prompted Our Lady to undertake the arduous trip to the hill country of Judah to visit her cousin, Elizabeth, who in her old age was expecting the last of the Old Testament prophets, St. John the Baptist. The unborn John leapt for joy when he heard the voice of the Mother of God pierce his ears in his mother's womb. It was at that moment that John was cleansed of all original sin, enabling him to serve as the pure precursor of the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world. (Luke 1: 26-38.)
Prompted by God the Holy Ghost, Our Lady proclaimed the Magnificat, which is recited (or, more accurately, which should be recited) at Evening Prayer by every priest and deacon and religious in the world:
My soul doth magnify the Lord. [47] And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. [48] Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid; for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. [49] Because he that is mighty, hath done great things to me; and holy is his name. [50] And his mercy is from generation unto generations, to them that fear him.
[51] He hath shewed might in his arm: he hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart. [52] He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble. [53] He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away. [54] He hath received Israel his servant, being mindful of his mercy: [55] As he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed for ever. (Luke 2: 46-55.)
The promise made to Abraham was being fulfilled. And when Our Lady's time had arrived, she and St. Joseph made their way to Bethlehem, the City of David, where the prophet Micah had prophesied that the Messias would be born. There was no room for Our Lord in the inn on the night of his birth. Is there any room for Him in the inns of our hearts? In the life of our society? In our politics, our government, our laws, our so-called entertainment?
The re-creation of the world, which had begun at the Incarnation, reached a turning point when Our Lord was born in the stable in the cave in Bethlehem. Born in the wood of the manger to die on the wood of the Cross. Yes, born in a manger, a feeding trough, only to make the instrument of His execution the true manger from which we would be fed His very Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. Born amidst the manure of the barn animals to die atop the dung heap known as Calvary. Born in anonymity to die in ignominy, considered a criminal and a blasphemer by all but a handful of people. Born in poverty to die in poverty. Born in obedience to the Father's will to do the Father's will, indeed, to be the Father's will for us all. Given birth painlessly by Our Lady only to watch her writhe in great pain as she gave birth to us as the adopted sons and daughters of God at the foot of the Cross.
Our Lord's Most Holy Face radiated all of the glory of His Sacred Divinity when He lay in the crib in Bethlehem. Our souls once radiated His glory when we were baptized, freed from our captivity to the Devil. But our sins marred that Most Holy Face, making it almost unrecognizable by the time St. Veronica wiped It as He walked on the Via Dolorosa on the road to Calvary. The Cross hovered over Bethlehem. For it was to bear the Cross that Our Lord made his humble entrance in the City of David.
The great and the powerful hated Our Lord almost from the moment He was born. Herod the Great. Herod the Tetrarch. Pontius Pilate. The Pharisees. The Sadducees. The Sanhedrin. And even after His Death and Resurrection, many of the great and the powerful hated Him and His Holy Church with a vengeance. Nero. Diocletian. Trajan. Henry VIII. Cromwell. Marx. Freud. Lenin. Hitler. Stalin. The Freemasons. Mao. Deng. Clinton. Bush 41 and Bush 43. Obama. All other naturalists. He was born to be a sign of contradiction, as Simeon prophesied to Our Lady at the Presentation. And He was to die as a sign of contradiction.
Each one of us is called to be a sign of contradiction. Our Lord told us that we would be hated as He was hated. He told us that we would be persecuted as He was persecuted. He told us that we would be handed over to kings and governors on His account. All will hate us because of His Name, He said. He was hated from the moment of His birth. He is hated today.
The hatred of Herod the Great was so great that He ordered the slaughter of the Holy Innocents in his quest to destroy the Infant King, Our Lord. But it was not yet His time. The Holy Family fled to Egypt, the very place where the Chosen People from whom Our Lord had taken His Sacred Humanity were enslaved for 440 years, living there for a year and one-half. Rich in symbolism, the Redeemer left His exile in Egypt to return to Nazareth, where He spent nearly thirty years living anonymously, doing the work of a manual laborer, redeeming all things about our ordinary existence.
Each of us lives an ordinary existence. It is in that ordinary existence that we prove ourselves to be friends or enemies of Our Lord and His Holy Church. Do we bear our share of the hardship which the Gospel entails? Do we seek to sanctify every moment of our lives? Do we live in the consciousness of the Divine Presence, always keeping in mind that we could be called home to give an account of our lives at any moment? Do we fulfill the duties of our states-in-life with joy and punctuality? Our Lord did. If it was good enough for Him, it should be good enough for we grumblers as we stumble about in our own desert journey of life.
Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity through Whom all things were made, submitted Himself in humility to the authority of His foster-father, Good Saint Joseph, and His Most Blessed Mother. Although He was their Creator and Redeemer, He obeyed them, teaching us that we must obey all duly constituted authority, starting with our parents, in all things that do not pertain to sin. Sinful commands must not be obeyed.
Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ loved His foster-father, learning from him the intricate work of a skilled carpenter. While Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ knew all things as God, He still had to learn how to do those things as man that He had ordained as God to be done by men. Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ therefore submitted Himself to the tutelage of Saint Joseph to learn the trade by which He would earn a living for Himself and His Blessed Mother after Saint Joseph died. Saint Joseph was in the sublime position of teaching God, Who subjected Himself in humility to the teaching authority of His foster-father.
Imagine the daily joy and peace and serenity that surrounded the Holy Family. Saint Joseph and Our Lady were always in the Presence of God Himself. Although there are various private revelations about the nature of the Holy Family's life, Sacred Scripture is as silent about the events of the Hidden Years in Nazareth as Saint Joseph himself. There is a reason for this silence: Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was teaching us that each of us will grow up in a family. Those of us who marry and are blessed with children are to replicate in our own lives the joy and peace and serenity of the Holy Family of Nazareth day in and day out, fulfilling the duties of our state-in-life without complaint and without delay. Husbands and fathers must see in Saint Joseph the perfect model of what it is to be the head of one's household, intent on developing the manly Catholic virtues of patience and charity and courage and perseverance exhibited to their highest degree in the person of Saint Joseph.
As the model of patience and joy, Saint Joseph did not complain about anything. Indeed, Sacred Scripture records not one word ever uttered by Saint Joseph. He was the just and silent man of the House of David as he faithfully carried out God's will for him each and every day, doing ordinary things extraordinarily well for the love of the Father in the presence of the Son Himself. He is the model of artisans and laborers, a man who pursued excellence as befits a child of God. He wanted nothing more than to use the talents he had been given for God's greater glory, knowing that he had been chosen from all eternity to participate in events that would lead to the Redemption. He, a man who worked with wood, had the privilege of serving the One Who would use the wood of the Cross as the instrument of redeeming mankind.
Saint Joseph suffered along with Our Lady when the Child Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem to answer questions being posed to him by the doctors of the law. The fright in his heart was palpable when he discovered that his foster-Son was not in their company. His relief was visible when his foster-Son was found. His acceptance of God's will about this event was total. Not a word of complaint. He knew that his foster-Son had to be about His Heavenly Father's business once he heard this from the mouth of the One to Whom he gave love, clothing, shelter and instruction.
How fitting it is that Saint Joseph, who was the head of the Holy Family of Nazareth, is the Patron of the Universal Church. We need to invoke his intercession more faithfully for the needs of Holy Mother Church. For just as Saint Joseph protected the Infant Jesus and Our Lady during their flight to Egypt, so, too, has Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ entrusted to His foster-father the protection of His Mystical Body, the Church, here on earth. So too does he watch over our priests, who are called to imitate his virtue of chastity by denying themselves their biological fatherhood in order to be the spiritual father of others. Saint Joseph is very close to priests and wants them to keep their purity unstained by anything. He wants them to be lovers of Holy Poverty after his own holy heart. And he wants them to be steadfast in maintaining the Tradition that his foster-Son's Apostles have handed down to them under the protection of the Holy Ghost.
Our Lord left His home after the death of Saint Joseph, although His Blessed Mother was never far from Him. She was with Him to the end, as is noted in great detail. He left to be baptized symbolically by his cousin, St. John the Baptist, who had been preparing the way for His Public Ministry. "He must increase, I must decrease," said the Baptist. His work was over. Our Lord's had just begun.
Noah spent forty days and forty nights in the ark. The Chosen People spent forty years in the desert. Our Lord spent forty days in the desert, praying and fasting before He assumed His Public Ministry. The forty days of Lent prepare us to be more willing to cooperate with the graces won for us by Our Lord by the shedding of His Most Precious Blood, for we are able to resist the Devil as Our Lord did when He was tempted in the desert. We are able to walk the rocky road that leads to the narrow gate of Life Himself.
Our Lord left the desert to call His Twelve Apostles, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel. He called them by name. He called each of us by name when we were Christened, when we were baptized. He gave them a mission to bring all people into the true Church, a mission that we received in baptism--and reaffirmed when we received the Sacrament of Confirmation. He called the Apostles, knowing full well that they were full of shortcomings, that they would be slow to understand Him, that all but one of them would run away from Him during His Passion and Death. He calls us, knowing that we are crooked lines, men who are in constant need of forgiveness.
Our Lord taught and preached for three years prior to the events of Holy Week. He performed His first miracle at Cana, turning the water into wine at the wedding feast there at the request of His Most Blessed Mother, a foreshadowing of the transubstantiation of wine into His Most Precious Blood at the Last Supper. He cured the lame, restored sight to the blind, healed the leprous, made the deaf hear and the dumb speak. He expelled demons. And He raised the dead. But His physical miracles were always signs of the fact of His Sacred Divinity, that He had the power to forgive sins.
Indeed, one of the enduring themes of His Public Ministry was forgiveness and mercy. He came to give it to us unworthy vessels of clay. He expects each one of us to give it others, freely and unconditionally. "Neither will your sins be forgiven you unless you forgive your brother from your heart." As the late Father John A. Hardon, S.J., said at a conference in Detroit, Michigan, in 1996, "God permits us to sin so that we can show mercy to each other."
However, the compassion of Our Lord for sinners is no expression of mere human sentimentality, as many would have us believe today. Far from it. When He came upon Saint Mary Magdalen as she was caught in adultery, Our Lord asked if anyone ready to cast stones was without sin. As each man dropped the stone he was about to cast at Lazarus's sister, Our Lord told her that no one had condemned her--and that He did not do so. However, He told her to go, and sin no more. True compassion, Our Lord was teaching us, understands the weakness of fallen human nature. But it never reaffirms another person--or us--in that which is sinful. God's grace is sufficient for us to resist temptation.
Forgiveness was the keynote of the Parable of the Prodigal Son. The Father stands ready to forgive us at any moment of our lives if only we have the humility to acknowledge our sins in the hospital of Divine Mercy, the confessional. For it is in the Sacrament of Penance that the merits of the shedding of Our Lord's Most Precious Blood are applied to us through a priest acting in persona Christi. We must never be slow to recognize how our sins wounded Our Lord once in time, how they caused Seven Swords of Sorrow to be thrust through and through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, how they wound the Church Militant on earth today, and how they make us less capable of shining forth His love in the world. Our Lord's Throne of Forgiveness, the Cross, reminds us of how much we have offended Him--but how limitless His mercy is if only we seek it out.
All of this was hard for the people of His time to hear. Theirs was a merciless age. Their hearts had been hardened. That is why it was difficult for them to endure what He taught in the Sermon on the Mount. Every one of the Beatitudes contradicted the prevailing spirit of the times. Indeed, they contradict the prevailing spirit of our times, do they not?
[3] Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. [4] Blessed are the meek: for they shall possess the land. [5] Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
[6] Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill. [7] Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. [8] Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God. [9] Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called children of God. [10] Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
[11] Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake: [12] Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you. [13] You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt lose its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is good for nothing any more but to be cast out, and to be trodden on by men. [14] You are the light of the world. A city seated on a mountain cannot be hid. [15] Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house. (Matthew 5: 3-15.)
Our Lord came to tell people that the problems of the world were caused by sin, that they had to undergo a daily conversion of mind, heart, and soul. There is no once and for all solution to our own problems or those of the world. The state of the world depends upon the state of individual souls. Therefore, it is important for us to remember that we are, as Our Lord said in the Sermon on the Mount, the salt of earth and the light of the world. We are called to add His seasoning, His leaven, if you will, in the midst of this fallen, fractured world. We are called to provide His light shining through us into this darkened will. And each of us is called to take up our cross on a daily basis, deny our very selves and follow Him through His Holy Church.
Most of this was pretty difficult for the people of Our Lord's time to understand and accept. Our Lord had not come to be popular, however. He did not come to preach a theology of ecumenical indifferentism. He proclaimed Himself to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life. People either loved Him or they hated Him. There was no middle ground. Some, like the rich young man in the Gospel of St. Mark, walked away because they did not want to give up their possessions. Others did not want to reform their lives.
Perhaps the major turning point in Our Lord's Public Ministry came when He gave the Eucharistic Discourse after the miracles of the loaves and fishes. As recorded in the Gospel of St. John, Our Lord proclaimed Himself to be the True Manna come down from Heaven:
I am the living bread which came down from heaven. [42] And they said: Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How then saith he, I came down from heaven? [43] Jesus therefore answered, and said to them: Murmur not among yourselves. [44] No man can come to me, except the Father, who hath sent me, draw him; and I will raise him up in the last day. [45] It is written in the prophets: And they shall all be taught of God. Every one that hath heard of the Father, and hath learned, cometh to me.
[46] Not that any man hath seen the Father; but he who is of God, he hath seen the Father. [47] Amen, amen I say unto you: He that believeth in me, hath everlasting life. [48] I am the bread of life. [49] Your fathers did eat manna in the desert, and are dead. [50] This is the bread which cometh down from heaven; that if any man eat of it, he may not die.
[51] I am the living bread which came down from heaven. [52] If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give, is my flesh, for the life of the world. [53] The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying: How can this man give us his flesh to eat? [54] Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. [55] He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day. (John 6: 41-55.)
Many of the Jews found what Our Lord said very hard to accept:
[67] After this many of his disciples went back; and walked no more with him. (John 6: 67.)
Sadly, many true priests and presbyters and religious in the structures of the counterfeit church of concliarism no longer believe in the Real Presence of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour in the Holy Eucharist. Saint Peter spoke for those of us who do believe in the Real Presence when the Master asked the Twelve if they wanted to leave him too:
And Simon Peter answered him: Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. [70] And we have believed and have known, that thou art the Christ, the Son of God. (John 6:69-70).
No, Jesus of Nazareth, known to be the son of Joseph the Carpenter, was not what the world expected the Messias to be. He taught with authority. His miracles proved His Sacred Divinity. The scribes and the Pharisees did not know how to deal with him, especially after a lot of people began to follow Him after He raised his friend Lazarus of Bethany from the dead:
[46] But some of them went to the Pharisees, and told them the things that Jesus had done. [47] The chief priests therefore, and the Pharisees, gathered a council, and said: What do we, for this man doth many miracles? [48] If we let him alone so, all will believe in him; and the Romans will come, and take away our place and nation. [49] But one of them, named Caiphas, being the high priest that year, said to them: You know nothing. [50] Neither do you consider that it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.
[51] And this he spoke not of himself: but being the high priest of that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for the nation. [52] And not only for the nation, but to gather together in one the children of God, that were dispersed. (John 11: 46-51.)
No, Jesus of Nazareth, known to be the son of Joseph the Carpenter, was not what the world expected the Messias to be. He taught with authority. His miracles proved His Sacred Divinity. The scribes and the Pharisees did not know how to deal with him, especially after a lot of people began to follow Him after He raised his friend Lazarus of Bethany from the dead. He had to be done away with, His message obliterated. Little did the plotters realize, however, that they were helping to fulfill God the Father's plan for their own redemption which He had in mind at the very moment of creation.
God in the very Flesh had to be killed. Deicide had to be committed as it was expedient for the Jews to do so in order to enjoy currying favor with the Romans and thus to enjoy their "privileged" place under their oppressive occupation of the Holy Land.
Yes, less than five days after Our Lord was welcomed triumphantly as He entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday He was subjected to treatment as a common criminal.
Hailed as a King to the shouts of "Hosanna in the highest" on this very day, the first Palm Sunday nearly two millennia ago, only to be reviled and scorned by the same crowd with the words "Crucify Him!" The crowd that laid palm fronds in the path of the beast He rode into Jerusalem mocked Him as He hung on the Holy Cross:
[39] And they that passed by, blasphemed him, wagging their heads, [40] And saying: Vah, thou that destroyest the temple of God, and in three days dost rebuild it: save thy own self: if thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross. [41] In like manner also the chief priests, with the scribes and ancients, mocking, said: [42] He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the king of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him.[43] He trusted in God; let him now deliver him if he will have him; for he said: I am the Son of God. [44] And the selfsame thing the thieves also, that were crucified with him, reproached him with. (Matthew 27: 39-44.)
The popularity of Our Lord with the fickle crowd on the first Palm Sunday was very fleeting, which is why we have to enter Holy Week with a determination to be faithful to Him and to resist sin to the point of shedding our own blood if necessary!
Holy Week is a week of contrasts. In it is compressed the entirety of salvation history, as noted earlir in this reflection. In it is compressed the entirety of each of our lives.
Our Lord invites us today, Palm Sunday, to welcome Him during Holy Week not only with palm fronds extended from our hands but with hearts and souls cleansed by the bath of His Most Precious Blood in the Sacrament of Penance. He invites today, Palm Sunday, to grow in our fervor for love of Him in His Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament, instituted this very week for our spiritual nourishment and our adoration. He is inviting us to walk along with Him on the Via Dolorosa to help Him carry His Cross, keeping company with His Most Blessed Mother on the Via Dolorosa and at the foot of the Holy Cross – and to keep vigil at the empty tomb for His glorious Resurrection on Easter Sunday.
Holy Week is about love. Our Lord came into the world, conceived as a totally helpless embryo in His Blessed Mother's virginal and Immaculate womb, because of His desire to do His Co-Equal and Co-Eternal God the Father's will, to redeem sinful men. He takes our place before the Sanhedrin this week to regain what was lost for us by our first parents in the Garden of Eden. He accomplished all of this nearly two millennia ago, and continues His saving work today in each true offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass out of the highest of all loves: to will the good of each human soul, the ultimate expression of which is their salvation. And human salvation would have been impossible if the Word had not become flesh and dwelt amongst us in order to die on the wood of the Holy Cross and pay back the debt of sin that we owed God in His infinity but could only be paid back by Infinity Himself in His Sacred Humanity.
Each of us plays a multiplicity of characters in the drama that unfolds during Holy Week. But, then, each of us plays a multiplicity of characters in our own lives.
There are some chosen sous who are exemplify the purity and fidelity of Saint John the Evangelist.
Many of us, however are just like the vacillating and boastful Saint Peter was during Holy Week, exclaiming that we will defend Our Lord and His Holy Faith with all of our strength but shrinking from that boast out of fear, pride, weakness or malice.
There are other characters whose names are not mentioned in the accounts of the Passion contained in the Gospels. And it is perhaps these nameless characters who best exemplify our own ambivalence about following Our Lord consistently in every aspect of our daily lives.
Consider, for example, the people who not only jeered Our Lord as He hung on the Holy Cross but those who walked by with utter indifference to what was happening before their very eyes.
Isn't it true that it is really those people who best reflect us most of the time?
That is, a lot of us say we're too busy to spend time in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament or to go on pilgrimages or to make the sacrifices we need to make (which might involve driving many hours and many miles) to protect our souls by fleeing from everything to do with conciliarism and its false shepherds. And there are times when we don't think in supernatural terms about the events of our own daily lives, thereby demonstrating an indifference to First and Last Things more often than we would like to realize.
Yes, there are times in our lives when we might be tempted (or may in fact have in the past) to shout "Give us Barabbas" by deliberately choosing to expel the life of Sanctifying Grace from our souls by the commission of Mortal Sins.
However, the way the devil usually tempts human beings away from the interior life of grace is slowly and imperceptibly through spiritual sloth. We forget to pray. We forget to the read Scriptures and solid works of the spiritual masters, such as Dom Gueranger's The Liturgical Year and Father Frederick Faber's The Foot of the Cross and The Precious Blood, Archbishop Alban Goodier's The Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Venerable Mary of Agreda's The Mystical City of God, Anne Katherine Emmerich's The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ and, among many others, Father P. Gallwey's The Watches of the Sacred Passion with Before and After. Indeed, we plunge headlong into everything that is secular, permitting ourselves to be influenced little by little by the spirit of the world, a spirit that is in direct contradiction to that which is conducive to the salvation of our immortal souls. Lukewarmness thus spreads like a unseen cancer, one that devastates the soul and causes a slow but steady rejection of a disciplined life of prayer and penance and self-denial.
May each of us this Holy Week withdraw from the world, assisting from the Mass of the ages on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, entering deep into the Triduum on Maundy Thursday, when we commemorate His institution of the Holy Priesthood and the Holy Eucharist, when we keep Him company in His Real Presence to console Him for having endured even the thought of coming into contact with our sins that caused Him to suffer in His Sacred Humanity during His Agony in the Garden on the Mount of Olives.
Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., provided a wonderful meditation on the great feast that we celebrate today, reminding us in a few days that the Jews will be rejected because they rejected the very One Who redeemed them by shedding every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross:
Early in the morning of this Day, Jesus sets out for Jerusalem, leaving Mary His Mother, and the two sisters Martha and Mary Magdalene, and Lazarus at Bethania. The Mother of sorrows trembles at seeing her Son thus expose Himself to danger, for His enemies are bent upon His destruction; but it is not death, it is triumph, that Jesus is to receive today in Jerusalem. The Messias, before being nailed to the cross, is to be proclaimed King by the people of the great city; the little children are to make her streets echo with their Hosannas to the Son of David; and this in presence of the soldiers of Rome's emperor, and of the high priests and pharisees: the first standing under the banner of their eagles; the second, dumb with rage. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year.)
The prophet Zachary had foretold this triumph which the Son of Man was to receive a few days before His Passion, and which had been prepared for Him from all eternity. 'Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Sion! Shout for joy, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold thy King will come to thee; the Just and the Savior. He is poor and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass.' Jesus, knowing that the hour has come for the fulfillment of this prophecy, singles out two from the rest of His disciples, and bids them lead to Him as ass and her colt, which they would find not far off. He has reached Bethphage, on Mount Olivet. The two disciples lose no time in executing the order given them by their divine Master; and the ass and the colt are soon brought to the place where He stands.
The holy fathers have explained to us the mystery of these two animals. The ass represents the Jewish people, which had been long under the yoke of the Law; the colt, upon which, as the evangelist says, no man yet hath sat, is a figure of the Gentile world, which no one had ever yet brought into subjection. The future of these two peoples is to be decided a few days hence the Jews will be rejected for having refused to acknowledge Jesus as the Messias; the Gentiles will take their place, to be adopted as God's people, and become docile and faithful.
The disciples spread their garments upon the colt; and our Savior, that the prophetic figure might be fulfilled, sits upon him, and advances towards Jerusalem. As soon as it is known that Jesus is near the city, the holy Spirit works in the hearts of those Jews, who have come from all parts to celebrate the feast of the Passover. They go out to meet our Lord, holding palm branches in their hands, and loudly proclaiming Him to be King. They that have accompanied Jesus from Bethania, join the enthusiastic crowd. Whilst some spread their garments on the way, others cut down boughs from the palm trees, and strew them along the road. Hosanna is the triumphant cry, proclaiming to the whole city that Jesus, the Son of David, has made His entrance as her King.
Thus did God, in His power over men's hearts, procure a triumph for His Son, and in the very city which, a few days later, was to clamor for His Blood This day was one of glory to our Jesus, and the holy Church would have us renew, each year, the memory of this triumph of the Man-God. Shortly after the birth of our Emmanuel, we saw the Magi coming from the extreme east, and looking in Jerusalem for the King of the Jews, to whom they intended offering their gifts and their adorations; but it is Jerusalem herself that now goes forth to meet this King. Each of these events is an acknowledgment of the kingship of Jesus; the first, from the Gentiles; the second homage, before He suffered His Passion. The inscription to be put upon the cross, by Pilate's order, will express the kingly character of the Crucified Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. Pilate, the Roman governor, the pagan, the base coward, has been unwittingly the fulfiller of a prophecy; and when the enemies of Jesus insist on the inscription being altered, Pilate will not deign to give them any answer but this: 'What I have written, I have written.' Today, it is the Jews themselves that proclaim Jesus to be their King; they will soon be dispersed, in punishment for their revolt against the Son of David; but Jesus is King, and will be so for ever. Thus were literally verified the words spoken by the Archangel to Mary, when he announced to her the glories of the Child that was to be born of her. 'The Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of David, His father; and He shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever.' Jesus begins His reign upon the earth this very day; and though the first Israel is soon to disclaim His rule, a new Israel, formed from the faithful few of the old, shall rise up in every nation of the earth, and become the kingdom of Christ, a kingdom such as no mere earthly monarch ever coveted in his wildest fancies of ambition.
This is the glorious mystery which ushers in the great week, the week of Dolours. Holy Church would have us give this momentary consolation to our heart, and hail our Jesus as our King. She has so arranged the service of today, that it should express both joy and sorrow; joy, by uniting herself with the loyal hosannas of the city of David; and sorrow, by compassionating the Passion of her divine Spouse. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, The Liturgical Year, Volume VI: Passiontide, pp, 192-195.)
The following reflection, taken from Father Peter. Gallwey's The Watches of the Sacred Passion with Before and After amplifies Dom Prosper Gueranger's meditation and helps us to realize that we are not very much unlike the Jews of Our Lord's day insofar as our choosing for Him with every beat of our hearts, consecrated as they must be to His own Sacred Heart through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary:
Station III
"A great multitude that was come to the festivabl-day, when they had heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm-trees, and went forth to meet Him, and cried, Hosanna, blessed is He that comethin th the name of the Kng of Israel" (St. John xii. 12, 13.)
"An a very great multitude spread their garment in the way; and others cut boughs from the trees, and strewed them in the way" (St. Matt. xxi. 8).
A. A great multitude therefore comes out from Jerusalem to meet the crowd that is accompanying Jesus from Jericho and Bethany.
The crowd coming out from Jerusalem perhaps consists more of strangers arrived in Jerusalem than of the inhabitants of that unfortunate city. The people there are too much afraid of their jealous Rulers to pay honour to Jesus. With what reason holy writers warn us all to strengthen ourselves against human respect! "For Jesus says: Fear yet not them that kill the body and are not able to kill the soul. . . . He that shall deny Me befoe men, I will also deny him" (St. Matt. x).
This is what our Lord had said: "No prophet is accepted in his own country" (St. Luke iv.) "He came into His own, and His own received Him not (St. John i.). In His own favoured city He is not welcome. We are now His own people, the favoured ones. Are we giving Him any cause to say, "Woe to you! for if in Tyre and Sidon had been wrought the miracles that have been wrought in you, long ago they would have done penance?
B. "A very great multitude spread their garments in the way."
Not out of their superfluities are they now giving alms to our Blessed Lord. The grace of devotion given them is so fervent that they give the garments they are wearing–probably their best, their holiday clothes–to be trodden down and spoiled, in order to do Him hour: Fac cor dulce Jesu mei, Fac ut nos amemus Te. Cast into our hearts some spark of the Divine fire, which warmed the hearts of the crowd on this day of grace.
C. "Others cut boughs."
This, we may presume, was done by the owners of the trees, or with their full sanction. The watchful providence of the Heavenly Father would not suffer this holy procession to be disfigured by any lawless excesses.
If were were to to witness now such enthusiasm at a procession of the Blessed Sacrament, many would be consoled and edified; but we might, on the other hand, find some secretly saying, "Ut quid perdito haec"–To what purpose this waste? (St. Matt. xxvi.) Should not the police be asked to prevent this destruction of the trees?
St. Thomas in his glorious hymn for the Feast of Corpus Christi sides with the devout multitude, and exhorts us to vie with them.
Quantum potes tantum aude, Quia major omni laude, Nec ladare sufficis. Dare all thou canst through all thy days, And still seek new an worthier lays, For Still He soars beyond thy praise.
Station IV.
"And when He was now coming near the descent of Mount Olivet, the whole multitude of His disciples began with joy to praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen, saying: "Hosanna in the highest. Blessed be the King Who cometh in the name of the Lord. Peace in Heaven and glory on high" (St. Luke xix.; St. Mark xi.).
A. "O vos omnes qui transitis per viam, attendite et videte"–O all you who pass by the way, stay a little while and see and listen. Our good angels watch us as we pass to and fro thoughtlessl, and they earnest ask us to pause a little while, and observe with a holy envy this burst of gladness of devotion and thanksgiving from of old and young around our Blessed Saviour. "Look, they say, and do according to the Model" (Exodus xxv.). O Christian soul, contemplate attentively this crowd of men and women and children, praising God with a loud voice for all His mighty works–and go thou and do the like. Ought we to rest content, till praising God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost has become an easy, a pleasant and habitual exercise of our soul? How often do we hear Holy Church reminding us that "it is God's right, it is due to Him, it is only common justice and fairness, and besides, it is wholesome and salutary for our elves that in all places and at all times we give thanks to Him"? Speaking to yourselves, St. Paul writes, in psalms and hymns and spiritual canticles, singing and making a melody in your hearts to the Lord. Giving thanks always for all things, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to God and the Father (Ephes. v.). This ought to be our habitual state. How near have we come to it?
B. But we must bear in mind that we have to eat our bread in the sweat of our brow. Holy thoughts and holy habits do not come naturally in our fallen state. We have by spiritual industry to learn a language of praise and thanksgiving. Under our Lady's teaching we must practice until from our hearts we can say: "My spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour, because He that is mighty hath done great things for me."
C. Remember how oftentimes one small slight, or even an imagined slight, from a man, takes away all our thoughts from the countless good things that God is giving us! What a strange prodigy! One hasty word, one rude gesture from a man has more effect than all God's immense bounty! It is right, no doubt, to leave the ninety-nine sheep to go after the one that is lost; but is it wise to forget entirely ninety-nine blessings from God to go after one slight from a man, and follow it till, like the will o' the wisp, it leads us into the depths of the quagmire?
This was Aman's folly. "He called together to him his friends and Zares his wife: and he declared to them the greatness of his riches and the multitude of his children, and with how great glory the King had advanced him above all his princes and servants. And after this he said: Queen Esther also hath invited no other to the banquet with the King but me; and with her I am also to dine to-morrow with the King. And, he continues, whereas I have all these things, I think I have nothing so long as I see Mardochai the Jew sitting at the King's gate" (Esther v.). Why is this? What magic power has Mardochai to counteract and embitter and poison such wonderful prosperity? All Aman's blessings are effaced and blotted out simply because this one Jew will not rise up to honour the great Chancellor when he passes, nor even so much as to move from the place that he sits. If Zares had been a sensible wife, and if Aman's friends had been true friends, they would have come round the poor dotard and said urgently: "You foolish man, why need you go out by the gate where the Jew is? Forget that Jew entirely, and fix your thoughts on all your many blessings." But they were all evil counsellors, and advised him to turn his back on all his good things and go after this one vexation, to follow this one poor Jew, to persecute this one captive to the bitter end. What was the outcome? The foolish man lost all his ninety-nine blessings and was hanged on the one gibbet which he had prepared for Mardechai. (Father P. Gallwey, The Watches of the Sacred Passion with Before and After, Volume I, published by Maressa Press, Roehampton, England, 1930, pp. 152-155.)
Our Lady herself explained to the Venerable Mary of Agreda that her Divine Son's regal majesty and omnipotence forced His sword enemies to adore Him and to hail Him as their King and Messias on this very day, Palm Sunday:
410. On the morning of the next day, which corresponds to our Palm Sunday, the Lord proceeded with his disciples toward Jerusalem, being accompanied by many Angels who sang hymns of praise at seeing Him so enamored of men and so solicitous for their eternal salvation. Having walked two miles more or less, and arriving in the village of Bethphage, He sent two disciples to an influential man of that neighborhood. From him they brought two beasts of burden (Mt. 21:2), one of which had not yet been used or ridden by anyone. The Lord processed on his way to Jerusalem while they spread some of their cloaks and other garments upon both the ass and her colt. The Lord was to make use of both of them according to the prophecies of Isaias (Is. 62:11) and Zacharias (Zach. 9:9), who had foretold these particulars many ages before so the priests and scribes would not be able to allege ignorance as an excuse. All four Evangelists describe this wonderful triumph of Christ and relate what was seen by the bodily eyes of those present (Mt. 21:4ff.; Mk. 11:1ff.; Lk. 19:30ff.; Jn. 12:12ff.). As they proceeded on their way the disciples, and with them all the people, the children and the adults, hailed Jesus as the true Messiah, the Son of David, the Savior of the world, and as their true King. Some of them exclaimed: Peace in heaven and glory on high, blessed be the King who cometh in the name of the Lord (Lk. 19:38); others, Hosanna to the Son of David (Mt. 21:9), "save us, Son of David," blessed be the kingdom of our father David that cometh (Mk. 11:10). Some of these and others lopped branches from palms and other trees in signs of triumph and joy, and spread their garments upon the ground to prepare a way for the triumphant Conqueror, Christ our Lord.
411. All these demonstrations of worship and admiration which these men gave to the divine and incarnate Word were calculated to manifest the power of his divinity, especially at this time when the priests and Pharisees were watching Him and seeking to put an end to his life in that very city; for if these men had not been moved interiorly by a divine power, above and beyond that of their admiration for the miracles wrought by Him, it would have been impossible to draw such a gathering. Many of them were heathens and his declared enemies, who nevertheless hailed Him as the true Messiah, Savior and King, and subjected themselves to a poor, despised and persecuted Man, who came not in triumphal chariots, or in the prancing of steeds and ostentation of riches, but without any show of arms or outward human power. Outwardly all this was lacking as He thus entered Jerusalem seated on a beast contemptible in the sight of earthly ostentation and vanity. His countenance was grave, serene, and full of majesty corresponding to his hidden dignity; but all the rest was outside of and contrary to what the world is accustomed to applaud and celebrate. Hence the outward happenings of this day proclaimed his divine power, which directly moved the hearts of men to acknowledge Him as their Creator and Redeemer.
412. So the promise of the eternal Father would be entirely fulfilled, He not only moved the hearts of men in the city of Jerusalem by his divine light to acknowledge Him as Redeemer, but also caused his triumph to be felt among all creatures, especially those who were capable of reason (408), for the entry of Christ our Savior into Jerusalem was announced by the archangel Michael to the holy Fathers and Prophets in limbo, and moreover by a special vision they were made to see whatever happened on this occasion. From those cavernous abodes they acknowledged, confessed and adored Christ our Lord and Master as their true God and Redeemer of the world. They composed new hymns of praise in honor of his admirable triumph over death, sin and hell. The divine influence was also active in the hearts of many of those yet living in the world, for those who had faith or knowledge of Christ our Lord, not only in Palestine and its surroundings but in Egypt and in other countries, were excited and moved so in that hour they might adore in spirit their Redeemer and ours, and this they did with special joy of their hearts caused by the visitation and influence of the divine light, although they did not expressly know the cause or the purpose of this movement. But it came to them not without profit for their souls, for the effects caused them to advance greatly in their belief and performance of good works. So the triumph of our Savior over death would be more glorious, the Most High ordained on that day that death would have no power over any mortal; hence, though in the natural course many would have died, not one of the human race died within those twenty-four hours.
413. To this triumph over death was added the triumph over hell, which although it was more hidden was even more glorious, for as soon as the people began to proclaim and invoke Christ as their Savior and King who came in the name of the Lord, the demons felt the power of the right hand of God, and all of them, in whatever place they lurked throughout the world, were hurled into the dark caverns of the infernal abyss. During the short space of time in which Christ proceeded on his triumphal march not a demon remained upon the earth, but all of them were trembling with wrath and terror in the depths of hell. Hence they began to be filled with a still greater dread lest the Messiah be already in the world, and they immediately communicated their suspicions to each other, as I shall relate in the next chapter. The Savior proceeded on his triumphal way to the gates of Jerusalem, while the Angels who witnessed and followed his march chanted new hymns of praise and glory in wonderful harmony. Having entered the city amid the jubilation of all its inhabitants, Jesus dismounted from the foal and directed his divinely beautiful footsteps toward the temple, where He roused the admiration of all the multitudes by the wonders which according to the Evangelists He wrought on that occasion (Mt. 21:12ff.; Lk. 19:45). Burning with zeal for the house of his Father, He overthrew the tables of those who bought and sold within the sacred precincts, and cast forth those who made it a place of business and a den of thieves. However, with the triumphal march the Lord suspended also the divine influence which had disposed so well the hearts of the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Although the just had been much benefited, and many others had been justified, others returned to their vices and imperfections because they did not profit by the light and inspiration sent to them from on high. Though so many had hailed and acknowledged Christ our Savior as King of Jerusalem, not one tendered Him hospitality or received Him into his house (Mk. 11:11). (New English Edition of the Mystical City of God, The Transfixion, Book Six, Chapter VII.)
We must beg Our Lady to be one of those who are not the enemies of her Divine Son by means of our sins, that we will greet Him this day and every day with a soul that has been cleansed in the laver of Redemtion that is His own Most Precious Blood in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance. We cannot return to our former selves. These next five days are ones that require us to intensify our fasting and other sacrifices so that we can all the more worthil participate interiorly in the sacred mysteries that Holy Mother Church shows forth each year to remind us that we owe everything we have, starting with the Catholic Faith itself, the Suffering Messias Who entered Jerusalem on this very day to be hailed by the people, many of whom wanted Him dead and forgteen.
To greet Christ the King this Palm Sunday and every day of our lives, we must not let anything get in the way of letting Him treat us according to the tender mercies of His Most Sacred Heart, remembering that nothing anyone does to us, says about us or causes us to suffer is the equal of what one of our least Venial Sins caused Him to suffer in His Sacred Humanity during His fearful Passion and Death on the wood of the Holy Cross and that caused those Swords of Sorrow to be pierced through and through the Immaculate Heart of His Most Blessed Mother.
Our fervor during this week of weeks must be genuine, and we must beg Our Lady, especially by meditating upon the Sorrowful Mysteries of her Most Holy Rosary, to help us persist in this fervor moment by moment, day by day, week in and week out, month after month, year after year until the time when we meet Christ the King, Our Crucified and Risen Saviour, at the moment of our Particular Judgment.
[Reflections on the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ will be offered during the Paschal Triduum.]
Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!
Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us.
Saint Joseph, pray for us.
Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.
Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.
Chapter Six from The Mystical City of God, Book III, The Transfixion
404. Among the works of God which are called ad extra because they are performed outside of his own essence, the greatest was that of assuming flesh, suffering, and dying for the remedy of men. This sacrament human wisdom could never have perceived if its Author had not demonstrated it to us by so many proofs and testimonies (Mt. 16:17). In spite of all these proofs, many who are wise only according to the flesh find it difficult to believe that which is so much to their own salvation and benefit. Others, though they believe it, do not believe all the circumstances connected with it. But the true Catholics believe and confess this sacrament such as the holy Church proposes it to them. By explicitly professing our faith in the mysteries thus revealed, we at the same time implicitly profess our faith in the mysteries which are thereunder included, and which it was not necessary to define more particularly because they are not especially necessary for salvation. Some of these God reserves for their proper time, while others will be reserved for the last day, when He shall reveal them to all hearts in the presence of the just Judge (I Cor. 4:5). The intention of the Lord in commanding me to write this History, as I have often said and more often understood (Con. 10; Inc. 678), was to manifest many of these hidden mysteries without admixture of mere human opinion and conjecture; many of them I have therefore recorded just as they have been made known to me, while I am aware at the same time that many other wonderful and venerable sacraments will still remain hidden. Toward these mysteries I wish to prepare the piety and Catholic faith of the faithful, for whom belief in what is accessory shall not be difficult, confessing as they do the principal Catholic truths, upon which is founded all I have written and shall yet write in the rest of this History, especially in regard to the Passion of our Redeemer.
405. On the sabbath following the anointing by Magdalen in Bethany, and after the banquet mentioned in the preceding chapter, our divine Master sought retirement. His most holy Mother, leaving Judas to his obstinacy, went to her divine Son and joined Him in his prayers and sacred exercises as was her custom. Our Lord was now about to enter upon the greatest conflict in his career as man, having as David says (Ps. 18:7) reached out from highest heaven in order to engage in this battle and by it to vanquish the demon, sin and death. Since the most obedient Son willfully entered upon his Passion and Cross, being now so near, He offered Himself anew to the eternal Father. Prostrate with his face touching the ground He confessed Him and adored Him, offering Him a profound prayer with highest resignation in which He accepted the affronts of his Passion, the pains, ignominies, and death of the cross, for the glory of the Lord himself and the rescue of the human race. His Blessed Mother had retired to one side of the oratory, accompanying her beloved Son and Lord in his prayers and shedding with Him tears of inmost affection.
406. On this occasion, before the hour of midnight, the eternal Father and the Holy Ghost appeared in visible form with multitudes of Angels as witnesses. The eternal Father accepted the sacrifice of Christ his most holy Son, and that upon Him would be executed the rigor of his justice for the pardon of the world. Then the eternal Father himself, speaking with the most blessed Mother, said: "Mary, our Daughter and Spouse, I desire Thee now to ratify again this sacrifice of thy Son, since I on my part am willing to deliver Him up for the Redemption of man." And the humble and most sincere Dove replied: "Here is, O Lord, dust and ashes, unworthy that thy Onlybegotten and the Redeemer of the world is also my Son. But I hold myself entirely subject to thy ineffable condescension which has given Him being in my womb, and I offer Him and myself entirely as a sacrifice to thy divine pleasure. I beseech Thee, O Lord God and Father, to permit me to suffer with thy and my Son." The eternal Father received this subjection of most holy Mary as a pleasing sacrifice. Raising up from the ground both the Son and the Mother, He said: "This is the fruit of the blessed earth which I have desired." Immediately thereupon He exalted the incarnate Word to the throne of His Majesty, and placed Him on his right hand equal in authority and preeminence with Himself.
407. The Blessed Mother remained in the place where She was, yet entirely transformed and exalted in wonderful splendor and jubilation of soul. Upon seeing her Onlybegotten seated at the right hand of the eternal Father, She pronounced those first words of the one hundred ninth Psalm (v. 1) in which David had mysteriously prophesied this event: The Lord said unto my Lord: Sit Thou at my right hand. Expatiating upon these words the heavenly Queen composed a mysterious hymn of praise in honor of the eternal Father and the incarnate Word. When She had finished the Father added all the rest of the Psalm, decreeing then and there by his immutable will that all the import of these mysterious and profound words would now be executed and fulfilled. It is very difficult for me to reduce to the inadequate words which are within my power the intelligence which was given to me of this high mystery, but I shall make an attempt to do so as far as the Lord shall empower me. Let something of this hidden and wonderful sacrament, and of that which most holy Mary and the angelic spirits understood, be felt also by ourselves.
408. The eternal Father then proceeded and said: Until I make thy enemies thy footstool (Ib.). Since Thou hast humiliated Thyself in accordance with my eternal will, Thou hast merited to be exalted above all creatures, and in the very nature of man which Thou hast received from Me to reign at my right hand forever and ever without end. For all eternity I place thy enemies under thy feet and dominion, subject to thy humanity as their God and Redeemer, so those who will not obey Thee or acknowledge Thee shall see thy humanity exalted and glorified. Although I do not put this decree into full execution until the Redemption of man has been accomplished, I desire that even now my courtiers witness what both the demons and mankind shall see afterwards: I place Thee in possession at my right hand at the very moment in which Thou hast humiliated Thyself to the ignominious death of the cross (Philip. 2:8-9). If I now deliver Thee over to thy enemies and to the workings of their malice, it is done for my glory and good pleasure, and so afterwards they may be placed beneath thy feet to their entire confusion. The Lord will send forth the sceptre of thy power out of Sion; rule Thou in the midst of thy enemies (Ps. 109:2). For I, the omnipotent God, who am He that is (Ex. 3:14) truly and indeed, control and send forth the invincible scepter of my power, so afterwards, when Thou shalt have triumphed over death by completing the Redemption of the human race, they may recognize Thee as their Savior, their Guide, their Leader, and as the Lord of all. But I desire even now, before Thou dost suffer death, and at the very moment when men are plotting thy ruin in their contempt of Thee, that Thou triumph in a wonderful manner. I ordain that Thou triumph both over their malice and over their death, and that by the very power of thy virtue they be compelled to honor Thee, confess Thee, adore and worship Thee of their own free will, that the demons be vanquished and confounded by the strength of thy own virtue, and that the Prophets and the Just, who are waiting for Thee in limbo, together with my heavenly spirits, recognize thy wonderful exaltation according to my good will and pleasure. With Thee is the principality in the day of thy strength, in the brightness of the saints; from the womb before the day star I begot Thee (Ps. 109:3). On the day of this thy strength and power, by which Thou dost triumph over thy enemies, I am in Thee and with Thee as the Beginning. From this Source, by the eternal fecundity of my intellect, Thou didst issue forth before the light of grace by which We decreed to manifest Ourselves to creatures, and from this Beginning didst Thou come forth, clothed in the light of glory by which the saints are rejoiced and beatified. And also insofar as Thou art man thy beginning is with Thee, and Thou wast engendered in the day of thy virtue, for from the instant in which Thou didst receive human existence by temporal generation from thy Mother Thou didst possess the merit of the works which is with Thee now, and Thou didst deserve the glory and honor by which thy virtue is to crown Thee on this day and in the days of my eternity. The Lord hath sworn, and He will not repent: Thou art a priest forever according to the order of Melchisedech (Ib. 4). I, who am the Lord and the Almighty, able to fulfill all my promises, absolutely decree as by an immutable oath that Thou art the High Priest of the new Church and of the evangelical law, according to the order of Melchisedech of old; for Thou shalt be the true Priest who shall offer the bread and wine prefigured by the oblation of Melchisedech (Gen. 14:18). And I shall not regret this decree, for this oblation shall be pure and acceptable, and a sacrifice of praise in my honor. The Lord at thy right hand hath broken kings in the day of his wrath (Ps. 109:5). This Thou shalt do by the works of thy humanity, whose right hand is the Divinity with which it is united and by whose strength thy works are done. By thy humanity I, who am one God with Thee (Jn. 10:30), shall crush the tyranny of the princes of darkness and of this world, the apostate angels as well as wicked men who will not acknowledge, serve and adore Thee as their Lord and God. This chastisement I shall inflict at a time when neither Lucifer nor his followers shall yet know Thee, and it shall be for them the day of my wrath. Afterwards that day shall also come for those men who have not received Thee nor followed thy holy law; all of them shall I crush and humiliate in my just indignation. He shall judge among nations, He shall fill ruins; He shall crush the heads in the land of many (Ps. 109:6). Having then justified my cause with all the children of Adam who have not availed themselves of thy mercy in graciously redeeming them from sin and from eternal death, I the Lord shall judge according to my equity and justice all the nations, and choosing the just from the midst of the sinners and the reprobate I shall fill up the ruined places of the apostate angels, who have not preserved for themselves their habitations in the reign of grace. At the same time I shall crush upon earth the multitudes of those men who by their own obstinate and depraved will persist in their pride. He shall drink of the torrent in the way; therefore shall He lift up the head (Ib. 7). Thy head shall be raised up by the Lord God of vengeance Himself, so Thou mayest judge the earth and justly deal with the proud. As if Thou hadst drunk of the torrent of his wrath, Thou shalt dip thy arrows in the blood of thy enemies (Dt. 32:42), and with the sword of his chastisement Thou shalt confound them in their expectation of happiness. Thus shall thy head be lifted up and exalted above all thy enemies, who are disobedient to thy law and faithless to thy doctrines and teachings, for this shall be thy just reward for having drunk of the torrent of reproaches and affronts even to the death of the cross for their Redemption.
409. This and much deeper understanding was given to most holy Mary concerning this mysterious Psalm which the eternal Father repeated on this occasion. Although some of the verses are quoted as of another person, yet they all referred to Himself and to the incarnate Word. The mysteries contained therein may be reduced to two principal heads: Threats against sinners, infidels, and wicked Christians, because they do not acknowledge the Redeemer of the world or observe his laws, and promises of the eternal Father to his incarnate Son that He would glorify his Name and exalt it in spite of and above all his enemies. As if in pledge or advance payment of the universal exaltation of Christ after his Ascension, and especially at the Last Judgment, the eternal Father decreed that the inhabitants of Jerusalem meet Him with great applause and honor at his entrance into Jerusalem on the day following this mysterious vision. Thereupon the Father and the Holy Ghost disappeared, along with the holy Angels who had wonderingly assisted at this great sacrament, while Christ our Redeemer and his Blessed Mother remained to spend the rest of that most happy night in divine colloquies.
413. To this triumph over death was added the triumph over hell, which although it was more hidden was even more glorious, for as soon as the people began to proclaim and invoke Christ as their Savior and King who came in the name of the Lord, the demons felt the power of the right hand of God, and all of them, in whatever place they lurked throughout the world, were hurled into the dark caverns of the infernal abyss. During the short space of time in which Christ proceeded on his triumphal march not a demon remained upon the earth, but all of them were trembling with wrath and terror in the depths of hell. Hence they began to be filled with a still greater dread lest the Messiah be already in the world, and they immediately communicated their suspicions to each other, as I shall relate in the next chapter. The Savior proceeded on his triumphal way to the gates of Jerusalem, while the Angels who witnessed and followed his march chanted new hymns of praise and glory in wonderful harmony. Having entered the city amid the jubilation of all its inhabitants, Jesus dismounted from the foal and directed his divinely beautiful footsteps toward the temple, where He roused the admiration of all the multitudes by the wonders which according to the Evangelists He wrought on that occasion (Mt. 21:12ff.; Lk. 19:45). Burning with zeal for the house of his Father, He overthrew the tables of those who bought and sold within the sacred precincts, and cast forth those who made it a place of business and a den of thieves. However, with the triumphal march the Lord suspended also the divine influence which had disposed so well the hearts of the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Although the just had been much benefited, and many others had been justified, others returned to their vices and imperfections because they did not profit by the light and inspiration sent to them from on high. Though so many had hailed and acknowledged Christ our Savior as King of Jerusalem, not one tendered Him hospitality or received Him into his house (Mk. 11:11).
414. The Lord remained in the temple teaching and preaching until nightfall. Desiring by his own example to confirm his teaching in regard to the veneration and worship due to that place, He would not permit even a glass of water to be brought to Him, and without having partaken either of this or any other refreshment He returned that evening to Bethany from whence He had come (Mt. 21:17), and from whence He returned to Jerusalem in the following days until his Passion. The heavenly Mother and Lady, most holy Mary, remained that day in Bethany where from her retirement She saw by a supernatural vision all that happened in the wonderful triumph of her Son and Master. She witnessed all the doings of the sovereign spirits of heaven and the mortals upon earth, what befell the demons in hell, and how in all this the eternal Father merely fulfilled the promises which He had made to his incarnate Son in giving Him command and power over all his enemies. She also saw all the Savior did on this occasion and in the temple. She heard the voice of the heavenly Father answering the prayer of Christ our Redeemer: I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again (Jn. 12:28). By these words He gave men to understand that besides the glory and triumph conceded to the incarnate Word on that day, and the others described in this History, He would glorify and exalt Him after his death, for such was the meaning of the words of the eternal Father, and thus was it understood and comprehended by his most blessed Mother with admirable jubilation of her most pure spirit.
INSTRUCTION OF THE QUEEN AND LADY HERSELF, MOST HOLY MARY.
415. My daughter, thou hast partly described and hast understood much more concerning the mysterious triumph of my most holy Son during his entrance into Jerusalem and its preparations, but thou shalt understand much more of it when thou shalt come face to face with the Lord, for as pilgrims mortals cannot penetrate into such secrets. Nevertheless thou canst learn and understand enough from what thou hast written to perceive how exalted are the judgments of the Lord, and how far removed from all the thoughts of men (Is. 55:9). The Most High looks into the hearts of men (I Kg. 16:7) and at the interior, where is hidden the beauty of the King's daughter (Ps. 44:14), while men look only at the exterior and at what is perceived by the senses. Because of this the just and the chosen ones are highly esteemed by the Lord in their humiliation and selfabasement, while the proud are cast down and rejected by Him in their self-sufficiency. This truth, my daughter, is understood by few, and therefore the children of darkness know not how to strive after any other honor or exaltation than that of the world. Sad to say, the children of the holy Church, although knowing well and confessing that this worldly honor is vain and without substance, and that it does not have any more stability than the flowers or herbs of the field, also do not live up to this knowledge. Since their conscience does not give them witness of faithful cooperation with the light of grace and the practice of virtue, they seek after the false and deceitful applause and commendation of men, whereas God alone can truly honor and exalt those who merit his regard. The world ordinarily and fraudulently misjudges true merit, lavishing its honors upon those who least deserve it or who know how to solicit and strive after it most cunningly and inconsiderately.
416. Flee from this deceit, my daughter, and have no interest in the pleasure of the praises of men; do not allow their flatteries and lavish attention. Give to each the importance and consideration due to it, for the children of the world are very much blinded in their judgments. No mortal could ever merit the honor and applause of men as much as my most holy Son, yet He readily yielded it up and judged at its true worth that which the people gave Him at his entrance into Jerusalem. He permitted it merely in order to manifest his divine power, and thus his Passion would afterwards be so much the more ignominious. He desired to teach men that no one should accept honors for their own value, but so the higher end, which is the glory of God and the exaltation of the Most High, could thereby be advanced, and that without this object in view they are altogether vain and useless, void of profit or advantage of any kind, for they can never procure the true happiness of a creature capable of eternal glory. Since I see thee desirous of knowing why I was not present at this triumph of my most holy Son I shall fulfill thy desire, and I refer thee to what thou hast often related in this History about the clear vision of the interior of my Son which was always present to me. By this vision I was enabled to perceive when and why He desired me to absent myself from Him. On such occasions I would throw myself at his feet, beseeching Him to declare his will and pleasure in regard to what I should do. Then the Lord would sometimes give his orders plainly and in express commands; at other times He would leave it to my own discretion and choice, permitting me to act according to my prudence and divine enlightenment. This latter was the course He pursued at the time when He resolved to enter in triumph the gates of Jerusalem. He left it altogether to my own judgment whether I should accompany Him or remain in Bethany. Thereupon I asked his permission to absent myself from this mysterious event, begging Him to take me with Him to his Passion and Death, since I judged it more appropriate and pleasing in his eyes to offer myself to suffer the ignominies and sorrows of his Passion than to share in the outward honor given to Him by men, for since I was his Mother some of this honor would certainly have devolved upon me if I had shown myself to those who were praising and blessing Him. I knew this applause (beside not being desired by me) was ordained by the Lord for the demonstration of his divinity and infinite power, and therefore in no way pertained to me; nor would the honor which they would have extended to me augment that which was due to Him as the Savior of the human race. At the same time, so I could properly rejoice in this mystery and duly glorify the Almighty for these wonders, I was made to see by divine enlightenment and special vision all thou hast already written concerning this event. This behavior should instruct thee and teach thee to imitate me. Follow thou my humble footsteps, withdraw thy affections from all that is earthly, and lift thy aspirations on high, despising and fleeing all human honors, and in divine enlightenment esteeming them as vanity of vanities (Eccles. 1:2) and affliction of spirit. (New English Edition of the Mystical City of God, The Transfixion, Book Six, Chapter VII.)
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