Our Lady Saint Mary

by J. G. H. Barry

CHAPTER XVIII

THE CRUCIFIXION

And they crucified him.
S. Matt. XXVII, 35.

In as much as we have no confidence because of our many sins, do thou, O Virgin Mother of God, beseech him who was born of thee; for a Mother's supplication availeth much to gain the benignity of the Master. Despise not the prayers of sinners, O all-august, for merciful and mighty to save is he, who vouchsafed to suffer for us.

BYZANTINE.

e have followed the Way of Sorrows to the very end and now stand on Calvary watching by the Cross, waiting for the death of the Son of God. The mystery of iniquity is consummated here where man in open rebellion against his God crucifies the Incarnate Son. Here is fulfilled the saying: "He came unto His own and His own received Him not." All that man can do to prove his own degredation he has done. In the person of Pilate he has condemned to death a man whom he knows to be innocent. The representative of human justice has denied justice for the sake of his own personal ends. In the person of Herod he has permitted the insult and abuse of One of whom he knows no ill, and has displayed toward Him wanton and brutal cruelty. In the person of the Jewish authorities he has rejected the Messenger of the God whom he recognises as his God, and will not listen to the voice of prophecy because he finds his personal ends countered by the fulfilment of the promises of the religion whose subject he professes to be. In the person of the disciples he shows himself too cowardly and self-regarding to stand by his innocent Master and to throw in his lot with Him. In the person of the people he shows himself cruel, hardened, indifferent to suffering and to justice, ready to be made the tool of unscrupulous politicians, unstable and ignorant. As we look on, we succeed in retaining any shred of respect for humanity only through the contemplation of the exceptions--of S. John and the little group of women who are faithful to the end: above all in the sight of blessed Mary standing by the Cross of her Son.

It is the will of God that our Lord should follow the human lot to the very depth of its possible sufferings. There are no doubt many sufferings of humanity that our Lord does not share, they are those which spring out of personal sin. He in Whom was no sin could not suffer those things which spring from one's own wrong doing. That is one broad distinction between the burdens of the crosses on Calvary, a distinction which the penitent thief caught easily when he said to his reviling fellow-criminal, "Dost thou not fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss." And in as much as a great part of what we suffer is plainly just, the pain we bear is intensified by the knowledge that what we are is the outcome of what we have been. But our Lord, while He does not suffer as the result of His own sin, does suffer as the result of sin in that He wills to bear the result of men's sin by putting Himself at their mercy. He bears the burden of sin to the uttermost, looking down from the Cross at the faces of these men whose salvation He is making possible if in the days to come they will associate themselves with Him. One wonders how many of those who saw Him crucified came, before they died, to accept Him as the Saviour and their God. There must have been many wonderful first Communions in the early Church when those who had rejected Jesus in His humility came to receive Him glorified.

But as we look at this scene of the dying we feel that the powers of evil are working their uttermost, they are driving their slaves to incredible sins. One feels the tremendous power that evil is as one looks at these human beings who are body and soul wholly under its dominion. The Power of Darkness appears utterly in control of the world of humanity; but we know that this moment in which its triumph seems most complete is in fact the moment in which its defeat is at hand. The victory that is being won is the victory of the Vanquished: and the moment when the victory of evil seems assured by the dying of Jesus, is in fact the moment when the chains of the slaves of sin are broken, and men who will to be free are henceforth free indeed. From that moment a new freedom is within the reach of men, the freedom which comes to them through their participation in the redemption wrought for them by God. Presently S. John will announce the great message of freedom to the Church, a message that he will tell in his own wonderful simplicity, a simplicity which almost deceives us as to its unfathomable depth of love and mystery: "For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.... We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not: but He that was begotten of God keepeth him, and the evil one toucheth him not. And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in the evil one. And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life."

This is what the dying of Jesus achieved for us, that we should be free as men had never been free, and that we should be strong as men had never been strong.